Ants are some of the most widespread pests in the country. Some, like the Pharaoh ant, will infest your food and transmit diseases and pathogens. Most ants are just a nuisance.

However, one ant that will cause physical damage to your home is the carpenter ant.

About Carpenter Ants

Carpenter ants are large insects capable of growing up to half an inch in length. They have humped backs and are black with gray, yellow, or red hairs on their legs and bodies. In the United States, the main species you’re likely to encounter is the black carpenter ant, which is noted for its dull black color and whitish or yellowish hairs on the abdomen.

As you can imagine from the name, carpenter ants have a penchant for wood. In the wild, carpenter ants act as decomposers of forest trees. They burrow into trees to nest, thereby enhancing decay, which has various ecological benefits. However, when they move from their native woods to manmade wood structures, they can do some serious damage. In fact, carpenter ants are recognized as the primary wood destroying pest in New England, causing more damage than even termites.

Unlike termites, carpenter ants do not eat wood and are incapable of digesting wood cellulose. They only bore into wood to create and expand their nests. Their diet consists of a variety of plant and animal foods, including fruits, plant juices, other insects, small invertebrates, and various sweets.

Where to Find Them

Essentially any building or home near a forest is a likely location for a carpenter ant nest. Carpenter ants are nomadic and will expand their nests seasonally. Every spring, colonies will actually produce swarmers to establish new colonies. These swarmers are winged ants capable of reproduction.

Carpenter ants prefer areas of high moisture, so inspect kitchens and bathrooms for wood dust or shavings. Outdoors, tap on any trees (especially evergreens) and hollow stumps within a 300 foot radius of your home. Try to listen for any rustling. You can cut into the wood (where appropriate, of course) to confirm that the ants are indeed in the wood.

How They Damage Your Home

As with other social insects, carpenter ant colonies grow rapidly. To accommodate the growing colony, the ants will burrow into wood to create more tunnels and chambers for the nest, which usually leads to hollowed out trees or stumps. Unfortunately, when your house is involved, a hollowed out or weakened foundation compromises the structural integrity, which only becomes more severe as the days go by. Aside from the expensive repairs, the weakened wood could lead to accidents and injury. In some rare cases, the extensive tunneling leads to a collapsed home.

How to Get Rid of Them

Boric acid is an effective treatment for destroying indoor nests. If kept dry, boric acid can be effective for up to 30 years. Although the powder is non-toxic to humans, take care when handling it to avoid inhaling or ingesting it.

You can combine boric acid with jelly or sugar water. Workers will carry this toxic concoction back to the nest and to the queen. Once the queen dies, the colony will slowly fade. This is a longer process that can take whole months depending on the size of the colony.

If you have pets, forego the boric acid for diatomaceous earth or other desiccating dusts. These will eliminate insects by absorbing their waxy outer coatings, essentially causing them to waste away from dehydration.

For severe infestations, call professional exterminators, who have pesticides that aren’t available to the public and the in-depth know-how to take care of a carpenter ant problem.

The Standard Trap

When you think mousetraps, you’ll probably have the classic spring-loaded mousetrap in mind. These traps have been around since the 1890s, and they’re starting to show it, especially when there are more humane solutions out there. Still, if you’re desperate and you’re out of options, the spring-loaded trap is effective. Just remember a few things:

• Location is everything. You can use one of the more advanced electrical mousetraps, but it won’t matter if you don’t place it in the right area. Listen for your mouse’s scratching and skittering. Locate areas where your mouse has laid droppings.
• You may have to “stalk” your prey. Many mice create a complex network of holes and entrances, which means they’ll rarely stay in a single area of your home for long.
• Prepare the right bait. Mice are clever and talented and will often grab the bait without getting caught or setting off the trigger mechanism. Avoid blocks or slices of cheese, which are easy for mice to nab. If you must use cheese, go for something that will stick, like brie. Peanut butter is the preferred bait as it has a strong scent and sticks quite well.

The Humane Trap

Maybe you would rather not resort to mousetraps, poison, or other lethal methods, but that mouse still needs to go. Fortunately, there are numerous humane traps on the market, and many homeowners have created effective humane traps out of simple objects found around the house.

One of the best traps requires nothing but a toilet paper tube, a box/bucket, some bait, and the edge of a table, countertop, or cardboard ramp.

