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Pest control Inner West
Guide 4 of 5

What a building report will not say about an old Inner West house

A building inspection report should identify visible termite damage; it will not say whether timber pests are still there. On a street of old terraces and single-fronted cottages, that gap is the whole question.

General information from the official sources named on this page, not legal advice.

One Inner West street drawn as an elevation: a run of separate houses, a run of terraces and semis, a block of flats, a short gap, and past it a school gate. Each run carries the notice rule that applies to its homes, set into the footpath beneath it, and each mark opens a guide. The back gardens Separate houses Terraces and semis Flats and units The school gatenot a dwelling, not to scale The five working days rule for unit blocks does not apply to single houses or duplexes. The licence still applies, and a copy of any notice or record is kept. The licence still applies, and a copy of any notice or record is kept. Ask the NSW EPA on 131 555 whetheryour row counts. Five working days notice before the common areas of a multiple-occupancy residential complex are treated. Complexes take in units, flats, townhouses or villas, at three or more residences. Notice goes to the person who runs the school, at least 5 working days before certain pesticides are used outside next door. A hospital is not owed this notice. inspectionWhat a building inspection report will not say about termites
The same Inner West street stood on end: a band of separate houses, a band of terraces and semis, a band of flats, each as tall as its share of the Inner West's homes, and a short final band for the school gate. Each band carries its own notice rule. Separate houses 28.8% of homes Terraces and semis 27.1% of homes Flats and units 42.4% of homes The school gate not a dwelling, not to scale Notice goes to the person who runs the school, at least 5 working days before certain pesticides are used outside next door. The back gardens, and the animals the council names
The same Inner West street, drawn as an elevation: a run of separate houses, a run of terraces and semis, a block of flats, then a short gap and a school gate. Each run carries the notice rule that applies to its homes, this guide's mark is the one lit, and every mark opens a guide. Widths follow the 2021 Census count of the Inner West's occupied private dwellings: 28.8% separate houses, 27.1% semi-detached, row or terrace houses and townhouses, 42.4% flats or apartments; the 1.5% other dwellings are not drawn (ABS QuickStats, Inner West). Source: abs.gov.au © Commonwealth of Australia.

Two reports, two questions

The state's own buying advice draws the line between the two documents a house hunter meets. A building inspection report should identify visual damage caused by termites; what it will not say is whether timber pests are still active in the house. The advice that follows is plain: have a pest inspection done as well, especially where termites are a known problem.

Knowing what the inspector is looking for helps read the answer. Subterranean termites, the ones also called white ants, are the most damaging to timber in NSW. Their homes are underground or in mounds, and they build mud tunnels to reach the timber whose cellulose they eat.

In an old house those tunnels and the damage they lead to are usually somewhere a torch has to be pointed: under a floor, behind a skirting, in a sub-floor void. That is why the two reports are separate documents with separate questions, and why one of them is not a substitute for the other.

An inspection that uses nothing needs no licence

There is one boundary worth knowing before a quote is paid, because it decides whether a licence is involved at all. Someone doing timber pest inspections only, using no pesticide, and fitting no termite barrier that contains one, does not need a licence from the EPA for that work.

The moment a pesticide enters the job, that changes, and it changes into the licence this guide is named for.

The timber pest licence, and how it arrived

The EPA runs a separate licence for the work that treats timber pests with pesticides. NSW is phasing in a new timber pest management technician licence, and from the dates the EPA sets out, that licence is the one that covers using pesticides against termites and other timber pests: preventing them, controlling them or eradicating them. It also allows non-timber pest control work, so a holder is not confined to termites.

Behind it sits the general structure of the system: the EPA sets training, licensing, notification and record-keeping duties that differ for technicians, for the timber pest specialists and for fumigators, and the licence is the visible part of that structure.

  1. Before 17 December 2021A person who held a five year pest management technician licence by this date could keep undertaking commercial timber pest treatments with that licence.
  2. 17 December 2023That older arrangement ran until the licence expired or until this date, whichever came later.
  3. TodayThat licence lets its holder treat pests with pesticides other than fumigants, for a fee or reward, and the EPA's page says it still allows commercial termite work while the newer timber pest licence is phased in.

The practical shape of that timeline is simple. On a street of old houses, termite work done with pesticides belongs to a licensed technician, and as the new licence completes its phase-in it is the timber pest management technician licence that the EPA describes as the one for that work.

The questions to put, and where the licence question stops

  • Is this a building inspection report or a pest inspection, and does the report say whether timber pests are still active?
  • Will the inspection use any pesticide at all, or only eyes and instruments?
  • If a pesticide will be used, which licence does the technician hold, and is it a timber pest management technician licence?

The EPA's advice for the licence question is one sentence long: ask to see the licence before agreeing to any pest control work, rather than after. Licences for this work are issued by the EPA. The EPA also gives the maximum penalty for prosecution over unlicensed pest control work as $60,000, which is the reason the licence is worth asking about at all.

An old Inner West house in particular

The state's advice carries a condition a buyer can act on: have the pest inspection done as well, especially where the property is located where termites are a known problem. Whether a particular house stands on that kind of ground is the question the two reports are there to answer.

One more thing matters when a report arrives from the seller: it can help, but it is not a substitute for the buyer's own independent report.

None of that is a reason to expect the worst of any particular house. It is a reason to have both reports done, and to know which of the two people you are paying is licensed for what the other cannot answer.

What a licence does not tell you

The licence check is necessary and it is not sufficient. The inspection that involves no pesticide needs no licence, so the absence of a licence number on an inspection report is not by itself a fault.

What the licence does tell a householder is narrower and more useful: it tells you the person is inside the system the EPA runs, where training, notification and record-keeping requirements sit on the work. That is the system this site describes page by page, from the notice owed on the rest of the street to what is owed when a school shares the boundary.