Pest Control involves removing unwanted plants and animals that threaten health, safety and property. Integrated Pest Management (IPM) methods minimize the need for pesticides.
IPM begins with determining the level of damage at which action is needed, called a threshold. Next, preventive nonchemical practices are used to keep pest populations below the threshold. Click Here for more details.
Pest infestations are costly, pose health risks, and disrupt a comfortable living or working environment. They may also damage your property and contaminate food supplies. Preventative pest control measures offer numerous benefits, including substantial cost savings, improved health and safety for occupants by reducing exposure to allergens and diseases carried by pests, and valuable peace of mind.
Regular inspections of your property by a professional pest control technician enable you to detect potential problems before they escalate into full-blown infestations. They will check common entry points and areas of vulnerability, as well as conditions that attract pests such as moisture, food, or shelter. They will also address factors that discourage pests from thriving, such as sealing cracks and removing potential food sources.
Sanitation: Proper sanitation practices such as efficient waste management and careful food storage reduce attractants for pests. Keeping garbage bins tightly sealed and removing overgrown vegetation around your home can eliminate pest pathways, while washing linens regularly in hot water can kill bed bugs and other pests. Using dehumidifiers in damp areas helps to create a less conducive environment for pests, as can maintaining clean surroundings.
Exclusion: Sealing cracks and gaps prevents pests from entering your home or business. This is especially important for windows, doors, and utility openings. This can be accomplished by caulking and installing weather stripping. For outdoor spaces, repairing leaking pipes, eliminating standing water, and removing overhanging branches can be effective in preventing pests from nesting.
Habitat Modification: Removing or modifying habitats where pests thrive can help to deter them from invading your space. This includes reducing clutter and food residues on surfaces, and cleaning less obvious areas like under appliances and in the corners of rooms. Removing weeds and trimming shrubs can make your yard less attractive to rodents, while keeping water-retaining soil moist is vital for minimizing mosquito populations.
Understanding pests’ lifespans and life cycles is also an essential element of preventive pest control. Knowledge of the life cycle stages of pests, such as egg, larva, nymph, and adult, enables you to target intervention strategies at specific pest life stages, when they are most vulnerable.
Detection
Monitoring pests helps to ensure that a pest problem does not reach unacceptable levels and to evaluate the success of control measures. Monitoring can be done manually by scouting or trapping for insect, insect-like, and mollusk pests; weed pests are often monitored by visual inspection; vertebrate pests are typically monitored by tracking the damage they cause; and microbial pests are monitored by counting the number of damaged plants or monitoring disease symptoms.
Pests can damage crops and reduce harvest amounts, or they may contaminate food products or threaten human health. They can also carry diseases that affect humans, causing illness or making existing conditions worse. For example, rodents can contaminate food with their faeces and urine; birds such as seagulls and pigeons carry Salmonella and E. coli; and insects can contaminate medical equipment or cause infections in hospital operating rooms.
In order to monitor pest populations effectively, you must be able to accurately identify the type of pest you are dealing with. This is especially important in the case of invasive species, which can have severe economic and ecological impacts if they become established.
Detecting a new pest invasion is critical because the eradication of an invasive species is very difficult and expensive. Newly established pests can damage agriculture, natural resources, and the environment, reducing crop yields, increasing pesticide use, and threatening human health and quality of life.
To reduce the risk of pests becoming established in our county, we rely on a combination of prevention methods such as pest exclusion and detection trapping. These are based on the principle that it is much easier to prevent a pest from entering an area than to eradicate it once it has already established itself.
The most successful invasive pest interceptions are the result of partnerships with local residents and community organizations, who are willing to host detection traps on their property. These are usually baited with food or attractants such as specific pheromones, which can be used to lure the target pest and trigger its capture.
In addition to utilizing detection traps, it is important to perform routine pest inspections of buildings, landscaped areas, and other infrastructure. These inspections are important for identifying potential pest harborage areas, maintenance needs, sanitation deficiencies, and other factors that can lead to the establishment of a pest infestation. When conducting a pest inspection, it is recommended to use a flashlight and a magnifying glass to locate hard-to-reach places where pests hide, such as behind or beneath furniture.
Treatment
Once the pests have been identified, the technician will create a treatment plan for them. During this process, the technician will evaluate multiple factors, including the size of your property and the severity of the infestation. They will also consider whether any areas were not adequately treated during the previous service visit, and they will make adjustments accordingly.
During this step, the technician will use a variety of techniques to kill and repel the targeted pests. This could include spraying, baits, dusting, or trapping. In more severe cases, they may recommend fumigation.
The purpose of this step is to ensure that the pests are fully eliminated from your home and property. Once this is accomplished, the technicians will typically schedule a follow-up appointment to monitor the results. During this time, the technician will inspect the property for any lingering pest activity, as well as any new potential threats. They will also offer guidance on preventive measures, offering tips and advice on practices or modifications that will keep pests away from your library collection in the future.
In many cases, eradication is impossible, and the next best thing is to prevent the pests from re-entering the property. For this reason, the technician will provide recommendations for keeping pests out of the library collection through routine inspections and blocking any entry points into the building. This will include sealing any gaps and cracks, and recommending changes in landscaping to block the entrance of pests like termites and rodents.
It’s important to note that even when the goal is prevention, some pests cannot be tolerated at all. For example, rodents can contaminate food through their droppings, and birds can spread disease through their feathers or dander. These types of pests can also damage crops, devalue buildings and lawns, and irritate people with allergies or asthma. Ultimately, the decision to tolerate a pest or not depends on how significant of a threat it poses to your property and health. The bottom line is that you should never compromise your health and safety. Always act as quickly as possible when it comes to pest control!
Prevention
In many cases, pest infestations can be prevented with simple maintenance and sanitation measures. A good pest control plan starts with inspection and identifies conditions that make an area suitable for pest activity. The inspection includes identifying and locating food, water, shelter, and nest areas. The plan then recommends sanitary practices, exclusion methods (like traps and barriers), and treatments, whether chemical or non-chemical, to prevent pests from occurring.
Pests are organisms that damage or devalue crops, gardens, lawns, homes, and businesses. They can also transmit diseases to people and pets, as well as negatively impact terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Pests may be insects, fungi, bacteria, rodents, or vertebrates.
Prevention is the best approach to pest management, as it reduces the need for more intensive and hazardous treatments. This is the primary goal of integrated pest management, where prevention is prioritized over detection and treatment. Pest control methods that are effective include physical, cultural, biological, and chemical controls.
Physical controls can be anything from knocking a pest off plants with a spray of water, to using a rake or hoe to clear away fallen debris and infested leaves, to setting traps or barriers. Cultural controls include improving sanitation and removing debris, promoting soil health by fertilizing properly, and growing resistant species that are less attractive to pests. Biological controls use natural enemies or parasites to injure or consume pest populations. Chemical controls can be a last resort, and can involve targeted or broad-spectrum chemicals that kill only the target pest without harming beneficial insects and pollinators.
A combination of preventive approaches can greatly reduce the need for treatments and increase the effectiveness of those that are needed. Educating yourself about pests, their habits, and ideal habitats can empower you to take action. Keeping trash cans and other containers tightly sealed, removing clutter, maintaining landscapes by trimming trees, and sealing cracks in foundations or walls all help to make an environment less conducive to pests. Keeping water sources like leaking pipes or sprinklers in working condition can also be helpful, as pests are drawn to moisture.