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Pest Problems
Few ant problems are solved without chemical control of some kind, but there are some non-chemical control measures which you can take to minimize your problem. Inside: 1. Make food inaccessible to the insects: Store food in tight-fitting containers, such as mason jars or Rubbermaid containers. 2. Clean all surfaces in the kitchen and keep the floors cleaned and vacuumed to get up anything that ants could use for food. 3. Rinse any food containers before disposing of them in the garbage. 4. Caulk any cracks through which ants could enter your house from the outside. Outside: 1. Check your house from the outside to make sure there are no cracks or holes through which ants could enter your house. 2. Remove anything around your house that could serve as a nesting site for ants such as lumber, firewood, or any excess debris. 3. Be aware that heavy ground cover such as ivy and thick mulch provide a perfect nesting site for ants. If ants are a problem for you, you may need to consider replacing these with something less inviting to ants. 4. Keep branches of trees and shrubs from touching the siding of the house. They provide an easy way for the ants to get up high on your siding where they may find a way of getting inside. There are many different species of ant which can become pests. If you need help getting rid of ants, call us. We will ID the particular ant you are seeing and then do a thorough inspection. We will then tailor a control program to your particular situation.
If you are finding blood spots on your sheets, have bites that you can't explain in the morning and maybe even smell a pungent sweet smell in sleeping areas, you may be experiencing bedbugs. Bedbugs are about a quarter of an inch long. They are flat and oval shaped and a dark red color. During the day they hide in cracks near whoever they are biting at night. They can hide in cracks in the bed, the mattress, the furniture nearby, the baseboard, etc. For many years bedbugs seemed to be a thing of the past, but recently there has been an upsurge in their populations in the United States. Bedbugs require a thorough inspection and very thorough and careful treatments to eradicate them. A professional should be called in to deal with this problem.
Wasps and Hornets: Yellow jackets and hornets build paper nests with a film all the way around them. Yellow jackets build their nests underground. European hornets build these nests inside of attics and wall voids. Baldfaced hornets hang their big round nests from the branches of trees. These insects can be nuisances when they forage for food in areas where people may be out having a picnic. They can develop very large colonies and they will defend them aggressively. We treat wasps' nests and remove them whenever possible. Honey Bees: Honey bees are fuzzy round bees about a half an inch long. They are a yellow/brown color and they have stripes on their abdomen. They have two sets of wings. The back wings are shorter than the front wings. Because honey bees are such important pollinators, we refer people who call with honey bee problems to a beekeeper. Beekeepers can draw honey bee colonies out of houses.
These flat black and red insects often
congregate on the sides of houses and trees in the early fall looking
for safe places where they can overwinter. They will overwinter in
leaf piles, under the bark of trees and anywhere else where they can
find refuge. If they succeed in getting through any gaps you may have in
your siding, you may see them inside every so often throughout the
winter. Some preventative measures can be taken:
Carpenter ants are large ants whose workers range in size from about a quarter of an inch in length to almost half an inch. The queens are even larger. These ants are usually black, but some in the East here are also red and black. Carpenter ants excavate wood to create a home for their colony. Often they live in old trees or tree stumps, but sometimes they can find their way into a house. They are most attracted to wood that has experienced moisture damage, but they will also use sound wood for their colonies. These are some measures that you can take to help prevent carpenter ant problems in your home: 1. Get rid of any moisture problems in the house. Make sure leaks are fixed, condensation of pipes is limited, and the gutter system is working well draining the rain off of the roof and away from the foundation. 2. Store firewood well away from the house and elevate it off of the ground to help to keep it sound. Knock any insects off of the firewood as you bring it inside the house. 3. Cut back branches that touch the house, as they can be used as bridges for ants to cross. 4. Close up any place through which ants could enter the house: caulk up gaps, holes, or any other possible entry point for the ants. Once a carpenter ant colony becomes established, it can be difficult to get rid of. Treatment Strategies: 1. Termidor and Phantom In recent years a new tool has become available to the pest control industry for carpenter ant control as well as other nuisance ants.
