1. Play keep-away. Unlike mosquitoes, bees are not attracted to the smell of humans but rather to the sweet scents of their perfume, hair products, lotion, and deodorant.

• Avoid bee attention by wearing unscented products.
• Use an insect repellent to mask the scents. Natural repellents use citrus, mint, and eucalyptus oils.
• Dryer sheets also make effective insect repellents: tuck one in your pocket if you’re hiking or place a few under your picnic blanket.

2. Practice the art of disguise. You can mask not only the scent of your perfumes, but also that of your food with a little clever camouflage.

• Scatter cloves or mint across your table or blanket.
• Another idea is to set a pot or two of marigolds on the table. They look like pretty centerpieces, but their scent repels bees as well.

3. Cover up. Use lids for your food containers and your beverages. Keep trash bags or cans tightly closed as well. This will help reduce the wafting aromas that might entice these pesky insects. The scent of barbecue not only brings people to your party, it is especially compelling for bees and wasps as well, so keep that under wraps as much as possible.

4. Bait and switch. Set out a bowl or cup with some flat soda, fruit juice, maple syrup, or sugar water a few yards away from your picnic. Bees are attracted to the sugary scent and will pursue this instead of your lunch. If possible, set out the bee bait 20 minutes or so before you begin your picnic because the bees will communicate the location of the sugary food to one another. If you are using a soda bottle, remove the label so that no one but the bees tries to drink from it.

5. Set a simply dressed table. Avoid bright colors and floral prints for your tablecloth, picnic blanket, and even your clothing. Bees notice bright hues as well as sweet smells. If something looks like a tropical flower, you can bet that curious bees will come to investigate.

6. Do a little housekeeping. If you are entertaining at home and have unwanted bees on your property, eradicate their hiding places. Bees like tall grass for ground nests and quiet places such as unused play structures and sheds for hives. If you find a hive, call a professional instead of trying to tackle it on your own. A professional will be able to determine the species and create an action plan from there. The honey bee population is decreasing rapidly, which is bad news for humanity as they pollinate the plants we love and depend on. A pest professional or local beekeeper might be able to remove your bee problem without destroying a colony that potentially could be of natural use somewhere else.

Fun Bee Facts

Bees are a vital link in the food chain, and life as we know and enjoy it would not exist without them.

• In addition to their services as pollinators for innumerable food crops, bees provide us with honey, propolis, and wax for a number of uses from industrial to cosmetic.
• They are a symbol of industry (“busy bees”) and represented the lower half of the ancient Egyptian empire: one of the names for a Pharaoh was “He of Sedge and Bee.”
• Bees have even been featured in the mythology of classical Greece and the literature of Virgil, Aristotle, Shakespeare, Tolstoy, and Marx.

So, enjoy your picnic and outdoor activities this summer, but in light of their importance and their fragile hold on the ecosystem these days, prepare accordingly so that you and the bees maintain distance. If you ever notice a bee hive on or near your property, call a professional right away.

Termite Life

Termites require shelter, a food source, a comfortable temperature range, and moisture. They thrive in tropical and subtropical climates. Termites are social insects with elaborate caste systems like ants. They possess what is known as swarm intelligence, which means they function as a unit and so can take advantage of food sources and ecological niches that individual insects could never exploit on their own.

There are five types of common termites: subterranean, soil-feeding, drywood, dampwood, and grass-eating. All of them consume cellulose in the form of plant matter. The two types that cause the most damage to human structures are the subterranean and drywood species. The subterranean termite nests in the soil and builds mounds with elaborate underground tunnels that connect the colony to their food supply. This supply can include your house’s foundation, or furniture, books, shelves, and even insulation and carpets. On the other hand, drywood termites live in the wood they feed on, such as dead trees or the walls of structures. These termites infest your house or furniture directly. They are tiny insects, but their mouths can tear off large pieces of food, which is how a few small, unassuming bugs can bring down an entire home structure.

