Transcription
Right now, there are an estimated 1.4 billion insects for every single human on Earth. That's not a typo. There are also something like 7 billion rats scurrying around out there. In other words, if pests ever united, we wouldn't stand a chance. All right, good night everybody.
The good news is they haven't banded together yet. The bad news, they don't really have to. Their mere presence is already a public health and business crisis. Like this woman who went on vacation in Myrtle Beach and says she was bitten more than 350 times from head to toe by bed bugs. That's not just one freak story. It's a symptom of a bigger shift. One that's turning exterminators into entrepreneurs and pest control into a booming billion dollar battleground. In the US alone, the pest control market is a $26 billion industry, and the global market is expected to grow to $44.3 billion by 2034.
A lot of information, but it's because of that information that I can't escape this thought. Pests have always been around. So, why are they booming right now? Well, after looking into it, I think there are a few possible culprits, but one ultimate cause, and it has a lot less to do with the pests themselves and more to do with the world we've built around them.
In August 2024, a family's dream vacation at this hotel in Myrtle Beach turned into a nightmare. Bed bugs severely bit four adults and six kids. After staff ignored their complaints, the vacationers escalated their nightmare into a headline-grabbing lawsuit. And by the way, this was a different story than the one I mentioned earlier in the intro. A different family at a different hotel in Myrtle Beach. A quick glance at the hotel's Trip Advisor reviews leading up to the 2024 event really shows how widespread the problem was.
This story might shock you today, but 30 years ago, zoom in on this. It would have been downright unthinkable. In the 1990s, bed bugs were nearly eradicated in the United States. I'm not saying all, of course, that will never happen given that bed bugs can double in population every 16 days. Good luck going to sleep, everybody. Don't you love that stat? But by 1997, they were at least rare enough that the nation's entomology professors couldn't find live ones as examples for class. Which makes it extra surprising that a mere 13 years later, the CDC and EPA issued a joint statement warning about the alarming resurgence of bed bugs plaguing the country. I know, I know you're wondering why bed bugs came back. I'll get to that in a bit, but for now, just know they weren't the only ones getting worse.
Every year, termites cause an estimated $5 billion worth of damage to American homes. That's about four times the economic damage caused by tornadoes in the United States in 2023. And while termites were eating through your walls, something else was sneaking into your attic. Between 2005 and 2020, Oregon documented that roof rats, which used to cluster mainly along the coasts, crept inland. They spread like wildfire across the South, the Midwest, even up through the Appalachians. And if you ask the folks trying to fight them off, they'll tell you this isn't just annoying, it's serious. They cause anxiety. They cause property damage. That's John Olrich, assistant commissioner for the city of Boston and co-chair of its rodent action plan. And he's not exaggerating. These aren't just pests chewing your cereal boxes. According to a 2012 Pest World report, rodents cause 20 to 25% of all reported fires of unknown origins each year due to their love for chewing through wires. So, we've got more pests potentially causing more damage than that tornado did in the Wizard of Oz. That helps explain why people are clamoring for exterminators and driving that $26 billion in industry revenue I mentioned earlier. But it doesn't explain this.
In the US alone, the pest control market is a $26 billion industry. And the global market is expected to grow to $44.3 billion by 2034. By the way, if you're seeing this $26 billion industry and thinking to yourself, "How do I get a piece of that?" There's a free guide in the description built exactly for that moment. It covers how to go from business idea to launch and includes a growth checklist with everything from market research to automation, branding, and staying sane while scaling. Because, as you'll see in a bit, a lot of these pest control empires started with one person who saw a problem and built the skills to actually solve it. This guide helps you do the same. So yeah, the opportunity is out there, but to understand why this opportunity is booming right now, we need to get back to what changed.
First, our cities have become pest paradises. A global study across 16 major metros found something simple but scary. The cities that lost the most green space between 1992 and 2020 also saw the most significant rat surges. It's not rocket science. We provide them everything they need. They need food, water, and shelter. And we provide those things, especially in dense cities, more than any fields or open spaces surrounding those cities. Anyway, so as cities expand, they create more living opportunities, not just for humans, but also for rats. Urban sprawl isn't just pushing into nature, it's practically rolling out the rodent red carpet.
Reason number two, some pests aren't just moving in, they're getting harder to kill. Yeah, it's time to talk about that bed bug resurgence. Bed bugs nearly vanished in the 1950s thanks largely to dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, better known as DDT. DDT was the first modern synthetic insecticide. It was meant to protect soldiers abroad and food at home and was heavily marketed as safe for our meat, crops, and even our children. Spoiler. While it was enough to nearly rid us of bed bugs forever, it was also linked to cancer, reproductive issues, and harm to wildlife, leading to its ban in 1972, which overall is a good thing. But we haven't really found anything as potent or successful at killing bed bugs since. And now, according to a recent study, scientists discovered bed bugs in North America now carry a gene mutation previously only seen in one of nature's most notorious survivors, cockroaches. They've reported the first confirmed A302S RDL gene mutation. For those who didn't take advanced entomology, translation: life, uh, finds a way. This mutation helps bed bugs resist newer insecticides that once wiped them out, like each of these over-the-counter products.
