General Household Pest Control (GHP) Practice Exam

Inspection and monitoring are essential in IPM because they provide real-time information about whether pests are present, where they’re active, and how their populations are changing. This lets you detect pest activity early—before damage or economic loss occurs—so you can choose targeted, effective actions and apply them at the right time, often reducing the need for broad or frequent treatments. Ongoing monitoring also helps confirm whether a control measure worked and whether further action is needed, making the approach evidence-based and adaptive.

Data collection and record-keeping are part of monitoring, but the primary purpose is actionable insight to guide decisions about if, when, and how to intervene. It’s not limited to expensive pests or irrelevant to control decisions, and it’s more than just recording observations.