The pest control industry offers a wide variety of treatment options. These include natural, biological, cultural, mechanical, and regulatory controls.

For example, mulching around plants can help keep them healthy and less attractive to pests. Regular trash removal with lids can reduce the likelihood of pests raiding your open bin. And reducing clutter eliminates places for pests to hide. Contact Pest Control O’fallon MO now!

Insects are generally considered to be pests when they injure or destroy crops, vegetables or fruits. But insects can also be beneficial from a human viewpoint. They pollinate plants, act as scavengers and control other pest insects. Their body parts and droppings enrich soil.

Most of the 1 million known insect species do not damage humans, buildings or crops. Some, such as honeybees and other pollinators, are considered important to our food supply. Others, like fleas, ticks and mites, cause discomfort for humans by feeding on them or spreading disease.

Pests may be controlled by destroying eggs or larvae before they mature, as well as spraying adults with insecticidal soaps, horticultural oils and neem oil, making sure that the entire surface is covered. In addition, row covers and reflective mulch can help prevent pests from entering a planting.

It takes time for most insecticides to reach full efficacy. Therefore, it is especially important to spray a pest when its population is low. This can be accomplished by examining egg clusters to determine when the bugs are about to hatch or by monitoring adults closely for signs of infestation.

Parasites kill other insects, and predators attack and consume them. The number of parasites and predators depends on the size of a pest’s population, as does the rate at which it grows. Therefore, it is very difficult to eradicate an insect infestation completely.

Nevertheless, a careful application of natural enemy organisms can significantly reduce the need for pesticides. The goal should be to keep pest numbers at a sustainable level through careful management of crops and landscapes.

Many commercially available “organic” pesticides are derived from extracts of plants or animals and do not contain synthetic chemicals. However, these products do not always provide effective control, and can be more hazardous to the environment, pets and people than conventional pesticides. In addition, they can require longer intervals between applications than do traditional insecticides. If organic insecticides are used, they must be applied as recommended in the label’s directions.

Rodents

Rodents are small mammals that make up the family Muridae, which includes rats, mice and squirrels. While rodents are important members of many ecosystems, they often become pests when they invade people’s living spaces and eat food, contaminate water, chew through wires and damage property. They also transmit diseases and act as hosts for fleas, which in turn spread rodent-borne diseases such as plague, hantavirus pulmonary syndrome and salmonella. In addition, they damage crops and landscapes by digging up and eating plant roots.

Rodent infestations are a common problem for homeowners and can occur due to easy access to food, water and shelter inside buildings. Rats and mice easily crawl through openings in vents, drainage pipes and sewer lines to get indoors, where they can find more food and nesting materials. They may also chew through wires, which is a major fire risk in the home. In fact, it’s estimated that 25 percent of all house fires attributed to unknown causes are actually started by rodent gnawing on wiring.

A typical large city receives tens of thousands of rodent complaints and performs tens of thousands of inspections and baiting services each year. The most common residential species of rodent are the Norway rat, the black rat and the house mouse. These are known as “commensal” rodents, meaning that they have adapted to share the same habitat with humans, using structures for food and shelter and feeding on the same seeds and grains used in human foodstuffs.

Rodents can cause significant problems in homes, including structural damage from gnawing and burrowing. They also contaminate food with their fur and urine, destroying it, and they can transmit disease, such as the bubonic plague that killed 25 million people in Europe in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

Rodents are difficult to control because of their adaptability and prolific reproduction. They are also leery of new things in their environment and can quickly learn to avoid traps. Taking measures to reduce the attractiveness of baits and rodent droppings, such as removing them promptly and thoroughly cleaning surfaces, can help prevent them from becoming wary of traps and other controls. It is also advisable to place traps in pairs or groups, and to use several different types of traps.

