Integrated Pest Management

Have you ever heard the term “baseboard jockeys”?  This term came to be from having exterminators bringing in their canisters of pesticides into your home and spraying for pests around the baseboards of your home.  That’s the only way exterminators worked years ago.  Well, times have changed and now we know that the old ways aren’t always the best.  Nowadays professional pest control experts take a more focused approach on the problems.  This approach is called Integrated Pest Management.

No longer is the simplest way to attempt to rid your home of pests, the best.  To get the best result, a pest control specialist will determine the most effective way to deal with the problem and it may not always be the simplest.  To make sure you are getting the result you need from a pest control specialist, you will want to make sure they are using the “inspection, identification and treatment” method of Integrated Pest Management.

An inspection is always a key element in controlling pests because you need to know what you are dealing with to effectively take care of the problem.  If you have mice, it doesn’t do any good to treat your home for ants.  But maybe you have both ants and mice.  Knowing just what the issues are will allow the pest control specialist to determine the best course of action.  An inspection will also allow the specialist to determine what type of pest he or she will be dealing with. You may think you have an ant problem, but did you know that different types of ants react to different types of bait?

The next step is prevention.  This may take on many different things; sealing cracks in your home, repairing door and screens, cleaning up debris in the yard and moving plants and mulch away from the foundation.  This step is something you can put on a calendar for regular maintenance.

Now is the time for the last step; controlling the problem.  There are non-chemical ways to control a pest problem.  You can have the pests physically removed.  An infestation of bees can be dealt with by removing the hive.  Removing the pest’s habitat will most likely remove the pest.  You can use traps or bait to remove the remaining pests.  Or you might need to go the chemical route which would mean applying a pesticide and chemical mixture to eradicate the problem.

Keep in mind, today’s pest control specialists are just that, specialists in removing those pesky pests.  Integrated Pest Management is the best way to control those problems.