Do You Have Pests You Don’t Know About? What Do You Do?

June 8, 2022 by Laughlin's Pro's

You find a high quality pest control exterminator. That’s not always easy.

Just what is a Pest Control exterminator?

A Pest Control exterminator is trained in everything to safely eliminate pests and utilizes a variety of methods to prevent future infestations from occurring.

Independent exterminators can be found in most areas, but most homeowners hire pest and critter control extermination businesses to handle the task. While there are many workable do-it-yourself methods on the market, it’s often necessary to call in the experts.

Humans have been battling against pests since the dawn of civilization. Pest control was used mainly to protect crops in ancient civilizations, but organizations began offering a service to property owners and companies in the late 1800s. Since then, a range of pest control products and extermination techniques have been developed.

Tools of the trade
Today, exterminators have an army of potential choices for combating pests of all types. Various tools and methods work well against various pests, so it’s crucial for an exterminator to be highly trained to be skilled on every available techniques.

A few of the most popular pest elimination tools include:
Traps – Both kill and traps that are no-kill are used. Traps are mostly effective against small infestations and generally not created for removal of big population infestations. Variants include catch-and-release traps, spring-loaded traps (traditional mouse trap), sticky traps and electronic traps.

Spring-loaded, electronic and multi-catch traps are most commonly employed for rodents and snakes, while sticky traps work well against a variety of smaller pests. Visual traps that use light to attract pests are effective against many different types of insects as well.

Baited traps – this technique involves placing a “bait station” that permits a pest to enter and feed. The idea is that the pest will consume the poison which can work well on an ants that have colonized your home.

Poison Spray – Poisoned spray is great for situations in which pests are confined to a specific area. It is commonly utilized to exterminate insects.

Fumigation – Fumigation may be the procedure for sealing off a structure and filling it with poison gases or pesticides. This method can tackle big areas easily and quickly, if it’s feasible to seal off an entire house. It’s employed for everything from spiders to insects that are flying.

Hiring an exterminator
It is better to preemptively hire an exterminator for regular inspections than it is to wait until there is a problem. Unfortunately, pests don’t warn you when they are about to become an infestation, and that means you never know when you will require the help of a pest control exterminator.

Tips for hiring an exterminator:
The exterminator should be able to design a specific plan to identify the forms of pests that require management, the level of infestation, the removal method that is most beneficial and steps to lower the danger of future infestations.

A quality extermination business will have a track record that is strong. Check reviews on <a href=”https://www.facebook.com/pestandcrittercontrol/”>Facebook</a> and ask friends, family and loved ones for recommendations.

Green Eco friendly and extermination that is humane
Like many home owners, you may choose to hire an exterminator that is willing to use eco-friendly or eradication that is cruelty-free. Many exterminators are happy to offer these choices.

Some of the most typical green pest elimination methods include:
* No-kill traps – these kinds of traps confine bugs to tiny areas and allow them to be released back in the wild at the same time that is later.
* Diatomaceous Earth – Otherwise known as DE, this is a compound that is made up of algae skeletons. It kills insects by deteriorating their exoskeleton.
* Biological control agents – In some cases, predatory insects or those which can be parasitic such as nematodes and mites can be employed to eliminate pests.
* Additional methods – Sometimes, very measures that are simple help get pest infestations under control. Exclusion methods like screens and weatherstrips frequently work well to plug gaps where insects enter the house. Regular cleaning will help get rid of food sources that most problem insects seek. Habitat modification, which often involves the removal of weeds and plants from around the periphery of a property, will restrict insects also.

Minnesota Ant Invasion – How to stop it.

June 7, 2022 by Laughlin's Pro's

These little animals run our world and ruin our kitchens; an estimated 322 quadrillion and (That’s 322,000 trillion – as much mass as all the human beings on the planet) are on Earth turning over soil and preying on other insects daily. This is a great opportunity for myrmecologists (ant specialists) to drop a little ant science.

Ants communicate chemically with glands located in or near their anus, in addition to 30 additional glands scattered around their bodies.

In Welzel’s words: “Ants are basically a walking chemical factory. There’s just glands everywhere.” Rectal glands are used to lay odor trails to help nestmates find food; they also summon help when an ant is threatened. The poison glands of ants are also located in the rear, and make formic acid.

The outer surface of ants is covered with chemicals that let them identify friend from foe. All nest-mates have a similar chemical profile, and it’s pretty oily stuff they slather themselves in daily.

