About Iowa Pest Guide

Iowa Pest Guide is a small, independent guide to household pests in Iowa. It started in Waukee and the Des Moines metro and now covers Iowa's larger cities, from Cedar Rapids and the Quad Cities to Sioux City and Council Bluffs. It is run by Kasey, a Waukee resident. We are not a pest control company, we do not apply pesticides, and we do not sell pest control products.

How we write our guides

• Sourced, not guessed. Iowa-specific facts come from Iowa State University Extension and Outreach, the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship, Iowa Health and Human Services, the U.S. EPA and the CDC. Every guide lists its sources at the bottom with the date we checked them.
• Practical and local. We write for homeowners and renters in Waukee, West Des Moines, Clive, Urbandale, Ankeny, Johnston, Grimes, Adel, Altoona and Ames.
• Safety first. When a pesticide is involved, we say to follow the label. For bed bugs, wasps in walls, heavy rodent problems or anything involving health, we tell you when to call a licensed professional or a healthcare provider.
• No brand endorsements. When a source mentions a product, we describe the type of product instead.

Listing criteria

Our local pros page lists pest control and wildlife companies that serve Waukee, the Des Moines metro and the other Iowa cities we cover. These are the rules every listing follows:

• Checked on the company's own website. We add a company only after reading its own site, not a review site or a lead-generation page. Each listing links to the exact pages we checked and the date we checked them.
• Real, identifiable business. The site has to clearly identify the company and say it serves one of the Iowa towns we cover. We skip sites that look like call-routing or lead-generation pages, sites we can't load, and businesses that don't offer pest or wildlife control.
• Only what they publish. Phone numbers and street addresses appear only if the company shows them on its own site. Services and service areas are summarized from the company's own wording. A company is listed under a town only if its site names that town.
• License lookup status, never a guess. We search each company by name in the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship (IDALS) pesticide license lookup. We say a license record was found only when we found a matching, unexpired company record. If the name or details don't clearly match, we say the license wasn't confirmed. A company saying it is licensed is not enough for us to say so.
• No rankings, reviews, prices or paid placement. Companies are listed alphabetically. Nobody pays to be listed, and there are no featured spots.
• Re-checked regularly. We re-check every listing about once a month and remove companies whose sites no longer support the listing.

Listings are informational, not endorsements. Always check a company's license yourself before hiring. Is your business missing or wrong? Contact us to request a correction, an addition or removal.

Corrections

Spotted something out of date or wrong? Please contact us and include the page and source. We review and update guides regularly; each guide shows when it was last updated.