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Licensed Technician
Since 1968, Better Termite & Pest Control has been protecting Columbia homes from unwanted pests. As a family-owned business now in its third generation, we bring over five decades of local expertise to every job.
What sets us apart is our commitment to using better products in your home. Our internal research team has carefully removed 9 of the industry’s harshest chemicals, replacing them with alternatives like Essentria, Alpine, EcoVia, and Sentricon borate-based solutions.
We believe in putting customers first, which is why we offer no-binding contracts and free unlimited callbacks. When you call, you’ll speak directly with a licensed technician—no frustrating phone trees. Our reputation speaks for itself with over 400 five-star reviews and more than 100,000 homes serviced throughout the DMV area. From ants and roaches to spiders, rodents, termites, mosquitoes, ticks, and fleas, we’ve got your Columbia home covered.
Columbia’s thoughtfully designed community features several lakes, drainage systems, and lush suburban landscaping. While beautiful, these features create ideal breeding grounds for mosquitoes, especially during the warm months. The community’s water features combined with Maryland’s humid climate make mosquito control an essential service for Columbia homeowners.
Many of Columbia’s neighborhoods feature older townhomes and single-family properties that face unique structural challenges. These established homes often have vulnerable entry points for rodents, foundation cracks that allow subterranean termites access, and tight living spaces that can become German roach hotspots in multi-family buildings. Our targeted perimeter treatments, quarterly maintenance programs, and specialized termite bait stations are specifically designed to address Columbia’s unique geography and housing stock.
Our general pest control program begins with a comprehensive 78-point inspection of your Columbia home. This detailed assessment helps us identify current pest activity and potential entry points. Our technicians then apply crack-and-crevice treatments inside your home and create a protective perimeter barrier outside.
We use non-repellent insecticides that ants, roaches, and other pests unknowingly carry back to their nests, eliminating the entire colony rather than just the visible insects. This approach provides longer-lasting protection than traditional contact kill sprays.
Quarterly maintenance visits ensure your home stays protected year-round, with materials refreshed every 90 days for maximum effectiveness. Our service covers a wide range of common Columbia pests including American roaches, German roaches, box elder bugs, clover mites, silverfish, centipedes, earwigs, field crickets, and many more unwanted visitors.
Our approach includes an initial detailed inspection, followed by a customized treatment plan based on your home’s specific needs. We then apply targeted treatments to both interior and exterior areas where pests are active or likely to enter. Regular monitoring ensures continuous protection, with free callbacks if pests reappear between scheduled visits.
Columbia’s planned lakes and drainage systems create perfect breeding grounds for mosquitoes. Our mosquito control service includes backpack spraying of shaded foliage, ivy, and brush areas where mosquitoes rest during the day. We apply both an adulticide for immediate results and a growth regulator that disrupts the mosquito life cycle.
We also provide valuable source reduction advice, helping you eliminate standing water in toys, tarps, gutters, and other common mosquito breeding sites. For environmentally conscious homeowners, we offer the In2Care Mosquito Control System as a green alternative. This innovative system uses gauze-strip stations containing larvicide and fungus that mosquitoes carry back to breeding sites.
Depending on your property and the severity of mosquito activity, we recommend quarterly or bi-monthly visits during mosquito season to maintain a mosquito-free yard where you can enjoy outdoor living.
Our seasonal mosquito treatment includes targeted foliage spraying focusing on mosquito resting areas, application of growth-regulators to prevent larvae development, personalized advice on eliminating standing water sources, and scheduled follow-up treatments to maintain protection throughout mosquito season.
Our Four-Step Rodent Protocol has proven effective for Columbia homes dealing with mice or rats:
1) We begin with a full inspection for droppings, gnaw marks, entry points, and food sources to determine the extent of the problem.
2) Next, we strategically place tamper-proof bait stations with rodenticide near activity hotspots, focusing on exterior areas where rodents travel.
3) Early follow-up visits at 1 and 3 weeks allow us to check activity levels and adjust our approach if needed.
4) Long-term quarterly maintenance involves re-baiting stations and monitoring to prevent future issues.
