Pests may invade your home in search of warmth or a free meal, but your yard might also be a perfect environment for animals of all types. As such, not only can your property become a victim of pest damage, but unwanted animals may be poised to invade your home if given the opportunity.
Your best bet is to work with a pest removal specialist to keep destructive creatures away from your property entirely. Look for these tell-tale signs around your yard to identify a possible problem and to mitigate the issue as quickly as possible:
A patchy lawn
A well-kempt, lush yard is the pride of suburbia, but unfortunately your slice of greenery faces a slew of different threats. That means that even if you're proactive about watering your grass and providing it with the right nutrients you could still end up with barren ground and an uneven yard.
The Do It Yourself Network explained that from above, animals like grasshoppers or rabbits feed on your lawn and can cause serious damage. At the same time, animals that burrow underground may upend your grass' roots and cause the plants to die. If your lawn is looking unhealthy despite providing it with good care, a pest invasion could be to blame.
Holes and burrows
For animals to get under your lawn and cause damage, there needs to be an entry point or burrow. Many different animals live underground to escape the elements, hide from predators or look for food. Unfortunately, animals that spend time below ground can not only threaten your yard but can also cause considerable harm to wires, pipes or even your home's foundation.
Larger creatures like groundhogs may have rather significant burrows that are easy to spot, and animals like chipmunks or moles often have smaller underground entries that can go unnoticed. Stroll through your yard and look for possible signs of any tunneling creatures. Because there is usually a whole network of underground passageways, simply covering a hole won't be enough. Instead you'll need to employ a much more comprehensive solution.
Sick trees or bushes
The gardening site SodGod reported that there are dozens of common insects that can infest the plant life around your property, causing trees, bushes and other greenery to become sick or even die.
Bugs like caterpillars, snails, aphids and others are voracious herbivores that can feast on leaves and twigs and make it difficult for a plant to get adequate sunlight. Beetles, weevils and other species, meanwhile, burrow directly into the trunk of a tree and in some instances cause irreversible damage.
As in the case of your lawn, if you believe you've done what you can to keep the plants around your property healthy and they're still getting sick or dying, you may be dealing with a pest problem.
The need to stay vigilant
Sometimes the signs that unwanted animals are thriving on your property are more obvious. Overturned trash bins are usually the handy work of raccoons, opossums or other opportunistic animals, and could mean that these creatures have identified your property as an easy place to score a meal. Keep things clean and secure to encourage any hungry pests to move on to the next house.
Meanwhile, SodGod found that animals like ticks, fleas, wasps and other dangerous bugs don't always cause visible damage. For that reason, you're only sign of a pest infestation is physically seeing these small animals.
To really keep your yard safe from harm, regularly stroll your property and make note of any troubling signs. From there, contact a pest removal specialist for the best solution to your problem.
You probably already know that most people are repulsed by the simple sight of cockroaches. If you are personally dealing with a cockroach infestation, the feelings of disgust are probably even more intense. Unfortunately, the cold winter weather tends to be one of the reasons this pest ends up in your home in the first place, according to Any Pest. While you may know that you don't want to share your home with cockroaches this winter, there are a number of interesting facts about this pest that you've probably never heard.
Because of the high amount of traffic and the versatility of the facilities, pests are naturally attracted to long-term care institutions. Many nursing homes, rehabilitation centers and other care facilities include on-site kitchens and cafeterias as well as private rooms and common spaces. All of these places are susceptible to attracting pests because of the presence of food, water and viable habitats.
During the summer months, some people love to go camping with family and friends. Yet this fun trip can be ruined with a few unwanted visitors, most notably different types of bugs. Crawling spiders, hungry mosquitoes and buzzing flies can become annoying quickly. How can you avoid these pests when you're outdoors? Consider these tips to keep bugs out of your campsite.
Carpenter ants can chew through the strongest studs and stringers in a house as they hollow the wooden beams out for nesting. The resulting damage can weaken the home's structural support and require expensive repairs. Professional pest control workers can remove a colony of ants, but the best practice for homeowners is to learn the best ways to keep out an ant colony and prevent the problem before it begins.
As the weather cools, you'll probably see fewer pests than you did during the warmer months, but that doesn't mean they're all gone just yet. Some insects can actually come out in full force during the autumn, while others might seek refuge in your warm home. Here are some key tips to keep in mind as fall gets underway:
As the middle of summer approaches, you need to be vigilant about keeping your garden free of pests. Many insects breed during the summertime, which means they're on the lookout for great places to lay their eggs. For many bugs, that means near a source of food. In fact, some species of insects will lay their eggs inside budding vegetables and fruit so their larvae have something to eat as soon as they hatch. That's why you have to keep harmful bugs out without damaging the bugs that could help you, such as bumble bees.
You might have noticed that, with the exception of the kitchen, you find more pests in your bathroom than in the rest of your home. This is because insects and rodents see the bathroom as a convenient watering hole. Pests love leaky pipes and standing water because these offer them a hydrating oasis in the otherwise dry biome that is your house or apartment. And if your bathroom develops mold, all the better for pests, who may eat fungus or use it to lay their eggs.
