Are Your Home And Garden As Healthy As They Look?

On the face of it, our homes and gardens may look completely fine. And why wouldn’t they when we set out a day that we’re going to take care of them. We mow the lawn, pick up any trash that’s been carried by the wind, set barriers to the soil and generally keep everything neat and tidy. The same goes for our homes, we vacuum and mop the floors, scrub the windows, tables, chairs, and door. So why after all our hard work would we ever have cause to doubt ourselves? Well, even when you’re making the effort, something else is trying to tear that good hard work down. No, it’s not some invisible power form the universe to show that it doesn’t like you. It’s actually the life forms that we don’t’ see or interact with on a daily basis. Yet these critters, bugs, and pests are just meters away from us at any one time. In fact, they could be just a few centimeters away from you and everybody else inside your home. Look a little deeper, a little closer, with a finer toothed comb and you’ll see that your home isn’t as healthy as it may look.

Unwanted sleep companions

Growing up we get an eerie feeling that something or someone is underneath our bed. The bogeyman or some kind of frantic gargoyle is what we picture in our heads. These are just stories made up to scare us by parents, particularly if we don’t get to sleep on time because we’re misbehaving. Far more close to reality are rusty reddish looking creatures that feast on our blood. Bed bugs are a bit of an anomaly in our homes because contrary to popular belief they don’t arrive where there is waste or where hygiene levels are poor. They can travel into the home by crawling inside your luggage, climb and hide in your dog’s fur and generally just hitchhike their way to you. They are clever little critters as they know their presence is not very welcome. So what they do is come out at night when you are fast asleep. They first inject a numbing liquid so you don’t feel their bite. They fatten themselves up on our blood and then crawl back to where they came from.

But where do they come out from under at night? They will live in the cracks and crevices of your bed so look for openings in your mattress and on the underside of your sheets. If you wake up with tiny red spots on your limbs, smell a musty odor, spot any red and brownish spots or smears on your bed, you are most likely infested with bed bugs. Here’s how to put these bugs out of their misery once and for all and leave you alone in peace.

• Move all other things out of the way of your bed as you’re going to remove everything from it.
• Take the bedding, curtains, clothes and thoroughly clean them at the highest temperature setting in your washing machine.
• Then put all of that into the dryer and again, clean at the highest temperature setting possible.
• Vacuum your entire room, making sure to take your time and target all the nooks and crannies. Vacuum the mattress preferably with a steam cleaner to get rid of all the bed bugs and the excrement their leave behind. Any clear shells will be eggs so get them too.
• Bed bugs can live up to a year without feeding so don’t think you’re in the clear until you have done all these steps thoroughly.

In the fire pit

If one day you look out into your garden and you see mounds appearing, it should be cause for concern. If you walk up to the mounds and you see fire ants crawling around, now it’s time to take serious action. You should be making mountains out of these mounds figuratively speaking. A fire ant’s bite can be very painful for adults. However, if your children are playing in the garden and they don’t know what else is sharing the space with them, they can be bitten and be in serious pain. There are several species of fire ants but all have the same characteristics. They are incredibly territorial and see any creature whether they be large or small. Fire ants are notorious for their quick response to any disturbance to their home. Red fire ants especially react very hostile and they can give a child or adult a nasty shock. They clamp on with their large mandibles as a way to grip their victim and then sting you with their abdomen. They inject a toxic alkaloid venom called solenopsin. It’s in the same class as piperidine which can cause you to cough, feel nausea, vomiting, and attack breathing leading you to wheeze.

Show no mercy to these pests because without a strong response they will not move out of your garden. In fact, that can spread out and make more mounds and extend their colony throughout your entire garden. At this point, you need to call a professional like ABC Home & Commercial Pest Control that actually deals with fire ant control. From April all the way to September, fire ant activity is at its peak during the year. Not only will the professionals destroy the mounds that actually become tough as nails the more you let them build, but they can destroy any population also. Since the colony also lives underground in their dugout complexes, it’s important that the removal of these pests doesn’t harm your garden. They can use acids that only kill the ants and not the lawn in your garden. Other ways might be to smoke them out, funnel the wood smoke into their mound. When the pest removal professionals come to your house they will make the best choice for you and listen to your concerns.

Winged vampires

Since the days are climbing and climbing in temperature, you can expect the population of mosquitoes to skyrocket. No matter where you live, it could be in the city, a town, a small village or on a farm way out in the countryside, mosquitos will find you. Their entire existence in the world is to purely suck your blood and make more of themselves. You’ll know if you live in a mosquito hotspot because they like to congregate outside and fly around in what looks like a living furball. How can you prevent them from coming near you?

These flying vampires aren’t very good fliers as they don’t have the strong wing muscles like other insects do. People like to keep their windows open to get a free flow of air moving through their home in a bid to stay cool. Mosquitos will fly through the gaps you leave in your house. However, if you can put a fan at each opening, this will help to stop them from flying in. Any breeze that’s over around 1mph or 2mph will have them beat. Spray insect repellent on the window sills and windows of your home as well as the doors. Spray on your clothes too just in case.

Bed bugs come into your home in strange ways but it’s not why you might have been told. Even if your home is spotless and you take great pride in keeping it hygienic, they can still wreak havoc in your bed. Fire ants are no joke, especially a colony that has cemented their hold on your garden. Since they do live mostly underground, you have to call a professional out to give them the boot. Mosquitos are a pain but they’re easily avoided if you don’t allow them to fly into your home in the first place.