2. Baiting There have been some excellent ant baits put out in the past several years and, depending upon the needs of the colony at the time, results can be impressive. 3. Direct Treatment of Colony The direct treatment of the colony with an insecticide also works, of course. Sometimes, however, finding the colony within a house can be difficult, and it is not unusual for there to be more than one satellite colony in a house both of which are connected to a larger "parent" colony out in the yard.
The most common kind of centipede found inside a house here in the East is the house centipede. It is a yellowish to dark brown insect with 15 body segments and a pair of legs to each segment. It usually hides in moist areas during the day and comes out at night to hunt for insects. It preys upon other insects such as flies and spiders, so if it can be tolerated, it can offer some level of biological pest control. Many people don't like the looks of it though, and it often does travel quickly across floors or walls when it comes out. If you want to get rid of these buggers, there are some things that you can do yourself. 1. Clean up any clutter in which the centipedes may find hiding places. Vacuum up any centipedes that you find in the process. 2. Correct any moisture problems which may be making your home attractive to centipedes and other insects. 3. Outside, remove any, boards, boxes, wood piles, stones, or other things which may be up against the house. 4. Inside, place glue traps, especially in dark corners, in the areas where you have seen the centipedes. If these measures do not take care of the problem for you, then chemical control could be considered an option.
If you have roaches, chances are, you will need a professional. In a cockroach control program, we begin by thoroughly inspecting the premises. In our inspection we find the areas where the roaches are hiding. We schedule a time to come back and treat those areas where the roaches hide with insecticides, including baits and insect growth regulators. It is necessary for some time to monitor the situation and to treat as necessary. Cockroaches are elusive and they reproduce very quickly, especially the German cockroach. There is a lot that the homeowner or tenant in a house with a cockroach problem can do to help with control measures. Sanitation is crucial. As much as possible, the roaches need to be denied food, water and places to hide. These measures are a necessary part of any roach control program: 1. Store your food properly: Keep food in containers that close tightly and cannot be chewed through by roaches. Cardboard and paper are not roach proof. Rubbermaid and mason jars probably are. 2. Clean consistently and thoroughly. Concentrate on areas where grease accumulates, such as ovens, stoves, drains and vents. 3. Remove stored items that are not necessary, especially boxes and bags which provide a perfect hiding place for roaches. 4. Keep your garbage in a covered garbage can which can be snapped down firmly after something has been put into it. 5. Caulk cracks where the roaches can hide. The adult German cockroach can fit in a crack as narrow as 1/16 of an inch. Plugging up these hiding places reduces the carrying capacity of your home for cockroaches. 6. Denying the roaches water can be harder, but some things can be done. Repair any leaky pipes and faucets, put the pet's water dish away at night, ventilate moist areas, and do anything else that you can think of to make water hard to find for the cockroaches. German: German cockroaches are about a half an inch long when they are fully grown and a light brown to tan color. They have two dark parallel lines on the area just behind the head. German cockroaches are the most common household pest in the United States. They can increase their numbers very quickly and can therefore be hard to control. It is usually necessary to hire a professional to take care of such a problem through a complete cockroach control program. Oriental: Oriental roaches are about an inch long and dark brown to black in color. They are sometimes called "water bugs". They live off of all kinds of organic matter and filth. They are common in high moisture areas such as sewers, drains and damp basements. They tend to move sluggishly and are usually located at or below ground level indoors. American: The American cockroach is the largest common species in the United States. It grows to one and a half inches or more in length. It is reddish brown and has a brown or yellow border near the head. American roaches are not common in homes. They prefer warm damp locations such as steam tunnels and boiler rooms. They do fly, and can migrate from building to building. Brown Banded: Brown banded cockroaches are about a half an inch long and a light brown color. They have two light yellow bands running around their bodies. They prefer a warmer and drier environment than the German cockroach. They can be found throughout houses, not necessarily limiting themselves to warm and humid areas the way German cockroaches tend to. Pennsylvania Wood: These are brown cockroaches about an inch long which have a white edging around the section behind the head. They live outdoors, but because the male is attracted to light and because of their need to over winter in protected areas, sometimes they can invade structures. They cannot survive inside. If some of these roaches have found their way inside, vacuum them up and seal up the entry point where they found their way in. Locate lights away from the house or replace standard light bulbs with sodium vapor bulbs. If you find you cannot fully exclude these bugs, they can be treated with insecticides.
