My Thoughts on Built in Pest Control

If you’ve bought a newer home, you may have these little plastic boxes on the side of the home with pest control company logos on them.  That’s a built-in pesticide delivery system.  I just wanted to put down my thoughts on why I am not a fan of these systems.

First, it's a way to get you to sign up for a regular pest control service, which is wonderful. You get it free for a year.  But then…. you just keep going and going and going and it's kind of like one of those subscriptions you forget about and keep paying forever. 

Second, these are installed with little, tiny tubes in the walls and only release pesticide in certain areas inside the walls. These walls are the exterior walls, which are insulated. Personally, I think this is a recipe for mold; and if it's not enough liquid to create a mold problem, it's probably not enough liquid to flow to the areas that need the pesticide.

Third, we have hard water in most of the Houston/Metro area with lots of minerals that are deposited in our pipes.  These lines cannot be maintained once they're in the walls without opening the walls and replacing them or rerunning the tubes.  As those deposits build up over time, I would think that the lines would become blocked, and the product wouldn't be going to where it needs to be to effectively eliminate pests.

Fourth, how do you know they were properly installed to begin with?  Did you have that inspected at the phase inspection of the home?  Say for example they installed them prior to the electrician or the plumber and now the electrician or the plumber comes in and cuts one of the lines.  You may not even know it until you have a leak when the home is treated for the first time.

While I am all for innovation, and I love the concept behind these in-wall pest control devices, I just do not believe that these systems are as good as they are hyped up to be.   Of course, this is just my opinion.