Scorpion nights, PMD numbers and termite files: Arizona pest control marketing

Scorpion calls follow warm nights, so your busy season depends on your metro. Phoenix stays warm enough for longer than Tucson does, and the budget should follow the nights.

We time scorpion budgets to the overnight low, not the calendar. University of Arizona entomologists published Scorpions of the Desert Southwest in May 2018. They write that bark scorpions are active for most of the year in Arizona's low desert. Nights above 70 degrees are ideal for them. From November to March they are less active, and in the coldest weeks they cluster in sheltered spaces.

Set that against NOAA's 1991 to 2020 normals and the two big metros part ways:

• Phoenix. The normal low at Sky Harbor sits above 70 from June (78.6) through September (78.1). It peaks at 84.5 in July. May comes in at 69.5 and October at 65.6, so the edges of the season are close calls.
• Tucson. The normal low at Tucson International barely clears the line: 71.1 in June, 76.3 in July, 75.2 in August and 70.4 in September. May sits at 61.8. Tucson also has more water to reckon with, at 2.21 inches of normal July rain against 0.91 in Phoenix. The same UA publication says scorpions move when irrigation or monsoon rain floods their shelters. They also move when building or landscaping disturbs the ground.

Here is what that means for the page that sells the work:

• Lead with sealing. UA's IPM team calls scorpions "extremely difficult to eradicate" in its June 2018 newsletter. It says they are hard to manage with pesticides alone, and it calls pest-proofing "by far the most effective way" to reduce contact. So the offer starts with door sweeps, weather stripping, screened weep screed and caulked roof and pipe penetrations. Capped block walls and a black-light inspection round it out. The treatment is one part of it.
• Keep selling in winter. The clustered scorpions UA describes turn up when block walls come down or a remodel opens a wall. So November to March is the season for sealing offers and for calls to remodelers and builders.
• Never sell a scorpion-free house. A deceptive promise in an ad is unlawful "whether or not any person has in fact been misled," under Arizona's Consumer Fraud Act.

The price of a bad promise is steep. A court can add as much as $10,000 per willful violation, under the act's penalty section. So write what a re-service covers and how soon you come back. Leave the scorpions' behavior out of the promise, and have counsel read that wording before it runs.

Arizona makes you file paperwork on every termite job. Those filings are the strongest proof you can show a builder or a home buyer.

A termite action report is due within 30 calendar days of the work, under the termite reporting law. One follows each pretreatment and each new-construction treatment. Others follow final grade treatments, initial corrective treatments and wood-destroying insect inspection reports. The PMD may charge up to $100 for each form that is late.

The Division keeps those filings in a computer system. It records the address, the company and the applicator license numbers, as the law that sets the PMD's duties requires.

A new home brings two things a builder cares about: when the treatments happen and what you owe afterward.

• The pretreatment and the final grade. A pretreatment goes down before the slab is poured. The final grade treatment comes later. It is a vertical barrier at the outside of the foundation walls, as Arizona's pest law definitions describe it.
• Twelve months between them. The final grade must follow the pretreatment within 12 months, under the state's list of unlawful pest practices.
• A report if it slips. If the final grade is not done, the company files a supplemental report or explains in writing why, under the PMD's discipline law. That law lets the PMD discipline a business licensee the first time for a pretreatment or final grade violation. Many other violations need a prior one of the same type.
• The three-year retreat. Subterranean termites may show up within three years of a pretreatment or new-construction treatment. Then the company re-treats the affected area free, under the termite retreat rule. It may still charge the trip and barrier fees the rule allows. A third occurrence on the outside of a one- or two-unit home means treating the whole exterior perimeter.
• Who the duty follows. Any subterranean termite warranty takes effect on the day treatment begins. A buyer of the company's termite business assets inherits the duty.

State it as the rule, because it is one. A builder page that sells "free retreatment for three years" as a perk is advertising what the law already requires. Have a lawyer read its warranty wording against the retreat rule.

The money behind the work is set too. The pest license law calls for a $100,000 bond or liability rider for termite damage from negligent treatment. The PMD license needs another $100,000 for errors in inspection reports, on top of $500,000 in general financial security.

Aim each page at where the building is. The Census Bureau's 2024 and 2025 city estimates put Surprise, Goodyear, Queen Creek and Buckeye at the top of Arizona's gains. Mesa, Chandler, Scottsdale and Tucson lost residents. So builder and superintendent outreach goes to the edges of the Valley. Resale inspection work goes to the settled East Valley and central Phoenix.

Resale work has its own buyer. VA asks for wood-destroying insect information on VA-appraised home loans anywhere in Arizona. So the realtor page sells turnaround and the inspector's credentials.

Only an applicator certified in wood-destroying organism management may complete that report, under the inspection report law. Unless already a certified qualified applicator, that person first takes five hours of in-house training. The report must be on file in the company's office within seven calendar days.

A property owner or the owner's agent may ask for past treatment records. The company then has three business days to make them available, under the state's rules for pest companies. That makes a records request form worth a link on the same page.

Before you call homeowners to sell, find out which phone registration Arizona asks of you. A pest license does not earn the shortcut that ROC contractors get.

Sellers licensed under title 6 or 32 get a short, limited registration under Arizona's telemarketing exemptions. Contractors licensed by the ROC fit there. Pest licenses are issued under title 3, so on our reading that line does not cover you.

Registration attaches to voice calls, live or recorded, as the state's definition of a phone solicitation sets out. Our Arizona HVAC page walks an old customer list through the call rules. These points land differently on a pest route:

• Booking the inspection, not the treatment. A caller needs no registration when the sale is completed later, at a face-to-face meeting. That meeting cannot be one held to collect payment or to deliver what was bought. A call that sells the treatment itself, with the visit there to deliver it, does not fit this lane.
• Past customers, under the same name. Calling previous customers takes only a free, bond-free short-form filing. Two conditions apply. You call under the name you sold to them with. No principal has a felony, fraud or telemarketing record of the kinds the exemptions list from the past 20 years. A rebranded company may show its former licensed name on ads and trucks. The calling lane still asks for the same name, so a renamed company's renewal campaign needs its own check.
• Everyone else registers first. That means full registration with a $100,000 bond, under the bond rule for phone sellers.
• A yearly deadline. Full registration is renewed before each June 30, under the renewal law.
• A felony without it. Soliciting without registration is a class 5 felony, under the penalty section.

Every lane stays under Arizona's calling limits. Without prior express consent, you may not make unsolicited sales calls to cell phones. You may not block caller ID or send prerecorded messages to homes either.

Texts count too. The national do-not-call registry covers texts as well as calls in Arizona, except where federal law permits the contact. Breaking the state's do-not-call law can cost up to $1,000 per violation in civil penalties.

Federal consent rules sit on top, as our texting and AI answering playbook explains. Counsel should settle each list's lane before the spring campaign is loaded.