Strata pest control for the Sutherland Shire & St George

Who's responsible: owners corporation or lot owner?

The line runs between common property and lot property. Under section 106 of the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 (NSW), the owners corporation has a duty to properly maintain and keep the common property in good, serviceable repair — and pest management of those shared areas falls inside that duty. Garbage rooms, basements and car parks, common gardens, roof spaces, external and structural walls, shared plumbing and slabs are all common property, so pests occupying or damaging them are the scheme's responsibility.

Where the problem is confined inside a single lot — the owner's own internal fixtures and finishes — it is generally the lot owner's responsibility, unless the scheme's by-laws or a special resolution say otherwise. That is the honest, workable rule for most schemes. For the grey areas — a cockroach infestation that clearly moves between units through shared voids, or termites tracking up a common wall into a lot — we identify what is affected and report it so the committee can allocate cost correctly. Ourguide to strata pest responsibility in NSWsets out the detail your committee can rely on.

What we handle for strata managers

We run the recurring work a residential scheme needs and the one-off jobs that land without warning. A standard strata program covers the areas pests actually use:

• Garbage rooms and bin bays — the single biggest cockroach and rodent driver in any block.
• Basements, car parks, plant rooms, risers and service ducts.
• Common gardens, retaining walls and fence lines for ants, wasps and rodent harbourage.
• Roof spaces and subfloors, and block-wide German cockroach programs where shared walls are involved.
• Annual termite inspections of the structure and grounds, with a written report for the scheme's records.

For managers running multiple schemes, we schedule buildings together so a technician covers several sites in a run, keeps a service history per scheme, and flags recurring problems — a bin room that needs a hygiene fix, a broken door seal letting rodents in — rather than just spraying and leaving.

Resident notification, done properly

Pesticide use in the common area of a residential strata complex triggers a legal notice requirement. Under the NSW Pesticides Regulation, whoever organises the treatment must give residents at least 5 working days' notice before application — delivered by letterbox, under-door, or notices on the main noticeboards and entrances, with an emergency exception. Applying pesticide to a common area without that notice carries an $800 on-the-spot penalty.

Most contractors leave that headache with the strata manager. We don't. We prepare the notice, state the product, the areas and the date, and distribute it in the required window, so the scheme meets its obligation without you drafting anything. It is exactly the kind of compliance admin a managing agent shouldn't have to carry, and it comes as standard.

Blocks we know: Cronulla to Kogarah

Southern Sydney is unit-block country, and each pocket has its own pressure. Cronulla is 72.5% apartments (2021 Census) — beachside blocks where salt-air damp and shared risers keep cockroach work steady. Kogarah is 71.2% flats, much of it around the hospital precinct. Rockdale sits at 69.5% flats and Hurstville at 61.4%, both with dense older walk-ups above busy food strips. We service these blocks week in, week out, so we already know how a 1970s walk-up plumbs its risers and where a garbage room vents — the detail that decides whether a cockroach program actually holds.

Whether the pressure is a beachside block inCronulla, an apartment tower inKogarah, a food-strip block inHurstville or a walk-up inRockdale, the program is built around how that building is actually laid out.

Reporting and billing built for strata

Committees and owners want evidence, not assurances. Every visit produces a written report — areas treated, products used, activity found, and recommendations — dated and filed so the scheme has a clean record to table at the AGM or hand to a new managing agent. Where a job needs a work order raised first, we work to it. Invoicing goes to whoever holds the account, with consolidated billing across a portfolio if you manage several schemes. Site inspections and quotes are free, and scheduled-program pricing is fixed for the term so there are no surprises on the ledger.

Every treatment is carried out by a technician holding a current NSW EPA pest management technician licence, and covered by our Return & Re-treat Guarantee: if covered pests come back within the warranty period, so do we — free.