Bed Bugs

Bed bugs are a major problem in hotels, motels, apartments and homes. They require a constant supply of blood to grow and reproduce, which they get from sleeping people. Although they feed at night, the pests are active during the day as well, searching for a host. Their presence usually causes itchy welts and other symptoms in humans. These critters are notoriously difficult to eradicate. Their small size allows them to hide in a wide range of places, from seams and folds of mattresses to cracks in walls, bed frames and furniture. They also reside in drawers and cabinets, on door and window frames, in wood paneling and behind pictures.

Many household products, including bleach, alcohol, cigarette lighters and “bug bombs” (foggers), are ineffective against them and can actually be dangerous. Professional heat treatments are the most effective option; they destroy all stages of a bed bug and eliminate their eggs. The process is expensive and takes several hours to complete, but the results are permanent.

Cooperation by occupants during treatment is essential to a successful outcome. Bed bug treatment requires thorough inspection of rooms and adjacent areas for these mobile pests, which are often found in the crevices of beds, dressers, bedside tables and chair backs, closets, wallboards and wood framing, under loose wallpaper and in crowded rooms. Excess clutter should be removed, as this affords more hiding spots for the insects. Items that are heavily infested should be bagged or wrapped in plastic to prevent dislodging the pests on en route to a trash can or dumpster and to limit their spread.

Insecticides are generally used by professionals to manage a bed bug infestation; they are available in liquids, sprays and aerosols. The EPA’s product search tool can help you find one that is suitable for your home. Many of these products have specific instructions for use and require multiple applications to be effective, so it is important to follow the directions carefully.

Preventive measures include sealing cracks and crevices in which the pests can hide, checking luggage and clothing upon returning from a site where bed bugs may be present and washing all clothes and linens at the destination before bringing them home, and educating staff to inspect sleeping and seating areas. Some people suggest a mattress cover that keeps the pests from escaping during washing, while others advise putting shoes in an outside closet after leaving an infested hotel or hostel and decontaminating suitcases on arrival at home.

Other Pests

Other pests include those that damage crops or infest homes and other structures. Some of these pests transmit disease to people, pets or livestock. Diseases such as West Nile virus spread by mosquitoes and Lyme disease spread by ticks can be serious or even fatal. Others, like roaches and ants, cause itchy and frustrating infestations that can be difficult to get rid of without the help of an Ehrlich specialist.

There are many different ways to classify organisms as being pests, but one common approach is based on their impact on human activities. Pests interrupt normal processes such as growing, harvesting or eating and they can interfere with the function of ecosystems by disrupting the balance of populations of other organisms. Pests also pose a threat to health by spreading pathogens that can infect humans and animals with serious diseases.

Pests can be separated into groups according to their feeding habits. Defoliators that strip plants bare are one group, and caterpillars that consume entire leaves or plant parts are another. Leafminers dig tunnels into leaves and tell-tale signs of their presence include the creation of leaf galls. Another group includes gall makers that insert all or part of their bodies into plant tissue to form swollen areas, such as the alfalfa weevil and spruce gall aphid.

The Hymenoptera order contains insects that are social and live in colonies, such as honey bees, hornets, yellowjackets and wasps. Some species, however, are solitary and act as predators or parasites of other insect pests. These include parasitic bees and wasps, leafcutting bees, digger bees and stem sawflies (Borer et al, 1989). The Homoptera order includes the most important pest insects of agricultural crops such as aphids, scale insects, mealybugs, adelgids and psyllids, and the largest insects of all, the cicada.

Some solitary predatory and parasitic species are important natural enemies of crop pests. These natural enemies can be conserved to maintain their population levels or introduced in large numbers to suppress pests and reduce the need for chemical control. This is called biological control. Successful biological control involves the mass rearing of predators and parasitoids and periodic releases to the field, either on a seasonal basis or inundatively.

Identifying pests, their problems, and treatment options is essential to getting your problem under control. Take preventative measures by removing food, water and shelter sources; store garbage with tight lids and reduce clutter. Contact Pest Control Nampa now!