When a colony reaches maturity, which could mean several million insects, newly mature males and females develop wings and set off to form a new colony and spread the population. This tends to happen in spring and fall or after the first heavy rain of the year. At this time, the females are often visible around doorways and windows in bright sunlight, which attracts them. When they find a suitable new home, their wings are shed and the termites begin to breed. These new colonies are usually nearby; in other words, they are likely still on your property or even still inside your home.

How to Prevent Them

You can take up the welcome mat by removing sources of moisture and food around the outside of your house and closing off access to your crawl spaces.

• Eliminate sources of standing water: leaking faucets, pipes, A/C units or hoses, plugged gutters, or pools on your roof.
• Use trenches to divert water away from your foundation.
• Store firewood and lumber away from your foundation.
• Recycle stacks of old paper and cardboard.
• Don’t over mulch plants near your house.
• Remove stumps and other plant debris.
• Do not allow the wood of the house to touch the soil.
• Clean, clear, and screen all vents into your house.
• Seal off any entry points around pipes or cables.
• Seal any foundation cracks.
• Check fences, decks, and other wooden structures for damage.

Signs of Infestation

If you notice any of these signs, it’s time to call your local exterminator:

• A swarm of small insects arising from the soil or roof.
• Termite droppings in the corners of cupboards or drawers or in small piles below exposed ceiling beams. These droppings look like gray granules or pencil shavings.
• Mud tubes on outside walls or in crawl spaces.
• Damaged paint.
• A hollow sound when knocking on solid wood.
• Fallen wings from the swarmers; these are usually shed near the site of a new budding colony.

Little termites cause very big damage, and often by the time they make themselves known to you, significant damage has occurred. Call your local pest control service as soon as you suspect you might have a problem. These professionals have experience with the insects in your area and their preferred nesting sites. An exterminator can assess your situation and give you options for removal and repair. Termites can be devastating to the structure and foundation of a home, and make short work of it. If you suspect a termite invasion, act fast to nip the issue in the bud before the structural integrity of your home is irreversibly compromised.

There are a number of measures that your household will be asked to take in order to prepare for the event. Your exterminator also takes steps to ensure a successful fumigation. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulates the process of fumigation, and requires exterminators to be trained and certified.

Is Fumigation Safe?

 Fumigation is safe when the proper precautions and preparations have been taken and a trained and certified exterminator is doing the job. During fumigation, all people, plants, and animals must be away from the premises and certain perishable food items have to be either double bagged in special bags or removed from the home. Several additional precautions must be taken as well.

The fumigant dissipates from the area once the tent is removed from the home. After about six hours the exterminator will test your home for traces of fumigant with a fumiscope before allowing your family to return (once traces of the fumigant are less than one part per million).

What Happens During Fumigation?

Once your home is tented, the fumigant is released inside at levels determined by both the size of your home and the size of the infestation. These two factors plus the temperature outside also determine how long the fumigation process will take—usually anywhere from 24 to 72 hours. When contained in an enclosed area, the fumigant is able to penetrate wood and other porous surfaces where pests may be hiding or building nests. Rainy weather can affect the fumigation process, so you may have to reschedule your fumigation if rain is in the forecast.

Steps to Prepare for Fumigation

There are certain steps you need to take during the days before your fumigation. It can take several days to prepare, so make sure you have a plan of action to follow and don’t wait until the last minute to get started. Your exterminator will provide you with a checklist of items to help you prepare.

Call the gas company: If you use natural gas as an energy source in your home, you’ll need to have the gas shut off before fumigation begins. Schedule a temporary shutoff to happen first thing in the morning the day fumigation begins. If you have a propane tank you can shut off the source to your home yourself, or call the propane company for assistance.

Remove plants, animals, and people: Anything that’s alive will need to be removed from the inside of your home and kept away from the house. For example, your dog can’t stay in a fenced-in backyard and outdoor cats must be removed from the area; both animals could get into a spot where they would be exposed to the fumigant. Houseplants can be moved outdoors to a shady spot several feet away from the home’s exterior. You will need to find a place for your family and pets to stay for up to three days.

