Pest Control / Exterminator Blog from JCE
Everything You Need To Know About Pest Management
Everything you need to know about pests
 Termites live in structured societies. Unlike the ants, they have a king. King and Queen termites are top members of the colony, and the rest have other distinctive jobs like the reproducing team and the soldiers. If they have wings, they belong to the reproductive team. It is highly recommended that you contact your local pest control expert to have your house fully inspected. Here are some of the signs to look out for if you think your house has a termite infestation:
1. Swarmers. A swarm of termites consists of adult male and female reproductives that leave their colonies in order to mate and to create a new colony. Look out for any swarm of termites flying around any light source you have, it may be inside or outside your home. Having a swarm of termites outside your home doesn’t really mean your home is infested, but it is still advisable to check around your house for any termite mud-tunnels. Having a swarm of termites in a light source you have in your home may be a sign of trouble. You may have a termite infestation. Check your wood structures that are located near the light source where the swarm of termites is, it may be possible that their nest or colony is in one of those wood structures. 2. Discarded wings. When you sweep the floor in your home, make sure to look out for any discarded wings. Discarded wings can be a sign of a termite infestation. This happens after the adult or reproductive termites have mated. These reproductive termites find their pairs then if it’s time for them to mate, they crawl to a nesting site and that is when they start to create a new colony. 3. Mud tubes or mud tunnels. Termites need moisture to live. These hollow tunnels are made of mud to protect them from heat and from getting dry especially when they march their way from their nest to the food source. These tubes are the calling card of subterranean termites which are usually seen in your basement or inside the walls of your house. Termites may have excavated the wood making it very thin and when a portion is broken, they cover up the holes with the mud they use which is made of soil, saliva and their feces. Break open the mud tubes to see if there are still active termites in it. 4. Damaged wood Termites feed on dry wood. Which makes our home the source of their food. They consume the wood from the inside leaving a thin layer outside to protect them from getting dry. If you see any trail of mud-tunnel or termite damage, try knocking on it and you might hear a hollow sound because most of the inner part of the wood has already been consumed by the termites. The wood itself may also appear distorted or damaged and this is a sure sign that the termites have already been there and they may be looking for other wood structures to consume.
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 Bugs’ are naturally from outdoors. Insects nesting in your home can be a huge problem. We humans need water, food, and shelter to survive, so does the insects. When it comes to finding shelter, insects may consider the inside of your home to take shelter especially during the winter or rainy seasons.
But, of course, insects do not belong inside our homes. One reason is they are quite unsanitary and they may carry contagious diseases. One way to prevent them from staying or sheltering in your home is to look for where they are nesting and immediately get rid of it. Here are other ways to insect-proof your home: 1. Secure any passage. This is one major step in keeping bugs away for it prevents them from entering your home. Windows, vents, and chimneys are just some of the places bugs can pass through. Make sure to repair any crack or gap in the wall or window screens. Also, seal your doors. Examine your doors carefully and you'll most likely see numbers of gaps, which makes a passage for the bugs. Install a door closer to keep your door closed especially if you have left it open or your kid forgot to close the door properly. 2. Cover large openings. Fill larger opening with the use of hardware cloth. Hardware cloth is a material you can staple over gaps or holes in order to keep those insects from entering your home. It also keeps squirrels and raccoons from getting in your chimneys or vents and they are also the source of fleas, ticks, and other insects. Make sure your vents’ dampers are operating properly. 3. Keep your eyes peeled. Once you sight any insect or any sign of insect nests, immediately take action. Check outside to see where the bugs usually hang out. Try to keep branches and shrubs away from your walls by having them trimmed or well groomed so bugs won't have any passage into your home. 4. Store your trash properly. We usually throw our rotten food in our trash bins without thinking that its scent could attract insects, mainly roaches, and ants. Proper storage of your trash is one way of preventing bugs from feasting on your trash cans. Trash cans should be emptied every night and must have a lid to keep it closed. 5. Clean your home regularly. Bugs do love a messy place. Keeping your home clean is one of the best ways to keep those insects away. Keep your trash cans sealed and vacuum regularly or always sweep the floor to get rid of any food crumbs on the floor. 6. Keep your food sealed. After hosting or throwing a party at home, you may still have a lot of leftover foods. It’s best that you keep them properly sealed and inside the fridge. We do love to keep fruits on our tables. One is because they do make a nice table centerpiece, but it doesn't mean bugs won't feast on the fruits. 7. Consider natural predators. Bats are one of the natural predators. They feed on insects especially the small annoying ones. And since they are only awake during the night, you won't even notice them. Same goes for the birds. They also feed on bugs. You can provide trees and some bushes where these predators can nest to. 8. Look out for any water leaks. It’s best that you keep your home dry. Some insects need water to breed and also for their consumption. Just like the Mosquitos, they lay their eggs on any wet areas and it could start an infestation. Pipes under your sink or in the bathroom can be leaky so make sure you regularly check your pipes and have them repaired if there are any leaks. 9. Install Screens There are a variety of screens to choose from. Make sure to get the ones that won't easily have holes. Having screens on your window will help you enjoy the feeling of fresh air without worrying about insects getting in. But do make sure to install it properly so you won't create any passage for the insects and regularly check your screens for any holes. 10. Keep your home’s foundations clear. Your home's foundations are also one of the most common entry spots for bugs. Keep them clear to reduce any infestation. Ants, Spiders, Termites, and fleas are some of the insects that are good at breeding and thriving in wet areas, so make sure to keep your foundations dry at all cost. Regularly check your foundation for any gaps. 11. Maintain your yard. Your yard is home to tons of different kinds of insects, and you should always keep it maintained. Mosquitoes breed in water. To reduce the mosquitoes population, do eliminate your pool’s water in your yard and keep your pool’s water chlorinated and filtered. It's also important to regularly maintain your gutters and drains.  Are you planning to put up a garden? Or you already have an existing one? Or you just want to have a beautiful yard perfect for a peaceful picnic? Well, sure you can have all of those but there could be some problems. Insects, pests, or whatever you want to call them, they exist everywhere especially in the outdoors.
