Pest Control Questions, Answered

McCall Pest & Wildlife is a Florida pest control, termite, mosquito and wildlife company serving Gainesville, Jacksonville, Ocala, Orlando, Tallahassee and Tampa. We serve homes, businesses and government facilities, and provide termite inspections for real estate closings.

McCall is locally operated and partners with Northwest Exterminating as part of the Rollins family of brands. Our slogan sums up the range of work: “Call McCall... We Do It All.” Read more about McCall.

Yes. Florida requires pest control companies to hold a business license from the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS). McCall is also QualityPro certified and affiliated with the National Pest Management Association and the Florida Pest Management Association.

You can check any Florida pest control license yourself on the FDACS website.

When choosing a pest control company, verify the state license, get the agreement terms in writing, ask what the guarantee covers, and confirm the company inspects before it quotes. Check these six things, in this order:

1. State license. Verify it through FDACS.
2. What’s in writing. Get the agreement term, the cancellation terms, the price after year one, and exactly which pests are covered.
3. The guarantee. “Guaranteed” should mean a specific commitment to come back at no charge if pests return.
4. Who actually shows up. Ask whether you get a consistent technician or whoever is on the route that day.
5. Whether they inspect before quoting. A firm price over the phone for termite or bed bug work, sight unseen, is a red flag.
6. Termite coverage details. Ask whether the warranty covers re-treatment only, or repair of damage as well.

DIY works for a handful of ants on a countertop. It does not work for anything that nests, breeds indoors, or damages structures.

Hire a professional for termites, bed bugs, German cockroaches, ant infestations, rodents, fleas, stinging insects in a wall void, and wildlife. Foggers scatter German cockroaches deeper into wall voids. Repellent sprays cause some ant colonies to split into several colonies. Drywood termites live inside the wood, where nothing sold at a hardware store will reach them.

With ants, treating the trail on the counter does nothing to the colony producing it. The nest has to be found and treated.

McCall treats household pests, termites, mosquitoes, bed bugs, rodents and wildlife. The NorPest Green program covers common household pests, including ants, roaches, spiders, scorpions, wasps, silverfish, earwigs, centipedes and millipedes.

These are handled as separate services:

• Termites, both drywood and subterranean
• Mosquitoes
• Bed bugs
• Rodents
• Wildlife, such as raccoons, squirrels, birds and skunks

Our bundled pest service also covers fleas, ticks, fire ants and carpenter ants.

We also offer crawl space encapsulation and attic insulation with built-in pest protection. Not sure what you’re seeing? Our pest library can help you identify it.

McCall’s NorPest Green program has a monthly rate as low as $45, with ongoing quarterly exterior service. The initial service, a whole-home inspection followed by an in-depth interior and exterior treatment, is quoted at your free inspection.

See what affects pest control cost for more detail.

McCall’s value bundles combine services at a discount: 5% off when you choose two services, 10% off with the Triple Bundle, and 15% off with the We Do It All Bundle.

• Double Bundle (5%): any two of pest control, termite protection and mosquito control.
• Triple Bundle (10%): pest control, termite protection and mosquito control together.
• We Do It All Bundle (15%): everything in the Triple Bundle plus all your other pest concerns.

Bundled pest control covers general pests plus fleas, ticks, fire ants and carpenter ants. Bundled termite protection includes spot treatments when and where they’re needed, and bundled mosquito control is a 12-application program.

Ongoing programs such as NorPest Green, termite protection and mosquito control are set up under a service agreement that spells out the term, what’s covered and how to cancel. To go over yours, call (888) 409-0938.

To cancel, call McCall at (888) 409-0938. We’ll ask what’s prompting the change, because many reasons customers call to cancel, such as pests coming back, a missed visit or a billing question, are things we can fix on that call. If you still want to cancel, here’s what to expect:

• Any balance for services already performed is due before the cancellation is processed.
• Automatic billing stays active until that balance is paid, then stops.
• Sentricon termite protection: renewal payments are brought up to date and are not prorated. We’ll then schedule a visit to remove the bait stations from your property.
• Bundles are reviewed by our office so the final amount reflects the services you’ve received.

If your new home is in our service area, we can set up service there. Call (888) 409-0938 as soon as you know your moving date, and have your new address ready.

McCall partners with Northwest Exterminating as part of the Rollins family of brands. Northwest Exterminating serves homes across Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee and the Carolinas, so even a longer move may still be covered by one of our sister brands. We’ll tell you on the call.

Any balance on your current account is due before the old service is closed out.

Yes. Pest control quotes and termite inspections are free. Real estate termite inspections and termite letters (WDO reports) are a separate service.

