Editorial policy

PestMan exists to give Australians accurate, practical and honest pest information. This is how we do it.

Who publishes PestMan

PestMan.au is published by Damien Kneller, a licensed pest management technician, who is responsible for what the site publishes and reviews each page before it is marked as reviewed.

Our principles

• Answer the question first. Every answer starts with a short, direct response, then explains the detail.
• Useful, not just searchable. We don’t publish pages just because a keyword exists. We would rather publish 500 genuinely useful answers than 10,000 thin ones.
• Neutral about treatment. We explain when professional help may be worthwhile, and when it probably isn’t.
• Safety over convenience. We never encourage off-label pesticide use and always point to product labels and Australian regulatory requirements.
• Independent. PestMan is an information platform, not a pest-control company. We don’t claim technicians or branches we don’t have.

How content is created

1. Topics come from the questions people ask — including questions submitted through Ask PestMan and searches our site couldn’t answer.
2. The PestMan editorial team researches each topic using government, regulator, health, museum, university and industry sources.
3. Each page records who wrote it, when it was published, and when it was last updated.
4. Pages are reviewed and updated as information or regulations change.

Technical review

Our standard is for each answer to be reviewed by a licensed pest-management professional before it is marked as reviewed. Until a named reviewer has checked a page, it is labelled “Technical review pending”. We never display a reviewer who has not actually reviewed the content. During review, general source links are replaced with links to the specific pages relied on.

Sources we use

• AEPMA — Australian Environmental Pest Managers Association
• APVMA — Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority — pesticide regulation and product labels
• Bureau of Meteorology — Climate statistics for Australian locations
• healthdirect Australia — healthdirect — bites, stings and infection information
• Queensland Health — Queensland Health — mosquito-borne disease and environmental health
• NSW Health — NSW Health — environmental health and pest-borne disease
• Victorian Department of Health — Victorian Department of Health — environmental health
• Australian Museum — Australian Museum — insects and spiders
• Queensland Museum — Queensland Museum — insects, spiders and animals of Queensland
• Brisbane City Council — Brisbane City Council — mosquito and pest management
• CSIRO — CSIRO — insect and pest research
• National Fire Ant Eradication Program — National Fire Ant Eradication Program — identifying and reporting fire ants
• FSANZ — Food Standards Australia New Zealand — food safety and pest control

We never fabricate sources, statistics or credentials.

Corrections

If you think something on PestMan is wrong or out of date, please tell us via Ask PestMan. We review every report.