Insects

Insects are the largest group of arthropods (insects, spiders and lobsters). They have three pairs of legs, segmented bodies, and one pair of antennae. Many insects have piercing mouthparts to suck juice or plant material, while others have chewing mouthparts to eat leaves and stems.

Insect species have a huge impact on the global ecosystem. They pollinate plants, serve as decomposers, and control pest insect populations. Insects are also important food sources for animals and humans. Unfortunately, insects may be harmful from a human standpoint as well, causing direct injury by biting or stinging, or indirectly through their transmission of diseases.

The majority of insect species undergo complete metamorphosis, going from eggs to larvae, pupae and adults. However, a few insect species have incomplete life cycles. Insects with incomplete lives hatch from eggs into tiny nymphs that resemble the adult insect, but do not have fully developed wings. These insects injure plants by chewing on leaves, stems and roots, or by laying their eggs on them.

Some insects, such as the sandflies, salt-marsh mosquitoes and blowflies of cattle, can carry disease pathogens inside them that are then injected into plants through hypodermic feeding. In some cases, these pathogens cause significant crop damage.

Other insects injure crops by serving as scavengers or feeding on extrafloral nectar. Seed-treatments with neonicotinoid insecticides like imidacloprid, thiamethoxane and methyl bromide reduce populations of natural enemies of pest crops, including parasitoids, predatory mites, rove beetles and ladybugs. This, in turn, increases the population of herbivorous pest species [81]. Standard laboratory toxicity tests cannot detect these indirect effects; models (e.g., microcosms and mesocosms) are needed to evaluate ecological impacts.

Rodents

Rats are very adaptable and highly mobile pests that are extremely hard-wired to survive. They can find many ways to enter homes and businesses, including through openings in foundations, walls and roof cavities, ductwork, drains and vents and open doors. Their teeth can even chew through concrete! They also carry germs and diseases that can cause disease in people, such as salmonella poisoning in food preparation areas and leptospirosis, which causes fever, chills, muscle aches and headaches.

Rats and mice can also create fire hazards by gnawing on wires and can be a major asthma trigger. They also damage property and are a serious health concern, as their droppings can lead to rat-borne salmonella poisoning and the bacterial disease leptospirosis which can lead to meningitis.

Preventative measures include sealing pipes leading from outside water supplies, garden hoses and hot water tanks and adding door sweeps to garage or outbuilding doors. Store woodpiles well away from buildings and keep sheds clean to remove potential nesting sites. Keep weeds and dense shrubbery cut back to prevent rodents sheltering under them and keep compost heaps covered or in a lockable outbuilding. Make sure the roof is in good condition and that chimneys are capped.

Physical/mechanical controls include placing nontoxic monitoring bait blocks in tamper-resistant stations around the perimeter of buildings in areas where rats and mice are often found (e.g., food service areas, custodial closets, laundry rooms, garbage disposal area, crawl spaces, under sinks and sill plates). Visually inspect these areas on a regular basis for signs of rodent activity. Dispose of traps promptly and thoroughly wash hands after handling dead rodents. When using snap traps or repeating catch-all devices, place them in a “T” shape against baseboards and walls where mouse rub marks and droppings are present. Consider using a rodent-friendly bait such as chunky peanut butter, which is easier for children and pets to use than live bait.

Bed Bugs

Bed bugs are small, wingless insects with flat bodies that allow them to fit into tight spaces, like the cracks and crevices of headboards, box springs, and the seams of mattresses. Their coloration varies from mahogany to red-brown when unfed, and they are translucent rather than brownish black as nymphs (babies). These pests are difficult for homeowners to detect without professional help, because they tend to hide during the day and become active at night to feed.

While increased global travel is often cited as one of the main causes of the recent bed bug resurgence, lack of awareness and a “it will never happen to me” attitude also contribute to their widespread prevalence. Bed bug infestations can be extremely difficult to control once they occur because they are resistant to many of the most popular and widely used pesticides.

