What 18,941 Pest Control Calls Reveal

Most pest control advice online is written from the outside looking in. This is written from the inside: real calls, real outcomes, across 13 pest control companies operating nationwide.

We're publishing it because the patterns are genuinely useful if you're the one about to make the call.

What we looked at

Every call in this dataset came from a homeowner or renter looking for pest control help. For each one, we can see what pest they were calling about, roughly where they were, and whether the call ended with an appointment on the books.

• 18,941 total calls, January 1 through July 27, 2026
• 13 pest control companies, operating across the United States
• 7,799 calls where the pest was identified and the outcome recorded — these are the calls behind every rate below
• 1,919 appointments scheduled, a 24.6% baseline

That 24.6% is the number to hold in your head. Roughly one in four calls to a pest control company ends with someone actually coming out. The rest stall — and the reasons they stall are the interesting part.

Finding 1: Whoever owns the property has to be the one saying yes

This was the largest single effect in the entire dataset, and it isn't close.

Confirmed homeowners were about three times more likely to get an appointment than callers where ownership never got established.

The reason is simple once you see it: pest treatment means someone entering the property, applying products, and sometimes doing structural work like sealing entry points. That needs authorization from whoever owns the building. A tenant can report the problem, but they usually can't approve the fix.

Here's the part that surprised us. A third of all callers — 2,613 of 7,799 — were never asked about ownership at all. Those calls got an appointment just 11.6% of the time. Not because those callers were unqualified, but because nobody sorted out who could approve the work before the conversation ran out of road.

What this means for you: if you own your home, say so early. If you rent, loop in your landlord or property manager before you call, or be ready to hand the call over. Renters aren't stuck — you just need the person with authority in the loop. We wrote a fuller walkthrough in your first pest control visit guide.

Finding 2: Callers who could name the pest did dramatically better

Callers who couldn't name what they were dealing with got an appointment 8.5% of the time. Callers who named a specific pest landed between 24% and 31%, depending on the pest.

You don't need to be right. You need to be specific enough that the person on the phone can route you. "Small brown bugs in my kitchen cabinets" is useful. "Something bit me and I have welts" is useful. "I need pest control" is not, because it doesn't tell them whether to send a general technician, a termite specialist, or a wildlife trapper.

This is the cheapest thing you can do to get served faster: spend two minutes figuring out what you're looking at before you dial. Take a photo. Note where you're seeing it and when. Our pest inspection guide covers what inspectors look for, and general pest control is the right starting point if you genuinely can't tell.

Finding 3: Pest control is far more specialized than most people expect

This is the finding we think is least understood by homeowners, and it wastes the most time.

"Pest control" sounds like one trade. It isn't. We measured how often callers reached a company that simply doesn't do the kind of work they needed:

General pest work — roaches, ants, rodents — is widely available. Nearly everyone does it. But bats, termites, bed bugs and wasps are specialist trades, and between roughly 1 in 10 and 1 in 5 of those callers reached someone who doesn't do that job at all.

That call isn't a bad company or a bad customer. It's a mismatch, and it costs the caller an afternoon.

What this means for you: ask one question before you book — "do you handle [my pest]?" If you have bats in an attic, the company that sprays for ants quarterly may genuinely not do exclusion work. Look for wildlife removal, termite control, or bed bug removal specifically. Our guide to vetting a pest control company covers what else to verify.

Finding 4: Which pest you have changes what happens next

Appointment rates varied meaningfully by pest — and the pattern tells you something about which problems genuinely require a professional.

Rodents lead, and they're also the most consistent pest we measured — mice specifically at 31.3% and rats at 31.7%, with almost no gap between them. Termites are close behind at 30.3%, which fits: termite damage is structural and doesn't resolve on its own.

Wildlife sits lowest as a category at 19.6% — but that number turns out to be misleading, which brings us to the most interesting thing we found.

Finding 5: With wildlife, the species matters more than the category

We have a second, separate dataset of 12,960 calls — 5,681 of them wildlife — with much better species detail. (Different companies, measured by a different system, so these figures only compare against each other, not against anything above.)

Within that set, the split is stark:

Bat calls led to an appointment eight times as often as dead animal removal. The dividing line is whether the animal is living in your structure or just passed through.

