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Perimeter Pest Control: Keeping Insects Out Of Your House

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insects The estimated number of insects per acre of land on Earth range from 10 million to 400 million.  It is also estimated that there are close to 90,000 spiders per acre included in those totals.  It is no wonder why bugs can invade our homes, looking for a place of protection and food.

Common Insects Invading Homes

The two most common insects that invade homes are probably ants and spiders. Most of them nest outdoors and move inside the home to look for food.  Once the weather starts to turn cold, many more species of insects will begin looking for a place of refuge inside.  These common indoor invaders include flies, beetles, true bugs, mites, cockroaches, silverfish, springtails, centipedes and millipedes. Insects don’t need much of an opening to move into your house. A good point of reference is if an insect’s head can get through the opening, most likely the rest of the bug can get through as well. Even the opening in a fine mesh screen may not be small enough to keep out all insects. There are numerous points of entry in an average house, such as openings around windows and doors, cracks in foundation walls, crawl spaces, openings around dryer vents and numerous other tiny openings that you may never notice.

Keeping Insects Out of Your House

It is a good idea to check around your house for these types of opening and try sealing them with chalk or other materials that insects will not feed upon.  Another practice to keep bugs from entering your home is to trim bushes and other plants that come in connect with walls or windows.  These can act as a type of highway for insects to invade your home. Also, rake back any mulch that may be in contact with the house as insects like the security of hiding in and under mulch. Sometimes the vinyl on a threshold can wear out and no longer remain in good contact with an outside door.  These are easily replaced and will also help to keep out insects.  Repair rips or tears in window and door screens is another good practice.  Of course, making sure doors are not left open for an extended period of time is also a good idea, but can be a challenge if there are small children in the home. As was mentioned earlier, most little critters live outside and travel indoors for protection from the weather and predators.  Although this occurs throughout the warmer times of the year, the mass migration of insects usually occurs in the fall as the weather becomes colder. A great way to control these migrating insects whenever they are active is to apply a preventative barrier of an insect control material around the outside perimeter of your home. This barrier should extend three feet up on the side of the house and about 6 feet out from the house into the landscape or turf areas. Be sure to also spray the threshold area in front of doors.  As bugs move through this barrier, they will be controlled. Most insect control products have a 21 to 28-day residual, so replying this application at least once a month during the period when insects are active will ensure a bug-free indoor environment. Spring-Green offers Perimeter Pest Control services in most states.  Contact your neighborhood lawn care professional at Spring-Green to schedule this service and keep insects outside where they belong.