Pest Control in Williamsburg, VA

Williamsburg Pest Pressure

Why Pest Control in Williamsburg Isn’t One-Size-Fits-All

Most Williamsburg pest control content is a regional service list that treats the restored colonial capital, the college and its rental market, and the newer Monticello Avenue corridor as one place. They are not: Census Bureau survey estimates put about 47% of the city’s occupied homes as rented and about 41% of its housing units in buildings of two or more units, while only about 42% are one-unit detached houses.

In the Williamsburg Historic District the Department of Historic Resources records over eighty colonial buildings restored and numerous others reconstructed by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, and wood-rich historic structures are exactly what feed termites, carpenter bees and wood-boring beetles, while centuries-old wall and roof voids give rodents routes nothing newer offers. Outside the restored streets, a 2012 National Park Service assessment of Colonial National Historical Park, citing 2002 state estimates, puts Virginia’s highest deer concentrations in Northern Virginia and on the Virginia Peninsula, and the Colonial Parkway carries that park land through Williamsburg.

The College of William & Mary and the downtown corridor, together with the hotels, inns and vacation rentals serving a constant stream of visitors, sees a different pattern: turnover housing where bed bugs and roaches travel between units far more easily than in owner-occupied homes, and where a single pest incident costs a review as well as a treatment. New Town and the Monticello Avenue corridor, the stretch of the area that has grown fastest since the late 20th century, rounds out the picture with a more standard suburban mix of ants, roaches, and fall rodents. Treating all of Williamsburg the same way misses what each of these areas is actually dealing with.

Williamsburg’s Architectural Review Board also reviews new construction and alterations to existing buildings in two districts, and it is worth knowing whether your address falls inside one. Since 1991 the city has had an Architectural Preservation District and a Corridor Protection District, with an Architectural Review Board whose duties cover all new construction and alterations to existing buildings in both, and demolition and relocation within the preservation district. The districts extend well beyond the restored colonial capital — the plan is explicit that they take in ordinary neighborhoods that have evolved over time. Sealing a home against pests can mean changing its exterior, so if you live in either district, check with the City whether a planned repair needs Architectural Review Board approval before the work is booked.