Request one through our free quote form or call (888) 409-0938.

You can pay online and manage your account through the McCall customer account portal, or call (888) 409-0938.

Same-day and next-day service is available. Call (888) 409-0938 early in the day for the best chance at a same-day visit, and tell us if it’s urgent, such as wildlife inside the living space or stinging insects near a door.

Most Florida homes do well on quarterly pest control, with an exterior service about every three months. Florida has no real pest off-season, so a steady schedule keeps protection continuous.

Active infestations are different. Bed bugs, German cockroaches and fleas need a shorter, more intensive schedule before moving to maintenance.

The initial service starts with a whole-home inspection, followed by an in-depth interior and exterior treatment. The NorPest Green program is built on Integrated Pest Management (IPM): your technician targets five zones around your home and points out conditions that attract pests, such as moisture, entry points and food sources.

After the initial service, your home moves to ongoing quarterly exterior service.

Yes for the initial service, because it includes an interior inspection and treatment and someone needs to let the technician in.

Ongoing quarterly service is performed on the exterior, so you don’t need to be home. If you’re seeing activity inside, call us and we’ll schedule an interior visit.

Results depend on the pest, and some take more than one visit. Here is what to expect for each type of pest:

That’s normal, and it usually means the treatment is working. Products applied into cracks, voids and hiding places flush insects out, so pests that were living inside walls and under cabinets become visible.

Expect this to peak shortly after the service and then drop off. If you’re still seeing steady activity, call us. Under the McCall guarantee, we’ll return to address the specific issue at no charge until you are completely satisfied.

Call us. Under the McCall guarantee, if you have any concern with our service, we’ll return to address the specific issue at no charge until you are completely satisfied.

Call (888) 409-0938.

For a standard service, very little is needed from you: a clear path around the outside of your home and unlocked gates. Interior service needs a bit more preparation:

• Move trash cans, planters and stored items a couple of feet off the foundation so the technician can reach the base of your walls.
• Keep pets indoors or in a closed room while the technician works.
• For interior service, make sure we can reach the areas you’d like treated, such as under sinks and along baseboards.
• Put away pet food and water bowls and any food left on counters.
• Cover fish tanks and turn off the aerator during interior treatment.

Bed bug, flea, German cockroach and fumigation services need more preparation. We’ll go over it with you before those appointments.

Normal Florida rain usually doesn’t undo an exterior service once the products have dried, and your technician can tell you how long drying takes for your home.

If heavy rain hits soon after your technician leaves, call us and we’ll tell you whether a return visit makes sense. The McCall guarantee covers any concern with our service.

McCall’s NorPest Green program uses family and pet friendly, earth-based products, and every pesticide we apply is used according to its label directions. As a general rule, keep people and pets off treated surfaces until they are completely dry. Your technician will tell you the exact time for your home before they leave.

Fish and reptiles can be especially sensitive. Cover aquariums and turn off the aerator during interior treatment.

NorPest Green is McCall’s green pest control program. It’s grounded in Integrated Pest Management (IPM), the framework the EPA recommends: technicians look for the conditions that attract pests, then combine earth-based treatments with targeted application.

It includes a customized initial interior and exterior treatment, whole-home coverage against common household pests, and ongoing quarterly exterior service, backed by the McCall guarantee. See the NorPest Green program.

NorPest Green is McCall’s green pest control program, designed to control common household pests such as ants, roaches and spiders with earth-based products and the lowest environmental impact possible, on an ongoing quarterly exterior schedule.

Where a conventional product is the right tool, such as certain termite and fumigation work, we’ll use it and tell you why.

McCall’s mosquito treatments are applied only to the areas that need them, and the NorPest Green program is built around family and pet friendly, earth-based products. Tell your technician where your pollinator plants and edible beds are so they can plan around them.

The In2Care stations in the Mosquito Plus option are designed to target mosquitoes.

Yes. Ask and we’ll provide them. Your technician can tell you the product name and, where the product is EPA-registered, its registration number, and can provide the label and Safety Data Sheet on request.

You can also look up any product by its EPA registration number through the EPA Pesticide Product Label System, or call the National Pesticide Information Center at 1-800-858-7378 for independent information.

No, for standard pest control. Exterior service requires nothing from you, and for interior service you only need to stay out of the room being treated until surfaces are dry.

You do need to leave for tent fumigation and for bed bug heat treatment. Both come with instructions well in advance. McCall’s no-tent drywood termite treatment does not require you to leave.

Yes. If you ever have a concern with our service, we’ll return to address the specific issue at no charge until you are completely satisfied.

