How to Prevent Pantry Pests | Pest Control

Learn how to prevent pantry pests in this Howcast video featuring expert Jeff White.

Winter Pest Control Tips

As the temperature drops during the fall and winter months, rodent control becomes an important concern. Just as humans and pets seek shelter inside cozy warm homes, so do unwelcome visitors including mice, rats, and other animals. Rodents can represent a major health risk to you and your children as they can carry and transmit many different diseases. In order to avoid having these dirty, diseased pests in your home, this article will provide a three-step approach to blocking entry to your home, making your house less appealing to pests by removing food sources, and finally, in the event you still have a pest problem, ridding your home of the rodents.

Mice and other small rodents can squeeze through very small cracks and holes, so be sure to seal any visible openings or cracks along the exterior or your house. Carefully look near windows and doors - as foundation settling can be significant, and gaps will often appear along these areas. Be sure to also look for and seal any openings inside your home: look around your baseboards, behind kitchen cabinets and appliances, closets and other areas rodents may gain entry.

Just as rodents are looking to stay warm during winter months, they're also looking for food! Any available food supply makes an attractive target for rodents and should be cleaned up to cut down on possible infestation. If you store food in kitchen cabinets or a pantry, be sure to keep it in sturdy containers. Any thin or loose-fitting food bag is no match for a hungry animal. The same goes for pet food and garbage. Keep pet food in a heavy plastic or metal container that can seal out unwanted critters and keep your garbage area clean. Promptly remove especially messy trash and any food waste and consider using a garbage container with a lid.

Taking precautionary steps to eliminate sources of entry and sources of food will go a long way toward keeping pests outside your home this winter. But what happens if those nasty pests still find their way inside? The next step is pest removal or eradication.

Before dealing with a bug or rodent infestation, ask yourself if you are willing to tackle the problem on your own. Depending on the nature of the problem, some rodents, especially larger ones, should be handled by professionals. These critters carry a risk of disease and other health hazards. It's not advisable to mess with them if you aren't sure what you're doing. However, if you're up to the challenge, the first step in taking care of rodents is identifying what type of pest you have.

Identifying rodents can be easily done if you actually witness them, but if they're aren't visible you can tell by signs left such as gnaw marks, droppings, body trail marks (body marks left by animals running alongside wood), odor, etc. Once you know what uninvited guests you have, you can take the appropriate measures to get rid of them.

Handling a rodent infestation usually means using traps and bait, repellents, poison and more. Types of traps typically include live traps, glue traps, electric traps and snap traps. Plan ahead to determine the most appropriate trap for your situation. For example, live traps require you to remove the trapped animal, otherwise, the rodent will suffer a painful death. Poison traps may result in a poisoned rodent dying in an out of the way place you can't get to, resulting in foul odor and disease from the decaying carcass. Finally, the use of poison represents a major health risk for your family and pets.

Be sure to wear gloves, protective clothing, and a mask when discarding trapped or dead animals to avoid contact with parasites, the risk of being bitten and other dangers. If you aren't willing or able to deal with the necessary steps to physically block pests from entering your home including removing food sources, or to properly identify and eradicate pests (including with handling dead animals), consider contacting a professional pest control company.

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Spider With Three Super Powers | The Hunt | BBC Earth

Known for eating other spiders, Portia is a genus of the jumping spider that is able to leap up to 50 times her own body length. Captured by the stunning close-up footage, we get to witness this amazing spider use its superpowers to dine on prey three times her size.

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See How Easily a Rat Can Wriggle Up Your Toilet | National Geographic

A rat's ribs are hinged at the spine, enabling it to easily squeeze through the tightest spaces—like the pipes draining your toilet. And rats are great swimmers too; they can hold their breath for up to three minutes. See how quickly a rat can go from the city streets to your bathroom.

Why Invest In Reliable Pest Control Services

Getting professional pest control services offers several great benefits as opposed to controlling pests like spiders, termites, or rodents on your own. Reliable service providers have qualified, trained technicians who know and understand where to treat as well as how to handle infestations. If you want to protect your new home or perhaps to treat an old property, a pest control service is certainly a smart choice.