For particularly active rodent problems, we may supplement our approach with snap traps for quick knockdown of rats or mice. When necessary in phase four, we can also provide exclusion work to seal entry points. Throughout the process, we offer free callbacks until we establish a rodent-free baseline, and you’re never locked into a long-term contract.
Our comprehensive approach includes thorough property inspection, strategic bait placement in tamper-resistant stations, scheduled follow-ups to monitor activity, and ongoing maintenance to prevent reinfestation, with exclusion recommendations when needed.
Columbia MD sits in the second-highest termite activity region in the United States, making termite protection essential for local homeowners. Our preferred treatment method is the Sentricon system with always-active Recruit HD bait stations containing noviflumuron, which eliminates the entire colony including the queen.
For active infestations, we offer liquid curative treatments involving trenching and slab drilling to create a protective barrier. Builders working in Columbia can also take advantage of our borate pre-construction wood treatments to prevent future termite issues.
Our termite protection plans include annual inspections to catch any activity early. We provide warranty coverage on both materials and labor, giving you complete peace of mind. And like all our services, our termite protection plans come with no binding contracts.
The Sentricon system works through strategically placed bait stations around your property, using noviflumuron to disrupt termites’ molting process, leading to colony collapse including the queen. The system provides continuous monitoring with annual reviews to ensure ongoing protection.
For over three generations, we’ve been serving Columbia MD since 1968, building relationships and delivering local expertise with a deep commitment to our community.
Our research team has carefully removed 9 of the harshest chemicals commonly used in pest control, replacing them with reduced-risk alternatives like Essentria, Alpine, and EcoVia.
We believe in earning your business every day, which is why you can cancel any time with just 30 days’ notice—you remain in control without long-term commitments.
If you notice pests between your regularly scheduled visits, simply give us a call. We’ll return at no extra charge until the problem is resolved.
When you call Better Termite & Pest Control, you’ll speak directly with a licensed expert—not a call center representative. The same expertise extends to every technician who visits your home.
We’re trusted by Columbia homeowners and top area builders, with a proven track record of serving over 100,000 homes throughout the DMV region.
Easily combine termite, mosquito, or tick protection with your general pest plan for comprehensive coverage in one convenient package at a reduced rate.
After each treatment visit, you’ll receive a detailed email report explaining exactly what we did and which products we used, providing complete transparency.
Our treatments use reduced-risk products carefully selected by our research team—including Essentria and Sentricon—that leave minimal residue in and around your home. Many Columbia families with children and pets choose our services because we’ve removed 9 of the harshest chemicals from our treatments while maintaining effectiveness.
No, we focus exclusively on structural pest control and do not handle wildlife removal such as raccoons or squirrels. For those issues, we recommend contacting a licensed wildlife specialist in the Columbia area.
We do not treat bed bugs. Our expertise covers insects like ants, cockroaches, spiders, fleas, and termites, but bed bug eradication requires specialized equipment and techniques that differ from our core services.
Yes, in most cases we can schedule a technician within one business day or less for urgent pest situations in Columbia MD. Contact our office directly to confirm exact availability for your specific location.
We cover American roaches, Ants, Box Elder Bugs, Brown Banded Roaches, Camel Crickets, Centipedes, Cigarette Beetles, Clover Mites, Drugstore Beetles, Spiders, Springtails, Earwigs, Field Crickets, Fire Brats, Fleas, German Roaches, Ground Beetles, Indian Meal Moths, Lady Bugs, Stink Bugs, Termites, Mice, Millipedes, Oriental Roaches, Pill Bugs, Rats, Rice Weevils, Silverfish, Smokeybrown Roaches, Sow Bugs, Ticks, Wasps, Mosquitoes, Carpenter Ants, Carpenter Bees, Hornets, Yellow Jackets.
You can typically speak with a licensed technician within minutes of calling our office. For Columbia homes, we can usually schedule your initial inspection or treatment visit within 24–48 hours, depending on current service volume.
If pests reappear between your scheduled visits, simply call our office. We’ll dispatch the same technician who’s familiar with your property at no additional charge, and we’ll continue returning until the issue is fully under control. This commitment is part of every service plan we offer.
