Pests in the Home –
A Sobering Overview
In hundreds and thousands of homes across
Kent, homeowners and tenants are sharing it with a pest. They don’t care who
you are, how much money you do or don’t have in your bank account or where you
live, if the conditions are right, a pest of some kind will move in.
The British Pest Control Association
produce an annual report of the call-outs and type of work that local authority
pest control officers are responding to. Their latest report from 2015/16 makes
for interesting reading, especially as the pest control services on offer from
councils is dwindling as budgets are cut.
And so, with councils only responding to
certain calls for help, it seems that the pest control companies are becoming
increasingly popular. But what does this mean for you? What can you do about
pest in or around your home?
Are pests becoming
more of a problem?
Pests, from rats to bugs, can become an
issue when the conditions are either in their favour or are unfavourable,
pushing them from their normal habitats to find new ones;
·
Weather changes and flooding
mean rats leave sewers and seek shelter elsewhere
·
Overheating our homes also
makes them attractive to pests
·
Overflowing rubbish and recycle
bins are an attractive food source for
pests
·
Reducing services such as
emptying bins weekly to fortnightly and now three-weekly in many counties is
easy-pickings for pests
Understanding Pests
The best way to prevent and deal with pests
is to understand them, something that we have been doing through training and
experience for many years.
For example, the cockroach is a nocturnal
scavenger with three distinct lifecycle
phases: egg, nymph and adult. Eating almost anything, maintaining a hygienic
environment is the best method of defence against cockroaches but when they do
strike, treatment needs to effectively hit them at the ‘right’ stage of their
lifecycle.
Mice too, will nibble at almost anything
and can squeeze through a tiny gap of 6mm but will only travel three metres
from their nest, a good indication that a mouse in your kitchen is nesting
close by.
Or what about the bedbug? Laying up to 500 eggs over a two-month period, these tiny
specks are difficult to spot, let alone get rid of.
What does this all
mean?
It means that we may be unknowingly sharing
our home with a pest or two. What it doesn’t mean is that you start laying
poison ‘just in case’ you are besieged by a mouse or that you should invest in
expensive but relatively ineffective over-the-counter pest control solutions.
But, as a homeowner or tenant, landlord or
business owner, it pays to be aware of the ‘symptoms’ of a pest problem at home
and have the problem dealt with by a professional pest control company.
Seeing the pest is rare – you’ll see the
tail end of the cockroach (or is it?) scuttling under the fridge at night or
you may spot a dropping or two that indicates a mouse in the cellar (or is
it?). Instead, do this:
·
Smell – some pests leave a tell-tale
smell to a room, such as the musty ‘odd’ smell of bedbugs or an unpleasant smell
of rat urine. You may not know what ‘that smell’ is, but it is a strong
indicator to us.
·
Listen – what can you hear? Can you hear
scrabbling feet in the attic or small, chirping noises?
·
Touch – some insects, such as bed bugs,
bite, feeding on our blood as we sleep, leaving a series of bites on the torso.
Fleas also enjoy a blood meal, leaving itchy lumps around ankles and wrists.
·
See – what can you see? Shredded
cardboard and other materials, along with gnawing
marks on wood etc. are a sign on a pest with gnawing and shredding habits, from
the common brown rat to the smallest of mice – but it can mean squirrels too.
Pests are a nuisance and it may be that you
are sharing your home with one or two. Is it time to call us?