What Danger Does the East Asian Tick Pose to People in North Carolina?
Pest and Termite Control
Author: Miriam Caldwell
The Best Ways to Prevent Rodents
Prevent Rodents by Keeping Your Home Clean
Rodents are attracted to smells and readily available food. If you have a teenager that loves to leave food in their room or in the family room, you may be attracting the rodents into your home without realizing it. Doing the dishes each night and taking out the trash can help. Keeping your food stored in airtight containers and keeping your home free from clutter will also help prevent rodents from setting up a nest in your home.Prevent Rodents by Repairing Your Home
Rodents are opportunistic. They will take advantage of any weak areas in your home and work to find their way in. Be sure that you regularly check the areas where the pipes and drains come into your home, as this is often an easy access point. Your crawlspace and along your foundation can also give access as well as your roof and under the eaves. If you see weak wood or holes repair them to stop the rodents from coming in.Prevent Rodents by Addressing Your Property
Taking care of your property can help prevent rodents from finding their way into your home. If you have a lot of junk on your property, there are more places for them to hide. If you allow your lawn to become overgrown, you can also increase the chances of rodents hiding in the grass and then moving into your home as the weather becomes cold. If you keep the trees and bushes trimmed away from your home, you make it more difficult for the rodents to get into your home.Prevent Rodents by Covering Your Trash
It is important to make sure the trash stored outside of your home is covered and sealed tightly. Open trash cans or overflowing trash cans attract animals and rodents. Once they are on your property, they are more likely to move into your home and cause issues there. Keeping the cans closed tightly can make a big difference overall.What Is Crawlspace Encapsulation?
What Happens During Crawlspace Encapsulation?
The entire crawlspace is sealed off. The ground underneath the crawlspace is sealed off with a liner. It will go up to the wood of the home. If you have batting siding, it is usually replaced with board siding. This is helpful because it is more mold resistant. It can also do a better job of keeping your floorboards warm. The ductwork is changed so that the air from your air conditioner is now circulated throughout the crawlspace. This helps your air conditioner and furnace to work more efficiently since the outside air will not affect the system. The vents into the crawlspace are sealed off, and a special door is installed that will seal the space completely.Why Should I Consider This?
There are many reasons why crawlspace encapsulation is a good option. It can improve your air quality. A crawlspace that is not sealed off can become humid and it can cause the wood to rot, it can also cause issues with allowing old to grow which will affect the air inside of your home. This can also give your home an extra layer of protection against insects like termites or other pests that may invade your home. It keeps the wood in your crawlspace dry and away from the insects.Can I Do This Project on My Own?
There are a number of different steps that you will need to take and changes that you will need to make to a number of systems. It can take time, and if you miss one step or miss sealing one item, all your hard work may be for nothing. It is better to allow the professionals to take care of it for you. They can do it more quickly and make sure that everything is done correctly. They can address all the issues including possible drainage issues in the crawlspace that you may not recognize on your own. Although you may think that this is a costly project, it will save you money in your heating and cooling bills and in possible termite extermination and other repairs that can happen when your home is not properly cared for.Preparing to Sell Your Home After a Termite Infestation
Show Documentation of the Original Treatment and Findings
You need to keep copies of the initial inspection that showed the termite activity, as well as the treatment that was completed to eliminate the termites. This report can answer questions about the type of treatment that was used, and how extensive the termite damage was to the home. This gives your potential buyer a clear understanding of what the issues were.Be Prepared to Show Evidence of Repairs
It is important to provide documentation of the repairs that were made. It should show that all of the damage in the initial report was taken care of. You can provide the name of contractor or company that completed the repairs. This gives another layer of transparency which will help your buyer to feel more comfortable about buying the home.Explain Monitoring and Further Treatments
As part of the treatment, you will receive information on how long the termite treatment will last. You will also need to have continued monitoring done of your property to make sure there are no issues in the future. It is a good to have regular inspections done on your home. Depending on the type of treatment that you had done, you may need continued treatments. You should provide the type of treatment, and you should also give the name of the company that you used to complete this service. Many new home buyers will continue to use the same company, especially if the warranties from the initial treatment carry over.Schedule a New Inspection
You should schedule a free termite inspection as part of preparing to sell your home. This report will report on any current activity in your home by termites or other wood destroying organisms. If you have had regular treatments and inspections since your original treatment then this report should not show any problems. If it does show an issue, then you will need to have another treatment, and make any necessary repairs.What Are the Types of Termite Treatments?
