Pest control is something complex and far-reaching that really does affect everyone in the world. We live in a complex balance with other species around us, and knowing the best ways to make sure that we aren’t hassled by pests will help us to ensure that our world is comfortable, safe, and work-friendly. Whether you’re looking for Pest control in London or any other part of the country the same principles apply.
In this article, we’re going to be talking about what pest control truly is. On the surface of it, it may appear to be quite simple. The reality, however, is totally different. The only way to really understand the work that a pest control company does is to consider every facet of their jobs.
Pest Control Company
A pest control company is precisely that – a company that places you in control of the pests in your home, business, or any other area. That’s what any pest control company should aim to do, first gain control of pests themselves, and second hand over this control to their clients.
Controlling pests in your home or office is a vital part of ensuring that the space is totally livable – no one should have to live alongside pests.
The pest control industry focuses on something fairly simple, right at its heart, and that’s the elimination and disposal of pests. This is perhaps a more morbid section of our jobs, but it’s a section that must be spoken about to ensure that people understand what we do.
Pest elimination
To first eliminate pests, there are a number of different methods that we might use. We’ll speak about them in more detail later, but they generally do revolve around moving a pest more than killing it.
While there are some pests for which you have no choice other than killing, the majority of the time it’s simplest and easiest to use some form of method to move the pests away.
This deterrent could be chemical or physical, or even something as simple as making a loud noise. Then, the pests will be forced to move away from you and your property, allowing you the time and space that you need to live, work, and relax.
Pest Management
It depends on what kind of infestation you have on your hands. For a relatively minor mouse infestation, it will take Pest management is moreso about maintaining a certain level of pests than it is about totally eliminating the pests themselves. This might be quite hard to imagine if you have a certain pest in your home, but it can also be quite beneficial.
An example
For example, imagine a country manor that has a kitchen garden. While the kitchen garden typically won’t be a full-scale commercial growing system, it will contain a number of vegetables, fertilizers, and other odds and ends for farming.
Most small farms of that type rely, to some extent, upon insects to remove other insects from the crops. This could be some spiders being introduced or encouraged in order to deter flies and aphids that would ruin crops.
Well, the spiders themselves would be very helpful indeed in the garden portion of the house, but they would be less than helpful within the house. This means that they need to be kept away from the house, or their numbers need to be kept down. This would be an example of pest management, rather than total elimination.
Physical pest control
To control pests in this way, we would very likely look at some physical methods to prevent the spiders from gaining access to the house. Typically, spiders gain entrance to a property by the use of drainage systems.
To that end, we would investigate for any elements of drainage systems that a spider might crawl through to get into the warmth of a home.
Alternatively, we could prevent spiders from gaining access to improperly sealed windows by placing insect deterrents on and around the windows themselves. This will keep spiders away from the home itself, leading to pest control services being totally effective.
Biological Pest Control
Biological pest control is something that can be quite hard to surmise in a few words. It’s rarely needed in homes and commercial premises, rather it’s more often attributed to wild or semi-wild regions.
Essentially, biological pest control is a method by which pest control technicians will use organisms to remove other organisms that have a provably negative impact on the environment around them. An example of this could be the use of wolves to reduce the number of their natural prey in the wild.
Benefits and drawbacks
This is a very effective way to control pests when it works well, but it can have unintended consequences. This is the reason that it is quite rare – adding a non-native species to an environment can have more far-reaching consequences than pest management and pest control.
What is the importance of pest control
Asking ‘what is pest control’ is a big question indeed, and asking why pesto control is important is an even bigger one. The reason that these questions are quite important to ask is that pest control can have important and far-reaching impacts within the world that it manages.
The first impact, we would argue, is likely that pest control makes the world a little easier to live in. For example, in years gone by, it was common to see a range of different pests throughout city streets. This made it fairly common for diseases to easily spread, and for, in turn, people to die.
History
Since the black death plagued Europe, it has been widely acknowledged that, at the very least, keeping pests away from people is a good idea. It will massively reduce the chance that you’re infected by any kind of disease and, in turn, allow you to live a little more safely.
