Pest control involves safely eliminating unwanted insects, rodents, and other organisms. These organisms damage crops, buildings, and other property and can spread disease to people, pets, and livestock.
Some pests are continuous and require regular control, while others are sporadic or migratory. Some are carriers of rabies, plague, and flea-borne typhus. Contact Pest Control Thousand Oaks now!
A pest problem can occur in a home, a garden, or a workplace. It can lead to food contamination, property damage, and health problems such as asthma and allergies. It can also result in expensive repair bills and loss of productivity. There are many ways to deal with a pest infestation, but the best approach is prevention.
To prevent pest problems, first identify what kind of infestation you have and where it is coming from. This may be done by using sticky traps to capture the pests and looking at their droppings to determine what they are (rats have pointed, dark colored droppings, while mice have round, black rubbings). If you suspect rodent activity in your house, look for tiny holes in the walls and around windows and doors that have been chewed through by mouse or rat teeth. You can seal the openings by filling them with caulk or expanding foam. You can also fit all your windows, vents and doors with screens, which are particularly effective against flying insects such as flies and mosquitoes. Check and replace the screens regularly to maintain their effectiveness.
Regular inspections are also important to spot small pest infestations before they grow. For example, cracks and crevices in walls, loose window and door frames, ripped screens and overflowing garbage cans are all inviting entry points for pests. Keeping shrubs and trees trimmed away from buildings, storing trash in sealed containers, cleaning up spilled food, removing weeds and eliminating standing water (which can serve as breeding grounds for some pests) are all simple measures that can significantly reduce the likelihood of a pest infestation.
If an infestation does occur, the most important step is to decide whether the pests are doing enough harm to justify controlling them. This is a subjective decision and can be difficult to make. For example, you may find that a few ants are stealing your picnic food or eating your roses but that their numbers are not high enough to warrant control.
Once the pests are controlled, there are two common approaches to dealing with them: suppression and eradication. Suppression involves reducing the number of pests to an acceptable level, whereas eradication refers to completely destroying the pest population. In outdoor pest situations, eradication is rarely attempted because it can be very difficult to achieve.
Suppression
Pests are undesirable organisms such as insects, fungi, bacteria, nematodes, and vertebrate animals that devalue crops or displace native plant species, and can harm human health and the environment. Management of pests focuses on preventing damage or reducing their numbers to an acceptable level. Prevention includes limiting their entry into an area, or inhibiting their spread to new areas. It involves assessing the environment, understanding what attracts and harbors them (see Inspecting and Monitoring page for details), and making changes to reduce their presence or impact.
Physical controls, such as barriers, traps, screens, or fences prevent pests from entering or spreading into an area. Radiation, heat, and electricity can also alter environments enough to suppress or eliminate certain organisms. Chemicals are a common tool for controlling many pests, but the use of synthetic products must be weighed against their effect on natural enemies (see Monitoring and Ecological Impacts page).
Cultural controls, such as removing weeds or overwintering habitats that harbor pests, adjusting planting times to avoid pest generations, and cleaning equipment between fields help reduce their numbers and occurrence. Cultural methods also include using cover and smother crops to prevent pests from damaging plants and can be combined with other control techniques.
Biological control uses predators, parasitoids, and pathogens to limit the population of pest insects. These living agents are introduced to the landscape to make them more effective at reducing pest populations, but they require time to establish themselves and reach a balance with the population of their host or prey. Biological control is not an off-the-shelf solution, and requires knowledge of pest biology and ecology to effectively implement it.
In some cases, a pest must not be allowed to exist in an environment due to the severe economic, environmental, or health damage it can cause. In these cases, suppression tactics must be used to reduce the population below an action threshold. The tactics used in this case will depend on the type of pest, its tolerance to injury, and the environmental and economic costs of the suppression method itself. This may include regulating the movement of firewood to prevent its transport with invasive pests, or quarantines on specific sites to protect valuable crops from new insect outbreaks.
Eradication
Pest control is the set of techniques used to manage pests and prevent them from damaging your home or posing a health risk. It involves a combination of different methods, including prevention, suppression and eradication.
Preventive measures are economical and environmentally responsible, while reducing or eliminating the conditions that promote pest infestations. They can include regularly cleaning areas where pests like to live, such as around stoves and sinks, or mowing the lawn more frequently to reduce weed populations that compete with crops for sunlight.
Suppression techniques control pest activity and population growth by quickly acting when the pest numbers are low. This includes inspecting the property for signs of pests and responding quickly with pest control treatments to limit their impact, such as spraying or baiting. Eradication is less common in outdoor situations than prevention and suppression, but it may be necessary for specific circumstances, such as to protect a public health or safety concern.
Biological pest control uses organisms that naturally prey on or parasitize the pest species, such as nematodes, fleas and thrips. These organisms can be introduced in small quantities to a natural environment, where they reproduce and establish themselves, or can be bred in the laboratory and then released to the ecosystem in large numbers.
Chemical pest control agents use poisons to kill the unwanted organisms. They include fungicides, herbicides and insecticides. Many of these chemicals are also toxic to wildlife, pets and children, so their use must be carefully monitored and controlled to protect human life. They can also damage the environment by killing non-target organisms or contaminating water supplies and streams with runoff.
Eradication should not be viewed as a goal in its own right, but should be considered a part of the overall Pest Management Program. For example, a gardener can take steps to prevent pests from getting in the first place by using cultural and physical controls such as screens, floating row covers, food containers with tight-fitting lids and mulches to reduce weed competition for plant nutrients and moisture. These controls should be employed before the need for more drastic action, such as applying pesticides.
IPM
Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is a scientific decision-making process that integrates information about pest biology, environmental data, and technology to manage pest damage in ways that minimize economic costs and risks to people and the environment. IPM is used widely by growers, homeowners and green industry professionals to control insects, weeds and diseases in agriculture, landscapes, home gardens and turf, golf courses, urban and commercial buildings, parks, schools, and other public facilities and lands including natural, wilderness, and aquatic areas.
The primary goal of IPM is to avoid or reduce the need for pesticides. Pesticides are used as a last resort when other methods are ineffective or not feasible. When pesticides are needed, they are carefully chosen and applied with a view to minimizing exposure and the development of resistance.
IPM begins with monitoring and inspections to determine whether pests are present or conditions are favorable for their growth. Once pests are detected, the first step is to determine an action threshold – the point at which the pest population or damage becomes unacceptable. It is important to note that a single sighting does not always mean pest control action is required; it may take two or more weeks for a pest problem to develop and reach an action threshold.
If monitoring and inspections indicate that a pest problem is developing, the next step is to identify the pest correctly. This is very important, as different pests require very different control methods. For example, the type of rodent found in a building must be identified before a proper control method can be determined.
When non-chemical controls are not effective, IPM programs usually employ physical control methods such as barriers and trapping to keep pests out or to remove them if they have already entered. IPM programs also include the deliberate release of beneficial insects to prey on harmful pests, such as lady beetles that eat aphids or parasitic wasps that kill thrips and scale mites.
IPM also includes the use of traditional or synthetic chemical pesticides, such as Sevin brand insecticides that have been used by generations of gardeners to provide reliable control against damaging insects and weeds. However, IPM is not a substitute for proper plant maintenance. For example, plants should be watered and fertilized regularly to provide healthy growing conditions that are less attractive to unwanted organisms.