What Information Should Tenants Give the Pest Controller?

Say Who You Are At the Start

Tenant, landlord, agent or housemate — it decides who receives the report, who the preparation instructions go to and who can approve any additional work.

If the landlord or agent instructed the visit, say whether you have been given the preparation instructions. It is common for them to be sent to the person who booked rather than to the person living there, and it is worth catching before the visit rather than after.

What You Know That the Landlord Does Not

This is the useful half, and most of it never reaches whoever booked the work.

• Which rooms are actually slept in, and by how many people
• Whether anybody has moved rooms, and when
• Whether other housemates have had bites — even ones who have said nothing officially
• Which furniture is yours and which came with the property
• Whether anything has been passed between rooms
• Whether anybody has been sleeping in the shared living room
• What has already been tried, by anybody in the house

What You Can and Cannot Authorise

• You can give access, describe the property, say what you have found, and follow the preparation and aftercare instructions
• You can book and pay for a treatment of your own room yourself, if you choose to
• You usually cannot authorise treatment of other rooms, communal areas or anything landlord-owned
• You cannot agree to furniture being disposed of if it belongs to the landlord. Report it and let them decide
• You should not commit to any additional cost on the landlord's behalf

None of that stops the visit being useful. It just means the boundary is worth stating at the start rather than discovering halfway through.

What To Ask For In Writing

1. Which rooms were inspected, and what was found in each
2. Which rooms were treated and which were checked and left
3. What the recommendation is for any room not treated
4. The preparation and aftercare instructions, in writing, to you
5. Whether a follow-up visit forms part of the work
6. The date of the visit

That record is what any later conversation with a landlord, an agent or a deposit scheme rests on. It costs nothing to ask for on the day and it is difficult to reconstruct afterwards.

If the Recommendation Is Wider Than the Instruction

It is common in shared houses: the inspection says all the sleeping rooms should be dealt with, and the instruction covers one.

• Ask for that recommendation in writing
• Send it to the landlord or agent yourself, without waiting
• Keep the reply
• Do not treat the other rooms yourself with shop-bought products while you wait — it makes the eventual job harder

Earley: Furniture That Is Not Yours

In a furnished let the bed, the mattress and often the sofa belong to the landlord. That has two practical consequences on the day: you cannot agree to anything being disposed of, and you should ask for the condition of those items to be recorded.

If a landlord-owned mattress or base turns out to be beyond treating, that is a finding for them to act on rather than a decision for you — and having it written down protects you at the end of the tenancy as well.