Pests can damage homes, contaminate food, and spread diseases. Professional pest control companies identify infestation hot spots and create tailored treatment plans to lower risk.
Pest Control Burnaby BC involves using natural enemies to manage pest populations, such as by releasing predators, parasites, or disease agents. They can also include methods that manipulate a pest’s environment, such as pheromones or mating disruption.
Pest infestations can damage property and cause health issues for people, animals, and plants. They can also make a home or business unlivable. While many factors can contribute to the occurrence of pests, some preventive measures can be taken to reduce or eliminate pest infestations. Some of these include regularly cleaning spaces, sealing cracks, eliminating standing water, and practicing integrated pest management.
Pests are drawn to food, water, and shelter, so preventing access to these elements can significantly reduce the risk of infestation. This can be accomplished by keeping a space clean, both indoors and out. This includes regularly sweeping and vacuuming floors, storing foods in airtight containers, reducing clutter, and dumping garbage frequently.
Sealing cracks and holes can also be an effective preventive measure against pests, including rodents, ants, termites, and cockroaches. These pests are attracted to moisture, and cracks as small as the width of a pencil can serve as easy entry points for rodents. Leaky pipes, windows, doors, and roofs are other common pest entry points.
Eliminating standing water can be another effective preventive measure, as many pests, such as mosquitoes and roaches, are attracted to moist areas. This can be done by regularly checking the exterior of a building for any leaks and ensuring that gutters are functioning properly. It is also important to check the interior of a home or business for standing water sources, such as damp basements and crawl spaces.
Practice Integrated Pest Management
Although pests can be prevented, it is not uncommon for them to still infest a property. When this happens, it is vital to take the proper steps to control them, whether by using pesticides or other forms of insecticides. Whenever using chemicals, it is imperative to read and follow the product label. This will ensure the safety and effectiveness of the chemical, as well as limit any possible harm to humans or pets.
Certain odors can be telltale signs of a pest infestation, and noticing them early can help to avoid the spread of unwanted pests. For example, a musty smell can indicate the presence of mold caused by excess moisture, while a foul or ammonia-like odor may point to a rodent problem.
Suppress
Pests are more than just an annoyance: They may cause costly damage to crops and homes. They also carry pathogens and allergens that can harm people. That’s why it is important to keep pests from gaining a foothold in the first place. Here are a few prevention tactics:
Preventing pests from entering an area or inhibiting their spread to new areas is key to stopping them before they get out of hand. This is where simple assessments and actions come into play, such as preventing the transfer of firewood that might be infested with tree-killing insects or pathogens or ensuring that fields and home gardens are kept clean.
Many pests are controlled by natural enemies, which feed on or parasitize them. These predatory and parasitic species can be beneficial in keeping pest populations at manageable levels. Other natural controls include the use of nematodes, which are microscopic worms that attack and kill insect pests. Chemicals that affect a pest’s nervous system, metabolism, or reproduction systems can be used to control them as well. These chemicals are called chemical pesticides.
Physical barriers that kill a pest or make the environment unsuitable for it are often used to control pests. For example, traps for rodents, netting in greenhouses to prevent fruit and vegetable pests from getting into them, or mulch that reduces weed germination can help protect crops. Radiation, heat, and electricity can sometimes be used to control pests as well.
Changing the conditions of the plant or soil can often suppress pests, such as by using crop rotation and irrigation scheduling to avoid re-infesting fields or home gardens. Other controls include cleaning tillage and harvesting equipment between fields or operations, field sanitation procedures, and eliminating alternate host plants for insect pests and disease organisms.
The goal of pest control is to bring pests below damaging levels, which can be accomplished through prevention, suppression, or eradication. Prevention is preventing an unwanted pest from becoming a problem; suppression is reducing the level of a pest to an acceptable level; and eradication is completely destroying an undesirable population.
Control
Pests can cause costly damage to plants, infrastructure and buildings. They also pose a health threat to people and animals. In some cases, such as with rodents and mosquitoes, their droppings can carry diseases or cause allergic reactions. In others, such as termites and cockroaches, they can cause structural damage, eating away at wood and drywall.
While it’s impossible to stop all pest invasions, there are things that can be done to reduce their impact. For example, preventing pests from entering a building or facility by sealing cracks and caulking windows is an effective pest control measure. Identifying pests and tailoring the control method to their specific characteristics is another important factor. This reduces the chances of off-target effects and saves time, money and energy.
Physical methods of controlling pests include trapping them, applying heat or cold, or spraying them with insecticides. Biological pest control methods use living organisms to help eradicate the invaders, from natural predators and parasites to microorganisms such as nematodes and beneficial bacteria. These methods are less risky than chemical pesticides, but they may take longer to work.
Integrated pest management (IPM) is an approach to managing pests using prevention, suppression and control techniques that minimize the use of harmful chemicals. It includes scouting to monitor pest populations and their impacts, and making threshold-based decisions about when to apply control measures.
Regular IPM inspections can catch problems before they become a major issue and prevent them from spreading. For example, inspecting a golf course or landscaped garden regularly will help identify and correct conditions that make it more attractive to weeds or insects. For example, removing weeds that attract bugs, providing proper irrigation to discourage waterlogged soil, and installing barriers such as rocks or plants will all help prevent problems before they start. Similarly, applying a preventative pesticide to susceptible turfgrass when conditions are right can keep pests from overrunning the area. This is especially effective when used along with routine follow-up visits to monitor pest activity and treat new infestations before they grow out of control.
Eradicate
While many pests are bad for the environment or our health (like rodents, cockroaches and termites) some are actually good. Ladybugs and green lacewings eat aphids and other harmful insects that can damage plants, ground beetles kill caterpillars and slugs, bats control mosquito populations. So, when possible, try to live with these beneficial pests instead of eliminating them.
Before you start killing off the little critters, take a look at your home and figure out where they are coming from. This will help you plan a more effective approach to pest control. Look for signs of infestation such as droppings, mud tubes along foundation walls or wood damage. Also, have a close look at your property and the surrounding area for pest attractants such as wood piles, overgrown grass or open garbage cans.
Once you know what the problem is, it’s time to get serious about pest control. Infestation levels will determine how aggressive your approach needs to be. For a severe problem, more extreme methods may be necessary like trapping and spraying.
Pests enter homes in search of food, water and shelter. Eliminate these attractants and they will have no reason to come near. Keep your home clean by storing food in sealed containers and wiping down counters and floors daily. Make sure to drain dirty dish water and sweep up crumbs regularly. Remove any trash regularly and keep garbage cans with locking lids. Repair any leaky pipes both inside and outside the house.
When pests do enter the house, seal any entry points with caulk and steel wool. Inspect the outside of your house and around windows, door frames and utility pipes for cracks or holes that need to be caulked. Repair these areas as soon as you notice them. Also, pay special attention to garages and outbuildings as these are often the first place that pests find their way in.
If you do need to use pesticides, select the most environmentally friendly option available and follow all label instructions precisely. Remember that even the safest household products can be dangerous if used incorrectly. In addition, other animals or insects may be harmed by pesticides if they eat a dead bug that has been killed by a toxic chemical.