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Pests are animals, birds, or insects that contaminate food, spoil buildings, and create health risks in homes and commercial environments. Contact Abbotsford Pest Control now!
Always read and follow the product label’s instructions when using chemical pest control products—store pesticides out of the reach of children and pets.Â
Identifying the Pest
Pest identification is the first step in developing a pest control strategy. It provides important information about the pest, such as its biology and life cycle, environmental factors that favor it, and management tactics that can be used to prevent or control it. Proper pest identification can also help minimize injury to beneficial organisms when applying a control method.
Identifying the pest is an important part of integrated pest management (IPM), a comprehensive approach to pest control that utilizes biological, physical, cultural, mechanical, and chemical methods. IPM programs start with monitoring the presence and damage caused by a pest to determine the need for control measures.
In the case of pests that directly impact human health or safety, such as rodents and cockroaches, monitoring includes inspecting the home for signs of infestation, such as droppings and odor. Prevention steps include removing food and water sources such as garbage and compost piles, regularly resealing cracks in the foundation, and ensuring adequate drainage in basements.
A pest’s appearance can change dramatically depending on the time of year and stage in its life cycle. Many species also experience significant changes in their behavior during the same period of time. For example, weed seedlings may look different than mature plants, and a bumblebee might have more aggressive behavior when it is defending its nest from other bees. This is important to keep in mind because it can affect a person’s ability to identify the pest, and therefore, plan a control strategy effectively.
Monitoring the population of a pest can be done by checking fields, landscapes, forests, or buildings to determine what kind of damage is being caused and by which pests. This can be done at any time of the year and can provide valuable information about the pest, such as whether it is a continuous pest that needs to be controlled, or a sporadic pest that should only be controlled in certain seasons. Monitoring can also help identify a threshold, which is the point at which a pest becomes a nuisance and requires control.
Prevention
Pests are more than just unwelcome visitors to homes and businesses. They also bring germs, diseases and even structural damage to buildings. Pest control is the process of addressing these problems before they become serious and expensive to fix. The most effective way to reduce pests is to prevent them from entering in the first place.
Preventing pests involves removing or blocking the things they need to survive and thrive. This includes reducing food, water, and shelter availability. Food should always be stored in airtight containers and disposed of properly. Water should be drained from sinks, pipes and drains as soon as possible to avoid standing water which can attract pests. Shelter can be provided by removing wood piles and other potential nesting places for insects, rodents and birds. Landscaping should be regularly inspected and kept away from buildings to eliminate pathways that pests can use to enter the building.
Learning about pests and their lifestyles can help with prevention. Knowledge of a pest’s lifespan, life cycle and other relevant information can make it easier to predict when a problem might occur and to take action at the most effective time. For example, ants have about five times as many odor receptors as humans, so they can smell that leftover apple pie sitting on the counter from quite a distance. Keeping food in jars and Tupperware with tight lids can prevent them from gaining access to it.
Other ways to prevent pests include avoiding contaminated foods and disposing of trash regularly. Clean utensils and cooking surfaces thoroughly before and after using them to minimize the risk of contamination from germs like salmonella, leptospirosis and hantavirus. Regular sanitizing of mattresses, beds and couches can prevent the spread of bedbugs and other parasites.
Prevention is often a joint goal of pest control and eradication. Once a pest has been detected, the appropriate control measures can be used to reduce its numbers to an acceptable level. For example, a crack or gap in the wall can be sealed to stop pests from coming in, and baits or traps can be set to catch pests as they try to pass through.
Suppression
Once a pest infestation has been brought under control, the focus shifts to prevent recurrence. This can be achieved with natural, biological, cultural and chemical controls. Natural controls involve environmental factors such as weather or topography that limit the size of pest populations. Biological controls use a pest’s own natural enemies (predators, pathogens, parasitoids or disease organisms) to manage the population. Cultural controls modify habitat to deprive pests of comfortable conditions. They include weed management, proper tillage techniques, cleaning greenhouse and field equipment, and managing irrigation schedules to minimize long periods of high relative humidity that encourage disease pests. Chemical controls utilize naturally occurring or synthetic materials that directly affect the growth of a pest. They are used only after scouting and monitoring indicate they are needed according to established guidelines. The chemicals selected are those that will most effectively reduce the problem with the least disruption to people and the environment.
Threshold-based decision making is important in the process of monitoring and identifying when a pest has reached unacceptable levels. For example, seeing a few wasps on your porch doesn’t warrant immediate action but finding an entire hive is probably cause for alarm.
When it comes to home pests, prevention is the best policy. Keeping storage areas clean, sealing cracks and holes around the house, repairing screens, using door sweeps, and making sure all trash is removed on a regular basis can help to keep pest populations under control. Frequently inspecting the exterior of your home for entryways will also help to prevent pests from finding their way in, and modifying access points like vents and eaves is another way to stop them.
If pesticides are used, it is essential to follow the product label’s instructions and warnings and to observe local, State, and Federal regulations that apply to the application of pesticides. Personal safety is also an important issue. The use of personal protective equipment (PPE) can limit the likelihood of injury, including eye and skin irritation. This includes wearing long-sleeved shirts, long pants, closed-toe shoes, face and eye protection when applying products, and following PPE recommendations for disposal of pesticide residues.
Eradication
A pest is any animal, plant or fungus that negatively impacts human activities and the environment. The human response to a pest may vary from tolerance, deterrence or management, depending on the severity of the problem, with the ultimate objective being to eradicate the pest. Eradication can be achieved through a combination of cultural, biological, chemical and mechanical methods.
Physical
Traps, netting, and decoys are examples of physical pest control techniques. These are generally easy to set and require little or no handling. Physical controls can also include removing or destroying nests, blocking holes or cracks in walls or around windows and doors, temperature control to kill pests, and soil cultivation such as crop rotation, trap cropping and field burning.
Biological
Biological pest control uses natural organisms to reduce populations or to keep them from spreading. For example, a parasitic nematode could be sprayed in the garden to control pests like grubs, fleas, and cockroaches. Nematodes are microscopic worms that live in the soil. There are many species, some helpful, some harmful. The nematode Steinernema carpocapsae, for instance, eats aphids, hornworms, and caterpillars.
Chemical
Chemical pest control involves the use of chemicals to eliminate pests. Examples of chemicals used in pest control include herbicides, insecticides and fungicides. Herbicides are used to protect crops from insects and weeds, while insecticides are used in the home to control household pests such as ants and roaches. Fungicides are used to kill fungi and protect plants from diseases.
Mechanical
There are several mechanical pest control techniques. They are generally easier to implement than other forms of pest control, and they can be used in conjunction with other methods. They can include sweeping or hoeing to remove plant debris that attracts pests.
The success of any pest control program depends on the ability to manipulate the environment in such a way as to interrupt microbe transmission within an area. Eradication efforts are subject to unforeseen challenges, such as resistance of nonhuman hosts or vaccine strain reversion (as seen with yellow fever and guinea worm vaccination). Even when the intervention-altered reproduction rate is reduced below the threshold for eradication, unforeseen reservoirs or local environmental conditions may prevent complete eradication.