The hydrocarbon profile of ants is so colony specific, invaders have to mimic them to avoid annihilation. It is possible to fool ants — some predators mimic the “smell” of an alarm pheromones, with incredible precision, sowing panic and confusion. A few spiders seem to have figured out how to remain invisible to ants chemically.

Some insects, like aphids and caterpillars, provide sugary poop treats to avoid ant attack, and ants will protect and carry them from place to place in reward.

Almost every ant you’ve ever seen in your entire life is female. “Males just don’t even matter… They’re barely ever around. They’re only there for a particular season, and when they are around they don’t have the mandibles to actually do any work.”

Stupid Ways to Die if You’re an Ant

Some of the more entertaining discussions about how an ant might meet a gruesome end involved the parasitic fungus Ophiocordyceps, which grows inside ant bodies, turns them into zombies, and eventually sprouts out of their heads with lethal force. Some parasitic flies inject their eggs inside living ants. When ready to emerge, the maggots decapitate their ant hosts. A whole host of parasitic wasp species also lay eggs inside of ants with chest-burster results later on.

Ways to Eliminate Ants

How Do I control ants?
Treatment plans must consist of killing the whole colony. Simply spraying an ant using a normal ant spray, especially a toothpaste spray is only going to kill a few.

Ants may come in your home foraging for food or even to seek refuge. Knowing the behaviour of ants can aid you with using the advised pest control processes outlined here. They go through the smallest gaps, foraging for food or water. They’re in search of sweet established foods or protein/grease established foods. As soon as they locate a food supply, ants will likely leave a pheromone trail for other ants to follow along.

Understanding their behaviour patterns as outlined above and below can allow you to attain the very best pest control.

To keep your ant problem in check, inspection is a significant initial step.

To discover ant nests, follow along their paths. Ants lay a chemical pheromone path as well as their established routes to and from your food supply so that other Ants can readily discover the food.

Within a home, inspect the rug edges, windows, doors, and all regions of the kitchen. The simplest way to discover a path to the nest would be to observe where ants proceed after reaching the food source. If you’re targeting Carpenter Ants, inspection at night is more effective because the bigger Carpenter Ant is nocturnal. It’s possible to place Carpenter Ants appearing from broken wood within the home, or foraging outdoors in woodpiles, rotted or water-damaged timber, and tree stumps.

Outside the home, scrutinize around foundation walls, vegetation, and mulch. Any vegetation found close to walls and patios might hide some Ant paths. Assess under any item that’s on the ground. Some ant nests are nicely concealed.

Eliminate the nest straight-up whenever possible or use lure or non-repellent insecticide around the outside of the home and on the ant paths.

There are two chief kinds of ant conditions generally encountered when you have an ant issue.

Ants that Reside Outdoors and forage inside
Ants that have a nest built in your home

Your pest control plan should be contingent on the sort of infestation and the sort of ant that’s responsible. Identifying which sant you’re dealing with is useful, but might be tough without a magnifying glass.

Ants that live outdoors and forage in the house.
Ants that reside outside will come in your house to hunt for food. Some species eventually live and nest within homes. Follow the steps below to help prevent either form of infestation from developing further:

Caulk and seal cracks and seams to get rid of passages to your house. Because Ants are really industrious in finding entrance points, so you might not have the capability to seal all of them.

Wash around entry points using a soap to eliminate the ant pheromone placed on their route, then squirt on a non-repellent residual insecticide across the perimeter and entrance points.

Ants that nest within your house.
Many ants do not simply enter your house foraging for food. Some ants will set-up a colony indoors.

Indoor colonization occurs year round. All these ants can infest food storage areas. Most ant pesticides are safe to use around pets and kids when you follow instructions. Ant baits arrive in implants, granules, or channels. The active ingredients in those baits might be sugar-based or even protein/grease-based, to lure an assortment of ant species and also fill their dietary needs.

Carpenter Ants are busy in theevening hours when foraging for food, both within the home and outdoors. By detecting carpenter ants at night, you have the ability to tell in which to product to use, spray or lure. Eliminating the nest itself is always the best solution for carpenter ant management. Until the whole nest is effectively handled, the colony might scatter and spread. Utilize a non-repellent insecticide to ensure complete ant colony removal.

