Indoor Pest Prevention, Outdoor Pest Prevention: A Guide

We will be starting this at the earliest stage of managing property.

For our purposes, a pest is a life form out of place. It probably serves some very important function somewhere in the ecosphere, but just doesn't belong in your home. The pest can be a bug, a weed, a rodent, and possibly an in law or a neighbor. Also, for our present purpose, we will use the term "prevention" to mean preventing most pests, most of the time, not all pests all of the time. We cannot completely eliminate them, but we can lessen our contact with them.

We want to do something a little different in this approach. We want to begin at the beginning. When we use the terms pest control, or pest management, we are beginning somewhere other than the beginning. If we are controlling and managing them, we obviously already have them to a degree that is troubling us. Remember, our goal is to PREVENT Pests.

Location, location, location!
If you build your home or business next door to a swamp, a dairy, or a meat packing plant, your chances of living an almost pest free existence, are none at all.
Pests are seeking food, water and shelter, if the conditions 100 feet away from you attracts pest like a free all you can eat buffet, you will have pests problems despite your best efforts!

Check your area thoroughly before you rent, buy or build. My wife and I were thinking of buying a home nearer her work. One that we really liked came up for sale, at a price we could afford, so we went to look at it a few times. Each time, I was accosted by the insidious little mosquitoes inhabiting the nearby sewer swamp! We backed out of the offer after some environmental snooping revealed the nature of the problem, and the fact that it was the problem of a local governing entity which I knew would never pay more than lip service to its elimination.

When you get a piece of property, that has no more than the normal compliment of pests, don't do anything that would tilt the balance in the favor of the bugs and weeds.

 Indoor Pest Prevention
If you are building on the property, plan carefully. You want to make sure that the drainage is going to be sufficient, that you are not going to create any pits that will someday fill with water and be headquarters for a mosquito invasion.

Be sure to have the area where the foundation of the home will be located treated with a termiticide. Find a reliable professional to do this.  There is a lot of work, and very exacting work that requires a high level of proficiency to be done properly. It will have a very positive effect on the future of your home. I don't do termiticides for slab preparation, but I have a lot of regard for the guys who do.

When your home is being built, keep pest prevention in mind. Screens over the inside of  eve vents, soffit vents, and other vents such as vent-a-hood vents, and dryer vents, will assist in keeping bats, out of your belfry and squirrels out of your attic.

A bead of high quality caulk under the sole plate of the frame is a great and cheap pest control device. Sealing around plumbing, cable, and electrical wiring, both on the outside, as each stage is built, through the decking, through the sheetrock, through brick veneer, from attic to wall, from wall to the inside of the sheetrock, and filling in the holes in the slab left for plumbing through the slab, will all help.

Sealing around doors and windows at each stage of the installation (framing, decking, sheet rock, veneer, attachment, etc.) will provide that little extra that is needed to keep the smallest critters from sneaking in. Doing this at each stage of the development, will add extra layers of protection. Make sure that all wall attached boxes such as your breaker box are sealed well. Caulk can be your cheapest weapon in the war against pests!

Outdoor Pest Prevention

Also, the area around your home will already have a nice compliment of bugs and weeds. You might consider a thorough out door extermination over the entire property to get things started off right. Getting rid of all existing bugs and weeds will give you a jump on both indoor and outdoor control.

Brush piles, and debris piles should be removed so that they will no longer provide cover for insects. Roaches eat rotting wood. Removing any decaying tree carcass from your property will help in preventing them. Of course, low areas should be filled.

Pre treating or temporarily sterilizing your lawn and garden area is a good idea. Removing any diseased plants from the area will help. Correcting any pruning problems with existing trees, see www.tylertrees.com will help keep them from inviting ants, and other pests in, and will also preserve the longevity of the tree.

Any invasive plants on your property, such as privets, etc. should be cut and treated with something similar to triclopyr and 2,4-d at the stump, and any re emergence should be treated with a similar mixture.

Fire ant mounds should be drench treated, and a bait broadcast over the property. Any compacted or infertile areas should be loosened and amended to prevent sand burrs and other weed pests.

If your lawn and garden area is small enough, solarizing the area before planting anything is an excellent way to get rid of weed pests. You do this by stretching plastic over the entire area. This will cause weed seed to germinate and burn up. If you do this for long enough, you can have a virtually weed pest free area.

Landscape

Choose lawn and landscaping plants carefully. Make sure you are not bringing in more bugs and weeds with your sod, or your trees and shrubs. One of the best ways to prevent pests is to choose plants native to your area, Want A Pest Free Landscape? Go Native! . Of course, you should avoid using any plant that you know is aggressive and invasive.

When installing plants, do not put the shrubs within a foot of the house, and keep them trimmed to that dimension. Make sure that you use slow growing, low growing shrubs around the windows, to cut down on the constant need to prune. Tree limbs should not be allowed to touch the roof or gutters.

If you plant vines, do not do this close to any entry route into the home. Vines are invasive by nature and will spread small openings, allowing pests through.

 If you have right of ways adjacent to your property, the same treatments can be applied to those areas, just check with local agencies before doing this, to make sure you are not violating any ordinances at the state or local levels.

If there is property closely adjacent to yours, that is well mowed and well maintained, it should present no additional pest problems. If it is the other way, you might want to go back to step one.

Sometimes your neighbors may change. You could start with good neighbors, and then have bad neighbors move in. In the event that you are stuck with some pest producing neighbors, you might want to consider fencing. If you do this, an underground  barrier can be built to keep pests from entering directly through the area. Try not to completely restrict the movement of air on your property.

Maintenance.
A good maintenance routine is a great pest control tool. Don't allow any of the conditions you worked so hard to get right, to go wrong. Dispose of debris and rotting wood quickly, mow your lawn often to prevent any weeds that might have gotten in from seeding, and to lower the canopy so that insects have nowhere to hide. This will also produce a healthy lawn, which wards of insects, fungus, weeds, and disease. www.tylerlawn.com 

The same goes for irrigation, just enough water to keep things healthy, not enough to invite insects, and fungus. This also is true for fertility. Keeping your lawn and landscape healthy will help to keep pests away. Weeds can't handle the competition , bugs have nowhere to hide, disease cant attack a healthy plant, and fungus needs excess water to survive.

Make certain that you have good air flow through your yard, and avoid building anything that will restrict airflow or the movement of water. Orient your plants to the proper sunlight conditions.

Using good IPM practices will go a long way toward preventing the pests from becoming a problem.  The Integrated Pest management, or IPM Map, can offer some helpful suggestions and tips, and so can the rest of this site.

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