Accurate pest identification is critical to selecting an effective control strategy. Professionals understand how to use pesticides safely and effectively, without endangering people or property.
Prevention, suppression, and eradication are the goals of pest control. Prevention involves keeping pest numbers low enough to avoid unacceptable damage. Contact Exceed Pest Control now!
Rodents are a common household pest. You can tell if they’re present by rice grain-sized droppings or chew marks on surfaces.
The best way to deal with pests is to prevent them from entering in the first place. This can be accomplished by reducing food, shelter and water sources inside the home, as well as outside the structure. This includes regularly cleaning and sanitizing garbage cans, making sure doors and windows close tightly and keeping outdoor trash securely away from the house. It also means keeping the yard trimmed and free of overgrown weeds, bird feeders, compost piles and other areas where pests might be attracted to them.
Another important step is to seal cracks, rips and holes in the walls and foundation, as well as patch them when they’re discovered. This can prevent insects and rodents from finding entry points into the house, and it will keep their damage to a minimum. It’s also a good idea to install door sweeps and weather stripping, as well as trim branches and shrubs that are touching the house.
Other pest control measures include removing the attractants that bring in the pests in the first place. This can be as simple as eliminating crumbs left on kitchen benches or putting out bait stations for mosquitoes and other common pests, but it can also involve modifying the environment around the house to prevent its use by pests, such as placing netting over fruit trees.
Biological pest control involves the introduction of living organisms that can eliminate the invading pests, and this typically doesn’t involve chemicals. These organisms can be predators, parasites or pathogens, and they might work against the pests either individually or collectively. They may also help to break down the residues of chemical insecticides, which can have an adverse impact on humans and other animals.
Finally, enlisting the help of a pest management company is often the best way to fight unwanted critters. These professionals can inspect a property for signs of pests, including droppings and chew marks or other symptoms, and can suggest preventative measures like sealing gaps and setting traps. They can also monitor pest populations, and can recommend alternatives to chemical treatments if they’re necessary.
Suppression
When pest populations rise above tolerable levels, preventive steps must be taken to control them. IPM focuses on environmental factors that limit pest densities, including weather, topography and soil characteristics; natural enemies that injure or consume pests; physical barriers such as barriers and screens; and cultural practices that modify the environment to make it less suitable for pests (for example, using mulches for weed management).
Biological control involves conserving and releasing predators, parasitoids and pathogens to suppress pest insects. This can be accomplished by establishing permanent populations of these natural enemies, or by mass rearing and release on a seasonal basis or inundatively. Common examples of biological control agents are beneficial mites that suppress crop pests in orchards, parasitic nematodes that kill harmful soil grubs and wasps that parasitize greenhouse whiteflies.
Chemical pesticides are widely used to kill pests directly or to disrupt their reproduction and development. They can take the form of sprays, dusts or baits and are generally regulated by the EPA and designed to minimize harm to non-target organisms. Commonly used chemical pesticides include insecticides, herbicides and fungicides.
Physical pest control methods kill or block pests by making their environments unsuitable for them. This includes trapping, netting and blocking pests from access to food, water or shelter. It can also include steam sterilization of soil and mechanical controls such as rototilling and mulching for weed control.
In addition to these control techniques, homeowners can do their part to prevent pests by keeping exterior doors and windows shut; caulking cracks and crevices; removing trash regularly; sealing vents and chimneys; and cleaning up debris where possible. In addition, they can perform regular interior inspections to discover and close any entry points. And they can regularly clean and sanitize counters, cabinets and sink areas to remove food sources and attractants. Lastly, they can reduce their clutter to make it more difficult for pests to hide and thrive. If these steps are followed, a homeowner may be able to avoid the need for pesticides altogether. If pesticides are necessary, only a small amount is needed to knock down a population.
Eradication
The goal of eradication is to make the environment free from pests, and may include removal of all pests or the destruction of their breeding grounds. This is rarely attempted in outdoor pest control situations, but is a common goal for indoor environments. For example, eradication of flies, mosquitoes, and rodents is the focus of many public health programs, especially in developing countries.
For homeowners, a good start is to clean up the area around the house. This includes removing clutter such as stacks of paper or cardboard that serve as places for pests to hide. Keep food items in tightly closed containers and dispose of garbage regularly. Fix leaky plumbing and don’t allow water to collect in trays under house plants or the refrigerator.
A mowing and trimming regimen that keeps grass and bushes short is also important to prevent pests from nesting in these areas and moving into the house. Remove fallen limbs and woodpiles, and don’t let weeds overgrow.
Before you use pesticides, find out if the pest can be controlled without them. This step in pest control is important because eliminating the wrong species can disrupt natural ecosystems, leading to the extinction of other organisms that depend on the original population for food or shelter. It can also result in an imbalance in predator/prey relationships. For example, eliminating spiders can cause the number of parasitoids such as flies and wasps to decrease, which may allow other, more destructive insect pests to grow in numbers.
Eradication is rarely the desired goal in outdoor pest situations, because it is often difficult to achieve. Prevention and suppression are the preferred approaches. However, if an infestation is so severe that it threatens human health or the economic viability of agriculture or other activities, then eradication may be necessary.
When hiring outside people to help with pest control, ask them to find and correct the source of the problem before applying any chemicals. This is the best way to reduce the risk of using too much chemical, and it also helps ensure that the chemicals are used properly. If the person does apply pesticides, ask for the name and EPA registration number of the chemical, as well as its material safety data sheet.
Monitoring
Monitoring is the process of regularly checking your field, landscape, forest or building for pests and assessing their numbers and how much damage they’re doing. Also known as scouting, monitoring is the first step in determining whether or not you need to start controlling your pest problem.
A pest is any organism at any stage of its life cycle that poses a significant threat to human health, economic or physical environment. Pests can be small mammals (such as rats and mice), crawling insects (e.g., cockroaches and ants), flying insects (houseflies, fruit flies, fermentation flies, beetles and moths) or birds (such as pigeons and seagulls).
Pest control is the management of pests through cultural, biological and chemical means to prevent them from causing unacceptable loss to a crop. This can be achieved by understanding the behavior of a specific pest, identifying the best control options and applying these in an integrated manner. The key to success is continuous inspection and establishing action thresholds.
Thresholds are pre-determined limits below which pest populations or environmental conditions would not warrant the use of pest control methods. This is a fundamental concept within IPM and it allows for pest control to be initiated when needed, rather than on an arbitrary schedule or simply due to an unavoidable outbreak of pest activity.
Insect exclusion is the best way to limit pest infestations and can be accomplished by making all doors, windows, fan vents and air grilles tight-fitting with no potential entry gaps, installing self-closing warehouse or facility doors, putting metal strips in doorways or caulking cracks and crevices. If you can prevent pests from entering a food processing plant then you can avoid using pesticides that may have adverse effects on the environment or your employees.
Monitoring the amount of bait consumed in stored product pest traps can provide valuable insight into the level of infestation at your food business. If your rodent baits are consistently empty it could indicate that they’re no longer attracting rats or mice and should be changed. Likewise, regularly inspect and replace pheromone lures in fruit fly monitors to keep them effective.