Food: Perishable food items, including those inside your fridge and freezer, must be either removed from the home or double bagged in special fumigation bags. Items you must double bag if they are to remain inside include items such rice and cereal that are packaged in plastic or cardboard, even if these items are unopened. Any canned or bottled items that are unopened/still sealed may remain inside your home. Don’t forget to remove bagged pet food too, even if it’s unopened.

Medications: Vitamins, over-the-counter medications, and prescriptions must also be double bagged or removed from your home. Make sure you pack any medications you take regularly to keep with you and double bag all other items, including things like cough drops.

Landscaping and shrubbery: You’ll need to cut back plants and shrubs that are close to your home so that they will remain outside the tented area. This can be a good excuse to get some much-needed pruning done. Once pruning is complete, thoroughly water the perimeter of your home to further protect the plants from the fumigant.

Remove plastic from indoor items. The plastic tent is used to trap fumigant inside your home, but when plastic is covering items inside the home, the gases can get inside or underneath and become trapped, so they are not able to dissipate once the fumigation is over. Any items covered in plastic should have the plastic cover removed. These items can include baby crib mattresses and furniture, but don’t forget to look for other items such as garment bags used to protect clothing. Plastic storage totes should have the covers removed as well. If you’re not sure whether an item in plastic is airtight or not, remove it from the property.

If at First You Don’t Succeed

You’ve done the research, tried all the home remedies, and the bugs keep coming back. Are you ready to take back your home from these invaders for good? Pests are adaptable, which is why many home solutions are likely to only be a temporary remedy. You could seek out new methods, redouble your efforts, and keep up a 24-hour vigil to pick off these home invaders one by one. Or you could pick up the phone and make an appointment with your local exterminator. A pest control professional can diagnose the problem, offer a free estimate, discuss options, and guarantee the end of your invasion.
It’s not failure or defeat to hand the fight over to an exterminator; it’s simply common sense and effective issue management. The bugs are not engaged in a battle of wills with you; they are simply annexing new territory, so bring in the big guns. Worried about the expense? The stuff you’re buying at the garden store is cheaper at first, but over time it adds up, along with your frustration and any damage the pests might be causing. Over the long term it’s often more cost-effective to hire the exterminator and indulge your warrior spirit in a game of laser tag instead.

Safety First

Some pests, such as ants, you can take on with limited risk. Others such as wasps, rats, and spiders can cause serious harm, especially if you have young children or small pets in your home. Don’t mess around with swarming insects or creatures with venom or viruses that can put you in the emergency room. You also don’t want to endanger the structure and value of your house by attempting DIY termite removal. Modern pest control methods use substances that are not toxic to humans or domestic animals, and they are often safer than what’s available on the shelves at the hardware store. An exterminator can remove the hazardous pests safely the first time and keep them away so your family can enjoy your home and yard in comfort—and save the scary wildlife encounters for movie night.

Peace of Mind

Professional pest services often offer free estimates and guarantees. If you find yourself spending a little more time and money on your pest problem than you’d like, or if your busy life doesn’t give you the time or energy to tackle bugs yourself, there is someone who can take care of everything for you, worry-free. Your exterminator can even set up a maintenance schedule so the pests don’t come back. Time is money, and confidence that the problem will be solved efficiently and permanently can be worth more than both of these things.

Worried about the hassle of setting up appointments and vacating your house? Your pest control service will work with you to find the most convenient times for visits, and many pest problems can be solved with you and your family in the home.

Bottom line: this is your home, where your family lives and where you entertain friends and loved ones. Pests are making it uninhabitable. If you’ve tried to take care of the problem yourself and the bugs keep coming back, or you worry about the safety of your family, or you simply do not have the time to deal with the problem on your own, you’re ready to bring in the pros. Your local pest control company has long-term experience with the exact insects or vermin that are plaguing you. They also have access to the tools that work best and cause minimal harm to people, pets, and the environment. If you’re even thinking about making the call, it’s probably time to do so.

