PestBossPro Blog — Commercial Accounts

Treating Apartment Units by Request Without Losing Track of the Building

“Can you get to 214 this week? Tenant says roaches in the kitchen.” If you run apartment accounts, you get that text a lot. Unit requests are where apartment work pays well and where it gets messy. Requests come in by text, email and phone. Units get treated, then retreated. Six weeks later the manager asks which units you did and when, and the answer is spread across three inboxes.

Requests on Top of the Schedule

The overall setup for apartments is in Apartment Pest Control for Property Managers: Buildings, Units and One Monthly Bill. The scheduled exterior service runs on its own once it is set up. Unit requests do not, and they need a simple routine.

The goal is that every request ends up as a job at the right property, with the unit numbers on it, a record of what was applied, and a line on the monthly statement.

Taking the Request

Requests reach you in a few ways:

• Two-way texting. The manager texts the office number, and the conversation is saved with the client.
• The customer app. The manager requests service from their phone, and it lands with the office.
• Phone or email. Still common. Whoever takes it should put it in the system right away, not on a sticky note.

Whatever the channel, get the same details every time: which property, which units, what pest, and how the tech gets in. If you get in the habit of asking for those four things, the job is half written already.

Scheduling the Units

Create a one-time job at the property address. Put the units and details in the job notes:

• “Building C: units 214, 215, 314. German roaches reported in 214 kitchen.”
• “Inspect 215 and 314 as adjacent units, treat if activity found.”
• “Maintenance supervisor meets tech at leasing office with keys. Tenants notified by manager.”

If a few requests come in at different properties from the same manager, schedule them on the same day and set the route order so the tech goes complex to complex without backtracking. The tech sees every job in order on their phone, with the notes on each card.

German roach work often needs a follow-up visit. Schedule it when you schedule the first one, with a note like “Follow-up for 214, two weeks after first treatment.”

At the Door

Inside a tenant's unit, the tech works through the kitchen and bathroom, inspects the adjacent units if that is part of the job, and records findings. A few things make these visits go better:

• Note the conditions. “Heavy grease on stove, food left out, tenant informed” tells the manager why a unit may need more than one visit.
• Take photos. Before-and-after photos of the treated areas and any conditions found stay with the job. Be thoughtful about what is in the frame in someone's home.
• Record the units done. If one unit could not be entered, say so in the notes: “315 not treated, tenant refused entry.”

When the tech completes the job and records what was applied, the application record keeps the products, active ingredients, amounts, site treated, target pest and the tech's license number with the date and times.

Billing per Unit

Most companies bill apartment interiors per unit, sometimes with a lower price for adjacent units that only get inspected. Set those up in your service list, like “Apartment unit treatment” and “Adjacent unit inspection,” with your own prices. Add them as line items on the job.

With the client set to Monthly, every unit job that month goes on the one statement along with the scheduled exterior service. The manager sees each property, each unit and each date on one bill instead of a stack of invoices.

The way managers and your office talk about these requests matters as much as the billing. That is the subject of Two-Way Texting With Property Managers About Pest Control Visits.

Answering “Which Units Did You Do?”

Property managers get asked this by owners, by tenants who say nobody came, and by the next manager who takes over the property. Because each unit job is saved at the property address with its notes, photos and application record, the answer is in the property's service history.

For product details, chemical reports pull the application records for any date range. Pair that with the job notes and you can tell the manager which units were treated, when, with what, and which ones the tech could not get into.

One caution: treating occupied homes brings its own label directions and, in many places, notification rules. PestBossPro helps you keep the records, but check your state's lead pesticide agency and follow the label for every product used indoors.

To see how unit requests fit with every other kind of commercial account, go back to the PestBossPro commercial pest control software page.