Residential pests
31 On file
Carpenter Ant
BC's largest structural-pest ant — they don't eat wood, they hollow it out to build galleries inside damp framing.
Pavement Ant
The small brown ants along Metro Van driveways and patio cracks — nuisance foragers, not structural pests.
Odorous House Ant
The 'rotten-coconut' ant — crush one between your fingers and you'll know. Nests in wall voids and under pots.
Norway Rat
Metro Vancouver's ground-and-basement rat — thicker, heavier, and more burrow-driven than its roof-rat cousin.
Roof Rat
The climbing rat — slimmer, pointier, and almost always above your head in soffits and attics.
Deer Mouse
The hantavirus-carrying native mouse — smaller, bicoloured, and a real public-health concern in rural and wildland-urban BC.
House Mouse
The universal urban mouse — tiny, grey-brown, and the most common rodent in Metro Vancouver apartments, condos, and older homes.
German Cockroach
The most common indoor cockroach in BC — small, fast, and capable of exploding from one hitchhiker into a full-building infestation.
American Cockroach
The large reddish-brown roach — less common in BC homes than the German roach, but intimidating when you see one in a basement or drain.
Yellowjacket
BC's most aggressive social wasp — ground-nesting, protein-hungry, and responsible for almost every 'wasp attack' in Metro Van summers.
Paper Wasp
The umbrella-nest wasp under your eaves — less aggressive than yellowjackets but common and visible throughout summer.
Bald-Faced Hornet
The football-sized grey paper nest in your tree — large, black-and-white, and the most intimidating hornet in BC.
Common House Spider
The tangled-web spider in every BC basement corner — harmless, beneficial, and occasionally startling.
Western Black Widow
BC's only medically significant spider — glossy black, red-hourglass marking, and present but uncommon in the southern Interior and parts of the Fraser Valley.
Silverfish
The silver-grey, wiggle-darting insect in your bathroom at 2am — moisture-loving, paper-eating, and nearly universal in older BC homes.
Firebrat
The silverfish's heat-loving cousin — found near water heaters, boilers, and kitchen-range voids, often mistaken for ordinary silverfish.
House Centipede
The fifteen-legged basement sprinter — unsettling to look at, genuinely beneficial, and one of the best free pest controllers in any BC home.
Bed Bug
The apple-seed-sized parasite hiding in mattress seams — the hardest common household pest to eradicate and the one where single-visit thermal treatment wins.
Indian Meal Moth
The small pantry moth with webbing in your flour and cereal — the most common stored-product pest in BC kitchens.
Cluster Fly
The sluggish grey fly that appears in sunny window frames on warm winter days — harmless, beneficial outdoors, frustrating indoors.
European Earwig
The pincer-tailed invader of BC garden beds and bathroom drains — not dangerous to people, but reliably alarming at 2am.
Sowbug & Pillbug
BC's only terrestrial crustaceans — not insects, not harmful, but a reliable indicator of moisture problems where they appear indoors.
Drain Fly (Moth Fly)
The tiny furry flies hovering around BC bathroom drains — harmless to health, reliably embarrassing in restaurants and Airbnbs.
Fungus Gnat
The tiny flying nuisance around houseplant soil — harmless to people, deadly to seedlings, and a constant companion for BC indoor gardeners.
Brown Marmorated Stink Bug
The shield-shaped invasive that overwinters in BC attics by the hundreds — harmless individually, unforgettable in aggregate.
Asian Lady Beetle
The ladybug lookalike that overwinters indoors by the hundreds — harmless individually, a staining stinking cloud in October.
Boxelder Bug
The black-and-red-striped fall invader — climbs sunny walls in October, moves indoors for winter, stains what it lands on.
Springtail
The tiny moisture-loving jumpers in your potted plants and basement — not insects, not harmful, just a humidity signal.
Fruit Fly
The classic kitchen nuisance — fast-breeding, attracted to fermenting fruit, and almost entirely a sanitation issue.
Booklice (Psocid)
The tiny pale crawlers in books, cereal boxes, and new drywall — not lice, not damaging, just a humidity indicator.
Western Conifer Seed Bug
The big leaf-legged fall invader that looks alarming but is completely harmless — common on BC conifer-adjacent homes.
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Every month we add new species to the gallery based on what Metro Vancouver homeowners send us. If you caught something we haven’t filed yet, upload a photo to our AI identifier.
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