As organic products become more and more popular around the country, people are discovering the benefits of these wholesome and natural methods of growing produce, cleaning the home—and terminating insect infestations.

Let’s take a look at the benefits of organic pest control by first determining what exactly organic means.

What does organic mean?

According the United States Department of Agriculture, “Organic is a labeling term that indicates that the food or other agricultural product has been produced through approved methods that integrate cultural, biological, and mechanical practices that foster cycling of resources, promote ecological balance, and conserve biodiversity. Synthetic fertilizers, sewage sludge, irradiation, and genetic engineering may not be used.

There are many examples of organic products throughout the country, from clothing to baby products to alcohol, but most of all in agriculture and horticulture. For example, organic farming uses biological pest control techniques that don’t rely on chemical sprays. Pest populations like caterpillars, beetles, and bollworms are controlled with predatory insects, which can include ladybugs or certain types of wasps. The resulting produce is more wholesome and natural.

As far as pest control goes, these methods are very similar. However, since pest control companies like Joshua’s Pest Control won’t release more pests just to get rid of your old ones, we do use natural methods of infestation eradication and prevention.

Organic Pest Control Explained

Some insects have specific aversions to natural herbs, vegetables, or minerals. For example, eucalyptus and sweet basil will deter flies, sage and rosemary repel mosquitoes, catnip makes cockroaches flee, and cedar is a deterrent to many different kinds of insects. Some substances that are harmless to us, like boric acid, are very effective against certain insects.

However, because insects dislike a certain smell or taste doesn’t mean you’ll be free of the nuisance forever. In fact, if you’re using these natural deterrents to simply cover up something that the insect wants badly, there’s a good chance that bug will take the risk to reap the reward. Therefore, many ongoing applications are needed to truly be effective. This is where strategy comes in to play.

Joshua’s Organic Strategy

Joshua’s Pest Control is committed to offering our customers a complete organic pest control package for the home. It’s a great way to ward off unfriendly insects and spiders.

Because organic materials generally break down faster than alternatives, a comprehensive pest control plan will be the most beneficial for your home.

Because of this, Joshua’s trained experts will make multiple trips to your home and property to re-apply and alter our organic strategy depending on what kind of success it has against your specific home invaders. This kind of pest control will contain the insects that carry harmful pathogens, inflict painful bites, or leave eggs behind for future generations.

“Face of a Southern Yellowjacket Queen” Photo Credit: Thomas Shahan

Like plant life, many pests die off in autumn as winter sets in, but not before many of them lay their eggs in a safe place to incubate until spring time. As a general rule, most pests are most problematic in spring time and least problematic in late fall and winter.

When pests take refuge indoors, they can survive all seasons and reproduce year round. In SoCal where winter conditions stay warm enough, many pests can be a year-round problem both indoors and out. Here’s a breakdown of the pests you can expect to find seasonally, keeping in mind that they’re all a problem in spring.

Year Round:

Ants. Ants are most often seen around the home in springtime, but they are present on your property year round. During the winter months, ants retreat to their nests to lay their eggs in higher quantities. The highest number of eggs hatch in spring. Winter is the time to stop ants, before their eggs hatch and they become a problem. If you have ants around your home each spring, you can count on it happening again next year too, so take the winter months to exterminate them.

Cockroaches. Cockroaches are attracted to water and rotting food, so in nature they thrive in spring when it’s wet and fall when organic matter is decaying. In our SoCal homes they appear any time of year that they can find damp, dark conditions and decaying matter to feed on. Keeping your kitchen sparkling clean is one way to curb roaches, but it’s not always realistic. Roaches resist many common chemicals and poisons and usually require professional extermination.

Spring:

Earwigs. Like roaches, you’ll find earwigs in the Southern California region throughout the year, as long as they can find a damp place to hide. They thrive in spring the most, however, when their eggs hatch and there’s plenty of moisture. Earwigs are harmless, but most people don’t like finding them inside or outside the home.

