How Often Do You Need Pest Control?

Many homeowners wonder how often pest control should be done. Whether you are looking to prevent a re-infestation after treating your home or are looking to avoid a problem with pests from occurring in the first place, preventative maintenance is essential. A reputable pest control company will work with you to assess your home’s individual needs and develop a treatment program and plan based on your unique pest problems. How often pest control should be done depends on a variety of factors, including the location of your home, the construction type and age, sanitation, the type of landscape surrounding your home, and what type of target pests you are treating.

How Often Should Pest Control Be Done?

Experts recommend that you get a pest control program that suits the needs of you and your family, while still considering the pest pressures that are specific to your property. These can include the age and condition of the home, as well as the landscape characteristics. If you hire a professional pest control company with trained and certified applicators in Integrated Pest Management, then programs that offer Quarterly or Every-Other-Month services are often sufficient to ensure your home remains free of unwanted intruders. However, if there is heavy pest pressure which can be found in commercial buildings or restaurants, or in homes with a mature landscape with a lot of vegetation, then sometimes pest control is needed more frequently than every two to three months. In these homes with surrounding lakes, tall grasses, forested areas, many flower or ornamental beds, heavy mulching, etc., sometimes monthly pest control is needed. This is especially true if trying to get rid of the more difficult pests to control, such as Big Headed Ant, White Footed Ant, Ghost Ant, and German Cockroach.

Severe Infestations

If you are battling a severe pest infestation, whether it be rodents or insects, your home may require frequent inspection and treatments until the colony is entirely eradicated. Depending on the severity of an infestation, sometimes this can require a few months. How often you will need pest control depends on what species of pest has made their home inside your house, how long the property has been infested, where the colonies are located, and how mature and widespread the infestation is. Once an infestation is controlled, unfortunately many of the reasons that your home experienced high pressure and invasion in the first place are still going to be present. So although Hulett Environmental Services will give you helpful tips and tricks to help reduce the attractiveness of your home to unwanted insect pests, you can’t exactly change the South Florida climate that the bugs love so much. For this reason, routine pest control is very important to help prevent infestations from occurring again in the future.

It’s crucial that you have a professional pest control company correctly identify not only what type of pest is infesting your home, but also what species, as different species of the same bug may require different treatment methods. For example, some ants are sweet-feeders whereas some feed on proteins, so it is critical to identify the ant correctly to know which type of bait products to use to eradicate the infestation from your home. But one thing is for certain, ants and cockroaches that are invading are looking for food. So vacuuming, cleaning, and completing home maintenance to make sure that your kitchen and bathrooms do not have any water leaks, or remnants of food debris, sugars from soda or sports drinks, grease, and oils can certainly help lessen insect pressure. Also, different species of ants and cockroaches like to hide and breed in different areas around your home, depending on their preference to light or dark, dryness or humidity, etc. Only a trained and certified applicator will know exactly where to look.

The Characteristics of Your Home

Although the residents of South Florida love our weather, insects love our tropical climate, too! Since we live in a climate that is traditionally warm and humid, you are more likely to experience pest problems and need maintenance performed on your home more regularly. Likewise, areas that receive large amounts of rainfall may also require more frequent treatment. These are characteristics that South Floridians are definitely very familiar with.

But more specific to your own property, if your home sits near a body of water, open grassy field, or wooded area, you may need pest control more frequently than other homeowners. This is because natural landscapes like the water, woods, and tall grassy fields offer an abundant amount of food and shelter for insects, so there is going to be a tremendous amount of insect activity and diversity. Bodies of water such as lakes, retention ponds, rivers, canals, mangroves, etc., are also common pest breeding areas, making them attractive to many insects. So the closer your home is to these landscapes, the greater the activity in your area, so the more likely they are to try and make their way inside your home. If your doors and windows are well sealed, caulked, and screened, then this will definitely help to lessen the invasion by insects from the outside, but in South Florida, regularly-scheduled pest control services are still often needed. We know this sounds like a lot, and there are many different characteristics that will affect how often your home requires re-application. So the best thing to do as a homeowner is to ask your trusted pest control professional how long they expect the treatment to last before needing another application and schedule accordingly. Hulett Environmental Services will create a custom program to fit your needs, while still making sure it will control or prevent infestation.

Benefits of Routine Pest Control

When asking how often pest control should be done, one should consider the many benefits of routine inspections and maintenance applications. Having regular pest control professionals come to your house can help you avoid becoming infested in the first place, or help prevent your home from reinfestation after it has been eradicated. No one likes to have bugs in your home, as they are unsightly and can be associated with health hazards, sanitary issues, or in some instances even cause costly damage to your home.

Another benefit of having a trained applicator on your property regularly is that homeowners often do not realize that they have a pest problem until infestations have grown out-of-control. If the subtle signs or symptoms of a small and early infestation is discovered, then the applicator can quickly prevent the issue from becoming more severe. There are countless benefits to routine pest control, and when considering how often pest control treatments should be done, it is best to speak with a professional company that can evaluate your unique needs based on your home, property, and pest problems. Contact Hulett Environmental Services today.