Some effective pesticides include pyrethroid sprays (look for the U.S. EPA registration number on the label), which must be applied carefully for safety and success, as well as baits that use insecticide-laden gel or granules to kill insects that ingest them. However, bed bugs are also tolerant of many common household products and can develop resistance to them over time. Aerosol “bug bombs” and total-release foggers are also largely ineffective against bed bugs.

To reduce bed bug populations, vacuum all areas that are prone to them on a daily basis and immediately seal and dispose of the vacuum bag. Wash all bedding, including curtains and clothes, in hot water and dry them on the highest dryer setting. Consider encasing your mattress and box spring with specially designed bed bug encasements. Installing interceptors under beds and furniture legs, which prevent the pests from crawling up the surfaces to access their hiding places, is another helpful practice.

Mosquitoes

The mosquito is a two-winged fly (family Diptera) that feeds on blood and transmits some diseases. Female mosquitoes need blood in order to produce eggs that will develop into viable adults. When a mosquito senses carbon dioxide from the host, she targets it with her mouthparts that are specially adapted for probing into skin and finding a capillary for sucking blood. Mosquitoes can be carriers of mosquito-borne illnesses such as encephalitis and West Nile virus.

A swarm of mosquitoes are commonly called a “mosquito cloud.” During the day, mosquitoes rest in and around vegetation and structures. At dusk and after dark, they are out searching for their next blood meal. Adult mosquitoes are most active during cool weather.

Mosquitoes breed in standing water and can survive only if they have adequate food. They can live for a few days or, in warm moist climates, up to several months. Most mosquitoes breed in domestic sources of standing water such as flower pots, discarded tires, and rain barrels. However, some species such as Aedes aegypti, the major vector of yellow fever, breed in natural water bodies such as swamps and marshes.

Mosquitoes have been found to hum, producing a harmony that may serve as a signal of potential mates. They also adjust their wingbeat frequency to match that of their conspecific in a mating dance. After mating, a female will then search for a blood meal in order to produce her eggs. In the process, she will contaminate her salivary glands with bacteria, viruses and other pathogens from her host’s blood. This can cause disease in humans, animals and plants. To help keep mosquito populations low, empty and clean bird baths, fountains, wading pools, swimming pools, and other containers with stagnant water. Keep yard areas free of piles of brush and debris where mosquito larvae can hide. Keep roof gutters clear and draining, and repair torn window and door screens. Consider introducing small native fish to ornamental ponds and other water gardens to consume mosquito larvae.

Fleas

Fleas are tiny, wingless parasites that survive by sucking blood from birds and mammals. They find hosts by sensing body heat and movement through a host’s skin, fur, feathers or hair. Pets are common carriers of fleas and can bring them into the home. Once inside, fleas can be difficult to spot. Observing your pet’s behavior is the best way to tell whether or not they are a carrier, as excessive scratching and biting indicate the presence of fleas. Inspecting your home and yard regularly can also help prevent a flea infestation.

Flea eggs are small and white, making them hard to see unless you are specifically looking for them. The larvae (maggot-like worms) are clear and look similar to dandruff. Larvae feed on dandruff, pet skin flakes, animal blood and their own feces, which they poop out in tiny pellets called “flea dirt.” Pupae are dark and look like ground pepper, often hiding in cracks or crevices in carpets and furniture.

Effective flea control requires a coordinated approach. Monthly applications of topical medications can protect pets by killing and repelling fleas. These treatments must be applied correctly and often. Vacuuming frequently helps remove fleas from pet bedding and other surfaces. Insecticides and growth regulators can be used in sprays, dips, or aerosols to kill adult fleas and stop them from laying eggs.

Infestations that are not addressed by a professional pest control service can quickly become out of hand. A flea infestation can be time-consuming to eradicate. Hiring a professional takes the problem off of your hands and allows you to focus on other tasks. In addition, pest professionals are trained to safely handle the chemicals and pesticides they use, removing the risk of illness from incorrect handling.