Getting the keys to a new place is a good day — so it feels like bad timing to talk about pests. But here’s the thing worth twenty minutes before the lorry arrives: an empty house is the one and only time you can actually see a pest problem, because the moment your furniture goes in, it hides every skirting line, corner and drain where the trouble lives. Whether it’s a brand-new unit or a second-hand home, a quick check now can save you an infestation later — and this is the room-by-room version, plus what to ask the seller and why treating an empty house beats treating a full one.

Why do empty houses collect pests?

The very thing that makes a house feel fresh and ready — that it’s been sitting quiet and empty — is what lets pests move in. No people means no disturbance, and undisturbed calm is exactly the condition an infestation needs to establish. A few things happen while a house stands vacant:

• Floor drains dry out. The water seal in a bathroom or kitchen floor trap evaporates, opening a direct route for cockroaches to climb up from the sewer.
• Rats settle into the quiet. An undisturbed roof void or ceiling is prime real estate for rodents, and nobody’s there to hear them.
• Termites feed uninterrupted. A colony in the soil or structure just keeps eating, with no one noticing the mud tubes forming.
• Leftovers lie in wait. Flea pupae from a previous tenant’s pet, or bed bugs in an abandoned mattress, sit dormant until a warm-blooded host — you — arrives.
• Stagnant water breeds mosquitoes. Pot trays, blocked gutters and puddles in the compound turn into Aedes breeding sites over a few empty weeks.

None of this means the house is bad — it means a quiet house gives problems a head start. Catching them before you unpack is how you take that head start away.

What should you check, room by room?

Take a torch and go room by room. The empty house is doing you a favour — every corner is visible. Here’s what to look at and what it means:

• Kitchen. Check the floor drain (is the trap dry?), the gaps around the pipes under the sink, the cabinet hinges and corners, and behind where the fridge will go. Dark peppery specks or brown capsule-shaped egg cases mean cockroaches. Run a little water into the floor trap to restore its seal.
• Bathrooms. Same drill — the floor traps and the base of the walls. Wet rooms are the first place cockroaches and drain flies show up.
• Bedrooms. If any mattress or upholstered furniture was left behind, inspect the seams and the skirting for dark brown staining — that’s a bed bug sign, and it’s worth confirming before you sleep there. Check the bed bug signs guide if you’re unsure.
• Skirting, door and window frames. Tap along them with a knuckle listening for a hollow sound, and look low down on walls and the foundation for pencil-width mud tubes — both point to termites. There’s a full walk-through in checking a house for termites.
• Floors and carpets. Look for flea dirt — tiny black specks that smear rusty-red on a damp tissue. A previous tenant’s pet can leave a dormant flea population, which is how you get fleas with no pets of your own.
• Roof void and ceiling. If you can get a look, check for droppings, gnaw marks, shredded nesting material or a smell — signs of rats.
• The compound. Walk the perimeter for standing water in pot trays and blocked drains (mosquitoes), gaps under doors and around utility entries (rodents and roaches), and tree branches touching the roof — a highway for rats.

A family moving into a terrace in Kajang messaged us on handover day — cockroaches were appearing in the empty kitchen with nothing to eat and no rubbish anywhere. The house had sat vacant for months and every floor trap had dried out, so roaches were walking straight up from the drains. We treated the bare, empty house and sealed the traps; they moved in a week later onto a clean slate.

— Job notes, Nomobug field team