Fleas are small insects, about 1/8 of an inch long and flattened on the side. They can jump about six inches straight up, allowing them to attach themselves to a cat or dog, or, heaven forbid, to your leg. If you have fleas in your house and you have cats or dogs, applying Frontline to your animal will go a long way toward controlling the fleas in your house. Adult fleas prefer to stay on the host when possible. Frontline kills any of the fleas who go on your cat or dog to have a blood meal. After you put the Frontline on your animal, it will kill the fleas on him or her. Then you have to wait for all of the eggs that have been dispersed around your house to hatch, and for the fleas to go through their larval and pupal stages. This can take up to four months depending on various conditions. It may be necessary to continue giving your animal Frontline during that period of time. Consult your veterinarian. If you are experiencing a flea problem and you do not have any animals, you need someone to apply a pesticide and an insect growth regulator to all of the floor areas of the house, especially the areas where the problem seems to be occurring the most. Many preparations are necessary before the application should be made. These are the necessary preparations: 1. Remove all toys and other items from floor surfaces. This includes under furniture such as beds and the floors of closets. 2. Vacuum all of the floors, including under furniture, in closets and concentrating on floor to wall junctures and the areas where the pet or pets rest. 3. Also vacuum furniture such and couches and easy chairs, especially under cushions. 4. Vacuum drapes. 5. After you're done with all of the vacuuming, remove the vacuum cleaner bag and dispose of it immediately in a plastic bag outside. 6. Clean wood or tile floors thoroughly. 7. Wash or get rid of pet bedding. 8. If you are preparing for a chemical application, keep in mind that aquariums must be turned off before the treatment is made. 9. All animals must be removed from the premises and returned only after the area is totally dry and ventilated. 10. If the yard is to be sprayed, cut the lawn before the application. 11. If the yard is to be sprayed, remove any clothes from the clothes line before the application. If you do plan on having your house sprayed with pesticides for flea control, your animal needs to be "dipped" on the same day. If the animal is taking something orally to avoid fleas, your vet must be consulted before you have any pesticides applied to your house. Your pet may need to stop taking it for some time before any pesticide application to avoid health problems. If you want to try the less-chemical route, I have read that some people have had some luck in steam cleaning their carpets. I say "less chemical" because for effective control, an insect growth regulator for fleas would still have to be applied. Supposedly, the steam cleaning kills the adults, and the larval and pupal stages of the fleas, but it may not kill the fleas which have not hatched from their eggs. The fleas which emerge from the eggs would be exposed to the insect growth regulator and thus could not mature into reproducing adults. This steam cleaning method would require a lot of follow up to avoid re-infestation. If you try this method, please e-mail me or call to let me know what your experience is like. I am open to all new ideas, but at the same time, I want to provide an effective service for my customers.
There are many different species of flies which can become pests where they are in a home. The larger ones include house flies, blow flies or cluster flies. There are also the small flies such as the fruit fly or the phorid fly. I am only mentioning some of the most common species. Flies are usually considered only to be a nuisance, but because they breed in and feed on decaying organic matter where bacteria is abundant, they can and do transmit disease as well. A fly control program should 1. Correctly ID the fly 2. Identify conditions which need changing, example: move dumpster away from back door, seal up cracks through which flies enter, etc. 3. Figure out where flies are breeding and change conditions to make breeding impossible. (Example: clean organic material out of drains in which phorid flies are breeding.) 4. Follow through with any chemical treatments necessary. 5. Change lighting on the outside of the building to attract fewer flying insects 6. Install lights traps which intercept many of the flies which come into a building; this is a measure usually limited to commercial situations. 7. Continue to inspect and evaluate.
