Most of the prep checklists you’ll find online were written for heavy chemical fogging — they tell you to empty your kitchen and clear out for hours. Here’s the honest version to prepare your home for pest control in a typical Malaysian house: for a standard gel-bait general treatment, prep takes about 15 minutes and you don’t need to leave at all. Clear the counters, cover exposed food, give the technician room to reach the wall edges, and that’s most of it. The heavier prep only applies to specific treatments — fogging, bed bug heat, or termite work — and this guide flags exactly which is which.

The 15-Minute Version

If you remember nothing else, do these five things before the technician arrives. They cover the vast majority of general pest jobs — cockroaches, ants, the usual suspects.

• Clear the counters and floor of loose clutter, bags, and toys so corners and edges are reachable.
• Cover or put away exposed food and drinking water. Sealed containers or the fridge are fine.
• Take out the kitchen bin and wipe up any spills or crumbs.
• Pull lighter furniture 15 to 30cm off the wall where you’ve seen activity. Leave the heavy stuff — the technician handles that.
• Make a quick mental note of where you’ve been seeing pests, so you can point the technician straight to it.

That’s genuinely it for most visits. The reason it’s so light is the method. A modern general treatment places gel bait into cracks and hinges and a thin residual band along the wall edges — not a fog across the whole room — so your home doesn’t need to be stripped bare.

Don’t deep-clean right before. A light tidy helps. A full mop-and-scrub does not. Freshly washed skirting and wall edges can stop residual products bonding properly, so save the heavy cleaning for a few days after. The technician wants those edges accessible, not sparkling.

Kitchen and Food

The kitchen is where most of the action happens, so it gets the most attention — but less than you’d think. Put away open food, cover anything left out, and clear the counter so the technician can treat behind the kettle, the rice cooker, and the toaster, which is exactly where lipas like to gather.

You do not need to empty your cabinets. With gel baiting the bait goes into the back corners and hinge gaps, not over your plates. Just slide items back from the very front edge. Emptying every cupboard is the kind of over-prep the foreign fogging checklists ask for, and a targeted treatment simply doesn’t need it. If you want the fuller picture of what actually happens once treatment starts, see what to expect after a pest control treatment.

Furniture and Access

Pests live along the join where the floor meets the wall, behind furniture, and in the corners you forget exist. The single most useful thing you can do is make those edges reachable. Pull the sofa, side tables, and lighter shelving a hand’s width off the wall in the rooms being treated.

Leave the wardrobe, the fridge, and anything that takes two people. A good technician moves what needs moving and puts it back. Clearing the floor of bags, shoes, and kids’ toys does more for the job than shifting heavy units around. If you’ve been finding droppings or chew marks, mention it — that’s often where the real work is, and it ties into the entry points most people miss.

Pets, Fish and Babies

This is the question that worries parents and pet owners most, so here’s the straight answer. For a gel-bait general treatment — the Provecta (BASF) range Nomobug uses — there’s no airborne fog and no re-entry window. Babies, pregnant residents, cats and dogs stay home. You don’t evacuate.

A few small steps still help: keep cats and dogs in a separate room while the technician works, remove or cover their food and water bowls, and cover the fish tank and switch off the air pump for the visit. Once the technician is done, point out where the bait went so curious pets don’t nose at it. For the detail, we’ve written separately on whether pest control is safe for babies and pregnant women and safe for cats and dogs.

“Best service, the technician was very helpful and friendly. They did a wonderful job and gave me reassurance that the cockroaches will not come back anymore. Most importantly they used chemicals that are not dangerous to children. Would recommend this service especially for families.”

— Yong Han Chung, Google review. For families, the chemical question is the first one — and a good technician answers it before you even have to ask.

Prep by Treatment Type

Not all treatments need the same prep. Here’s the quick reference — the general gel-bait visit is the light one, fogging and specialist jobs need a bit more.