Pest management in Stirling, the suburb that is rebuilding itself.

Stirling was developed mostly through the late 1960s and 1970s on yellow Spearwood sand, with a few older pockets toward the Karrinyup Road end. The original homes are double brick with tiled roofs on timber framing, generous blocks and fifty-year-old gardens: mature trees against the eaves, fruit trees, timber sheds and garden beds that have crept up over the slab edge. That is the classic termite and rodent profile of the inland northern suburbs. But Stirling has been changing faster than almost any suburb around it. The streets near Stirling train station, Cedric Street and the freeway have been subdivided into grouped dwellings, townhouses and two-storey rebuilds, and a single street can have a 1972 brick-and-tile next to three new homes on what used to be one block.

That mix matters for pests. The old homes carry timber framing, settled roofs and decades of garden build-up. The new ones carry a slab with plumbing penetrations, a chemical termite management system that only stays effective if it is inspected annually and not bridged by the landscaping added after handover, and shared walls and services through which German cockroaches and mice move between lots. On the southern boundary is the Osborne Park industrial and commercial precinct, one of Perth's biggest, with food processors, warehouses and showrooms producing a steady rodent and cockroach population that spills across Cedric Street. Lake Gwelup's wetland reserve is a few minutes to the north-west, Stirling Civic Gardens and the smaller reserves sit in the middle, and the freeway and rail corridor run the length of the suburb, giving rats a highway through it.

This season in Stirling.

Spring in Stirling: ant trails on driveways and pool surrounds, redbacks under outdoor furniture and in retic boxes, and the roof rats that spent winter in the ceiling are breeding. If you have bought or built a new home in the last few years, check the date on the termite management certificate; if the annual inspection has lapsed, book it before November's swarms.