The insect which has made itself a nuisance in Pennsylvania and other areas in the past several years is not actually a classic "lady bug". It is a multicolored Asian lady beetle. They were first spotted in our area in 1993. They can become a nuisance in the fall when they are looking for a place to overwinter. The best thing to do to keep these beetles out of the house is to seal up all cracks around windows, doors, utility openings and under wood fascia or any other cracks or openings which may exist. Silicone or silicone/latex caulk works well. Repair any damaged screens and cover any exhaust vents or other openings with number 20 or smaller screen mesh. An application of a liquid insecticide to the areas where the beetles may enter can offer some relief if it is timed correctly in the Fall. Once the beetles get in, applications of insecticides inside the home are not advisable. If the voids where they are overwintering are found and treated, it will leave a lot of dead beetles in the wall void which can serve as food for other insects like carpet beetles. If you can figure out where the beetles are coming into the living spaces, caulk up these gaps through which they are coming. If not, black lights with sticky traps can be used with some success in living spaces to attract and capture the beetles. Otherwise, simply vacuum the insects up as you see them.
I am not one to raise alarms about most pests in my personal life. I tolerate some ants and spiders in my yard and respect them as a necessary part of my local ecology. That tolerance does not extend to mice and rats. There are very important concerns that I need to relate to you about these commensal rodents. Most important are the health concerns. More than half, or up to 69% of mice are infected with the LCM virus which causes lymphocytic choriomeningitis and is also a causal agent of acute aseptic meningitis. I am quoting Olkowki, Daar and Olkowski in their book, Common Sense Pest Contol. Mice are also associated with many other human pathogens. Rats are carriers of human plague, salmonellosis, infectious jaundice and others. Both rats and mice damage food by feeding on it, and urinating and defecating in it. Between a fifth and a third of the world's food supply does not reach the table because of losses due to rodents. Mice and rats both need to gnaw to keep their front incisors short. They gnaw anything they can reach: upholstery, books, papers, bone, lead, wires. Fires of "unknown cause" have undoubtedly often been caused by such gnawing. I want it to be clear that if you are experiencing a mouse or rat problem, the problem needs to be taken seriously and addressed. The following are some steps to take if you are finding that you have a problem. First, you need to know what you are dealing with. Here are the most common species of mouse and rat that cause problems for people. The House Mouse:
The most common mouse which you may find inside of your house is the house mouse. The adult is about three and a half inches long. The ears are large and the tail is semi naked and about as long as the body and head put together. Under the best conditions, female house mice can have litters every 40 to 50 days. There are six young mice in the average litter. Those young mice can breed once they are 35 days old. A small mouse problem can become serious in a few months time. If you don't actually see the mice themselves, you can recognize them by their droppings which you may find in corners, near food, in drawers, or anywhere that the mouse explores. The droppings are 1/8 to 1/4 inch in length and have pointed ends. The Norway Rat:
This is the most common of rats. It is large: the body and head are from seven to ten inches long and the tail is another six to eight inches beyond that. It is thick bodied and has coarse, shaggy fur. The eyes and ears are small and the nose is blunt. Norway rat droppings average 3/4 inch in length. If you see droppings, you know the rats have been there. Another sign to look for is gnawing damage. Rats will gnaw holes 2 inches or more in diameter in wooden structures such as door corners, joists of flooring and ceilings, etc. Rats burrow in hidden areas next to foundations, under debris and shrubbery. In buildings, a favorite nesting place for rats is the closed space under the first floor. Next, you need to make life as hard as you can for the mice or rats by denying them food and hiding places. 1. Store food, birdseed, pet food, and compost in rodent-proof containers. (Glass, ceramic, metal, or heavy duty plastic with tight fitting lids). Mice and rats have powerful teeth and can gnaw through strong materials. 2. If you have a bird feed, clean up any spills promptly. 3. Clean garbage cans and dumpsters regularly. 4. Feed pets at scheduled times and then put their food away into the refridgerator. 5. Clean up spills and crumbs promptly. 6. Elevate compost piles, or surround them with 1/4 inch wire mesh. 7. Avoid storing items on the floor. Remove clutter. 8. Move firewood, garbage cans, and debris away from the house. Get rid of existing populations. This is where we could help you out if you are experiencing a problem. We offer both trapping and baiting programs. Exclude the rodents. 1. Keep doors closed. Make sure the doors fit tightly in their frames, and if you need to, install door sweeps or weather stripping. 2. Repair holes in walls and screens. 3. Seal openings under and behind appliances with latex caulk. Seal gaps around pipes, heat registers, air ducts, etc. 4. Seal larger holes around pipes with hardware cloth. 5. Make sure all the vents leading to the outside of the house are in tact. If they are damaged, replace them, or install screens to the outside ends of them.
