Integrated Pest Management Principles and Decision-Making
IPM is a decision process, not a product choice
Integrated pest management in structural work runs in a cycle: inspect and monitor → identify → compare against a threshold → prevent → control → evaluate. Inspection comes first because treatment depends on species, harbourage and travel routes. Skipping straight to a sprayer is the classic IPM failure.
An action threshold is the level of pest presence or damage at which treatment is justified. Thresholds are site-specific: one German cockroach in a hospital kitchen exceeds the threshold, while a few pavement ants on an exterior walkway may not. Tolerance depends on the client's risk - food safety, health care, housing, warehousing.
Prevention comes before suppression: sanitation (removing food, water, harbourage), exclusion (sealing cracks, screens, door sweeps, caulking voids), and habitat modification (fixing leaks, reducing clutter, managing exterior vegetation). Then mechanical methods such as traps and vacuuming, then targeted chemical control as the last and most precise step.
IPM is not "no pesticides." It is pesticide use that is justified by evidence and aimed at the pest's biology - crack and crevice rather than broadcast, baits rather than fog, spot rather than blanket.
Traps: believing IPM forbids pesticides; treating on a calendar schedule; never re-inspecting; ignoring client cooperation and follow-up.
Worked example: a restaurant reports "bugs." Inspection finds German cockroach nymphs in a crack beside a dishwasher - threshold exceeded. Response: clean and caulk the harbourage, gel bait the cracks, add an IGR, then monitor with sticky traps at two weeks and document it.