House Bugs are Outdoor Bugs
Most people are concerned with the bugs inside their homes, or “house bugs” as they are often called, without any thought to where the bugs came from., or how they get into the house to begin with.
The fact is, that all house bugs come from somewhere, and that somewhere is the great, or, in this case, not so great outdoors. Nature is a wonderful thing, until it decides to move into your kitchen or bedroom!
The fact is, that all bugs are outdoor bugs, and they have natural habitats, that usually provide what they want and need. Those wants and needs revolve around the same sort of needs that we humans have, like food, water and shelter. When outdoor bugs become house bugs, it is because they are seeking these, dare I say, “creature comforts”.
The best way to deal with house bugs, is to keep them outdoors where they belong. On a very simple level, that means excluding them from your home with barriers. That is, your walls, floors, roof and ceiling. Bugs are ever probing and persistent, and will find any holes, cracks, and crevices in your home, so you have to plug them up. Pest Prevention Exclusion Caulking Cracks will help you get started. Stopping pests, before they have a chance to try to get into your home is a better strategy. We have some helpful tips on doing this: Stopping Outdoor Pests From Coming Indoors: 12 Simple Prevention Tips and How to Keep Bugs Out of Your House should help.
In fact, we have a step by step program to help you keep outdoor bugs from becoming house bugs.
December 23, 2009
Tags: house bugs Posted in: house bugs 
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Pest Prevention Exclusion Caulking Cracks
One of the many practices used for preventive pest control is exclusion. Exclusion is the practice of keeping the pests out by physically blocking their path of entry. The pictures below will help to illustrate: >>>
The first picture is of a separation between a door frame, and the brick siding of the home. This opening was large enough to allow many types of pests to enter.
The next photograph shows the caulking process at the beginning.
The final picture in this series is the finished product. It will prevent pests, and keep cold air out. It can be painted to match the brick, or the door trim if needed.
November 18, 2009
Tags: Exclusion, Pest prevention, pest prevention tips, preventive pest control Posted in: Exclusion, Pest prevention, household pest control, how to control pests, preventive pest control No Comments
How to Keep Bugs Out of Your House
How to Keep Bugs Out of Your House
The best place to start if you want to keep bugs out of your house, is not in your house, or the exterior walls of your home! The best place to start, is the farthest distance away from your house, which is still your property. >>>
The edges of your property are where your bug problems begin. To keep bugs out of your house, that is where you need to start.В Bugs do not magically appear in your bedroom, they have to come from somewhere, and that somewhere is outdoors.
The more pests you prevent from the far reaches of your property, the fewer you will have trying to get into your home.
- Start by clearing away any brush, weeds, rubbish, or rubble. That is what insects use for cover. If you remove the cover, they will fall back to the next available cover, which will probably be your neighbors yard, so after you do this, you might want to share this article with him. Now move inward, remove the things that provide cover throughout your lawn, and mow your lawn more often. I know it is a pain, but it really helps. If the grass is high, insects use it to provide cover for sneaking closer to your home.
- As you move closer to your home, look at your trees, are they hanging over your roof? Are they touching your roof? If they are then they are providing a place for pests to use to get to the top of your house, so, for heavens sake, get out the saw and trim them back. Don’t just cut the ends off, but trim them back to a lateral branch. If you do this improperly, you could cause an increase in pests, and disease in your trees. Keep your own safety in mind, use ladders cautiously, and pay special attention to power lines. What good would a pest free home environment be, if you were not there to enjoy it?
- Your landscape beds next to your home are an important area for your pest control efforts. The typical landscape bed is a hotbed for pest activity. Keep vines away from the walls, they provide a road for insects. The same is true for the shrubs in the bed, they should be cut back a foot or more from the wall. Landscape mulch should be kept at least a foot from the homes exterior. This is not standard landscape practice, but it needs to be done.
- Regulate your irrigation carefully. Too much water invites all sorts of critters into your place.
- Now, to the exterior of your home. Seal everything! cracks, openings around doors and windows, replace worn weatherstripping, caulk around frames, caulk around all pipes, wires, cables, inlets, and anywhere else a bug might get through. Make sure all eve and soffit vents are screened. The same goes for your dryer vent.
- Do the same inside, with all the corresponding areas. Every hole in the outside will have a corresponding hole in an inside wall.
November 8, 2009
Tags: how to keep bugs out, keeping bugs out Posted in: how to keep bugs out, keeping bugs out No Comments
Pest Prevention Practical Pest Control
It is possible to control pests using costly chemicals with constant monitoring, and continuous repeated applications. This must be done carefully, and the chemicals must periodically be switched to avoid the problem of pests adapting to them as they do so well. It is possible, but is it practical?