Wood Treatment
One of the treatments is to treat the wood. This is done by spraying the wood with a termiticide. This treatment is good at treating the exterior of the wood, and it can be done on wood that is already in an existing structure as a way to eliminate termites. However, it does not penetrate to the center of the wood, which can still be eaten by termites. Pressure treated wood has the treatment saturate the wood more completely. Pressure treated wood is good to use in outdoor structures like your patio or your fence.Soil Treatment
Another way to provide a treatment is to treat the soil around your home. Soil treatment is often completed before a concrete slab is poured for a new building. This treatment is mixed and then poured into the ground at a depth of at least thirty inches. The insecticide is mixed with water and it saturates the soil. There is also the option of treating the soil around the exterior of your home once it is built. The treatment will be poured into holes and through a trench that surrounds the home. The holes need to be at least thirty inches deep. There are specific regulations about doing this to protect the environment and it is best to have a professional do it.Foundation Treatment
This is a very common treatment. Once termites are found in your home, a treatment is applied directly to the foundation of your home. The treatment is effective because termites will pass through it and carry it back to the colony and it will eliminate the queen and then the colony. If the foundation is a cinderblock foundation, the treatment needs to be applied on the inside of each void or hole in the cinder block. This does require drilling into it.Baits and Monitoring System
The final treatment is done through a monitoring system that installs baits around the property. The baits contain materials that naturally attract the termites. These stations are monitored regularly. If termites are found inside the stations, the cores are replaced with one that contains termiticide. The termites will take this back to the colony and eliminate the colony on your property so that it does not reach you home.Schedule an Inspection
One of the best ways to protect your home is to schedule regular termite inspections. You should schedule an inspection each year. If you notice signs of termite activity like mud tubes along your foundation, you should schedule an inspection right away. The sooner you catch a termite infestation, the more quickly you can stop the termites from damaging your home.5 Yard Projects to Prevent Termites
Termites are one of the insects that cause the most damage to homes around the world. In the United States, they cause billions of dollars in damages each year. Since termites actually chew through the wood, they can weaken the structure of your home and it is important to make repairs as quickly as possible. Here are four yard projects, you can do to prevent your home from developing termites.
Clear Out Old Wood and Stumps
Termites like to eat old wood. If you have fallen trees in your yard or old tree stumps, you are practically sending out an invitation for termites to come into your yard, and when they have finished eating the old fallen trees, your home may become the next target. It is worth the extra effort to clear your home of old wood and branches. This can lower the chances of you having termite activity in your home. You may need to hire someone to come into take care of any stumps in your yard, but you should be able to clear up the rest.Create a Cement Pad for Firewood
Stacking firewood directly against your home gives termites easy access to your home. They can crawl through it and up into your home. It is best to stack it away from your home. Putting in a cement pad to stack your wood on can add an extra layer of protection. The termites are less likely to find your firewood, and it gives you an additional layer of protection against termite activity. You can also cover the firewood to prevent it from getting termites or other insects in it. Then you do not need to worry about bringing termites in with your firewood.Replace Old Wood Structures in Your Yard
If you are building any structures in your backyard, you will need to use treated wood. Your decks, sheds, and play structures all need to be built out of treated wood. Treated wood can last up to twenty years, but if your structure begins to show signs of damage it is important to replace it. If you have structures built without treated wood, you need to take steps to begin replacing those structures around your home.Pay Attention to the Plant Beds Around Your Home
It is important to carefully plan and treat the ground that directly touches your home. Avoid using mulch in the flower beds that touch your foundation. Termites will eat the cellulose in the mulch and then move up to your home. If you have bushes or shrubbery around your home you need to keep it trimmed back so that it does not touch your home. The termites can crawl up the plants and access your home that waySet Up Monitoring Stations Around Your Yard
There are monitoring stations that allow you to check for termite activity on your property. EcoTek has chemical free monitoring stations that are made up of wood, cardboard and cellulose. They check the stations quarterly and if there are signs of termite activity, they can begin to take the necessary steps to treat for termites. If you notice signs of termites around your home, like long grooves in wood or mud tubes on your foundation, you should contact the experts at EcoTek to schedule a termite inspection and possible treatment.How Do I Get Rid of Cockroaches If I Live in an Apartment?
