Unexpected Sources Of Pest Infestations

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If you're dealing with some pesky pests who just won't leave, you need to start looking at alternative sources that may be feeding or hiding the pests. The obvious ones, like open containers of grains, rotting food, and stagnant water are all easy to get rid of, but if you still have bugs flying or crawling around, there's obviously something else going on. Look at these three unexpected sources of pest infestations and see if any match what you're experiencing.

Your Drains After You Clean Them

You'd think cleaning a drain would make it unattractive to bugs, but if you used vinegar to clean out the drain, you could have an infestation of drain flies, also called vinegar flies because they like vinegar. Do you see small, black, clumsy flies with poor aim zooming around your home? These flies seem to travel in curves, never quite ending up where you think they'll go, and they're fairly easy to catch. But they are persistent. To finally get rid of them, use an enzymatic drain cleaner -- not a chemical drain clog buster -- to dissolve the muck in the drains that the flies live in. Also check all of your houseplants and discard any that the flies seem to congregate around; they can also live in soil.

Dried Flowers

Dried flowers shouldn't be a problem, but they can be because they are still made of organic matter. Small beetles called cigarette beetles can take to the flowers and eat them in tiny bites, often laying eggs there. Cigarette beetles are harmless to humans, but they like to eat books, papers, and other plants materials. They can be tough to get rid of unless you isolate everything. If you find these, throw out the dried flowers, place all books inside zippered plastic bags, clean up all food, inspect and file away papers, or shred them and recycle the shreds, and vacuum daily. Do this for several weeks to interrupt any hatching cycles.

Cardboard Boxes

If you keep cardboard boxes around for mailing and moving, check them. Roaches like to hide in them, and even if all you have are new boxes, if they've been sitting there a while, that could have provided shelter for an errant bug. You could have also carried in some bugs when you bought the boxes. Get rid of the boxes and don't buy more until you actually need to use them.

If you're still having bug troubles, call in a pest control company for professional-level extermination. You can get rid of the bugs; you just have to be proactive.

6 April 2017