- Why strata buildings need a centralised approach: The interconnected access, communal hotspots and legal and health compliance issues a strata property has means a centralised approach from the strata manager is important.
- The strata’s responsibilities: The strata is responsible for pest control in the communal areas.
- How do professionals help?: Professionals can perform routine inspections, seal cracks, and use targeted treatments on pests.
- Getting residents involved: Residents should be careful about food waste, general waste, and let strata managers know about pests seen.
With a typical standalone home, pest control is more straightforward. As the homeowner or renter, you simply contact pest control professionals, and they get to work on your whole home, ridding you of the problem. With strata pest control, though, it’s a bit different. While residents are responsible for pest control in their own home, as soon as pests venture into a communal area, the pests become the strata manager’s responsibility.
Why strata buildings need a centralised approach
- Interconnected access: strata buildings have shared ducting, wall voids, and ceiling cavities, which allow pests like termites, bedbugs, and even termites to travel from one unit out to the entire building.
- Communal hotspots: Certain areas of a strata property are more appealing to pests than others. Warm, damp areas, for example, like the bin room, shared laundry areas, and covered car parks make great pest habitats, and so, need constant maintenance. Plus, no single resident has the whole responsibility for these areas, so it’s easy for their care to get a little neglected at times.
- Legal and health compliance: As the authority, strata bodies and property managers have a legal obligation to provide a safe and hygienic communal space. Proper pest control is a big part of this, taking care of infestations quickly.
The strata’s responsibilities
For a strata manager or property landlord, pest control is a key component. Tenants want to make a welcoming and hygienic living space. Feeling like a space is clean makes a big difference to your building’s reputation and quality.
Most strata buildings have a range of communal areas. There are lifts and stairwells, for example. Some buildings even have a communal lobby, garden, pool, or rooftop space. These are the communal areas that the property manager is responsible for. The task of controlling pests in these areas is up to the property manager. When tenants pay for access to communal spaces as part of their living experience, the strata manager needs to ensure that health and safety standards are met in those areas. This includes pest control standards.
How do professionals help?
Our licensed, trained pest technicians tackle pests with a structured pest control process.
- Routine inspections: Our experts will schedule regular checks on high-risk areas of the strata property, like the roof cavities, subfloors, and landscape, so that they can pick up on early warning signs like tiny droppings and even the most minor structural damage and pest-induced cracks.
- Exclusion and sealing: It’s much more effective to prevent pests rather than exterminate them. That’s why our trained technicians stop pests from gaining entry, sealing crevices, cracks, and gaps around plumbing pipes with tools like wire mesh and professional-grade sealants that no rodent could chew through.
- Targeted treatments: Our targeted treatments don’t just rely on chemicals. Instead, we use safe pet-friendly baiting systems for rodents, localised natural dusting for wall voids, and low-toxicity herbal sprays for surfaces that repel pests, but pose to risk to children, pets, wildlife, and residents.
Getting residents involved
A professional pest management strategy is a great idea, but it works best when everyone has the same proactive attitude towards pest control. This means the strata manager must make residents aware of their responsibilities around pest control.
One thing residents must do is to report any pest sighting as soon as possible to the strata manager. Another thing residents should know about is storing food in airtight containers, especially if these are bulk foods. To avoid attracting urban pests, it’s also important to dispose of waste equally as securely, in sealed bins. As the strata manager, you could consider investing in more secure bins.
Beyond this, the onus is on the tenant to ensure that they maintain their own pest control standards in their own property, quickly dealing with any pest infestations in their own property if they happen. You might even make this a stipulation of your strata lease agreement.
You might also require your tenants to get a full pest control treatment at the end of their lease before they move out, especially if they have pets. If you’re considering this as part of your lease agreement, our pest control treatments are fully pet friendly.
Whether it’s strata pest control or any other eco-friendly pest control you need, contact Everest Pest Control for natural pest control technicians you can trust. Our team of fully licensed professional exterminators will use safe, effective, non-toxic modern pest control methods to keep you, your residents, pets and wildlife safe at every step. You are in safe hands with strata pest control methods compliant with health standards for every property, and the most effective methods for every pest in the Northern Beaches, North Shore, and Sydney.