Pest Control in Toronto: Protecting Your Home and Business from Common Pests

My guess is that more Toronto pest problems get discovered while looking for the Christmas lights than any other way. Somebody goes down to the basement in late November, pulls a bin off the shelf, and the cardboard box behind it has a ragged corner chewed out and a little scatter of droppings underneath.

Doesn’t much matter if it’s a semi in Leslieville, a 1920s detached in the Junction or a postwar bungalow out in Scarborough, either? The city is old, the houses are jammed up against one another, half of them share a wall with somebody, and there are ravines running along the back of thousands of yards, so mice and rats and cockroaches simply have more ways in here than in most places.

So sooner or later you end up standing in that basement with the chewed box in your hands, trying to work out whether this is a weekend with some traps or a job for pest control, and it’s a lot easier to answer if you’ve got a rough idea of what normally shows up in Toronto houses.

What follows covers the usual suspects, why the city’s houses are so exposed, and what you can do yourself before calling anyone?

Why Toronto houses get so many pests

Shared walls matter most. In a semi or a row house the wall cavity, the plumbing stack and sometimes the attic run straight through to next door, and a mouse moving along the inside of that wall has no idea which house it’s in.

Age is the other big factor. Many of the city’s houses went up long before anyone thought about air sealing, with rubble stone or old brick foundations, clay drain tile and basement windows set in wooden frames that have rotted at the sill, and every one of those leaves gaps a mouse can use.

Renovations stir things up as well. Opening a wall or pulling up an old subfloor can break into a nest that’s been there for years and send everything in it looking for a new spot, so if work is planned, ask the contractor to close up any gaps they find before the drywall goes back on.

What you’re most likely to find

Mice

Mice are around year-round, but the big push indoors comes in October and November once the nights get properly cold, and they aren’t fussy about the route, whether that’s under the garage door, through a crack in an old basement wall, along the shared wall from next door or round the dryer vent. About 6 mm of space is enough.

If you’ve seen one in the kitchen, I’d assume there are more. The drawer under the oven is a good place to check, and so is the back corner of whichever cupboard holds the paper towel, because they shred it for nests. Plain wooden snap traps with a small dab of peanut butter, pushed right against the wall, still beat most of the fancy stuff for a small problem, and if you’re still finding fresh droppings a couple of weeks in, they’re coming in somewhere you haven’t found yet.

The basement is where most of them settle, especially if it’s damp and full of cardboard. A dehumidifier, sealed plastic bins in place of boxes and keeping things off the floor take away most of their reasons to stay.

Rats

Rats are a bigger job. Most of the time they’re living outside, dug in along the foundation or under the deck or the shed, and slipping in through something low on the house like a cracked basement window frame. You’ll know it’s rats rather than mice by droppings closer to the size of a raisin than a grain of rice, dark greasy smudges along the bottom of the walls and fresh holes in the lawn. Toronto’s raccoons have become very good at opening green bins, and the scraps they leave on the driveway feed rats too, so it’s worth checking that the bin lid locks properly.

Your neighbour’s side of the wall

If you’re in a semi or a row house, your neighbour’s mice are, for practical purposes, your mice too. Their cracked foundation or the garbage bags piled on their porch all week can feed a problem that ends up in your kitchen, and if only one of you treats, the mice tend to just move next door for a while and then come back. I’d mention it early and keep it friendly, more of a have-you-noticed-anything chat than an accusation. If you’re renting, email the landlord about it so there’s a dated record, and attach photos.

Roaches, and the wasps under the eaves

German cockroaches usually come in with something, whether that’s a cardboard box from a move, the grocery bags or a used microwave off Facebook Marketplace. They hide all day in warm dark spots, behind the fridge or under the dishwasher or in the hinge side of a cabinet door, and if you’re seeing them out in daylight I’d take that to mean the hiding spots are full. A dirty kitchen isn’t really the issue either, since warmth and a bit of moisture matter more to them than crumbs.

Wasps are a late-summer headache. The nest that was the size of a golf ball in a soffit back in June can be the size of a basketball by Labour Day, and if you plug the entrance while they’re inside they’ll sometimes chew their way out through the drywall into the house instead. That’s one I’d leave to someone with a suit.

If you run a food business

Restaurants and food shops are in a different position, because Toronto Public Health inspects them and droppings behind the line or a roach in dry storage can mean a conditional pass, or a closure sign in the window. Owners who stay out of trouble tend to have a contractor coming on a schedule rather than whenever someone panics, a binder of service reports they can hand an inspector, and staff who check the cardboard on delivery day.

Before you hire anyone

1. Are you licensed? Ontario licenses structural exterminators, so it’s fair to ask.
2. Will you inspect before giving a price?
3. What are you putting down, and do the kids and the dog need to stay off it?
4. Do you come back to check, and is that in the price?
5. Will I get a written report?

A proper inspection covers the outside of the house, including the foundation, vents, doors and the spots where utilities come in, and the inside wherever there’s food or moisture. When the technician leaves, you should know what the pest is, how it’s getting in and what the plan is.

Keeping them out

Most prevention is ordinary house maintenance. Steel wool and a tube of caulk around the pipes and vents will do more than most sprays, and so will fixing the drip under the sink and getting the cardboard out of the basement. Check second-hand furniture on the porch before it comes inside, and walk around the outside of the house each spring and fall looking for anything that’s changed.

Bed bugs

Bed bugs get their own section because people are so embarrassed about them, and that embarrassment does real damage, since folks sit on it for weeks and don’t tell the neighbours. How clean the house is has nothing to do with it. They ride home in a suitcase or a second-hand dresser and settle in wherever somebody sleeps.

Pull the fitted sheet off and run a flashlight along the mattress seams and the back of the headboard. Tiny black dots like someone tapped a felt pen, rusty smears, papery shed skins and white eggs about the size of a pinhead are what you’re hoping not to find. Bites in a line or cluster are another clue, though not a reliable one, because some people react badly and others don’t react at all. Adults can survive for months without feeding, so moving out for a couple of weeks won’t starve them out.

A few things make it worse. An infested mattress dragged to the curb without being wrapped often ends up in someone else’s house, moving to the couch just gives the bugs a new place to live, and over-the-counter foggers tend to drive them deeper into walls and outlets. After a trip, check the hotel mattress corners before unpacking and put your clothes through a hot dryer for half an hour as soon as you get home.

Heat treatment combined with targeted products is generally the most reliable way to clear them, and it’s worth choosing a company that specializes in bed bug removal in Toronto over one that does it on the side. In a semi or row house, the neighbours’ bedrooms should be checked as well.

If any of this sounds like your house, a flashlight and ten minutes in the basement will tell you a lot.