Droppings along a garage wall, scratching in the attic at night, a bag of dog food chewed open on the back porch. Rodents are the one pest that shows up in Sacramento homes all year, not only in bug season, and homeowners want a straight answer about what a pest control company will actually do about them. This page is that answer for Apex Pest Control.
Jeff Alexander puts it plainly: rodent work is not what Apex is built around, and he does not want the company marketed that way. There are things other companies do in rodent work that Apex does not do. What Apex does do, it does carefully, as part of the same inspection-led service we bring to ants, spiders and cockroaches. The sections below draw the line so you can decide who to call.
What Apex does for rats and mice
Apex places bait stations for roof rats, Norway rats and house mice. The stations go in the same way for each, in the places the inspection shows activity: along the exterior walls the animals travel, near the entry points we can see, and away from the areas children and pets use. Handling a used station is done in gloves, because a station that has held rats carries droppings and urine, and nobody at Apex knows what is in that urine. That care is part of the job.
The first visit works the way every Apex first visit works. The technician interviews you about what you have seen and where, tours the house and walks the property, and looks for the conditions behind the activity. With rodents the conditions are usually easy to name once someone looks up instead of down.
- Tree limbs resting on the roof or gutters, which Jeff calls a freeway for rodents onto the house
- A gap at a vent, a garage door corner, a pipe penetration or an eave that has never been closed
- A bucket of dog food or cat food left on the porch, which feeds the pets and calls every rodent in the neighborhood
- Wood piles, ivy and dense ground cover against the foundation
After that visit you get recommendations in plain words: these limbs need to be cut back, this opening needs to be closed, the pet food needs to come inside at night. Those recommendations are not an upsell. They are the part of rodent control that only the homeowner can do, and without them the stations are only a holding action.
What happens on a callback
Maintenance customers in good standing get return visits at no additional charge for any pest Apex was contracted to control, between regular service dates, until the problem is solved. That guarantee applies to rodent work Apex has taken on. When a customer calls back and says they are still seeing rodents, the technician looks again, and the first thing checked is the earlier list. If the trees are still on the roof and the gap is still open, that is where the conversation starts, respectfully, because the problem will not close until those conditions do.
Troublesome pest issues may require a supervisor's input. That practice comes from experience: the ant trail nobody found until someone noticed a limb touching a gutter is the same kind of miss that keeps a rodent problem going.
What Apex refers to someone else
Jeff tells a story about an initial service at the home of an older woman living alone. The rats had eaten holes through the sheetrock and there were droppings everywhere. His answer was honest: you need major work here, you need exclusion work done, this place needs to be cleaned up and all these holes repaired, and it is not something I do. He gave her the names of companies that do that work and walked away from the job. That is the boundary, and it is the same for every customer.
- Major rodent exclusion: sealing a whole house against entry as a contracted service
- Cleanup of heavy contamination, droppings and nesting material
- Repairs to sheetrock, insulation and other damage
- Attic disinfecting and attic insulation replacement (Apex is a pest control company, not an insulation company)
- Voles, which are an agricultural pest outside Apex's license scope even though they look like a stocky short-tailed mouse
- Moles, raccoons, possums and other wildlife, which call for a trapper
Apex keeps a list of vendors it refers homeowners to when a job is outside its scope. Asking for that list costs nothing. Jeff would rather send you to the right company than quote a job that is primarily a rodent remediation and then fall short of it.
Why the line is drawn here
Apex holds a California Structural Pest Control Board Branch 2 company registration, No. 2770, for general household pest control. Its three named operators, Jeffrey P. Alexander (No. 8484), Brent Brandon (No. 12138) and Jared F. Alexander (No. 14137), are licensed in the same branch. Working within the scope of that license is part of professionalism, and so is knowing where the company's specialty ends. The Apex core values put it as Know the Boundary: license, safety and specialty limits are part of the job, and referring work when another expert is the better answer is a service, not a failure.
The same thinking is why Apex does not run insulation crews or sell attic packages. Jeff has watched more and more companies add rodent add-ons, attic disinfecting and insulation to the sale. Apex would rather keep doing the household pest work it has done since 1978 and send the remediation to people who do it every day.
What you can do before anyone arrives
The homeowner checklist Apex gives every customer applies doubly to rodents, because rodents respond to food, shelter and access more than to any product.
- Trim limbs off the house so nothing touches the roof, the gutters or the eaves
- Close the gaps you can see: door sweeps, vent screens, the corner of the garage door
- Rake organic litter and hedge clippings away from the foundation
- Do not leave pet food outside, and bring bird seed and fallen fruit under control
- Keep outdoor lights off when not in use; they draw insects, which draw the things that eat insects
None of this replaces a licensed inspection, but every item shortens the job and makes whatever is done afterward hold.
Pricing and scheduling
Estimates are given by phone from the square footage of the home and what you are seeing. The estimate is confirmed at the home, because the interview and the walk-around often turn up more than the caller described. The office is open Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., at (916) 362-9294. There is no after-hours service; when the office is closed, a recorded information line at (916) 392-2068 explains what to do.
Frequently asked questions
Do you seal entry points?
The technician points out the entry points found on the inspection and recommends closing them. Small fixes a homeowner can do are part of the recommendations. Sealing a whole house against rodents as a contracted exclusion job is referred to a company that specializes in it.
Where are bait stations placed around children and pets?
Stations are placed where the inspection shows rodent travel and away from the areas children and pets use, and the technician follows the product label. Ask the technician where each station went and keep pets away from those spots. Follow the label-specific guidance you are given rather than a blanket rule.
Is rodent work covered by the guarantee?
For continuing maintenance customers in good standing, yes: any pest Apex was contracted to control is covered between regular visits until it is resolved. If the callback finds that the recommended conditions were never fixed, the technician will say so, because the guarantee cannot outrun an open gap or a limb on the roof.
What about the animal in my pool or lawn that looks like a fat mouse with a stubby tail?
That is probably a vole. Voles are an outdoor agricultural pest, and Apex's Branch 2 license does not cover treating them, even though the stations would go out the same way. Apex will refer you to a company that handles them.