Indoors, limit moisture, keep items like wet towels off the bathroom floor, and keep your bathrooms well ventilated. If you find earwigs outdoors—they like to hide under logs and rocks in shady areas—try transferring them to your garden where you may have seen another common springtime pest that they like to feed on: aphids.

Summer:

Wasps. Wasps begin building new colonies in spring when a single female or queen is able to fertilize hundreds of eggs using sperm from males that she stored inside her body over the winter. Each queen usually constructs a small paper nest to house her young initially, but the colony takes over once summer hits and they begin building the nest at a much faster rate.

Mid-summer is the time when most homeowners notice one or more wasps nests around their home’s exterior. Wasp colonies that aren’t destroyed or relocated will produce new queens that will hibernate in the area over the winter and begin new colonies the following spring. Once you have wasps’ nests around your house, you can expect to see more each year.

Termites. Termites build their nests underground, inside trees, and in mounds, so their nests can be difficult to find. The most common place they build their nests in residential areas is inside tree stumps, so make sure all stumps are removed from your property, starting with those closest to your home.

Termites are flying creatures until they shed their wings after mating in late summer. Look for their wings, in addition to piles of “sawdust” around your home’s exterior walls, as signs of a termite infestation.

Fall:

Rodents. Rodents aren’t typically as much of a problem in homes during summer as they can be in fall when they begin moving indoors to seek shelter and start a nest for winter. Rodents are often nocturnal animals that remain well hidden, but if you have them in your home you’ll see their droppings in the mornings and hear them inside walls at night. Rodents spread disease, reproduce quickly and require a special kind of extermination because they have to be removed from the premises, dead or alive.

Winter:

Fleas, ticks, crickets, and spiders: While all these common San Diego pests are abundant during summer, you may find them seeking refuge in your home over the winter when they need heat and shelter to survive. These pests don’t usually become a problem unless they begin reproducing indoors, which can be challenging if they can’t find a mate.

Fleas can survive the winter living on the warm bodies of your furry friends, but a flea collar or regular flea treatment will keep them at bay. Adult ticks can survive for a year without food, so if you find one of these nasty pests indoors, send him to the sewer. If you see crickets or spiders in your home during winter, it’s best to simply relocate them outdoors before they reproduce.

Photo Credit: Thomas Ripplinger

The Feeding Habits of Termites

We all know that termites feed on wood, but it’s not as simple as that. Termites are actually feeding on the cellulose found in wood, which serves as a high source of energy for both plants and insects like termites.

• Subterranean termites feed on cellulose that’s present in the soil.
• Grass-eating termites feed on the cellulose in dying grass.
• Dry wood termites most easily digest the cellulose found in decaying wood.

Dry wood and subterranean termites are the types that cause the most problems for homeowners because they will literally feed on your home and the soil that it rests on.

Signs of Termites

Tubes and tunnels: Termites are sensitive creatures that require moisture and cool temperatures to survive. They often build tunnels just above the ground’s surface to protect themselves from heat, dry conditions, and predators. These tunnels, also called shelter tubes, are made from a mix of soil, plant matter, saliva, and feces.

Tunnels and tubes that cover surfaces, including the sides of your house, are one big sign that you have termites. Subterranean termites are the termite species most likely to leave shelter tubes around properties. Look for them on the ground, on the trunks of live trees, and on logs and stumps around your property before they move on to your home’s exterior walls.

Frass: When termites eat wood they ingest the cellulose and eliminate the byproduct, a sawdust-like substance called frass. Frass refers to any insect waste that’s created from eating plants. Although frass is a waste product, it is very high in nutrients and can support the life system of a termite colony inside the nest and/or when other sources of food are unavailable.

If you have termites present on your property, you may find piles of frass that look like fine piles of sawdust. What you’re seeing is essentially termite poop: bits of chewed up wood that are moist and slightly sticky. Dry wood termites are the most likely species to leave frass piles around your home.