Place Carpenter Ant Baits right on the Ant trails.
Utilize a non-repellent insecticide aerosol. Non-repellent aerosols are exceptional to repellent aerosols since the Ants don’t detect them and will not avoid being affected by them. A normal binder spray will kill the nesting ants Ants.

To Stop further Carpenter Ant Risks:

Trim all trees and shrubs so branches don’t touch the home.
Proper moisture problems like leaky roofs and pipes.
Paint or seal exposed hardwood structure before it will become moist.
Replace rotted, water-damaged, and formerly Ant-infested wooden areas of the construction.
Eliminate dead stumps around the land and store firewood from the floor and away from the construction.

We hope this helps. If you need further assistance call the number at the top of the page. Even during normal off hours if we don’t answer our goal is to get back to you within a half hour of when you leave your voicemail. Get rid of those ants.

In Summary: ANTS

If you want to know more about the amazing chemistry and behavior of ants, Journey to the Ants is a great book to start with, and there are some great videos explaining ant research and ant reproduction.

NO LONGER OFFERED 13 Lawn Removal Tips for Minnesota Moles and Voles in 2018 – They are Different

May 4, 2016 by Laughlin's Pro's

Mole and Vole Removal and how you get rid of these lawn damaging varmints.

They have similar sounding names and cause havoc in your yard. Other than that voles and moles have little in common. Moles may be be better known, but it’s voles that cause much of the damage blamed on moles.

It’s important to know which rodent you have because mole control and vole control depend on going after the right mammal.

The Difference

The biggest difference between a mole and vole is the type of damage. Moles eat insects and worms. Their primary diet is earthworms with a few grubs and insects tossed in as appetizers. They don’t eat plants, and so their landscape carnage is really the incidental damage of tunnels and runways dug in lawns while on the never-ending search for more worms.

Voles are plant-eaters. They feed on grass and perennial-flower roots. They eat seeds and bulbs, especially in winter when other foods are scarce. They will girdle the bark off trees and shrubs. Meadow voles also make networks of surface tunnels across the lawn under the snow cover of winter when they venture out into open spaces that they’d avoid in the growing season.

Moles are seldom seen because they live and feed underground. They’re gray to dark brown in color, about 6 to 7 inches long and distinguishable by their long noses and paddled, webbed front feet – perfect for tunnel excavation. They have no visible ears either. Those paddled front paws allow moles to dig tunnels at a rate of 1 foot per minute.

Being voracious feeders that eat quantities nearly equal to their body weight every day, moles are constantly tunneling in search of meals.

Voles are rodents that look much like mice, only with shorter tails. They’re dark brown in color, about 5 inches in length and have eyes and ears that you can readily notice. There are several different species of voles in North America – some that do most of their damage above ground (i.e. meadow voles) and some that do more insidious root- and bark-chewing from underground (i.e. pine voles).

Voles are prolific reproducers that can quickly colonize an area. To make up for a short life span of 16 months or less, voles can go from impregnation to baby-delivery in 21 days – cranking out three to six young at a time and up to 30 offspring per year. Because voles reproduce quickly, eat so many things and are pretty good at staying out of sight, they can do a lot of damage before you ever figure out what hit you.

Clues are surface tunnels in mulch and along walls as well as golfball-sized holes.

How to control moles

Determine whether you’re mad enough to kill them or satisfied with just trying to relocate them off the lawn.

