This is a concept website · Enquire about this domain

Pest control Inner West
Guide 3 of 5

Emergencies and the notice that still has to be given

An emergency is the one case where the five working days are not owed, and it is not a case where nobody has to be told anything. Between those two sentences sits almost every mistake this page exists to prevent.

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.

What the EPA counts as a pest emergency

The EPA's page on common areas gives a definition rather than a mood. It calls a pest emergency a sudden infestation of pests that are dangerous, that bite or that sting, naming rodents, wasps, bees, venomous spiders and the bird mite, and it adds the test those pests have to meet: a risk to health and safety.

The second page's words are close enough to be the same test. Its infestations are of pests that bite or that are dangerous, naming wasps, bees, venomous spiders, rodents and bird mites, and tying them to immediate risks to residents' health or safety. Both pages put the danger in the pest and in the timing; neither gives a threshold beyond that.

The five days go; the notice does not

What an emergency removes is the long notice. The EPA says the five working days' notification is not something residents have to be given when a treatment is made in an emergency situation.

What it does not remove is the telling. The EPA's sensitive place page says the same for its side: where a pesticide is used to deal with an emergency, the five working days are not owed and notification must still be provided before the job is undertaken.

The technician's part is exact, and shorter than five days. Notice goes to the residents immediately before the pesticide is applied, and the specific circumstances of the emergency are written into the technician's records.

The small job that owes nothing

The other case is not an emergency at all, and it is the one a homeowner will meet most often. A minor domestic-style treatment, the kind that never needs a pest management technician, carries no notice requirement whatsoever.

The line between that and the notice rule is the technician and the common areas. The five day notice is written for the case where a technician is organised to treat the common areas of a multiple-occupancy residential complex; a job that does not need a technician, and does not touch shared space, is not a smaller version of that job. It sits outside the rule.

Three treatments, set side by side

The disagreement this guide resolves is one of appearance. In practice, "no notice in an emergency" is remembered as "no notice", and the three cases a householder actually meets get flattened into one. They are not the same, and the difference is not a formality: it decides whether anyone is told at all, and what is written down afterwards.

The treatmentWhat is owed
An ordinary treatment of shared areasAt least five working days' notice to residents, and the application cannot go ahead without it.
An emergency: dangerous, biting or stinging pests, suddenlyThe five working days are not owed. Notification is still owed before the job is undertaken, and the technician records the circumstances of the emergency.
Minor domestic-style use that needs no technicianNo notice is required.

A wasp nest above a stairwell, on a Friday

A worked example, made only of the rules above. In a block of flats with the stairwell shared, wasps have built a nest over the landing, and by Friday there are people stepping past it to reach their doors.

That is the shape the definition describes: a sudden infestation of stinging pests posing a risk to health and safety. The five working days are not required for the treatment.

The mistake would be to treat that as silence. Notification still has to be provided before the work is done, and on the technician's side of the duty it is given immediately before the pesticide is applied.

The last part stays on paper. The reason this was treated as an emergency, and not as an ordinary job with an ordinary notice, is written into the technician's records as the circumstances of the emergency.

Whatever the notice, a pest management technician records the job within 48 hours of using the pesticide, and the record is kept for 3 years.

What is not in the rule, and what to ask instead

Neither EPA page invents a test beyond the definition, and this page will not invent one either. The list is the list: pests that bite or sting, dangerous in the situation they are in, and a sudden infestation rather than a season of one. Where a job sits between an ordinary treatment and an emergency, the place to look afterwards is the record, because the record is where the reason has to appear.

One more thing does not change in an emergency: a sensitive place next door. Where certain pesticides are used outside next door to a school or a nursing home, notice is still given before the job is undertaken, though not five working days ahead. The guide to a school or childcare centre next door has that rule in full.

The guide to who is told on the rest of the street sets the ordinary five day rule beside the two cases on this page, home by home.