Keeping your tenanted property pest free is one of the trials and tribulations of being a landlord. In Brisbane, where there’s any number of pests that could invade your rental, it pays to have the phone number of a reliable pest control service on speed dial. When a tenant calls complaining of pests, it’s also a good idea to know your rights.
What Queensland tenancy laws say
According to the Residential Tenancies Authority, as the property owner, you’re bound by tenancy law to keep your rental property in “good repair” and “fit for the tenant to live in”, while a tenant is required to “keep the place clean and undamaged.”
Since there is no specific clause relating to pest and rodent control, it’s not surprising that disagreements can arise over whose responsibility it is to get rid of them.
If pests appear within the first month of a tenancy, it suggests they were already present when the tenant moved in. In this case, the responsibility will fall to you to remove them promptly. If pests appear later on, it could be any number of factors influencing this, such as:
- A tenant’s poor housekeeping/lack of hygiene,
- A landlord’s failure to remove rubbish,
- The location,
- The weather, season or environment.
In any of the above scenarios, you can be sure that your tenant will be in contact either with you or the property manager to swiftly organise a pest control technician to inspect the property and carry out extermination or removal services.
Renters rights
Ultimately it’s in your general interest to keep your property pest free if you want to continue receiving rent.
Leaving your tenant to deal with a pest invasion is not being a responsible landlord, and this could come back to bite you if you refuse to rectify the situation. Tenants are well within their rights to issue a Notice of Intention to Leave to you if they feel the issue isn’t being resolved and they can no longer inhabit the property.
If a tribunal gets involved, you could be looking at paying for a tenant to relocate and rent reductions while they were living in the property. Therefore, it makes sense to organise regular pest control to keep your tenants happy and pest free. Not to mention that it’ll give you greater peace of mind when it comes to the upkeep of your property!
But some birds are simply just pests. They swoop our children, eat farmers’ crops, and make a mess on our property. This is where we need ways to stop birds entering our spaces.
Bird netting
Installing bird netting is one of the most effective ways to exclude birds. Often they’re used to:
- Protect fruit trees from hungry birds eating a farmer’s livelihood.
- Make public spaces more enjoyable by removing swarms of pigeons.
- Save property owners cleaning costs for bird poo.
- Keep invasive species away from homes.
- Protect diners and their meals from scavenging birds.
- Stop injuries and torment from aggressive birds.
Did you know bird netting is already used in many public places and local homes (along with other common bird deterrents)? If it wasn’t, many of your favourite places could well be overrun with highly resilient and adaptive invasive species.
Types of bird netting
Bird netting is largely invisible in most situations. This makes it an ideal way to exclude birds in public spaces, buildings, restaurants and businesses.
There are many types of bird netting available. Often bird netting is used to protect crops, but it has many more applications. When professionally-fitted, it can be installed onto steel, concrete or brick buildings. It’s very common to install bird netting on:
- Warehouses
- Churches
- Courtyards
- Loading docks
- Rooftops
- Stairwells
- Residential gardens or garages
Installing bird netting
Now, you’d think it would be easy to instal bird netting, wouldn’t you? But this is not the case. It takes years of experience of bird exclusion to accumulate an in-depth knowledge of how best to install bird netting. Technically, anyone could install bird netting. But do they have specialised knowledge about bird behaviour and biology?
Bird netting in Brisbane is best left to the professionals. They know what type of birds are in your local suburbs, where they prefer to nest, and how to deter birds permanently from your property.
Cure All Pest Control are experts in bird control in Brisbane. We work with many major commercial properties to keep birds away from their property, and their stock. Over the past 50 years that we’ve operated in Brisbane, we’ve established a highly-experienced and well-trained team of bird control experts.
So who do you call when you need to remove birds from your property? Call Cure All Pest Control.
