Bugs..what do I do?

Bugs are always a headache. Some tenants don't care. Some tenants are scared of their own shadow.

Ants - use ant spray. Usually tenants leave food out for ants to find. This is especially true during the summer months when it gets hot. I usually show up with a $5 gallon of bug spray I bought at Home Depot. I will spray all the areas with ants and leave the bottle with the tenant. You show hands on work and leave the tenant with the tools to handle the rest.

Mice/Rats - buy traps and poison. No one likes to be near a rat and there are some pretty good humane traps that don't kill them in a gruesome manner. The pellets work well as mice will take those back to their nests and not die inside the unit. Again, tell tenants not to leave any food out. Rats and mice can be carriers of disease. But if there is no food, there will be no rodents. If traps and pellets don't work in about a week, call an exterminator.

Cockroaches - CALL EXTERMINATOR ASAP. If you find a unit is infested with cockroaches, then the unit next door or on top of below is infested as well. If you unit is empty, I suggest using alot of fogger. But call the exterminators right away. This will take a good 1-2 weeks to totally get rid of them. They aren't call cockroaches for nothing.

Bees - if they haven't formed a hive (like under the roof or in the corner of a wall) then you are in luck. There are sprays you can buy to kill off bee hives and nests. I recommend once a week in the spring take a visual survey of your unit. Make sure bees aren't making a nest inside your property walls.

Spiders - depends on how severe. There is no way to prevent every single insect from getting into the house and 1 or 2 spiders isn't an epidemic. Spay them with RAID.