“I’m pretty reliable because I’m all I have,” Syed Shah says.
He means it plainly. Shah owns Affordable Pest Control Indianapolis and does most of the work himself. His wife helps, he says, “but most of it’s just me.” The arrangement shapes nearly everything about how the company runs.
He calls it “a small, independent family business,” and he leans on customers who keep calling back. “Most of them know me,” he says. That familiarity is the reason he gives for why people choose a small outfit over a larger one. “Not everybody’s a number,” he says.
He also doesn’t hold on to them by paperwork. “I don’t make them sign any long-term pest control services,” Shah says. A customer can book a single visit. The company’s options run from one-time appointments to monthly, quarterly and seasonal service. There are quarterly plans for homes and for businesses, and a premium version of each promises a visit within 24 hours of notice.
The company’s site, written in Shah’s own voice, puts the job in practical terms. Getting rid of pests is only half of it; the other half is keeping them from coming back. So he looks for the source of a problem instead of treating only what shows. If the building itself is letting pests in, the site says, he will fix it, show the owner how to, or point to a specialist who can.
The trade runs in the family. Shah’s father had a pest control company, and Shah worked for it for years before branching off on his own in 2017. “I’ve done it pretty much all my life,” he says. He takes homes and businesses, handling everything from ants and spiders to bed bugs, rodents, bees and wasps, across Indianapolis and into suburbs including Carmel, Fishers, Noblesville and Avon. He is a certified and licensed pesticide applicator and carries liability insurance.
Stinging insects ask for some patience from the customer. After a hive is treated, the company’s FAQ explains, the colony usually takes two to three days to die off, sometimes longer, because bees keep flying back and forth to the hive. Customers are asked to wait at least seven days. If bees are still coming and going after that, the colony gets treated again at no added cost.