The problems with this method, and all such methods, is that it fails in several areas.
- For one thing, it is not practical, because it is not cost effective. Repeated applications result in repeated charges, or long term contracts.
- The second problem was alluded to above: Pests adapt rapidly to new situations, and this insures that the war of attrition will continue forever.
- The effects on human health may be minor, and recoverable, but because it is done over a lifetime, the cumulative effect on the human nervous system does take a toll, and the earlier the exposure the more pronounced the effect over a lifetime.
All pyretheroids and organophosphate cholonesterase inhibitors damage the human nervous system, but the system bypasses the damage and restores function. The problem is that a lifetime of exposure accumulates a lifetime of damage, and at some point the effects become obvious, even though we may not recognize the cause.
At some points, the introduction of such pesticides may be necessary to prevent disease, but the less exposure the better. I am not arguing for the elimination of insecticides, but for the need to lower the usage.
The amazing truth is, that we can keep the insecticides for emergency purposes , lower the usage, and lower the cost, by simple habitat modification in most, if not all cases.
The most practical form of pest control is still pest prevention!
November 2, 2009
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Green Pest Control Natural Pest Control
Green Pest Control Natural Pest Control
Green pest control, natural pest control, organic pest control? The terms can be a little confusing, so let’s try to cut through the pest control fog with a few definitions: >>>
Green pest control
Green pest control must first of all be green, and that means environmentally friendly, and non toxic. Green pest control should be sustainable. Green pest control should have a small carbon footprint. Green pest control should be the non toxic, least toxic, most environmentally sustainable form of controlling pests.
The problem with pest control products
The problem with most natural, or organic pest control products is that they do not meet the green part of the equation. How can that be? Well, a product, no matter how natural, or organic, still has the same problem that all other pest control products have.
How green is your natural pest control product?
The raw material must be harvested, it must be shipped to a factory for processing, it has to be packaged, labeled, shipped again, and by the time it reaches the end user, it has taken a lot of fossil fuel to process and package, and, it has a pretty large carbon footprint. While it may be less toxic, it nonetheless fails the test for sustainability, and carbon footprint.
To be completely green, we need a different approach.
While there may be many types of natural pest control, and organic pest control, there is really only one form of green pest control, and that is pest prevention!
October 26, 2009
Tags: Green pest control, Natural pest control, Organic pest control Posted in: Green pest control, Natural pest control, Organic pest control, green pesticides No Comments
Pest Control Supplies
Check out this list of pest control supplies. These are products we recommend highly for the first and most important step in controlling pests on your property. >>>
Here is your list of the best pest control supplies:
- A wheel barrow or cart
- A machete
- A weed trimmer
- A lawn mower
- A saw
- A shovel
- A ladder
- A caulk gun
- Caulk
- Steel wool
- Hardware cloth
If you own a home, you probably have these pest control supplies around the house already.
These are the items you need to clear your property of rubbish, brush, and debris, provide proper drainage for low spots, keep your lawn cut low, trim trees and shrubs, and seal your home against insect invaders.
When you do these things, you will be as pest free as humanly possible.
Notice that there are none of the standard pest control supplies or pest control products in this list.В Pest control supplies like insecticides should not be the first step in any pest control program. To control pests for the long haul, you should start with prevention first, only using insecticides when they are needed to control an infestation, or other abnormalities, if at all.
October 23, 2009
Tags: control pests, pest control products, pest control supplies Posted in: pest control products, pest control supplies No Comments
Pest Control Controlling Pests By Prevention
Pest control Controlling Pests By Prevention
How to control pests in the least toxic way
One of the best ways to think about pest control is through a process known as Integrated Pest Management, or IPM. It is a common sense system of pest management based on the use of all pest management tools, in their proper place, and at the proper time.Integrated pest management is a theory of pest control that starts with one simple idea:
It is always best to control pests with the least toxic means possible.
- New pesticides are being formulated which help to meet this criteria. Lower doses, being needed less frequently, going out at lower rates help to control both the pests, and the amount of pesticide being used.
- Botanical pest control products using essential plant oils, and soaps have been developed which also work very well to control pests.
- Biological pest control products and systems are developing, with varying degrees of success.
More than at any time in the history of pest control, entomologists are considering the habits of pests, and the role humans play in the interaction between people and pests, and pest control products are being developed to maximize the effectiveness of the products used to control pests through proper timing and placement.
Pest control products are becoming less toxic to human beings, and more friendly to the environment. Green pest control products are the order of the day, and they are working. This is good, but as good as it is, this is only a start, and it is starting at the wrong end.
This is the back end of pest control, the place where we have to react in order to control pests that we already have, and while advances are being made, our thinking about pest control has become skewed.
