Eighteen years of pest control in San Tan Valley means we get the same questions over and over. Here are the ones homeowners ask most before they hire us — about scorpions, spiders, ants, rodents, pricing, and what a service actually looks like at your door.
How Tarzie runs a pest control account — who shows up, what's included in a visit, how pricing works, and what to expect between treatments. If your question isn't here, call or text Anthon directly at 480-788-0947.
Anthon Perkins — the owner. Tarzie Pest Control is owner-operated, not a multi-truck franchise. Anthon is an Arizona native, a San Tan Valley resident, and has 18+ years of pest control experience. You get the same person on every visit, which means he learns your property — the spots scorpions hide along your block wall, the corner of the garage where crickets get in, the side yard where the irrigation drips.
Pricing depends on the size of your home, the pest pressure on the property, and how often you want service. There's no flat list price — Anthon walks the property, looks at the perimeter, and quotes based on what he sees.
Call or text 480-788-0947 for a quote. Most San Tan Valley and Queen Creek homes fall into a predictable range; you'll get a number on the spot, not an estimate that changes after the work.
Yes. Tarzie uses pet- and kid-friendly products. Anthon will tell you exactly when surfaces are dry and re-entry is safe — typically a short time after application. If you have specific concerns (a pet bird, a curious toddler, a chemically-sensitive household member), mention it at booking and we'll plan the treatment around it.
Most San Tan Valley homes do well on a bi-monthly schedule — one treatment every two months keeps the pest life cycle broken and prevents the kind of build-up that turns into an infestation. Lower-pressure homes can run on a quarterly schedule; scorpion-heavy properties (homes backing up to open desert, new builds on the edge of town) often need monthly during peak season.
Anthon recommends a schedule based on what he finds on the inspection, not a one-size-fits-all plan.
Interior treatment of problem areas (kitchen, bathrooms, garage, laundry), exterior perimeter spray around the foundation, granular treatment in landscaping and gravel beds, sweeping of accessible spider webs and wasp starts, and entry-point recommendations — gaps under doors, weep holes in block walls, plumbing penetrations, attic vents. You get a service report and an invoice via text after each visit.
Call or text. On a recurring service plan, Tarzie comes back out between scheduled treatments at no extra charge if pests reappear. Specific terms depend on the plan — ask Anthon at booking what's covered.
The most-asked-about pest in San Tan Valley. The Sonoran Desert is scorpion country — you can't fully eliminate them, but consistent service drops the population dramatically and keeps them off the patio and out of the house.
Scorpions follow two things: food and cover. Their food is other insects — crickets, cockroaches, beetles, and the bugs those bugs feed on. If a property has heavy insect pressure, it'll have scorpion pressure too.
Their cover is the stuff most San Tan Valley yards are built out of: block walls with hollow voids, decorative rock and gravel, palm trees with unskirted dead fronds, wood piles, stacked pavers, irrigation boxes, and the gap under the bottom row of block. Knock down the bug population and tighten up the harborage and you change the math on scorpion activity.
The basics most San Tan Valley homeowners get right after one stinging incident: shake out shoes, towels, and laundry before using them. Check the bed before getting in — pull the covers back and look. Don't reach into rock piles, wood stacks, or behind landscaping pots without gloves and a flashlight.
Use a UV black light at night to spot scorpions on patios, walls, and gravel — they glow under UV, and it's the fastest way to see how many are actually on the property. Seal gaps under exterior doors with weatherstripping, and check around plumbing penetrations and the bottom row of block.
Yes. New-build homes on the edges of San Tan Valley and Queen Creek — especially those backing up to open desert, washes, or undeveloped lots — see significantly more activity than fully built-out interior neighborhoods. Properties with extensive block walls, large gravel yards, or unpruned palm trees also tend to be hotter.
If you just moved into a new build and you're seeing scorpions on the patio at night, that's normal for the first couple of summers as the desert ecosystem adjusts to the development. Consistent treatment in those first years makes a big difference long-term.
No service can promise zero scorpions in the Sonoran Desert — they live here too, and any company that guarantees a scorpion-free property is selling you something they can't deliver. What consistent treatment does is dramatically reduce the population by killing the prey insects scorpions feed on, creating a treated perimeter they have to cross to reach the home, and knocking down the ones already on the property.
The realistic outcome on a well-serviced San Tan Valley home: seeing a scorpion outside on a black-light walk once in a while instead of seeing them on the patio every night, and not finding them inside the house.
The general-pest questions San Tan Valley homeowners bring up most often. Most of these pests follow the same playbook — they show up because conditions are right (moisture, harborage, food source, other insects), and they leave when those conditions change.
Black widows and brown recluse are the two medically significant spiders found in this area. Black widows are the more common of the two locally — they favor block-wall voids, garage corners, outdoor furniture undersides, irrigation boxes, and gas-meter housings. The female is the dangerous one: glossy black with the red hourglass on the underside.
Brown recluse are less common but do show up indoors, typically in dark, undisturbed spaces — storage closets, attic boxes, stored linens, behind furniture that doesn't get moved. The other spiders you'll see around the property (wolf spiders, jumping spiders, sun spiders) look intimidating but aren't medically dangerous.