If you’re a gardener, you don’t want to have dead leaves, flowers, or crops because of these pests. If you are a person starting to grow a garden, you wouldn’t want to have these crawlers give you problems. And if you’re a person who just wants to enjoy a peaceful picnic, you don’t want ants or other insects crawling on your food. You can stop, prevent, and eliminate them. You can call for a pest exterminator to eliminate them and solve your problem. But this article isn’t about that, just because you might want to know invasive pests you can have in your yard, below are the 6 invasive pests that can be invading your beautiful yard. Caterpillars If you have a beautiful garden, caterpillars are a real trouble. They eat leaves and destroy our plants. They exist for the whole year round, but they are more common in spring and fall. Fire ants Fire ants are an interesting type of insects, they are smart, productive, and apply teamwork in everything they do. A fire ant colony can grow up to 20 inches in height and consist of a lot of ants. Imagine having a picnic with friends or family, after a game of tag, you get back to your picnic seeing ants all over your food. Well, that is such a bummer for me. Another thing is, when fire ants bite you, it really stings and will be itchy afterward. So make sure to exterminate them ones you discover a colony. Aphids Aphids can cause an extensive damage to crops and other garden plants. Aphids damage crops because they suck the sap of the plant. Aphids can reproduce without mating. So their population can grow rapidly and that is why they are a problem. They belong to large colonies that is why it is easy for them to damage a plant. Grubs Grubs live in the ground, and because they live in the ground, a root of a plant is easy to access for them. They feed on roots. And because they feed on roots, this may cause the plant to suddenly collapse. Ladybugs A ladybug is a beautiful and sometimes colorful insect. But given their beauty, they can be a problem too, they are attracted to flower nectar and pollen. But that’s not the only thing they eat, they also eat aphids which could be a benefit too. Spiders These crawlers don’t damage crops or plants, but instead, they feed on small insects too. The problem with these spiders is that they could be poisonous, as most of the outdoor spiders are poisonous, having outdoor activities might not be fun when you encounter them. So when you see one, kill it. But before killing it, identify first if it’s a poisonous one. Killing a spider with no poison is not a good idea, they help a lot in killing unwanted insects in our garden or yard. 8/23/2018 5 Comments 7 Tips To Prevent Pantry Pests The pantry is one of the best rooms in the house, food is everywhere, it’s the best especially if it’s filled with all of your favorite goodies. But imagine if you’re at work and you have a dinner party with friends, you need to cook food for the party, but as you arrive home, when you get to your pantry, you see insects, rats, or mice scavenging on your food. Having pests in your pantry could really be a big problem. They can not only ruin get-together or parties, they can also give a problem with your health.