Killing moles is normally the most effective long-term control. Some say it’s the only way you’re really going to solve the problem. Killing moles can be done either by traps or baits. Both scissor-type and harpoon-type traps are used. To use these, locate active runs by tamping down tunnels and then watching to see where the tunnels are raised back up a day or two later. These are good spots to insert traps. When the mole comes swimming through, it trips the mechanism that administers the fatal blow.
The kinder, gentler trap approach is to sink a glass jar in the floor of one of the active runs. When the mole comes by, it drops into the jar and can’t climb up the slippery sides. Havahart or similar cage traps also can be used in runs to capture moles instead of kill them. The live animal then can be relocated to a site where it won’t cause trouble.
Numerous poison and anticoagulant baits also are available, but these must be applied with extreme caution so they don’t harm unintended targets or run off into waterways. It’s usually best to hire a pro if you go this route. Pros have access to more effective ingredients that homeowners can’t buy.
Another method of mole control is to repel them. The most widely used repellent is castor oil – whether it’s in a commercial product such as Mole-Med or mixed as a homemade treatment. To make your own safe mole repellent at home, combine 6 ounces of castor oil and 2 tablespoons of liquid detergent in 1 gallon of water. Mix well. Then dilute to spray on the entire lawn at a rate of 1 ounce per gallon of water applied per each 300 square feet of lawn. This may work for awhile, but when the scent goes away, Mr. Mole may well move back to familiar and already-mined territory.
Regulating at least some of a mole’s food supply may help a little. Since moles are fond of beetle grubs in the lawn (one of their benefits to homeowners), you may be able to discourage them by controlling grubs. An annual lawn-grub treatment in June or July of Lebanon Fertilizer with Merit or an application of bacterial-based Milky Spore disease granules can help on that front. If nothing else, you’ve addressed possible lawn damage from the grubs’ feeding.
However, since moles primarily feed on earthworms, killing every last grub won’t solve the mole problem so long as there are still plenty of worms. Finally, homeowners have devised all sorts of gizmos and techniques that some swear cured their mole invasions. None have been backed by scientific research, but if you want to take a crack at any of these anecdotal measures, here you go:

* Sonic chasers. Battery-powered spikes or similar gadgets that vibrate underground.
* Sunken soda bottles with the open tops just above ground. The wind supposedly creates vibrations similar to sonic chasers.
* Gas cartridges lit and inserted into runs.
* Flooding the burrows with water.
* Mothballs in active tunnels.
* Setting out chewing gum, which supposedly clogs up their intestines.
* Dumping used kitty litter or glass fragments down their burrows.
* Inserting lava rocks soaked in onion and garlic solution into burrows.

How to control voles

One of the best ways to control voles is to send a cat out on patrol. Cats love hunting for rodents, and they’re often so proud of their conquests that they’ll bring dead prey into the house just to show you what good hunters they are.
If you like the general idea of nature vs nature but not the dead-vole-in-the-house part, encourage other natural vole predators – namely hawks and owls. Planting more trees on your lot is one good move. Or you could add a bird perch or two by erecting a 15-foot pole with a 1- to 2-inch perch at the top. Snakes also are prime vole predators.
Snap traps manufactured mainly for mice also are effective at catching voles. A 50-50 mix of peanut butter and oatmeal is a favorite bait, and so are small apple slices. For maximum effect, place traps along active runs and disguise them with an inverted box and/or leaves and grasses (with the vegetation out of the way enough that it doesn’t impair the traps). Some people allow voles to take the bait for a few days before actually setting the traps.
If you don’t want to kill the voles, use the same baits in a Havahart or similar cage trap. When the vole trips the plate, the doors close. Then you can relocate voles – preferably at least a half mile away in a place that won’t cause damage for someone else.
To discourage voles from tunneling into beds, try digging sharp materials into your soil. Commercial products such as Permatill and Soil Perfector are ideal for this purpose, and even coarse gravel may do the trick. About 10 percent gravel to 90 percent soil is enough to make uncomfortable tunneling for a vole. In existing beds, channels of this material can be dug a few inches vertically into the perimeter – creating a kind of gravelly moat around a flower bed.
In bulb beds, sheets of chicken wire can be laid over the top of the beds to prevent voles and other rodents from burrowing down in. Or the bulbs can be completely surrounded by wire to protect them from all angles. Bulb shoots will poke through the openings. A variety of repellents such as Ro-Pel, Plantskyyd, Liquid Fence, hot-pepper sauce, the fungicide thiram and more are effective at keeping voles from eating live plants and bulbs. The main downside is that these need to be reapplied periodically and after heavy rains.
In a similar protective vein, young trees and shrubs can be saved from bark-gnawing by wrapping hardware cloth around the base of the trunks. Be sure to bury the screen 4 to 5 inches deep and go up the trunks at least 2 feet.

Some of the same anecdotal measures for moles also may help control voles. Or not. If not, professional pest-control companies can usually get things under control with a combination of baits and traps.

Good luck on your quest. Feel free to call us if you have any questions – (651) 646-6431.

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Do You Have Pests You Don’t Know About? What Do You Do?

Just what is a Pest Control exterminator?

Minnesota Ant Invasion – How to stop it.

Stupid Ways to Die if You’re an Ant

In Summary: ANTS

NO LONGER OFFERED 13 Lawn Removal Tips for Minnesota Moles and Voles in 2018 – They are Different

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