Winter Pests to Lookout for in Florida

Winter Pests to Lookout for in Florida

Just because it’s winter doesn’t mean pests can’t invade your home! Unfortunately, there are several overwintering pests looking to your home to provide them with food, shelter, and water. Let’s breakdown the most common winter pests to lookout for at your Florida property.

Roaches

Cockroaches
Cockroaches are common household pests seeking a warm environment to provide them with food and water. These pests can pose a serious health risk to humans as they transmit diseases and trigger allergies and asthma. Roaches will utilize any small hole, gap, or cervices to enter your home. They are also known to hitch a ride inside grocery bags, boxes, and used appliances.

Rodents

Rodents
Rodents, including rats and mice, are year-round pests but they can become a major problem as the winter season approaches. Rodents will seek out warmth, food, shelter, and water inside our homes, squeezing through small holes and gaps to get inside. Mice and rats can cause damage to our homes and be a health risk to humans as they are known to chew through insulation, wiring, wood, and contaminate surfaces through their droppings.

Silverfish

Silverfish
These pests will look to your basements and bathrooms to seek a damp, cold place to live in. While silverfish are harmless to humans, they can invade in numbers, and cause them to be a major nuisance to remove them. These pests will often gain access to your home by hitching a ride through the items you’ve taken out of storage in your garage or attic. Silverfish will also feed on your books, glue, wallpaper, and boxes.

Preventing Winter Pests in Florida

It might seem impossible to deter wildlife creatures from your home during the winter but by placing certain preventative measures throughout your property, you can avoid their infestation! Check out these winter pest control tips when you want to keep these pests away:

  • Inspect the exterior of your home for any cracks, gaps, and holes, seal them as soon as possible.
  • Avoid leaving your pet food and water out overnight.
  • Fix any leaky faucets or pipes found as soon as possible.
  • Take your garbage out on a regular basis and utilize a trashcan with a tightly secure lid.
  • Declutter your home by removing old newspapers, mail, and cardboard laying around your home.
  • If you’re using mulch in your landscaping, place it at least 1 foot from your foundation.
  • Consider reaching out to your local pest control company to get a customized plan to prevent pests from invading your home.
Are Bed Bugs Inside My South Florida Home?

Are Bed Bugs Inside My South Florida Home?

Traveling for the holidays, staying at hotels, and visiting family are all opportunities for bed bugs to hitchhike through your luggage and make their way into your home! These invasive pests will go undetected for long periods, reproducing quickly, and causing a full-blown infestation. One of the best ways to avoid bed bugs inside your home is to prevent them in the first place.

Bed Bug Prevention Tips

Prevent Bed Bugs While Traveling

While packing for your trip, consider utilizing plastic bags to pack your clothes, shoes, and other personal items to help prevent bed bugs that climb into your suitcase. Before booking your hotel room, look up the bed bug registry. Once you get to your hotel room or Airbnb, inspect the room for signs of bed bugs, including small, dark spots, bloodstains, or bed bug skins. Try to avoid placing your luggage on the bed or floor, instead, place it on tile floors, in a closet, even in showers or tubs, and keep it away from the walls and any wooden furniture.

Prevent Bed Bugs at Home

Once you return home from a trip, unpack your items outside instead of inside your home. Look to unpack your clothes and personal items outside, and wash them immediately through a high-heat dryer cycle as bed bugs cannot withstand high temperatures. If you’ve recently purchased secondhand furniture, groceries, or have a delivery, make sure to always inspect them before bringing them inside.

Bed Bug Treatments

If you’ve seen bed bug signs or a live bed bug, it’s important to act fast to eliminate them from your home. There are several do-it-yourself bed bug methods that you can utilize but having a professional provide you with an inspection and a bed bug treatment plan is usually best. These licensed professionals will give your home in in-depth inspection and a customized bed bug control plan, either a chemical or heat treatment, based on your pest situation. If you suspect a bed bug infestation, contact your Florida pest control company for more information.

Why Are Rodents Invading My Punta Gorda Home?

Why Are Rodents Invading My Punta Gorda Home?

Punta Gorda Rodents

Rodents are a common pest Floridians will deal with. Rodents, like rats and mice, invade homes in search of water, shelter, and food to survive. Once rodents have infested your Punta Gorda home, it can be difficult to remove them as they will often reproduce quickly! It’s important for Punta Gorda homeowners to understand what attracts rodents to their homes and how to prevent them from infesting.

What Attracts Rodents

  • Food: The most common reasons rodents will invade your property is if they find food. Both rats and mice will eat anything you leave laying around inside and outside of your home, including pet food.
  • Warmth: Rodents like a warm, comfortable place to inhabit, which is why they often look to our homes to find it. Common places these creatures will inhabit include attics, sheds, basements, and other structures that are dry and warm enough to make a nest.
  • Water: Like any pest, rodents need water to survive. Mice and rats are in constant search for water, which our homes have plenty of supply of. These rodents will take advantage of leaky pipes, bowls of water for our pets, leaking sprinklers, fountains, and birdbaths.

