For household vermin, who you gonna call?

Ants, bees, bedbugs, cockroaches, mice, rats — there’s no shortage of creatures that can invade your space. If they do, think twice before hiring someone to evict your pests — usually you can take care of the problem yourself. If you do end up hiring a pest control firm, shop around — there are big differences in quality and you don’t have to pay more for good service.

Overall, you can prevent — or control — most household pest problems by taking a few general steps: Cut off access to foods, keep your home as clean as possible, reduce or eliminate excess moisture, and seal cracks and other entry points.

Some steps to take for specific pest problems: Ants: If you can locate the nest, just spray it with insecticide. If the nest is outside, follow the ants’ movements to and from food sources. If the nest is inside walls or otherwise inaccessible, cut off the paths the ants follow by caulking cracks and crevices. You can also apply ant spray along the lower part of window frames and around doors, and outdoors on pipes, posts and pillars leading from the ground to the house. Carpenter ants: Because they are drawn to damp wood, you’ll need to prevent water from accumulating in your house. Clean gutters and downspouts, and cut tree limbs and shrubs that overhang the house. Cockroaches: Keeping your home clean and dry is the first step. Caulk to seal cracks and other entry points. You can try sticky traps or “bait stations.” Sticky traps probably won’t solve an infestation, but bait stations can solve a small one — but it may take a week because they dispense slow-acting poison. Boric acid is another effective roach killer. Blow it into cracks and crevices where people won’t come into contact with it. Mice and rats: Close off openings more than ¼-inch in the foundation, around door and window frames, and elsewhere. After closing entry points, you may be able to bring a small infestation under control with traps. Peanut butter is effective bait. Place traps perpendicular to walls, with trigger ends toward the walls so rodents will run over them. Large infestations will require poison baits, which are usually anticoagulants. Be careful to place them out of reach of pets and children, and don’t forget where they are. Carpenter bees: A telltale sign of a problem is sawdust where the bees have been drilling into wood. You can apply an insecticide designed for flying insects or close off the nest and repair the damaged wood. Applying almond oil also provides a good temporary repellent. Bedbugs: These are notoriously difficult to control. Sanitation won’t prevent bedbugs or get rid of them. You’ll probably need to hire a diligent, experienced exterminator, and they are likely to recommend a series of treatments. It’s better to contract with a company that will perform a rigorous initial treatment and follow up with scheduled inspections and re-treatments for a year.

Termites: Most pests are unpleasant, but termites can wreck your house. If you hire an exterminator, be wary of operators that push bait systems. Because the bait stakes used to monitor termite activity are designed to attract termites, sticking several in the ground around the perimeter of your home likely will attract termites. These companies will require an expensive long-term contract to monitor the bait stations, and once the baits have done their job, the companies may use the evidence of infestation to sell you a warranty against future infestations.

If you decide to hire a professional exterminator:

Choose your pest control company carefully. Checkbook collected consumer ratings of firms they’d used and found substantial differences in quality. Some outfits were rated “superior” overall by 90 percent or more of their surveyed customers, but other companies received such favorable ratings from fewer than 60 percent of their surveyed customers.

Get estimates. Checkbook’s shoppers found big price differences, and there was no relationship between what firms charged and customer satisfaction. Checkbook found companies that charge $150 or less for a single treatment for cockroaches, while others charge $250 or more. Some require long-term contracts that cost $400 or more, even though for most pests, a single treatment done well should suffice. You can often get price quotes over the phone or by email, and companies usually come to your house to give free estimates.

For termites, get several inspections because some companies have been known to recommend treatment when there is neither an active infestation nor a serious threat of one. If you need termite service, check whether the company will send a technician certified as a wood-destroying-object inspector who has met training requirements and passed a California exam. Ask companies whether they recommend treating only part of your home or its entire perimeter. You’ll save big if a company can wipe out your infestation without a house-wide treatment. Because termite treatment is much more expensive than treatment for other types of pests, you’ll see even bigger overall savings by using a high-quality, low-cost service — perhaps $1,000 or more if you obtain several proposals.

For bedbugs, ask several companies for detailed proposals and pricing, with complete schedule and pricing of follow-up treatments.

Finally, ask companies to include with their proposals written guarantees that last for at least a year and include commitments to return and retreat as many times as necessary to eliminate the infestation. If subsequent visits are to be billed on a per-visit basis, get those details in writing. You’ll see big price differences.