Contact the Landlord
If you contact the landlord, you can request that the entire building (including the crawlspace) be treated by a cockroach exterminator. Then request that regular exterior treatments be completed. This should clear up any infestations that are currently in your building, and the exterior treatments can help to prevent any new cockroaches from coming in. If your landlord will only treat one apartment at time, the cockroaches will just move from space to space and continue to be a problem.Eliminate Food Sources
If you have a clean home, you are less likely to have issues with cockroaches, even if your neighbors are still having issues. Be sure to store your food in airtight containers. Clean up any crumbs left over after eating or preparing a meal. Be sure not to leave any dirty dishes in the sink or out on the counters, especially overnight. Take the trash out every evening. Be sure that your interior trash cans have a tight-fitting lid to prevent the roaches from finding them.Check the Apartment for Ways for the Roaches to Get In
Cockroaches can live on the interior of the walls. If there are any holes in the walls an electrical cover that is loose or off or cracks around the baseboards, you will need to have them repaired in order to stop the roaches from coming in. You can request the landlord to make the repairs or ask for permission to do them yourself. Check along the windows and door frames to see if there are cracks. The windows may need to have caulking applied to them. You can apply weather stripping to the door to plug any cracks that may be leading out. Check your kitchen counters to make sure they are flush to the wall. You may need to apply caulking there to stop roaches from living in the spaces between the cabinets and the wall. Image courtesy of Toby Hudson (CC by -SA 3.0)5 Places You Can Pick Up Bed Bugs
Bed bugs are a growing problem around the United States. They are becoming more common in homes and in businesses. They are also hard to deal with because they have become more resistant to a number of chemical treatments, and they are very good at hiding. Even before you can start the process of eliminating bed bugs, it’s important to know how to check for bed bugs since they can go up to a month without feeding which may make it difficult to determine if you have a problem initially. Here are five places you may inadvertently pick up bed bugs.
1. Hotels
Hotels are the most likely culprit of picking up bed bugs and bringing them home. It is important to check your room before you stay and your luggage before you leave and when you get home. Look at the headboard and the bedding for droppings and rust colored stains. If you travel a lot you may want to invest in a luggage heater that can eradicate anything you might have brought home from you on the trip.2. Gyms
Gyms are another area where it is easy to pick up bed bugs. People will bring their gym bags into the gym and leave them in a locker, on the floor or even on top of the lockers. The bed bugs crawl out of their bag and into yours. Then you unknowingly bring the bed bugs home with you. If you hear reports of bed bugs around your gym, you may want to leave your gym bag at home and travel to the gym in your exercise clothes. Bed bugs do not travel on people so you should be okay.3. Schools
There are have been reports of bed bug outbreaks at schools around the country. This is usually the result of one the students bringing bed bugs with them when they have a problem with them at home. The bed bugs wander out and then start infesting the building. Students may end up bringing them home in backpacks. Schools may put a ban on all backpacks to try to stop the infestation.4. Second Hand Furniture
Another way that people end up catching bed bugs is after buying secondhand furniture. They may not realize that the furniture is infested. Bed bugs can also live in couches or hide in headboards or cracks in bookshelves. It is important to thoroughly inspect anything that you do buy second hand and possibly treat it before you bring it into the home.5. Moving into an Infested Apartment
Another way that you may end up with bed bugs is if your new apartment or condo is already infested with bed bugs. It is important to check your home and especially the baseboards in the bedrooms before you move in. You may request that your landlord treat for them before you move in if you live in a part of the country that has a bed bug issue.Characteristics of a Fire Ant
Fire ants are an invasive species that are spreading throughout the United States. They first arrived in Alabama during the 1930s. They caught a ride on boats from South America. They spread quickly and are quite an aggressive species. It’s important to be able to identify the type of ants you have before you can determine the right treatment for killing them.
Appearance
Fire ants are black and red in color. The worker ants have mandibles that they can use to bite victims. There is also a stinger on the abdomen. They have three clearly segmented. The fire ants are between to 2 mm to 6 mm in size, which is about a fifth of an inch in length. The fire ants also have large eyes and segmented antennae. There are three teeth on the front of the head.Fire Ant Mounds
Fire ant colonies are quite large. They can be up to two feet in diameter and up to eighteen inches in height. They are different from other mounds because they will not have a hole in the top of the mound. They will enter through tunnels that are along the side of the mound. If you are treating the mound, they will leave through the tunnels, which can extend up to twenty-five feet away from the mound. They tend to be in a sunny area where they can find water outside. The colonies can include up to 500,000 ants. When the colony gets large, they may sound out new queens and males to establish a new colony. When faced with an infestation, it’s best to kill the fire ant colony as quickly and thoroughly as possible.Fire Ant Behavior
Fire ants will bite and sting when threatened. When they do this, they release a pheromone that signals there is danger and all of the ants will attack you. They can do this is a swarm, and the number of bites can cause a serious allergic reaction. It may seem like they have a signal to attack all at once, and in a way they do, though usually it is a self-defense attack. They like to feed on dead animals, living insects and honeydew. They will also eat sweet foods, fats and proteins from your home. Although fire ants can plague your yard, read some facts about carpenter ants and how they can be detrimental to your home.4 Dangers of Rodent Infestations
Rodents are more than just an inconvenience. They can spread a number of diseases and create problems that can affect you and your family. Once you understand the dangers of a rodent infestation, you will understand why you must act quickly to deal with the infestation and prevent a new one from happening. Learn the five dangers of rodent infestation.