Straight answers to the questions our Cleveland & Athens homeowners actually ask — termites, mosquitoes, fire ants, carpenter bees, scorpions, wasps, warranties, payments, and our referral program.
These are the questions OnGuard gets most often from homeowners across Bradley County and McMinn County — termite swarm signs in spring, when mosquitoes actually need treating in East Tennessee, what fire ant work costs, how carpenter bee damage differs from termite damage, when scorpions and centipedes are a real concern, how we safely remove wasp nests, what our treatment warranty covers, how payment works at the quote, and how our referral program pays you back.
⚠️ Referral program: Refer a Cleveland or Athens neighbor and we'll credit your account on their first completed service — ask the team at booking for the current referral credit amount. There's no formal signup form; the credit is applied automatically once your referral's first job is complete.
A termite swarm is the most visible warning sign Eastern Subterranean Termites give Cleveland-area homeowners. Look for dozens of dark, winged insects suddenly appearing near windows, doors, or porch lights in early spring (usually March through May). They shed their wings almost immediately — small piles of translucent wings on a windowsill or in a spider web are the most reliable sign. Other warnings include mud tubes running up foundation walls, hollow-sounding wood, and small sawdust-like droppings near baseboards. If you see any of these, request a free inspection the same week — the longer swarmers go untreated, the larger the colony is back in the soil. Our Termite Season in Cleveland TN post and the Hamilton County termite warning signs post go deeper on what to look for by month.
Mosquito season in Cleveland and Athens TN effectively runs from mid-March through mid-October — about seven months of active pressure. We schedule bi-monthly yard treatments across that window so the spray cadence matches the hatch cycle of the local Aedes and Culex mosquitoes; treating quarterly leaves gaps where populations re-establish between visits. West of Cleveland, toward the Ocoee and Hiwassee river corridors, the season typically extends a couple of weeks longer because the river humidity keeps mosquitoes active into November. Our Mosquito Control page explains the full harborage and breeding-site approach we use.
Fire ant treatment in our area is almost always quoted on the spot at the free inspection, because the yard size, number of mounds, and broadcast-bait vs. individual-mound-treatment decision all change the price. A single-mound spot treatment on a smaller yard is the lower end; a broadcast-bait program across an acre or more with multiple colonies is the higher end. The price you get at the inspection is the price you pay, and we’ll beat any written competitor quote for equivalent coverage across Bradley and McMinn counties. Call (423) 951-5667 to get on the schedule, or use the free quote form at the bottom of this page.
Carpenter bees bore round, half-inch entry holes into bare or weathered wood — typically eaves, fascia boards, deck rails, and the unpainted faces of trim. You’ll often see yellowish sawdust piles beneath the holes and small yellow-brown stains running down the wood from the opening. The galleries run with the grain and turn at right angles just inside the entry. Termite damage is completely different: there are no clean round entry holes, no fresh sawdust, and you’ll see mud tubes on masonry or packed dirt in the galleries. If you can poke the wood with a screwdriver and it crumbles, that’s almost always termite work. Our Termite Control page covers Eastern Subterranean treatment options; for carpenter bees, we offer targeted dust-and-residual treatment into each gallery plus a repellent barrier on the surrounding wood.
Centipedes are common in East Tennessee homes — the house centipede (Scutigera coleoptrata) is the long, fast-moving one with fifteen pairs of legs you sometimes see on basement walls or in bathrooms; it looks alarming but its bite is medically mild. True scorpions do appear in our area but rarely: the striped bark scorpion (Centruroides vittatus) is the only species native to Tennessee, and sightings are uncommon in Cleveland and Athens. Both are predators of other household pests, so an uptick in centipede or scorpion activity can be a signal that your basement or crawl space harbors the smaller insects they feed on. If you’re unsure what you’re seeing, our Tennessee Pest Identification Guide has photographs of every species we encounter locally.
For a small paper-wasp nest under an eave that you’ve spotted early, most homeowners can treat at dusk with a long-range aerosol and full skin coverage — the issue is matching the timing and treating residual satellite nests on the same visit. Yellow jackets and hornets are different: agitating the nest without proper protection turns a one-call problem into a stings-and-revisit emergency. Our standard protocol — suiting up, treating at dusk when foragers are back in the nest, and walking the property for residual colonies — is what makes the difference between a one-call fix and a recurring problem. If the nest is in a wall void, in the ground, or larger than a softball, call (423) 951-5667 and we’ll come out the same week.
Our every-other-month maintenance plan is the core of the warranty. The technician visits every two months, treats the exterior perimeter, and addresses any new pest activity free of charge between scheduled visits — including callbacks if a covered pest shows up between visits. Plans start at $70/month after the initial treatment. Termite work has its own warranty structure: liquid and bait termite treatments come with renewable annual coverage and retreatment guarantees that we walk through at the inspection. Rodent exclusion work carries a one-year seal warranty on the entry points we repair. When we put together your quote, we’ll spell out exactly which pests and which scenarios the warranty covers so there are no surprises.
We offer on-the-spot quotes at the free inspection so you know the price before treatment starts — no waiting on callbacks, no surprise add-ons at the end. Most Cleveland and Athens homeowners pay at the visit by card or check; we can also set up monthly billing on the every-other-month maintenance plan. There’s no commitment required: if a single-visit treatment is what you need, that’s what we’ll quote. We also price-match — OnGuard will match or beat any written competitor quote for equivalent service coverage in the Cleveland/Athens TN area. Bring the competing quote to the inspection and we’ll honor it.
OnGuard’s referral program credits your account when a neighbor you refer completes their first OnGuard service. There’s no separate signup form and no waiting period — once your referral’s first job is on the books, the credit is applied to your next invoice automatically. The current credit amount varies with the type of service your neighbor books (a one-time treatment credits less than a full maintenance-plan signup), so ask the team at booking for the figure that applies to your situation. Most of our Cleveland and Athens referrals come from existing maintenance-plan customers telling their neighbors about the every-other-month cadence — that’s how we’ve grown across Bradley and McMinn counties.
Same-week appointments available. No commitment required. We'll call you within 1 business hour.