Like shelter tubes, you can see frass piles around your property as a sign that termites are in the area. Look around wood piles, stumps, standing dead trees, fallen trunks, and structures such as old sheds that may be around your property.

Termites go for decaying wood first, so if the siding of your home is in good shape you may be safe while termites exhaust other sources of food first. Looking for signs of termites early can help stop them before they get to your house.

Structural damage: Termites keep themselves well hidden in order to survive, and in many cases they are not detected until the damage to your home is already done. Termites will visibly damage your home’s exterior siding first, but by the time you notice it they may have already made their way inside. Once indoors termites will eat nearly any plant-based household material containing cellulose (even some plastics!).

Check your home’s exterior weekly for signs of termite damage. Remember that they prefer decaying wood, so if you have untreated or damaged wood anywhere on your home, especially close to the ground, they will begin feeding on these areas first. Fixing or replacing raw or decaying wood can help save your home from becoming termite food.

Ways to Prevent Termites

Termites mate and migrate during their winged phase. During this time they’re living off stored energy and aren’t interested in eating. The young termites that hatch in spring develop wings and migrate to a new location where they mate, shed their wings, and begin building a nest in which the queens will lay eggs and the new colony will take shelter.

Removing dead and decaying sources of wood from your property will send migrating termites on their way to set up camp in a place with better sources of food to support the colony. Dead stumps are a primary source of food for termites in residential areas, so removing these from your property completely and encouraging your neighbors to do the same can keep termite populations down.

Making sure the wood on your house is primed, painted, and properly sealed is another way to deter termites from your home. If you have a wood-burning stove and a wood pile, keep the pile away from your house and burn properly seasoned wood, not old, decaying, or rotten wood.

Photo Credit: bgv23

If you spot any of these little nuisances on your property or in your home, call Joshua’s Pest Control right away to have an expert come out and survey the infested area before a serious bite puts a major damper on your summer barbeque.

Black Widow Spiders

These vicious arachnids get their name from their sinister post-mating habits. After successfully mating with a male, the female black widow will attack and eat the male, potentially to benefit the offspring. It’s this female’s bite that packs the well-known venom. The males, by contrast, have a very weak level of venom in their bites.

The neurotoxic venom of a black widow affects some core body functions, including the way cells communicate with one another, and it can cause nausea and muscle pain. In high doses, this can lead to significant medical problems, including mental retardation, dementia, and amnesia. However, since most bites are treated in time, fatalities by this neurotoxin are rare. Still, the affects of the toxin can drastically reduce the health of young children and the elderly.

The black widow is identified most easily by the red hourglass shape on the bottom of its posterior body segment. This mark isn’t found on the shiny topside, so the spider has to be inverted for its markings to be visible.

These spiders are found either outdoors in sheds and under rocks and woodpiles, or in quiet indoor places like your basement or attic. If you spot a black widow in your home or on a part of your property you use often, call Joshua’s Pest Control and a spider expert will be there to rid your home of this dangerous pest.

Brown Widow Spiders

Predominantly found in the southern half of the United States (including San Diego County), the geometric button spider, or brown widow, is closely related to the famed black widow, and packs equally serious venom.

The brown widow is usually tan, grey, or rust-colored with an orange hourglass shape on its largest body segment. This spider also keeps a very recognizable egg sack that looks like a small, tan, spiky ball. It takes 20 days for the eggs to hatch, so if you spot these round, pointy egg sacks call Joshua’s Pest Control experts immediately to prevent these spiders from hatching and making life more difficult for your barbeque guests.

Though it’s more likely you’ll find them outdoors, they could easily invade your basement or other areas where you’d least expect them to be. Use caution when in areas that haven’t been cleaned in a while, or appear dark and full of spider webs.

Desert Recluse Spiders

Though often confused with the more renowned brown recluse spider (which is found nowhere near San Diego), the desert recluse also uses necrotizing venom to repel predators.