5 Reasons For Getting Pest Control Services

Customized Plans - Protecting your home from invaders will mean having the best protection. If you send professional service providers, they are sure to set up plans which are very specific to your needs. They will take into consideration the size of your home, long-term prevention, and the level of infestation. Also, you will have the option to do pre-treatments on new construction to keep pests at bay along with emergency services in order to treat nests and hives.

Hazard - Pest control technicians know how their products will work and where to put them in and out of a home. Lots of companies are now going green and are utilizing products which are safe for the home and environment.

Time & Flexibility - Nobody wants to take time off just to wait for the "bug guy". And reliable pest control companies know this and are very willing and committed to working around your schedule. When you request for a free inspection along with a price quote for service, you will certainly find that most exterminators will work past sunset and on weekends. Controlling pest infestations will take time, and employing pest control products at the right time is considered the key to protecting your home successfully. You must know that pest control companies will track and report every time they will spray and know if they must retreat before the products will stop working.

Risks - If you use the wrong elimination method, it will have similar consequences with many pests. But by hiring the experts to do the job, risks will be minimized, if not eliminated, since they know exactly how to deal with possible nests and pests. Indeed, getting expert help will make you rest assured that your family will be safe from harmful chemicals. Apart from that, a significant amount of your time and money will also be saved by getting a professional, trusted service.

Cost - When termites damage your home, this might cost you thousands of dollars in home repairs. You might not be aware of how to perform a proper pest inspection. Termite control firms are knowledgeable of what to look for. Moreover, the cost of their service is a lot cheaper as opposed to repairing prolonged termite damage.

Getting professional building and pest inspection services will help ensure that you will have a damage-free and pest-free home.

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Top 10 Massive Insects That Are Actually Real

Do you like big bugs? Neither do we. But unfortunately, there are lots of big insects in nature. Whether it’s the Goliath Beetle, the Tarantula Hawk or the Giant Water Bug, these giant bugs are so big they’re scary! WatchMojo counts down ten of the largest insects we can’t believe exist in nature.

When to Immediately Call a Pest Control Service?

If you happen to experience the titter tatter of pests too often in your home, then you must take measures to get rid of this nuisance before they multiply and infiltrate your home complete with their presence. The first thing to prevent these little devils is to use different sorts of home remedies.

There are home remedies that work for a specific bug, while others work for all sorts of pests whether they are fruit flies, termites, mosquitoes or rodents. However, if all else fails, you must call a professional services provider:

Here are some situations where you must call a professional services provider:

1. The clothes in your closet have little holes in them - if you notice little holes in your clothes in your wardrobe, then it's a clear sign that you have an unwanted presence of pests in your home. Bugs love to penetrate into dirty and contaminated spaces and their numbers increase if you don't take measures to get rid of them.

2. Your body itches and you have red spots on your body - bed bugs often get into your bedding and pinch your skin while you're lost deep in your sweet sleep. It is only when you wake up to an itchy body that you realize you weren't alone in bed! Bed bugs can be quite a nuisance every night, so before it becomes a nightmare, call a pest treatment service to inspect your home and make it pest free.

3. You see bugs in every room of your home - If you've ignored pests for too long, they are likely to feel at home and multiply over time. If you see a cockroach or a termite popping out of the corner of your sofa, it's time for some serious pest control measures. Cockroaches usually take over your home in no time if you don't spray them down with an insect spray.

It is smart not to DIY when the pest control problem goes out of hands. It is best to hire a professional pest control company that can help you get rid of all the pests and nuisance caused by them from your home. This is because you don't want to take a risk with your home; you can't trust any layman to work on your home that is such a precious asset.

A DIY job can certainly fix your pest control problem temporarily, but don't expect it to be at bay for long. You are likely to have the same situation again, so call a pest control service provider in the first instance to help solve your problem.

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