Termite protection comes with available retreat and repair warranties, and bed bug Heat Plus service includes a 30-day chemical re-treatment guarantee. To use the guarantee, call (888) 409-0938.

Every McCall termite protection option comes with an available renewal warranty. Warranties cover re-treatment, or re-treatment plus repair, if termite activity is found. A $1 million Repair and Retreat Warranty is available for qualified homes.

Your McCall representative will go over the warranty options at your free termite inspection. See our termite treatment options.

If your builder partnered with McCall, your home is already protected by the Sentricon System with Always Active, and the first year of termite warranty is paid from your closing date.

Activate your termite warranty to receive the full benefits, including a $1 million Repair and Retreat Warranty and your first month of pest control free (terms apply, see the activation page).

Usually not. Standard homeowners policies exclude termite damage as a maintenance issue, because it develops gradually and is considered preventable, unlike a sudden covered event such as a fire.

Check your own policy language and ask your agent directly.

The most common signs of termites are mud tubes on foundation walls, small piles of pellet-like droppings called frass, discarded wings on windowsills, hollow-sounding wood and bubbling paint. Here are the five signs, in rough order of reliability:

1. Mud tubes: pencil-width tunnels of soil running up foundation walls or slabs. This is the clearest sign of subterranean termites.
2. Frass: small piles of pellets that look like sawdust, sand or coffee grounds beneath wood. These are drywood termite droppings, and a common first sign in Florida.
3. Discarded wings: small piles of translucent wings on windowsills or floors.
4. Hollow-sounding wood: tap baseboards, door frames and window trim with a screwdriver handle.
5. Bubbling or uneven paint: often mistaken for water damage.

Most termite damage happens where you can’t see it. A professional inspection is the dependable way to know, and ours is free.

Termites have a straight, broad waist, straight beaded antennae and two pairs of equal-length wings. Flying ants have a pinched waist, elbowed antennae and front wings noticeably longer than the back pair. Check the waist, the wings and the antennae:

A pile of loose wings with no insects attached is almost always termites. Save a few in a sealed bag and call for an inspection.

Termites are active year-round in Florida, but swarm season runs from late winter into fall, depending on the species. Here is when each type swarms:

• Eastern subterranean termites swarm on warm days in late winter and spring, usually after rain.
• Formosan subterranean termites swarm in the evening from spring into summer, often around lights.
• Drywood termites swarm from spring into fall, peaking in the warmer months.

Seeing swarmers means a mature colony is already nearby.

Subterranean termites live in the soil and travel up into your home. Drywood termites live entirely inside the wood, so each is treated differently.

Sentricon is a baiting system for subterranean termites. Stations are installed in the soil around your home, each loaded with bait that is highly attractive to termites searching for food. Once the bait is consumed, the colony is eliminated, queen included.

“Always Active” means the system starts protecting your home the minute it’s installed. Your McCall representative can go over renewal and warranty options with you.

Not always. McCall offers three drywood termite options: tent fumigation, a no-tent treatment that requires no evacuation, and a preventative treatment applied to the exterior or attic.

• Tent fumigation: a tarp covers the structure so the fumigant can reach the whole infestation. You’ll need to leave the home during treatment, and the home is cleared for re-entry once fumigant levels are tested.
• No-tent treatment: treats drywood termites without evacuation.
• Preventative treatment: a budget-friendly treatment applied to the exterior or the attic to help keep drywood termites out, with no need to leave.

A free inspection shows which option your home needs.

Often. Florida law doesn’t require a termite letter for every home sale, but many lenders do, and VA loans require wood-destroying insect information in Florida. A Wood Destroying Organism (WDO) report, also called a termite letter, documents an inspection for termites and other wood-destroying organisms by a pest control company licensed by the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS).

McCall provides pest and termite inspections and WDO reports through our real estate services. The report is included as a PDF with the inspection.

McCall’s Green Mosquito Reduction Program treats your property monthly, January through December, to reduce mosquito numbers by targeting both breeding areas and the shrubs where adult mosquitoes rest.

• Inspection of your property for areas where mosquitoes breed, with a list of anything you can address.
• Granular larvicide on standing water to eliminate eggs.
• Treatment of shrubs with a power micro-sprayer, to reach the places adult mosquitoes rest.

The treatments are derived from flowers and bacteria and applied only where needed. For extra protection, Mosquito Plus adds In2Care stations, which use mosquitoes themselves to carry treatment to breeding sites you’d never find.

No treatment eliminates every mosquito, but the program significantly reduces their numbers on your property.

McCall offers three residential bed bug treatments: Heat Plus, Basic Heat and Chemical. Heat treatment raises the air temperature to at least 120°F, which kills bed bugs at every stage of development.