Control
Another impact, in our opinion, is the calmness that pest control companies bring to the world. Pest control companies will take home or commercial property from a space overflowing with uncontrollable creatures, and reduce it to precisely what you need that space to be.
That lack of control in the face of pests, particularly insect pests, is the scariest thing about any level of infestation. To be sure that you’re living in a situation divorced from that, a pest control technician will go out of their way to help you.
Environmental considerations
Finally, we would like to mention the fact that pest control companies will almost always work with the best interests of the environment in mind. If an area has a wild and diverse population of local flora, for example, a pest control technician will bear that in mind, making sure to allow for the pests they’re eliminating, insect pests, in particular, to have access to the right places, while being denied entrance to the wrong places.
3 Types of pest control methods
There are three main types of pest control methods, and we’re going to speak about them here.
Chemical
Chemical pest control is something that sounds precisely how you might imagine it. Essentially, it’s the use of specialist chemicals deployed in specialist ways to ensure that the pests you’re concerned with don’t affect you negatively.
Generally, chemical methods are used when dealing with insects more than other types of pests. The reason for this is that insects are simply too small to be dealt with using other methods, so solutions have been developed to make use of chemical pest control products.
Physical
Physical pest control is a lot more straightforward than the other two methods, and it can be more effective, too. Essentially, the idea is simple – physical pest control builds a physical barrier or redirection for pests, moving them away from your area with ease.
An example of this could be a chimney being blocked off to prevent birds from roosting inside it. This is possibly one of the easiest pest control methods – it’s simple to get your head around, and it can work very effectively.
Biological
Biological control is also fairly simple, though it is more intricate than you might expect. The idea is fairly simple, really – another species or organism will be introduced to a certain area in order to hunt the pre-existing pests.
This could be the addition of spiders eating aphids and flies, for example.
This is effective, but should really only be carried out by pest control professionals, as the addition of complex species to environments can have unintended consequences. For a great example of this, look at the impact that cane toads have had the world over.
Cane toads
They’re a toxic, invasive species in a number of locations, that are only kept in check in their homeland by a complex web of other animals.
In Australia, though, they’re a notorious feral animal that has taken a terrible toll on the natural environment. This is also the case in the US and a number of other locations. Everywhere aside from South and Central America considers them a dangerous invasive species.
Types of pests
The types of pests that we may work with vary from property to property, as do our pest control measures. We know the best ways to be sure that we can deliver a property free from pests, no matter the type. With an eye on identification, however, let’s talk about the main types of pests that pest control companies deal with.
Birds
Birds are quite common as a form of wild pest. This usually takes the form of pigeons, though there are other birds that can pose an issue for people in the world.
Pigeons are often regarded as a particularly bad pest because they can harbor a number of diseases. This is entirely true, which means that consulting with a pigeon pest control expert is likely a great choice to be sure that you and everyone around you is as safe as possible.
Rodents
Rodents and rodent control can be exceptionally tricky to deal with due to their ability to squeeze into exceptionally tight spaces. This means that if there were to find themselves cornered, it’s quite common that they would sneak into a back corner, before wriggling their way out of the building.
When dealing with rodents, physical traps are often considered to be the best way of dealing with them. Using humane traps is also considered to be wise since a gathering of rodents away from a property is certainly preferable to rodents within a property.
Interestingly, rodents have to be deposited more than two miles from where they were trapped, or they can often find their way back to their ‘home’. A long distance ensures that they can stay away from humans.
Insects
Insects are likely the most common pest on the planet. They’re small, infuriating, and very likely to make their way into a home, or another warm place.
They generally specialize in finding their way to warm places through the use of small cracks in buildings, or vents, or similar systems. This makes them deeply frustrating to try to manage on your own, leading to pest management companies being the pest port of call.
Chemical pest control is generally the best way to manage insects in the home or workplace. Insects typically don’t have a great sense of taste, meaning that they will only know that something is wrong after they have ingested some poison. This means that insect pest control can be quite straightforward, though total removal can be very tricky indeed – nests are built for insects to find and get into, for instance, rather than humans.
We hope that this article has given you a look into the world of pest control, and taught you a thing or two about what makes the world of pest control so complex and multi-layered. Make sure to get in touch if you’d like a pest control problem solved in your home or business.