If you see a bunch of small moths flying in your kitchen or pantry area, or if you see tight webbing in the corners of your cabinets, perhaps underneath the shelves, you may have a stored product pest problem. There are many kinds of stored product pests. It is usually the larval stage of various kinds of moths and beetles that infest stored food. 1. The first and most important step is to correctly ID the insect. All of the following steps will be based upon what insect you are experiencing. 2. Based upon that information, the search for the infested material begins. It could be pet food, flour, old bags of nuts, ornamental corn, etc. 3. Once the infested material is found, it must be removed and put in a sealed plastic bag in the outside garbage. 4. Next, it may be necessary to treat the area where the infested material was found with an insecticide and an insect growth regulator to head off any insects that may have spread out beyond the original infestation and be in the pupal or adult stage. 5. Monitoring should continue for several months to measure the effectiveness of the control measures. Phermone traps can be especially useful in watching for stored product pests. The "phermone" is a chemical that the insects themselves use to attract each other, either for reproductive or gathering purposes. The phermone traps attract stored product pests in the immediate area. It is possible to detect a problem using these traps before it is otherwise noticeable. PREVENTION 1. Check all of the food that you bring into the house. Check the packaging to make sure there are not any small holes where insects may have entered. 2. Empty bulk foodstuffs into sealed glass jars or tightly sealed containers that are too tough for beetles to penetrate. Mason jars with the rubber gaskets are perfect. Rubbermaid or something similar may also work. Sometimes, insects emerge from seeds and grains which were not evident when you first put the food away. If it is sealed inside of a jar, then you will be sure that it is limited to that jar and it will be easy to get rid of. 3. Keep the cabinets and pantry clean. Vacuum or sweep up any spilled food or crumbs. Keep your kitchen as clean as possible, and all kinds of pests, including the ones that infest food, will have a harder time surviving in your house.
The most common termite here in the northeast is the eastern subterranean termite. Colonies of these termites exist underground and they feed off of wood that they find in the ground; tree root systems, old scrap wood, fence posts, and sometimes, a house. The workers stay in the ground. They need the moisture of the earth around them to survive. They access wood which is directly in contact with the ground, or when necessary they find their way to wood by forming mud tubes between the ground and the wood that they seek.
Termite swarmer vs ant swarmer In the spring colonies of termites often "swarm" or send out winged reproductive termites to find an area to begin a new colony. The appearance of these winged termites indicates the presence of an existing termite colony somewhere in the vicinity. Winged ants are often mistaken for termites. The pictures above illustrate the differences between the two. The one on the right is an ant. Under its wings it has a pinched waist and if you look at the antennae, you can see that the ant's have an elbow in each, whereas the termite's is straight. The wings of a termite are about twice as long as its body. The wings tend to go straight back from the body when the termite is at rest. The ant's wings go slightly to the side at an angle and are not as long in relation to the rest of it. We do not do termite control at Professional Pest Control Service, but we can give you advise about termites and their control.
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