Pests are dangerous and can cause high-priced damage to homes. They can also be a threat to health, especially for those with asthma.
Pest Control in Joplin MO is constantly developing new products and methods to help manage pests. This ensures that the company can provide consistent and efficient service to Joplin customers.
Bed Bugs
Bed bugs are small, reddish-brown, wingless insects that feed on blood and can produce multiple generations per year. They survive in a variety of environments and thrive in places where people gather for extended periods.
They are known to be good hitchhikers, and they can move from room to room or floor to floor by crawling or squeezing through cracks and crevices. They can also get into a home as stowaways in luggage, furniture or clothing.
The pests are most often found in hotels, dormitories, schools, apartments, theaters, office buildings, and public transportation. They can even be brought into homes by shopping for second-hand furniture without thoroughly inspecting it first. Cleanup is key to control, and spraying common hiding spots with a surface pesticide that’s registered for bed bug control can be effective.
Termites
Termites can cause severe and costly structural damage to homes. It is important to hire a pest control expert that will perform a complete inspection. The company should drill and treat the entire foundation wall and piers with a termiticide. This treatment is required by state regulations.
Symptoms of a termite infestation include winged insects, mud tubes, wood pellets that resemble sawdust, sagging doors and windows and crumbling drywall. Be sure to inspect crawl spaces, wood piles, attics and garages and around pipes, doors and windows.
Swarms of winged termites are a sign of an active termite colony. These termites are pale in color and have wings that are about 1/8 inch long. They swarm during the spring and early summer to mate and start new colonies.
Rodents
Rodents are a highly successful order of mammals that is characterized by having a single pair of ever-growing incisors in both upper and lower jaws. They are omnivores and their diets vary depending on the available food sources. They are found in every terrestrial habitat and are often seen as pests because of their destructive habits.
The best way to prevent rodent infestations is to keep food and water away from the home or building. It is also recommended to remove items that provide shelter such as logs, trash, wood piles and stacks.
In addition, it is important to cover all openings around doors and windows with metal or wire. Signs of rodent activity include gnawing or chew marks, droppings, tracks or trails, rub marks, scurrying noises and odors from urine.
Mosquitoes
Mosquitoes are annoying pests that bite humans and other animals. They also spread some disease-causing pathogens.
Female mosquitoes need blood meals to produce eggs, so they search for humans and other animals as sources of blood. During the bite, they inject saliva into their hosts’ skin. This saliva serves as an anticoagulant and is the main route through which mosquito physiology offers passenger pathogens entry into the host’s bloodstream.
Globally, mosquitoes spread diseases like malaria, yellow fever, West Nile virus, encephalitis, dengue and chikungunya. In the United States, they spread la encephalitis and western equine encephalitis, as well as the potentially fatal parasitic disease chikungunya.
Spiders
Spiders are important predators, keeping the population of insects like moths, flies, mosquitoes, and crickets in check. As a result, there are fewer bloodsucking pests bothering us or laying disease-causing eggs in our homes.
Many of the 40,000 or so species of spiders spin silk to capture their prey. They do this with structures on their abdomens called spinnerets – a cluster of spigot-like structures that each extrudes a single thread. Some spiders also comb the silk they produce with special leg bristles called a cribellum to give it a different, more textured texture.
Because of their reclusive natures, spiders are harder to control than some of the other pests on this list. However, a clean home and the repair of any cracks and crevices they might use to enter should deter them.