Pest control in Ja-Ela

Ja-Ela is where this business is based, at 139/A2 Old Negombo Road, so it is the area we know in the most detail. It is semi urban, with housing, small commercial units and a good deal of water in the form of canals and drainage running through and around it.

That water makes mosquitoes the most common call. The canals themselves are not something any pest control company can treat, so the useful work is on the property: clearing containers, tanks, gutters and low points that hold water, then treating for the adult population. We are clear about which half of that is doing the heavy lifting, and it is the first half.

Termites are the second issue and are tied to ground that holds moisture. Where a house sits low, or where soil is banked against an external wall, the conditions that let subterranean termites reach timber are already present. Older properties along the main road, some with substantial original timber, are where we see the most established activity.

Rodents turn up around the small commercial units and food premises, and in houses backing onto canal banks and overgrown ground, which give a sheltered run right up to a building.

Being local, we can usually look at a Ja-Ela job sooner than one further out, and it is the easiest area for us to get back to if you need us again.

Along the Old Negombo Road it is commercial and continuous, with shops, eating places, workshops and small industry. Towards Ekala and the industrial zone it becomes manufacturing and storage. Towards Kandana and the canal side it is residential, lower-lying, and the properties nearest the water feel every heavy rain within a day or two.

The sectors here are light manufacturing and engineering around Ekala, storage and distribution serving the airport and the zone, retail along the main road, and food premises in volume. Food premises near a canal are a particular combination: the fly pressure comes from outside as well as from inside, so the useful work covers waste handling, drainage and screening rather than just what happens in the kitchen.

Being based on this road means we know its specific problems well, including which stretches flood and how quickly, and which of the older buildings along it have the timber and the ground contact that make termites likely. It also means a Ja-Ela job is the easiest thing in our week to schedule, and the easiest to come back to if something needs another look.

For the food premises along the road, drainage is the item that determines everything else. Small flies breed in the organic film inside drains and gullies rather than in anything visible, so a kitchen can be spotless and still be producing them continuously. Cleaning the drains properly, which is not the same as running water down them, deals with more of the problem than any amount of trapping.

Being local also means we can be honest about what needs a visit and what does not. Some of what we are asked about here is a building or drainage question rather than a pest one, and saying so costs us a job and saves you paying for a treatment that was never going to hold. We would rather do that than come back three times.

The sectors here are light manufacturing and engineering around Ekala, storage and distribution serving the airport and the zone, retail along the main road, and food premises in volume. Sites in the zone almost always need a documented programme rather than a single treatment, because their customers ask for the record.