Spiders follow the food. If your home has other insects inside — gnats around houseplants, flies, roaches, crickets, silverfish, ants — you'll have spiders too, because all of those are spider food. The spiders aren't the root problem; the underlying insect population is. That's why treating just for spiders rarely sticks. Treating the building's insect pressure as a whole is what knocks down spider activity over a few service cycles.
Fall is when ants reorganize colonies and look for warm overwintering sites — which means your foundation, your weep holes, and the warm slab under your slab-on-grade floor look very attractive to them. A few things that help: trim back tree limbs and shrubs that touch the house (ants use them as bridges), keep mulch and decorative rock a few inches away from the foundation, fix leaky outdoor spigots and irrigation valves, and don't leave pet food out overnight.
The ant species we see most in San Tan Valley — pavement ants, odorous house ants, and the larger harvester and carpenter ants — all respond to a perimeter treatment plus targeted bait at the foraging trails. The mistake homeowners make is spraying the visible trail with a contact killer; that scatters the colony and makes it harder to eliminate.
Three reasons. Crickets reproduce fast — one female can lay hundreds of eggs over a season. They hide in cracks, voids, and gravel beds during the day, so you don't see most of the population. And they migrate in waves from open desert into yards, especially after a monsoon storm, which means a clean property can have a new cricket problem overnight.
Outdoor lighting is the other accelerant. Crickets are drawn to white porch lights, garage lights, and security lights. Switching exterior bulbs to amber or yellow "bug" LEDs makes a real difference, combined with a perimeter barrier treatment around the foundation and gravel beds.
Silverfish need two things: moisture and starch. They show up first in the spots that supply both — damp bathrooms, kitchen pantries with old paper goods, stored cardboard boxes in garages and storage rooms, water-stained walls or ceilings, and behind wallpaper or baseboards in older homes with humidity issues.
Finding silverfish is often a signal that there's a moisture problem somewhere — a slow plumbing leak under a sink, a roof leak that hasn't shown up on the ceiling yet, or an attic with poor ventilation. Treating for the silverfish without fixing the moisture source is short-term work; the conversation we'll have at the visit is usually about both.
No. Earwigs look intimidating because of the pincers on the back end, but they're not dangerous to humans or pets — they don't sting, they don't carry disease, and they don't transmit anything. They can give a small pinch if you pick one up, but that's the extent of it.
What earwigs are is a moisture indicator. They need damp conditions to survive, so finding them inside the house usually means there's standing moisture somewhere — a leaky outdoor hose bib next to the foundation, overwatered planters, irrigation lines too close to the slab, or a damp crawl space. Drying out the conditions plus a perimeter treatment knocks the population down fast.
San Tan Valley and Queen Creek have all three of the rodents common to the southeast Valley — roof rats, pack rats, and house mice. Each one has a different signature and a different removal approach.
Three. Roof rats — the sleek dark ones — nest in attics, palm tree crowns, and dense citrus trees, and they move along utility lines and roof edges. Pack rats (also called wood rats) build messy stick-and-debris nests in landscaping, sheds, BBQ grills, and the engine compartments of cars and RVs that don't get driven often. House mice are smaller and stay closer to food sources — pantries, pet food bins, the gap between the dishwasher and cabinet.
Each one needs a different trap placement and a different exclusion plan, which is why a quick walkthrough at the start of the job matters.
The first sign for most San Tan Valley homeowners is sound — scratching, scurrying, or thumping overhead at night, usually after the house has gone quiet. Other signs to look for: droppings in the garage, pantry, or along baseboards (rat droppings are dark and the size of a grain of rice; mouse droppings are smaller and pointed at the ends); gnaw marks on weatherstripping, plastic storage bins, or wiring; grease trails along edges where they run repeatedly; and a faint musty smell in closed spaces.
A rodent problem caught early is a small job. Caught after they've been nesting for months — with chewed wiring, contaminated insulation, and active breeding — it's a much bigger one. The scratching-at-night call is the time to make the appointment.
The work is in three parts. First, an inspection: where are they getting in, where are they nesting, what are they eating, and how active is the colony. Second, removal: trap placement along the runs and entry paths (rodents follow predictable routes — not random wandering), with checks every few days until the catch rate drops to zero. Third, exclusion and prevention: sealing entry points (roof vents, weep holes, gaps where utilities enter the house), cutting back palms and overgrowth that gives them access to the roofline, and recommending storage and food-source changes that keep them from coming back.
One-and-done rodent jobs almost never hold. The exclusion is what makes it stick.
Yes — this is a specific service we get called for a lot in San Tan Valley, especially on properties with mature landscaping, sheds, RV parking, or backyard structures. Pack rat nests are bulky, visible piles of sticks, cactus pads, paper trash, and chewed material; once you know what to look for, you'll spot them.
Removal involves identifying every active nest on the property, trapping near each one, removing the nest material (because the scent attracts new pack rats to the same spot), and recommending what to change in the landscaping or storage so they don't rebuild. Cars and RVs that sit unmoved are a special case — we'll talk through what to do under the hood.
Eighteen years of San Tan Valley pest control on the other end of the line. If your situation is in the FAQ above, you'll get a quote on the spot. If it's not, Anthon will walk the property and tell you what's actually going on.