Archive for the ‘Prevent pests’ category

Pest Prevention What Do I Need To Prevent Pests?

September 26th, 2009

Pest prevention is a combination of botany, entomology, lawn, garden, and landscape maintenance, and craftsmanship. If you can handle these basic tasks, you can do it for yourself. The botany and entomology part is not that complex. Note that bugs and weeds like to have certain things in their environment. They need water and food and protection.

Insects like cover and food, and water to survive, and if you deprive them of the things they like to eat, places to hide, and the water they need to live, they will go away and look for more hospitable accommodations. Spiders like bugs to eat, if the bugs go away, the spiders go away. June bugs like certain types of light, deprive them of the light, and they will go away, without laying the eggs which would become the grubs that eat your lawns root system, and attract moles, skunks and armadillos. Eliminate standing water, and mosquitoes have no reason to stick around.

Exclude weed seed from your property, mow frequently, and most of the weeds that are there, will die out without being able to reproduce themselves with seed. Others may require manual removal, or other forms of treatment to get rid of them, and avoiding the practices that reintroduce them will prevent them from coming back.

In other words, the science you need for pest prevention is simply knowing what the bugs and weeds need to survive.Changing the habitats and habits that provide them with what they need to survive is a function of good lawn, garden and landscape practices.

If you do the work that needs to be done to the outside of your property, you will solve most of your homes pest control problems, which will reduce the number of insects trying to get into your home.

If your home becomes the source of food, water and cover for insects and arachnids, the same rules apply. don’t leave anything for them to eat, don’t leave anything for them to drink, and stop them from coming inside, and the battle is won. To stop them from coming inside, you need to practice the art of exclusion. Exclusion is where the craftsmanship part of the equation comes into play. It involves plugging holes, repairing screens, sealing cracks, and repairing weather stripping. It is really as simple as that!

If you want more details on the specifics of what needs to be done to be bug and weed free, start with: Prevention Starts Outdoors

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Posted in how to control pests, need to control pests, need to prevent pests, Pest prevention, pest prevention how to, Prevent pests

Pest Prevention Disease Prevention

September 23rd, 2009

See our newly re written Bugs and Weeds website home page.

The success of pest control has a direct relation to the success of disease control. Our ability to prevent disease, is directly connected to our ability to prevent pests.

The connection is painfully obvious when we look at the names of some of our most notorious and most feared diseases like the avian flu, (bird flu) and some of the diseases transmitted primarily by pests, such as malaria, and dengue fever, transmitted by mosquitoes, and an endless list of diseases carried by flies, fleas, and cockroaches, to name only a few.

Pest control and disease control in under developed regions

In under developed regions, these diseases are difficult to prevent due to insect problems which are themselves difficult to prevent since the technology for pest prevention, pest control, sanitation, and such advancements as equipment for draining swamps has not kept pace with the human population.

In developed countries, the problem of disease transmitting pest is less obvious, but still real. The threat is always present, and only a system failure or two away from rising up and destroying.

Pest treatments and disease treatments alone will not work

Our chemical pest control methods will go only so far, good pest prevention techniques will provide far better results in the long run. Our disease treatments will only go so far, unless we get rid of the cause of the disease. Keeping the same habits, will only produce the same results. Prevention is the answer for both. In fact, preventing pests will almost eliminate the disease problem in most cases.

It should be remembered that the use of DDT in our own country once destroyed bedbug populations to the extent that an entire generation or more was free of them. With it’s removal from the market, a gradual return of the tiny creatures has been experienced. Preventive measures were never really put into effect on a wide scale.

Evidence that chemicals alone do not work can be seen in areas where DDT is still used, but insects and disease still prevail. In such places, treatment for insects, and treatment for disease will never win unless wide scale prevention becomes the focus.

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Posted in disease prevention, insect prevention, insects and disease, pest and disease relationship, Pest prevention, prevent disease, Prevent pests

Tags: disease prevention insect prevention insects and disease pest and disease relationship Pest prevention prevent disease Prevent insects

Bugs | Stop Them From Coming Inside

September 8th, 2009

There are many openings in a home, these are a few of the ones we should be concerned with when it comes to pest control. The bugs inside your home come from somewhere. They come into your home from the outside. Keeping bugs outside is a matter of excluding them by sealing all the potential inlets. What are these inlets? We list a few of them below:

Weep holes

Weep holes are brick mortar joints without the the mortar. There purpose is to provide ventilation and drainage for the area between the interior and exterior of the home. It is important to keep these holes from being blocked by dirt and debris. It is also important to keep mulch away from these openings. Note that this one has grass and debris inside.

Weep hole

Plumbing and electrical openings like the one pictured below, should be sealed. Insects and spiders can make their way through the smallest of openings and into your home. This one has an opening that a pencil could fit through.

Electric conduit opening

Door and window casing cracks should be caulked or otherwise sealed periodically. If they are not sealed they will become a doorway for pests to come inside.

Door frame crack

Vents like this soffit vent provide ventilation for our homes. The one pictured here is screened on the inside to prevent pests from using it to get into the home.

Soffit vent

Communication cables like this television cable and phone cables provide another opportunity for insect invaders to attack.

Communication cable

Although rain gutters are not openings, they still have an effect on pests. Insects like to make homes in the gutters when they become full and clogged, and they will eventually make their way into your home. Clogged gutters will cause rot and rot leads to holes, and holes lead to invasion! This photo is a good argument for keeping trees trimmed away from the home.

House gutter