Bats, raccoons, squirrels, skunks and groundhogs get into attics, crawlspaces and under decks. Those jobs need inspection, trapping and physical sealing, and they recur if the entry point isn't closed. Snakes and dead animals are usually one-and-done — often the snake has already moved on by the time anyone could arrive, and a dead animal is a single removal with no follow-up.

What this means for you: if something is living in your house, treat it as a real repair job and expect an inspection. If you saw a snake in the yard once, you may not need anyone at all. That's an honest answer, and it's the kind of thing a directory has no incentive to tell you unless it's true. More in wildlife removal and pest control service types explained.

Finding 6: Geography matters for which pest, not for whether you get help

We expected big regional differences in outcomes. We mostly didn't find them. Across every climate region we measured, appointment rates landed in a narrow band between 23.3% and 27.4%.

The exception is termites, and it's dramatic:

That's a 21-point spread — the widest regional gap of any pest in the data. Termites are a serious, structural, high-cost problem across the southern half of the country and a much smaller one in the northern tier.

Rodents are the opposite: 28% to 37% in every single region we measured, the most geographically consistent pest in the dataset. If you're in the South and assume mice are a cold-climate problem, the data says otherwise.

Finding 7: Some pests really are seasonal — and some aren't what people think

Measuring seasonality honestly is harder than it looks, because call volume grows as companies ramp up. To avoid mistaking growth for a season, we restricted this to two companies that were active across all seven months (3,655 identified calls).

• Rodents peak hard in winter. Mice and rats made up 43.7% of February's identified pest calls, falling steadily to 13.9% by July. This is the cleanest seasonal signal in the data.
• Mosquitoes rise about 15× from January to July.
• Wasps and hornets climb sharply from March, peaking at 11.0% of calls in April.

Rodents, mosquitoes, ants and stinging insects all line up with published NPMA seasonal guidance, which is why we're comfortable reporting them.

Two we're not reporting. Our termite and bed bug seasonal curves contradict published entomological sources, and seven months isn't enough history to resolve the disagreement. We'd rather say we don't know. Treat bed bugs as a year-round problem, and follow published guidance on termite swarm season (March–April in the South) rather than anything we could infer here.

For timing your call, see tips for booking pest control.

Methodology

Every rate on this page is drawn from calls where the pest type was directly recorded in the call record and the outcome was captured in the disposition field — 7,799 calls carrying 1,919 appointments. Repeat dials from the same caller are excluded from all rate calculations, and any group smaller than 30 calls is suppressed rather than reported. Geography is resolved from caller ZIP code to state and climate region using DOE/IECC climate zone definitions.

Seasonal figures use a restricted cohort of companies active across all seven months, expressed as each pest's share of that month's identified demand, so that a company coming online can't be mistaken for a seasonal trend.

The wildlife species figures come from a separate export of 12,960 calls measured by a different system, so those percentages are compared only against each other.

External references for seasonal timing come from the NPMA Bug Barometer and published pest activity calendars. Everything else here is computed from our own call records.

This study is updated quarterly. Each refresh adds months of call data, which tightens the regional and species-level findings and lets us report at finer geographic detail. We publish at the level of detail the sample supports.

When to call a professional

The honest summary of everything above: call a pro when the problem is structural, health-related, or recurring.

Termites, carpenter ants and anything living inside your walls or attic are structural — they get worse and more expensive with time, and the 30.3% termite appointment rate reflects how often those calls turn into real work. Bed bugs and rodents carry health and contamination concerns and are notoriously hard to fully clear yourself. Wasp and hornet nests near doorways or in walls carry sting risk that isn't worth a ladder and a can of spray.

If you've treated the same problem twice and it came back, that's a recurrence signal, and it usually means the source — an entry point, a nest, a moisture problem — was never found. That's exactly what an inspection is for.

Minor and isolated? A few ants on a counter, one spider, a wasp in the yard? Handle it yourself. We say more about where that line sits in DIY vs professional pest control.

Looking for someone nearby? Start with pest control companies by city or browse exterminators.

Our guides are informational and general in nature. They are not legal, insurance, financial or real-estate advice. Costs shown are typical published industry ranges and vary by region, property size and severity — always get a quote for your own home.