Necrotic venoms affect the tissues on the body by essentially destroying them. One small bite can cause a lesion, sore, or crater-like wound on the bite site. In some cases, victims must seek serious medical attention to repair the affected area. Necrosis can be fatal in extreme cases, though this is rare when induced from the venom of a spider bite.

This is different from a black widow bite in one key way: the black widow’s venom attacks your nervous system, the recluse’s venom eats away at your tissue.

Moreover, desert recluse spiders aren’t aggressive, and their bites occur in defense of their own well-being. If your property is strewn with these spiders, it’s possible they could get into your beach blankets, tents or clothing, where they can become trapped and bite the first part of your body that comes in contact.

If you believe you have been bitten by any one of these spiders, contact a healthcare provider immediately. If you’d like to take preventative measures against these pests, call Joshua’s Pest Control and speak to an expert today.

Photo Credit: OakleyOriginals

While most common pests are a problem in some San Diego households, some pests are always more problematic for homes than others. You can use this basic guide to determine whether or not you’ve reached infestation levels requiring a professional exterminator for common household pests in San Diego.

Termites: Termites often go undetected until serious structural damaged has already occurred, but it helps to know what the warning signs are. The biggest sign is piles of sawdust-like material called frass around your home’s exterior walls caused by wood-eating termites. Formosan termites create frass and burrow into the ground, so look for their small, hollow tubes appearing just under the soil as well.

Ants: Several species of ants are a common household problem year round in San Diego. The Argentine ant is the most problematic because they hide their nests under the home in a vast network of multiple colonies and can come indoors through the tiniest spaces. The Argentine ant is looking for food to bring back to the nest, so he’s commonly found in the kitchen, but you’ll notice these ants all over the home on the ground floor when they’ve reached infestation levels.

Fire ants bite, chew through electrical wiring, and can even work together to overtake birds, rodents, and small domestic animals. When there are children and pets around, and even when there aren’t, fire ants aren’t welcome. Look for their classic ant hills around your property and have a professional stop them before they migrate closer to your home.

Cockroaches: Nobody likes a cockroach. These elusive invaders require a professional exterminator almost every time because they have a long life span, multiply quickly, and are nearly impossible to kill. Because they’ve been on the planet longer than most species, they’ve evolved through the worst conditions and built up a resistance to many common products. Just remember that when it comes to cockroaches, there’s never just one.

Rodents: Rodents carry a number of infectious diseases, destroy materials around your home, and cause costly damages by chewing through electrical wires. If you see rodents or rodent droppings around your home, you have a problem you can’t ignore. Rodents multiply very quickly. A single female can reproduce six to eight times a year and her own young can start reproducing when only a month old.

Wasps: Honeybees don’t sting, but wasps are an aggressive species that will attack humans to protect the nest or if otherwise provoked. One upside of a wasp infestation is that you can see them coming and going from their nests, which are often built on the protected undersides of soffits and eaves on homes. Knowing where the nest is makes wasps easier to exterminate and to avoid in the meantime.

Spiders: Most spiders that make their way inside the home are harmless and are just looking for a protected place to build a web and catch some food. Most spiders found around the home can be vacuumed up or relocated to the outdoors before they multiply. In fact, it’s difficult for spiders to multiply indoors because it’s hard for them to find a mate of the same species once they get trapped inside.

Poisonous spiders to look out for are the black widow and brown recluse (although a recluse is very rare in our area and many people mistake house spiders for recluses). A black widow can be identified by its shiny black body and red hourglass shape on its belly. A brown recluse is identified by a dark fiddle shape on the cephalothorax (the fiddle’s neck points backward toward the abdomen), three pairs of two eyes, and consistently colored legs and abdomen. Call an exterminator for professional help if you see either of these dangerous spiders inside your home.

Fleas and Ticks: Fleas and ticks are common pests in San Diego because they like warm weather. These two pests feed on blood and are usually carried into the house on pets and humans. Fleas can infest a home quickly and require fumigation to exterminate.

