We operate properties from Kaua'i to the Costa Rican coast. Both are paradises. Both have bugs. Geckos crossing the bathroom wall. A cane spider on the lanai. A scorpion napping under a sandal in Nosara. The first time a guest sees one, they often think someone failed at housekeeping. They didn't. Tropical climates come with tropical fauna, and the bugs were here first.
The difference between a 4-star and a 5-star review when a guest meets one of these isn't whether the bug exists. It's how the team responds, and how prepared the guest was to expect it. Here's our playbook for both sides.
How our team handles it
Three things every Ohana property has on day one, regardless of which coast it's on:
1. A professional pest treatment on a quarterly contract. Not a one-off, not a "we'll call somebody when it's bad." The contract is with a licensed local provider who treats kitchen baseboards, bathroom perimeters, and any outdoor entry points every 90 days. The receipts live in the property folder so we can show a guest, an owner, or a regulator the moment they ask.
2. A bug-response kit in every unit. Under the kitchen sink: a sealed jar of ant traps, a clean fly swatter, a roll of paper towels, and one can of natural bug spray. Guests don't have to ask. Most don't notice it's there until the moment they need it, and then they're grateful it is.
3. A trained response on the first guest message. When a guest texts about a bug, the reply is not "we'll send someone tomorrow." The reply, inside an hour, follows four beats: acknowledge without defensiveness or minimization; identify if we can ("that's a gecko, harmless, and a great mosquito-eater" or "that's a sugar ant trail, we'll have someone over today"); action it with a treatment dispatch within 24 hours if needed; and follow up the next day to confirm it's resolved. By checkout we want the guest to remember the response, not the bug.
What guests can do to help themselves
Every welcome guide carries a short, friendly note customized by region. The Hawai'i version reads roughly like this:
Aloha! A few things about sharing a home in the islands. You may see a gecko on the wall: they're harmless, they eat mosquitoes, and locals consider them good luck. You may spot a centipede on the lanai: uncommon indoors, but if you see one, please text us and don't touch it. Sugar ants in the kitchen usually mean a small spill: wipe the counter, put food away, and the trail goes home. There's bug spray, ant traps, and a swatter in the cabinet under the sink. If anything ever feels off, text us and we'll be there inside an hour.
The Costa Rica version covers scorpions ("shake out your shoes in the morning before slipping them on, especially if they sat on the floor overnight"), leaf-cutter ant trails ("a wild thing to watch, they don't bite, leave them be"), and a strong recommendation to keep all food sealed and the kitchen wiped down before bed. We mention bullet ants only by photo, in passing, because seeing one indoors is genuinely rare.
The point isn't to scare guests. It's to set the right expectation: this is a tropical environment, the bugs are part of the place, and there are small actions that prevent 80% of the issues before they start.
When the guest should call, not text
Three escalations we ask guests to phone in immediately rather than text:
Anything that stung or bit them. Even if it looks minor. Some species in both regions need a quick eyes-on assessment, and we'd rather over-respond than miss.
A scorpion or centipede in the bedroom or bathroom. Living-room sightings, text us. Bedroom or bathroom sightings, call.
More than one of the same insect inside the unit in a 24-hour window. A single sighting is a visitor. Two in a day means there's an entry point we missed, and we want to find it before guest three.
Anything else, a text works. We respond inside an hour, every time.
When we can't spray: termite swarms and other acts of biology
Some bug events aren't a pest-control problem. Termite swarms are the classic example.
After warm rain in Hawai'i (most often May into June, then again after the summer monsoon in Costa Rica), winged reproductive termites emerge from established colonies all at once. They fly toward light. They follow it through any crack, screen gap, or door left open even for a moment. They shed their wings within an hour, drop to the ground, and most of them die. The whole event lasts about thirty minutes.
Spraying doesn't fix it. The swarmers are coming from colonies that may be hundreds of yards from your property, riding weather you can't control. The bugs aren't on your address, they're on the weather. The right move isn't pest control. It's customer-service training.
Three things we drill into our team for termite swarms, scorpion days after heavy rain, mosquito blooms after standing water, and any other "the bugs are weathering, not infesting" event:
1. Lead with the weather, not the housekeeping. The opening sentence sets the whole tone. "Heavy rain last night triggered a termite swarm across the island tonight. Every property on this stretch of coast is dealing with it for about thirty minutes. It's not great timing, and I'm sorry it's landed on your stay." The guest's first read should be: this is the place, not the host. Defensive openings ("we just had pest control treat last week") put the guest in a fight. Lead-with-weather openings put you on the same team.
2. Give them an action. Turn off any outdoor or porch lights for the next hour, that's what the swarm is heading toward. Close screens fully if any windows are open. Run the AC, which keeps doors shut. Vacuum the wings off the floor in the morning, we'll do it for you at 8am. A guest who can do something feels better than a guest who is told to wait it out.
3. Offer something tangible before the event is over. A $25 dinner credit, a bottle of wine on the lanai for tomorrow, a free late checkout. The cost is small. The story shifts from "the place had bugs" to "the host handled the bug night really well." That is the entire game.
The exact script our customer-service team has saved as a Slack snippet for the first guest message during a swarm:
Hi [name], I just got your note about the swarm. So sorry. Here's what's happening: a termite swarm hit the [neighborhood] coast tonight after the rain. Every property in the area is dealing with it for about the next 30 minutes. There's nothing we can spray for, but here's what helps: turn off any outdoor lights, close screens, run the AC. We'll be there at 8am tomorrow to vacuum and check all screens. As a small apology for the timing, we've added a $25 dinner credit to your account, valid anywhere on the island. Anything else we can do for you tonight?
Four sentences. Four moves: explain, sympathize, offer help, offer comp. We've measured the review impact across thirty-plus swarm events. Stays that hit a termite night and got this script averaged a 4.85. Stays that hit a termite night and got a defensive response averaged a 3.9. The difference is the script, not the bug.
What we don't do: minimize. The line "don't worry, the wings fall off in an hour and they all die" is technically true and feels dismissive. Anything that puts the burden of perspective on the guest reads like a lecture. Acknowledge first, action second, comp third. The biology is the answer to "why is this happening," not the answer to "how do I feel."
The same playbook handles other uncontrollable bug events we see: scorpion days after rain in Costa Rica, mosquito blooms after standing water on Kaua'i, the occasional carpenter-bee swarm on the lanai in late spring. The principle is identical, the bug is on the weather, not on housekeeping. The response is what the guest takes home.
A note to fellow operators
The biggest mistake we see operators make on bug calls is going defensive: "We just had pest control yesterday." Maybe true. Doesn't matter. The guest doesn't want a CV of your pest-treatment history, they want to feel taken care of right now. Acknowledge. Identify. Act. Follow up. The bug was here before any of us. The way we respond to it is the thing the guest takes home.
Aloha,
Billy O'
