Step 1: Understand the pest. This includes knowing what it looks like, where it lives and why it’s there. It also helps you decide whether action is needed.

Prevent pests from entering your home by removing their food, water and shelter sources. This includes sweeping and vacuuming, washing dishes daily, keeping food scraps and garbage in tightly sealed containers and maintaining drainage systems. Contact Kansas City Pest Control now!

A primary goal of pest control is to prevent the introduction of unwanted organisms into an area. This is a challenge in outdoor situations, where pests usually arrive through the open air. In enclosed areas, prevention is much easier to achieve. In dwellings; schools; offices; health, food processing and preparation establishments; and many other indoor settings, it is possible to prevent pest infestations by thorough sanitation, regular property inspections, and prompt use of preventive treatments.

Whenever possible, prevention methods should be used in lieu of more hazardous chemicals. This is especially true in residential situations where children and pets are present. For example, baits and traps can be used for rodents, ants and roaches, and these generally pose less risk to children and pets than sprays or foggers. However, some sprays can also be used sparingly when the situation warrants, provided that the proper safety precautions are taken and that the pesticide product is correctly applied (see below).

When a pest problem occurs, it is important to act promptly to minimize the damage caused. Many pests reproduce rapidly, so it is often necessary to use more intensive controls than would be required in a purely preventive program. Eradication is rarely a goal in outdoor pest control programs, but it can be attempted when a particular pest presents a significant threat to human or animal life and economy, such as the Mediterranean fruit fly, gypsy moth or fire ants.

There are natural forces that influence pest populations, such as climate, natural enemies, natural barriers, the availability of food, water and shelter. It is often difficult to alter these factors, but it is important to be aware of them and understand how they affect the pest control situation.

It is helpful to know the habits of any pest you are trying to control, so that preventive measures can be formulated accordingly. For example, knowledge of a pest’s mating cycles can help to limit the population through the use of barrier tactics. This may include the use of fences, nets, or radiation to exclude the pest from a specific area.

Suppression

Pests that aren’t stopped by prevention can require suppression methods to keep their numbers low enough not to damage plants or people. These techniques may include cultural, mechanical and chemical controls. They are most often used in agriculture, but can also be used in homes and other structures. The selection of suppression tactics depends on the pest’s biology and behavior, the location where it is found, the tolerance for injury or damage and other factors.

In integrated pest management (IPM) practices, when scouting and monitoring indicate that a pest population has risen to an action threshold, the operator chooses from a set of control strategies, such as physical barriers, biological controls or chemicals. They then implement those methods in a way that minimizes impact to human health, the environment and economic feasibility.

Biological control uses organisms that prey on or parasitize potential pest insects, such as predators, pathogens and herbivores. Suitable organisms are collected and then released, either locally in small repeated batches or as part of a single large-scale release (sometimes called “classical biological control”). This method requires extensive research into the target pest’s biology, its natural enemies and other species that live in the area, and careful consideration of unintended consequences.

Other forms of biological control involve the release of fungi or bacteria that have the ability to suppress the growth of pests. Fungi are effective at controlling nematodes and some plant diseases, while bacteria can reduce the toxicity of some insecticides and act as a biostimulant.

The most common use of biological control is the release of beneficial nematodes and earthworms to help control weeds, such as grasses or annual weeds. These are available commercially as microbial insecticides, and are applied in the same manner as chemical pesticides.

Monthly maintenance and cleaning can prevent many pests by eliminating food, shelter and water sources. This is especially important in rooms like the attic and basement, which can provide pests with cozy hiding places. Good sanitation practices can also reduce pest problems, such as reducing garbage build-up and increasing the frequency of trash pickup.

Eradication

Pests not only damage property by chewing, biting and gnawing, they can also pose health risks by spreading disease or vector-borne diseases like mosquitoes and rodents. In addition, certain pests like cockroaches produce allergens that can cause asthma and allergies. Therefore, pest control is a vital part of keeping a safe and healthy home or commercial building.

Preventive measures, such as regularly cleaning areas where pests may live and promptly removing garbage, help prevent pest infestations from developing. Suppression methods, such as traps and netting, limit the amount of pests that can enter a structure. And eradication methods, such as fumigation, eliminate existing infestations.

The most drastic method of pest control is fumigation, which involves pumping a room or entire building full of powerful chemicals to kill all insects and other pests inside. This method is usually used only for severe and uncontrollable pest problems that do not respond to other pest management techniques.

Chemical pest control uses a wide variety of solutions that are toxic to pests, including repellents, insecticides, and baits. These are usually easier to find and use than biological controls, but they can pose health threats when used improperly or by people with compromised immune systems.

Physical traps, netting and decoys can also be used to restrict pests from entering or living in an area, but these methods can be inconvenient and require human intervention and manual handling. In addition, they do not provide lasting protection against future pest infestations.

Another common type of chemical pest control is the use of biological controls, which are organisms that naturally attack and kill pests. However, this form of pest control is not generally considered eradication since there is often a lag between the introduction of new enemies and the reduction in pest populations.

Using proper pest control practices can greatly reduce the need for eradication, suppression and chemical treatment methods. The best way to minimize pest problems is to keep them from developing in the first place, which can be done by taking steps to protect food sources and sanitation and by preventing easy access to buildings. In addition, keeping trash and waste receptacles lined and properly sealed, storing food in containers with tight lids, and regularly cleaning outdoor and indoor storage areas can make it harder for pests to set up homes or businesses.

IPM

IPM is a system-based approach that integrates preventive and suppression tactics to control pests. It is a proactive process that is ongoing and involves regular inspections and accurate identification of problems. The goal of IPM is to minimize the use of chemicals and to use them only when necessary to achieve management objectives. IPM incorporates biological controls and other non-chemical approaches to control pests before resorting to chemical options. It also takes into consideration environmental, economic and social factors when making decisions.

IPM uses prevention techniques that create unfavorable conditions for a pest to live and thrive, such as crop rotation, selecting disease- and pest-resistant varieties, and cultural manipulations of the soils, plants and landscape. These preventive measures can be used alone or in combination.

In addition to these preventive techniques, IPM includes a variety of physical and mechanical controls. These may include hand-picking or stretching netting over berry bushes to keep birds from raiding the harvest, trapping and vacuuming rodents, weeding and tillage to disrupt their breeding, or caulking cracks to keep insects and mice out of buildings.

Regular inspections of indoor and outdoor areas help identify problems when they first appear and determine whether the pest population or environmental conditions have reached action thresholds. Action thresholds are different for each pest, so it is important to accurately identify which pest you are dealing with and the environment in which it lives. This step can be accomplished by scouting, trapping or simply observation. The UAF Cooperative Extension Service can offer assistance in identifying pests.

If pest populations or conditions do reach action thresholds, the next step is to decide on a control strategy. This should be a “balanced” one that utilizes all available tools, including biological and physical control methods and the least toxic pesticides.

For example, predatory insects such as ladybug beetles and green lacewings will eat aphids, and parasitic wasps can lay eggs inside or on aphids, caterpillars and hornworms that are then consumed by the growing larvae. In addition to these natural predators, Bt (bacillus thuringiensis) and other biological pathogens are effective, low-impact pesticides that can be used on very specific insect pests.