Many people want to know how much money the council charges for pest control. In this short post we will aim to answer that very question and discuss several nuances that may affect the price.
Let’s first get straight to the heart of the matter and answer the question.
How much does the council charge for pest control?
How much the council charges for pest control depends on the council. There is huge variance in the pricing of pest control services between different councils. In the UK, there are about 378 councils.
We looked at a random sample of 50 councils and discovered that 41% did not even offer pest control services. If your council doesn’t offer pest control it means that you’ll have to find a local pest control service.
What is the average cost of pest control between councils?
Different pests come with different price tags. Below is a table that shows the average prices charged by councils for pest control. These averages were worked out by looking at a small sample of the councils who provided domestic pest control services and benchmarking their prices.
| Pest: | Fleas | Bed bugs | Rats | Mice | Wasps | Cockroaches |
| Average Price: | £88 | £98 | £65 | £74 | £64 | £102 |
What affects the price of council pest control services?
- Some councils offer 100% free pest control for certain types of pests such as rats. Check with your local council to see if this applies to you.
- Certain councils offer concessions or discounts for those on benefits. Again, check with your council.
- Many councils offer their pest control services exclusively to people on benefits. Residents who are not on benefits must source and pay a private company themselves.
- Where commercial pest control services are offered by a council, they normally come with a much higher price.
- For many councils, pest control prices increase depending factors such as the number of bedrooms in a property or the number of wasps nests that need to be removed, while other councils charge a flat rate regardless of these factors.
- Some councils cap the number of pest control visits at 2 per pest issue, when 3 visits would be standard best practice.
As you can see, there’s a lot of variance between what’s being offered by local councils, so the only way to decide if the council’s pest control is best for you, is to check what your own local council offers. You can check this by visiting their website. Just search in Google for the name of the council and the phrase ‘pest control’.
Is council pest control worth it for residents?
It’s clear from looking at the various council pest control prices, the costs are generally very favourable. For example, the average cost for mouse pest control from the local councils is £74. Compare this to £180, which is the typical cost from a domestic pest control company delivering a comprehensive 3-visit domestic mouse eradication service.
Most councils that offer pest control seem to be subsidising the costs and/or benefiting from bulk discounts from a third-party contractor.
It’s worth noting that a number of councils seem to offer a lower than standard number of visits. For example, for mouse pest control, 3 visits are the norm, as part of a standard eradication process (1. inspection, 2. treatment, 3. mouse-proofing). But frequently, local councils limit this to just 2 visits, with a surcharge for additional visits.
Overall, we think the council is worth using for domestic pest control. This is based on the very low-price points being offered, on average.
However there is great variance between the actual prices charged by different councils. For example, Brighton and Hove City Council charge £215 for cockroach pest control while Bolton Metropolitan Borough Council charges just £45.50, while Bridgend County Borough Council gets rid of residential cockroaches for free.
Is council pest control worth it for businesses?
Only 59% of councils offer any kind of pest control. Of those councils that do offer it, only a fraction offer pest control to businesses. So, in the vast majority of cases, local businesses won’t have the option to use the council.
Where pest control is being offered by councils, it was mostly ‘reactive pest control’ and the prices were much higher than the domestic counterparts. So for this reason you won’t be saving much by using the council’s services.
With all this in mind, it’s probably worth pest-prone businesses just cutting to the chase and ordering their pest control directly from a reputable private provider such as Merlin Environmental.
Businesses that are at moderate to high risk of pest invasion, including care homes, transport, logistics, hospitality, and waste disposal.
These types of businesses will benefit from a pest control service that involves both pro-active pest searches as well as reactive pest callouts. Pro-active pest control means regularly sweeping for early signs of infestation. This is important because it will protect a business from lawsuits and fines related to pests because businesses can prove that they carry out due diligence to prevent issues.
Pro-active pest control was not something that was offered by any of the councils we looked at in our study.
Get in touch with Merlin for a fair priced commercial pest control service.