Rats, mice, cockroaches and other pests can spread bacteria rapidly, they can spread by having a taste of some of the foods you have, or simply just by touching it. Some of these diseases can automatically lead to death. That is why it is always better to keep in mind the safety of your home first, and one category under that is your house pests. Always keep in mind of keeping them away from your home. But we’re here to talk about your pantry. So here are some tips for preventing pests going in your pantry. Proper storage of supplies One of the most common targets of pests are your baking ingredients, they are usually packed in a box or plastic making it easy for them to open. What you do is you should store them properly. In the market, there are sealed glass bottles or containers available. Invest in them and store your food there. You can store food like sugar, powdered milk, nuts, rice, cookies, and many more. There are also large plastic box containers on the market, in those containers you can store food with large packaging. Inspect your groceries Sometimes the market can be really dirty, and pests could have started an infestation there too. So sometimes we bring in the pests in our pantry. That’s why before entering the pantry, inspect all your grocery bags first and make sure there are no insects. Because once they’re in they could reproduce fast, especially insects. Be smart As much as possible, it is better to buy food packed in can or jars. Rats and mice can easily chew on cardboard boxes or plastics. But if the type of food you want to buy is not available in can or jar, you can always proceed to tip #1 which is to store them in a sealed container. Clean up! Make sure to always clean your pantry. Keep it clean all the time. Make sure there are no crumbs left since it could attract pests. Always provide cleaning materials in your pantry. Make use of bay leaves Designate containers with bay leaves around your pantry, they can act as a repellent with their pungent scent. Most homeowners find this effective. Install pest traps There are a lot of pest traps you can make, you can use organical or with a chemical. Or you can just purchase in the grocery store if you want to. An example of a trap for ants is a sugar and baking soda mixture, fuse equal parts of baking soda and sugar together and put it in a container, after you can put the container anywhere in your pantry. There are many more pests traps you can make just do the research. A pantry doesn’t need a garbage bin Don’t put a garbage bin in a pantry, a pantry doesn’t need it. It could also be a feeding ground for pests since you might sometimes throw away food. 8/19/2018 6 Comments 3 Home Remedy For Ant Control Ants bite if they feel threatened, but there are some type of ants that don’t really bite. Ants live in a colony where they have their queen to follow orders from. They are so loyal to their queen that they follow her throughout their entire life. Ants lived as old as dinosaurs which made them conquer the world - every part of the world have ants. Some species of ants practice a primitive form of slavery. Ants could really be an interesting subject, there are a lot of interesting facts about them. They are one of the most common insects you can find in your house. Although given the facts that they are so interesting, they could be a really huge problem to your home. For example, some ants could carry diseases and transmit it to you. An infestation can grow rapidly, and it can cause serious problems with your food or pantry. Imagine getting up from the bed and going to your pantry discovering that your favorite box of cereal is already filled with ants. What a way to ruin the day as early as waking up. Well for me, waking up to that scenario would be a disaster. Anyway, given the facts that they can cause major problems with your home, maybe it is time for you to know how to get rid of them. Below are three ways to get rid of your ant infestation. Locate and eliminate During summer, go around your yard and even inside your home, you might see small hills with holes in the middle, most likely it is an ant colony. If you have located a target you have successfully done the first part - next you destroy the colony. Ants can establish a colony inside your house, too. Most of the time they target cabinets, floors, walls, or ceilings where they are hard to find. So make sure you inspect properly. Formulate ant pesticides There are a lot of solutions for ant pesticides, for example, white vinegar and water solution, mix equal parts of vinegar and water then pour in a spray, spray openings in your house like the windows, the doors, or little cracks in your walls. Another example solution is a dish soap and water mixture, just like the vinegar and water mixture, this mixture works the same too, they keep ants away from entering your home and in the same time, if they have made contact with this solutions, the will die. Generate an ant trap One example for an ant trap is a baking soda and powdered sugar mixture, incorporate equal parts of baking soda and powdered sugar, designate them where you often see ants crawling, or place the traps near their colony, ants are attracted to sugar and that’s what makes it one of the best trap, but the sugar is not the one that kills the ant, it’s the baking soda. When an ant ingests baking soda, there will be a reaction with the ants’ natural acidic substance which will eventually kill them. There are numerous types of insects and animals in the whole world, and some of them are nice and good for our world, but some can be really bad, and some of them choose our homes to invade. These insects or animals that give negative effects in our homes are called pests. There are numerous types of pests in the world, but there are the worst pests. These worst pests could lead us to huge problems, even life-threatening problems. And some of these pests infest our homes silently. Most homeowners don’t know they already have a pest infestation, also don’t know what pests are the worst. We provide you a list below of the worst house pests to have, and if you have one in your home, make sure to get rid of them, even if it is not in this list, a pest is a pest and make sure to get rid of them. Mice infestation A mice infestation for me is the worst. They carry a lot of diseases that could be transmitted to humans giving us life-threatening situations. The parasites that they have also carry diseases. Mice destroy and consume our food, especially our food that is not protected properly. They run fast making it hard to catch them, they are quick thinkers too. They poop a lot, these poop and pee a lot these poop and pee are hard to see, what makes it dangerous is that they might have peed in your glass or food without you noticing, and you have accidentally had contact with their waste, transmitting the disease to you. If you have a fresh and open wound avoid contact with mice in your wound, it will easily transmit disease. Rat infestation A rat infestation just has the same negative effects that a mice infestation has, but rats are bigger which makes it easy to see them and catch them, but they’re bigger that’s why they carry more parasites, and their bites can really cut you since they have bigger teeth. And another worst thing about rats than mice is that they destroy property or structure more than mice Termite infestation A termite infestation is one of the worst, they eat wood, but not only wood they eat anything made of a plant of a tree. Each colony has thousands of termites, and each termite doesn’t sleep they work 24 hours a day every day, and most of their work is eating. In a month they consume a large component of a wood structure in your home. They also work silently which makes it hard to detect them. Having termite infestation is really dangerous, they eradicate the foundation of your home making your house fragile, and eventually could end up having accidents or destructions in your house. Cockroach infestation Cockroaches are dirty and really smelly, it could be so embarrassing if you have visitors around and they see roaches in your home, it just shows how dirty your home is. Not only that, they eat our food and contaminate them, they also carry diseases and they could also bite you. Cockroaches breed a lot too, they lay eggs a lot. One cockroach could end up to 50 cockroaches so make sure to get rid of them right away
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