How to Prevent Rodents

Dealing with rodents in your home is less than ideal. Luckily, there are do-it-yourself preventative measures you can place throughout your home to keep these pests from invading. Consider the following rodent control tips:

  • Empty your garbage regularly, utilizing a tight lid or lock
  • Utilize screens on vents, chimneys, windows, and doors
  • Keep your home free of clutter from paper, fabric, and other materials used for nesting
  • Seal any entry points leading inside your home with metal mesh
  • Rinse food and drink containers before throwing them away
  • Avoid leaving pet food and water out overnight
  • After each meal, wipe down your countertops and clean up any spills or crumbs
  • Repair any leaky pipes found in your home
  • Keep firewood elevated and stored at least 20 feet away from your home.

In summary, what attracts rodents to your Punta Gorda home is food, water, and shelter. If you suspect a rodent infestation, contact your local pest control company for help. These professionals will thoroughly inspect your home and safely remove any rodents that are found on your property.

Request a Free Punta Gorda Pest Inspection

Why am I Suddenly Seeing Silverfish in My Hialeah Home?

Why am I Suddenly Seeing Silverfish in My Hialeah Home?

Silverfish are a prominent pest found in most Florida neighborhoods, including Hialeah. They typically show up in homes that offer high humidity and moisture, which is the perfect environment for these pests. These creatures aren’t harmful to humans but can become a nuisance if they infest your home.

How to Identify Silverfish in Hialeah

These brown-gray to bluish-silver colored pest can get up to ½” in length and have six legs and an elongated body. They are known to rapidly move with fish-like movements and do not have wings.

You will typically find these pests in bathrooms, usually in the sink, bathtub, or crawling along the floor near a wall. They can survive a year without food but need humid temperatures and moisture to survive. Paper and photos make an ideal meal for these pests, but starchy substances like carpet glue, book bindings, wallpaper, plaster, and some paints will also attract these creatures.

How to Prevent Silverfish in Hialeah

Other than spotting silverfish themselves, there are various signs that these pests have infested your home. Pay attention to their feeding marks, these can look like holes, notches along an edge surface, or surface etchings. Here are some steps you can take to prevent these pests:

Control humidity in home

They prefer to live in areas that offer 75-95 percent relative humidity, which is not uncommon in South Florida. Air conditioners and dehumidifiers are vital for making your home environment less attractive to silverfish.

Store items in plastic bins with lids over cardboard boxes

Silverfish and other pests like to hang out in cardboard boxes, so utilizing plastic bins for storage is a good way to prevent silverfish and other pests.

If you’re having issues with silverfish in your Hialeah, FL home, call your local pest control company today to request a free inspection.

When Does Mosquito Season End in South Florida?

When Does Mosquito Season End in South Florida?

In Florida, it can seem like mosquito activity will never end. With our tropical, humid weather, mosquitoes thrive and invade our yards looking for standing water to breed. Besides being a nuisance, these pests can also pose health hazards to both humans and animals, transmitting diseases like the West Nile virus and the Zika virus. So, when does mosquito season end in South Florida?

Mosquito Season in Florida

The official mosquito season typically runs from around March through September or October. Though, since Florida is in a tropical area, mosquito season tends to be year-round, often starting as early as February and ending as late as November. While it’s not ideal to deal with mosquitoes year-round, there are certain things you can do around your home to prevent these pests from taking over your yard. Check out our do-it-yourself mosquito control steps you can take to help minimize mosquitoes around your property:

  • Eliminate Standing Water: Inspect your property and look for items that can hold water and remove them, including buckets, flowerpots, bird feeders, old tires, wheelbarrows, and more.
  • Clean Gutters: Clogged gutters will create a perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes, who only need a small amount of water to do so. Make sure your gutters are free of debris and leaves, especially after a rainstorm.
  • Fill in Hollow Areas: Low lying areas like ditches can collect water, make sure you fill them in with dirt if you spot them. Likewise, make sure to check for logs and stumps holding water and remove them as they can provide a place for mosquitoes to habitat during the cold weather.
  • Seal Gaps: Inspect your foundation for any openings and holes, repairing them as soon as you can with caulk or wool steel depending on the size. Likewise, inspect your door and window screens for openings throughout your home and replace them if needed.
  • Tidy Your Yard: Mosquitoes like tall grass, shrubbery, and damp woodpiles, making it important to keep your grass mowed and cut your shrubs back regularly. Likewise, store your wood piles at least 20 feet from your home and elevate it off the ground.
  • Plant Mosquito-Repelling Plants: Citronella, lavender, marigolds, rosemary, thyme, and basil are all plants and flowers that can help repel mosquitoes because of the oils they contain, consider planting these in your yard.
  • Consider a Pro: Fighting mosquitoes can feel like a never-ending battle when you live in South Florida; consider calling a professional pest control company who can provide a mosquito elimination service and control options to prevent them in the future. These mosquito professionals will inspect your yard, provide source reduction, recommend elimination techniques, and target adult and larvae mosquitoes.

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