The main component of Integrated Pest Management
The front end of the pest control issue needs more attention. What is that front end, and how will it improve our pest control efforts and our quality of life? To put it simply, it is pest prevention, and it will improve our quality of life by:
- Lowering insect populations.
- Lowering our exposure to pesticides.
- Reducing our carbon footprint.
- Lowering the cost of controlling pests.
Why pest prevention works
Most entomologists readily admit that when it comes to pest problems, we create our own. Something that we have changed in our environment invites the pests to join us. This can be anything from low spots in our lawns which collect and hold water for mosquitoes to use for reproduction, to overfeeding our pets to the extent that neighboring insects, rodents and predators come to see our backyards as being a new restaurant. It can also be something as simple as the number of times we mow our lawns, to something as complex as the plants and lighting we use in landscaping. The lesson is this:
Since our behavior can produce insects and other pest problems, changing our behavior can change the behavior of insects and other pests.
When we choose to avoid these problems by producing a habitat that does not invite bugs, weeds, rodents, and predators into our living space, we are practicing the most effective form of pest control, pest prevention.
Pest control through pest prevention and pest exclusion
October 19, 2009
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Stopping Outdoor Pests From Coming Indoors: 12 Simple Prevention Tips
Stopping Outdoor Pests From Coming Indoors: 12 Simple Prevention Tips
The article on this page is original, but has been published in other places on the Internet.
Outdoor Pests Indoor Pests Simple Pest Prevention Tips
Keeping pests out of your home is pretty simple really. Just don’t give them what they are looking for. Deny them a place to live, food and cover, water, and a way to get inside. This article will describe a little bit about how to do just that.
Sometimes the pests from outside, like to spend a little time lounging around and snacking inside. It is far better to stop them from coming in, than to try to control them if they do. Here are a few ideas on keeping them outdoors.
1. Don’t plant climbing vines around your windows providing a freeway for a pest convoy into your home. Climbing vines can slowly invade your tiny window openings, spreading them wider, and inviting insects to travel through the openings.
2. Seal around all doors, windows, air conditioning, and plumbing coming into the house. Do this on the inside as well as the outside. Pay close attention to cable inlets, and all inside plumbing inlets.
3. Be certain that your door sweeps are all the way to the edges of the door opening, and reach all the way to the floor.
4. Check all weather stripping to make sure bugs can’t crawl through any gaps.
5. Keep brush and weeds as far away from the house as possible, so that the pests don’t have a base of operation nearby.
5. Rotting wood is the roach’s natural food, make sure that your immediate outside area is free of it, and anything else that might hide pests.
7. Check houseplants before you bring them inside when first purchased or brought in from your greenhouse, or after watering outdoors.
8. Check all shopping bags, fruits and vegetables carefully for insects.
9. It goes without saying, that your home should be clean, with no food sources for pests.
10. keep your trash can lids on, and the can away from the house as far as possible to keep flies away.
11. When you do see a trail of ants or bugs coming into the house, try to trace it back to it’s source, and plug that hole. A simple mixture of water, dish soap and vinegar will take care of the ones already inside.
12. If you have indoor pets, check them when they return from trips outdoors, for hitch hikers.
Of course there are always the things your mother told you. Things like: “Close the door when you go in or out.” You should have paid more attention, you probably wouldn’t have to be reading this list!
October 13, 2009
Tags: pest control tips, pest prevention tips Posted in: Green pest control, Pest prevention, fly pest control, fly prevention, household pest control, insect prevention, pest control tips, pest prevention tips No Comments
Pest Prevention Right Thinking
There is a lot more to pest control than just spraying out a bunch of chemicals to kill the pests. There is a lot more to pest control than spraying a lot of botanical products. A good pest control program would include a little planning beforehand.
To begin, taking all the appropriate steps to prevent potential pest problems will eliminate most of them. That is the major gap in almost all pest control systems.
I fear that most people, even the ones who are trying to be “green”, have become so deeply entrenched in the “way we have always done it”, that they continue to do the same things they always have done, but with a different set of ingredients. That is at least a partial step in the right direction, but still the wrong way of looking at pest problems, and similar situations.
What we need, is a total re-thinking of pest control from the bottom up, with pest prevention being the foundation on which the rest of the program is built. Doing the same old things with a different set of materials will lead to the same old results.
October 9, 2009
Tags: Pest prevention, thinking pest prevention Posted in: Pest control, pesat prevention No Comments
Christmas Is Coming! Shop Bugs And Weeds
We have added an online store filled with thousands of great products and practical gifts, as well as an Amazon powered shop for your bug and weed free shopping pleasure.
Do your Christmas shopping, or any other shopping with us, avoid those crowded mall, and have a bug and weed free holiday season!
October 5, 2009
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