Ticks live for a long time and are difficult to kill, but they don’t usually multiply once inside the home and can be removed without an exterminator on a case-by-case basis. The best way to deal with both pests is to avoid bringing them inside in the first place by giving pets a monthly flea and tick treatment and checking your own body and clothing for ticks after time spent outdoors.

Photo Credit: Jill Meaux

Protecting your home from ants means learning a little bit about the types of ants you have around your property and the conditions they prefer. Limiting the food and environments they like, as well as keeping an eye out for signs of colonies, can help keep ant problems at bay as well.

Tip 1: Identify your ants.

Which types of ants do you have living near your home? Even though Southern California is home to about ten different species of common ants, chances are you only have a few different kinds thriving around your property and even fewer making their way into your home. Here are the types of ants that most commonly make their way indoors.

• Argentine ants: are the little house and picnic ants that are attracted to sweets. While these ants seem harmless and don’t bite, they sometimes carry diseases. When there’s a colony nearby, you’ll start seeing Argentine ants everywhere around your home, especially in the kitchen. These tiny ants support vast and multiple colonies that position themselves in several locations within a small space in order to dominate an area.

• Carpenter ants: are known for destroying wood. While they do not eat wood and are actually attracted to sweets, they build their nests inside hollowed out wood, which they are perfectly happy to hollow out themselves by chewing through any wood in their way. Carpenter ants can do significant damage to a wooden structure if they’re not discovered, but they are significantly larger than Argentine ants and easy to spot.

• Odorous house ants: help transport aphids which produce a byproduct called honeydew that they use as their primary food source. You’ll see these scavengers transporting aphids and other bits of food back to the nest. They prefer to build nests outside under rocks and soil, but will build them anywhere, including inside insulation in walls. They are highly resistant to heat, cold, and injury, and tend to make their way indoors after it rains, as the rain washes away their food source.

Tip 2: Keep food in the kitchen and keep the kitchen clean.

Ants are looking for two things: a protected place to build a nest and food. Limiting their access to these resources can help keep ants out of your home. The number one way to prevent ants according to exterminators and other experts is to keep the kitchen clean and food put away at all times. Even if your kitchen is always sparkling clean, look around for some of these common kitchen items that attract ants and other unwanted pests like cockroaches:

• Fruit baskets: they look nice on countertops, but attract all kinds of unwanted pests.

• Fresh flower arrangements: these attract aphids which have a symbiotic relationship with ants; try moving them to an outdoor table instead.

• Tiny spills of sugary substances: most ants prefer sugar and even a tiny drop of honey or grain of sugar left on the countertop can attract dozens. Don’t forget that items like wine and bread are high in sugar too.

In addition, keep food and eat food only in your kitchen to limit ant problems from spreading to other areas of the home.

Tip 3: Properly seal exterior walls and windows.

While it’s impossible to shut ants out entirely, homes that aren’t airtight tend to have more ant problems. A few home improvement projects that can help limit the number of ants that get in include re-caulking trim, replacing the weather stripping around doors, and replacing old windows. These projects will help keep your heating and cooling costs down too.

Tip 4: Landscape properly to limit aphids.

Ants and aphids work together to help each other survive. Ants feed off sweet tasting aphid excrement called honeydew, and in turn the ants harbor the aphids to protect them from predators like ladybugs and help them grow their colonies, which means more food for the ants.

Aphids thrive in gardens where they feed off a number of domesticated plants that offer them a good food source. Aphids damage and eventually kill the plants they live on, spread to other plants, and facilitate the growth of ant colonies, so there are many reasons to keep aphids out of your garden. Planting aphid-resistant plants and checking plants for aphids regularly are two chemical-free ways to keep populations down.

Tip 5: Exterminate in the winter.

Ant colonies reproduce the slowest in winter and the most rapidly in spring. Ants can be hard to stop once they have multiple queens and colonies. Exterminations are more effective when numbers are down and should be performed before a problem reaches infestation levels. By stopping ant nests and populations around your property before ants come indoors looking for food, you can prevent an extermination inside your home.

“Working at the aphid farm” by Jennifer Molajen