Thermal drones sweep a site at night and hand us a GPS map of every active burrow. Licensed operators treat them with methods that are legal in California. Sterilized working cats, smart traps and monthly re-sweeps keep the count at zero. No poison broadcast, no kill-count promises, no gimmicks.
A thermal drone flies the site after dark. Warm bodies and burrow entrances light up. AI marks each burrow with a GPS point and an activity score.
A tech walks the map: confirms fresh rat sign, rules out protected wildlife (California has burrowing owls), measures distance to any occupied building, photographs each hole.
Licensed applicator picks the legal method per burrow: EPA-registered CO injection where the buffer allows, rat-sized smart traps, exclusion, contraceptive bait. Never near foundations, never improvised.
Sterilized working cats patrol, smart traps stay in, the drone re-sweeps monthly. New burrow = new ticket, same week. The report shows the count staying at zero.
Federal law bans operating a civilian drone equipped with a weapon, Part 107 bans hazardous payloads, and cities ban discharging air guns inside city limits. Ricochets off asphalt near a warehouse are a lawsuit. Instead: the drone is a camera and a courier. It finds burrows and can drop bait capsules or lures into them.
Rat numbers swing with weather, food waste and breeding. A kill number is unverifiable and creates liability. Instead: we guarantee what IPM contracts guarantee — response time, re-treatment, exclusion work and documentation, measured on burrow counts and sightings.
Ferreting is a real, centuries-old burrow-clearing practice — but ferrets are illegal to own in California. Instead: ratting terriers with a licensed handler on small sites (barns, yards), which is legal and effective for localized clean-outs.
CO seeps through soil into basements; improvised exhaust rigs are unsafe and not EPA-registered; second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides are restricted statewide in California. Instead: registered CO devices only, only outside the label buffer, only by a licensed applicator — and traps, exclusion and contraceptive bait everywhere else.
Flying a Part 107 night sweep and delivering a burrow map needs no pest-control license. The city or its existing licensed vendor can act on the map immediately. That's the first contract we can sign.
Qualified Applicator certification with the County Agricultural Commissioner, a registered pest-control business, insurance, and a partner licensed operator for structural work. The path is on the contracts & licensing page.
Night flights, what the camera sees, how AI marks burrows, flight rules and privacy, what the deliverable looks like, limits.
Every method — CO injection, flooding, gas cartridges, smart traps, exclusion, contraceptive bait, terriers, working cats — with legal status and when we use it.
How cities and warehouses buy pest tech, the California licenses involved, our phased path, and the pricing model.
Health audits, chewed wiring, contaminated inventory. They already tolerate working cats; they'll pay for a map and a dashboard that proves the lot is clean.
Grain sacks and barrel rooms. Organic certifications rule out poison. Cats + mapping is the sustainable story they already want to tell.
Parks, creek corridors, transit lots, dumpster enclosures. One burrow map for Public Works and Environmental Services, treated by their vendor or ours.