• Heat Plus: heat treatment plus chemical treatment, follow-up chemical services, and bed bug-proof mattress and box spring encasements. Includes a 30-day chemical re-treatment guarantee.
• Basic Heat: residual treatment along baseboards, wall voids and carpet edges, vacuuming of active bed bugs, then a heat treatment.
• Chemical: residual and steam treatment of cracks, crevices and wall voids, HEPA vacuuming of furniture, and two follow-up treatments 7 to 30 days after the first.

An inspection determines which option fits your home.

No. In most cases your mattress and furniture can be treated and kept. McCall’s treatments include HEPA vacuuming of mattresses, box springs and furniture, and the Heat Plus option adds bed bug-proof mattress and box spring encasements.

Here is why throwing things out usually doesn’t help:

• Bed bugs are rarely confined to the mattress. They hide in headboards, baseboards, outlet plates and carpet edges.
• Dragging an infested mattress through the house spreads bed bugs into hallways and other rooms.

German cockroaches are controlled with gel bait placed where they hide, usually over several visits, rather than with foggers or sprays that push them deeper into the walls. What works:

• Gel bait placed directly where they hide. Roaches feed, return to the void, and the effect spreads through the population.
• Where your technician recommends it, an insect growth regulator to stop the next generation from reproducing.
• Follow-up visits to catch roaches hatching from eggs already laid.
• Fixing moisture. German cockroaches need water more than food.

Ants are looking for water and shelter at least as much as food, and a clean house has plenty of both.

• Moisture. A slow drip under a sink, a leaking hose bib or an AC condensate line draws ants in.
• Weather. Heavy rain floods colonies and pushes them indoors.
• A bridge to the house. Shrubs touching siding, limbs over the roof, or mulch piled against the foundation give them a path inside.
• Food you don’t notice. Pet food bowls, the recycling bin, a hummingbird feeder.

Don’t spray a visible ant trail with a store-bought repellent. With some species, that causes the colony to split into several new colonies.

McCall’s rodent control starts with an inspection to find entry points, then a customized treatment and exclusion plan to remove the rodents already inside and keep new ones out. The plan can include:

• Trapping and removal
• Monitoring
• Exclusion: sealing the gaps rodents use to get in
• Contamination cleanup

Exclusion is the step that keeps new rodents out. Trapping without it just makes room for the next one.

Our wildlife team handles nuisance animals including raccoons, squirrels, rodents, birds and skunks. Services include humane trapping, relocation, wildlife removal, exclusion and pest-proofing, and damage control.

Yes. McCall uses humane trapping and relocation, and our wildlife services include exclusion and pest-proofing: sealing the gaps, vents and roof-line openings animals use to get in. Without exclusion, animals can return through the same opening.

If you’ve heard young animals in your attic, tell us when you call.

Yes. Our attic service removes old insulation, treats the attic, and installs cellulose insulation with built-in protection against insects such as cockroaches and silverfish. It pairs well with wildlife exclusion after an animal has been in the attic.

Our crawl space solutions seal and encapsulate the crawl space with a reinforced vapor barrier on the walls and floor, to control moisture, mold and pests.

Yes. Our commercial and government services are built on Integrated Pest Management and tailored to each business while complying with industry regulations. Programs can include general pest control, termite control, new construction termite pretreatments, bed bug treatments, fumigation, vegetation management, mosquito control and wildlife management.

For multi-location businesses, McCall can serve as one partner across Florida and Georgia, with invoicing and quality control handled by one dedicated team.

McCall serves homes and businesses in Gainesville, Jacksonville, Ocala and Marion County, Orlando, Tallahassee and Tampa, plus surrounding towns. Find your nearest office below.

• Gainesville: 415 NW 250th St #1, Newberry, FL 32669, (352) 472-5455
• Jacksonville: 2861 College St, Jacksonville, FL 32205, (904) 389-5561
• Ocala and Marion County: call (888) 409-0938 to schedule service.
• Orlando: 5892 S Semoran Blvd, Bldg B, Orlando, FL 32822, (407) 588-6000
• Tallahassee: 5149 Woodlane Cir, Tallahassee, FL 32303, (850) 877-7143
• Tampa: 2610 Tampa E Blvd, Tampa, FL 33619, (727) 372-1175

Don’t see your town? Call (888) 409-0938 with your address and we’ll confirm coverage.

Every new service starts with a free quote. Call (888) 409-0938 or use the free quote form to request one.

Same-day and next-day service is available. When you call or fill out the form, have your address ready, along with a short description of what you’re seeing: which pest, where in the house, and for how long.