And it's not just bugs that are evolving. In the UK, tests show that over 75% of brown rats now carry genes that make them resistant to standard poisons. Mice, it's even worse. 94% show similar resistance. The rats that die from poison, they're gone. Bye-bye. All rats go to heaven. The ones that survive, they breed and pass on their resistance genes. Say hello to Teenage Mutant super rats. Teenage Mutant super rats. They're really big and they don't go down with regular poisons or anti-coagulants. Okay, not quite, but they are super rats. So, we've got more pests in more places and they're tougher to kill than ever. That alone would keep exterminators busy. But it's not the whole story. There's one more factor heating up this industry more than urbanization and the waste management issue that comes with it. And it's bigger than anything we've discussed so far. Say it with me, everybody. Climate change.
Since 1880, global temperatures have been on a slow climb. That's not just bad news for polar bears. It's creating perfect conditions for our tiny invaders. Over the past decade, New York City rat sightings jumped by 162%. San Francisco, 300%. And Washington D.C., a 390% surge. Though in D.C., it's hard to tell if that's a pest control issue or just a congressional roll call. I have jokes. And those aren't just cities dealing with rising rat activity. They also happen to be some of the fastest warming cities in North America. So, what's the connection here? In the past, winter killed off huge portions of pest populations, like the polar vortex in 2014, which wiped out nearly 70% of invasive stink bugs across parts of the US Mid-Atlantic. Just think of it as nature's reset button. But with warmer winters, pests, including rats, can survive and they thrive year-round, which is extra horrifying when you realize that a single female rat can reproduce so fast that her descendants number 15,000 within a single year. That's not just theory. It's something exterminators and city officials are already dealing with. "When we have warmer winters, we seem to see an increase in activity. Warmer winters mean access to food. Usually they might get another litter in. This past winter was fairly cold. We did have some snow cover on the ground that stuck around for a little while, which is good for us. The three winters before that were, I think, three of the warmest on record." The science is clear. Climate change is fueling pest goons. Rats are breeding more. And they're not the only ones thriving. Insects. Longer, hotter summers mean mosquitoes, ticks, and yes, those bed bugs I was talking about earlier get a few extra months to breed. And global travel helps spread them farther, faster. But of all the pests that are winning right now, termites might be the biggest winners of them all. Warmer weather accelerates how quickly they can break down wood. For every 10° increase in temperature, termites can break down wood nearly seven times faster. That's like going from nibbling a snack to vacuuming a buffet. We are a while from reaching that temperature, but as you can see, we get closer every year.
And while these conditions have created a golden age for pests, it's also created a golden opportunity for those who know how to combat them. Take Fox Pest Control, an extermination company started in 2012 by brothers-in-law Mike Romney and Bryant White. By 2021, they'd expanded to over 30 locations across the country and were pulling in $94 million in revenue a year. According to Market Insider, the growth was so strong that Rollins, parent company of Orkin, acquired them in 2023. And they're not the only success story. There's Mosquito Squad, founded in 2005, whose franchise network generated $117 million in 2023.
But unlike our past mistakes with DDT, there's a major transition taking place in modern pest control. Eco-friendly pest control is surging with biological methods expected to grow from $7.5 billion in 2023 to $15.1 billion by 2028. A 15.2% compound annual growth rate, far outpacing the broader industry. In a 2023 survey, 72% of homeowners preferred eco-friendly pest control and 65% said they'd pay extra for it.
This sentiment isn't new. Case in point, Earthkind. Carrie Warburn Block didn't start in a lab. She started at her kitchen table. One mouse on her leg, one bottle of perfume, and a question: "Why are we still using poison?" So, she created plant-based repellents using essential oils, which can effectively drive away pests. And according to peer-reviewed studies, they work, just not for long. Essential oils like clove, rosemary, and peppermint have shown strong repellent effects against mosquitoes and cockroaches in lab tests, but most wear off fast, often within an hour and need frequent replacement to stay effective. Fast forward to 2016, and Carrie built a powerhouse, over $10 million a year in revenue. And at one point, she said she had a 500% annual growth in the pest control segment, her products in more than 35,000 stores nationwide. That kind of traction turns heads. In 2017, Sweat Equities Fund invested $10 million to help it scale even faster.
This wave of sustainability has pushed exterminators to evolve their business strategies and innovate their products and services to be chemical-free. Since 2015, Aptive Environmental has built its entire business on eco-friendly solutions. Now they're in 2,000 cities across 34 states. They joined the EPA's pesticide environmental stewardship program and even partnered with the UN to fight malaria globally. The result? Multiple appearances on the Inc. 5000 fastest-growing companies list and the number one customer satisfaction rating on BestCompany. Turns out people don't just want dead bugs. They want peace of mind that the solution isn't worse than the problem.
So yeah, pests are thriving, but so are the people solving the problem. Because in a world where rats are more prominent, bugs are stronger, and climate change is the ultimate pest repellent remover, the real winners are the folks who figured out how to trap, treat, and turn it into a business. Because as long as there's trash on your street, warmth in your air, and wood in your walls, this isn't a problem that's going anywhere.
If you like this story, you'll want to check out our video on why we intentionally don't build tornado-proof homes. Spoiler: it's not because we can't. Remember to click the link in the description and subscribe to The Hustle for more stories just like this.