• Crease two lines in the tube to form a tunnel with flatter sides. It should look more like a box than a cylinder, which can roll around when the mouse is inside.
• Put the bait at one end of the tube. A piece of cheese or a cracker with a bit of peanut butter on it should work fine.
• Get a tall box or bucket. It should be at least 20 inches in height. Avoid cardboard, which is easy for mice to chew through. A non-lined trash can is ideal.
• Balance the tube at the edge of the table, countertop, or self-made ramp. The bait should be at one end of the tube, hanging directly over the box, bucket, or trash bin.
• Mice naturally like tunnels. The mouse will crawl into the tube to get at the treat, but his extra weight will cause the tube to tip over into the bucket.

Release the mouse into the wild as soon as possible. A mouse can die from stress and dehydration. Release the mouse at least a mile away from your house; mice have amazing homing instincts and will come back if they’re close enough.

Things We Don’t Suggest

Mousetraps and humane traps are your best bets to catching mice, but here are some reminders of things you shouldn’t do.

• Don’t underestimate mice. They are clever, agile, and fast. Many people think they can simply corner the mouse, catch it, and take it outside. At a very young age, mice learn to chase each other for fun. They can easily evade you.

1. Cockroaches only infiltrate homes that are dirty and in need of maintenance.

Cockroaches are often associated with dank, dirty, disgusting environments, and while they do enjoy characteristically damp environments, they are not picky about the homes they infiltrate. Cockroaches can enter even the most pristine of homes.

Your home may look like it belongs on a magazine cover, but many homeowners bring roaches into their homes by accident, usually from cardboard boxes or grocery bags from stores that have a roach problem. They can also live in the walls of clean homes.

However, this does not automatically signal an infestation. If you don’t supply a cockroach with a food source or shelter (or if it doesn’t find one), it will simply leave. Cockroaches are more common in “less clean” homes because there is a larger food supply.

2. Cockroaches are afraid of light.

You walk into the basement, turn on the light, and see several roaches scatter from the sudden light. Although most species do prefer the dark, some are actually attracted to light and will gather near TV screens and windows at night.

Those species that scatter from light are nocturnal and actually need darkness to properly navigate. While cockroaches are not afraid of light, they are afraid of humans. The reaction is probably caused more by you than by the light bulb.

3. Cockroaches don’t bite.

This isn’t necessarily false. Cockroaches (or at least the ones you are used to seeing) aren’t aggressive and will only bite out of desperation, but they are capable of biting, especially in the event of severe infestations. Larger cockroaches found in the wild have been known to bite humans.

The most serious cases of bites have been on ships. Cockroaches are omnivores and will essentially eat anything they can get their appendages on. Some cockroach infestations on seafaring vessels have become so large that the roaches actually began to gnaw on the skin and nails of those onboard.

However, this is an extreme case. Your average roach will not bite you or try to feed on your nails.

4. Cockroaches have eyes in the backs of their heads.

Cockroaches are very attentive creatures; enough that people believe they have eyes in the backs of their heads. In reality, they only have eyes at the front of their heads, like us. However, cockroaches have tiny hairs all over their bodies that gauge the way air moves around them. While they cannot see you directly, they can feel you—or at least the breeze you create.

5. Cockroaches will inherit the earth in the event of a nuclear war.

Cockroaches are hardy creatures. They can go without air for as long as 45 minutes. In an experiment, cockroaches survived and recovered from being submerged underwater for half an hour. They can also go without food for several weeks and can survive on next to nothing.

Amazingly, a cockroach can even survive for weeks without its head. A roach has several clumps of nerve tissue distributed throughout its body. These bundles of nerve tissue, or ganglia, can act independent of the brain. Its legs and body are covered in millions of sensory receptors. The head only controls the antennae and mouth. The roach can still control its legs and body without a head and would only succumb to death due to a lack of nutrients.

In terms of the nuclear war urban legend that we’ve all heard, it is partly based in truth. Cockroaches have a higher resistance to radiation than vertebrates. A lethal dose of radiation for a roach would be about 6 to 15 times that for humans. However, cockroaches are not more resistant to radiation than certain other insects like, say, the fruit fly. A cockroach might survive a nuclear blast but so would numerous other insects. However, lingering fallout radiation would still remain a threat for any survivors.

Winter

Southern California is usually treated to a temperate winter. But still, the drop in temperature encourages some pests to find warmth and shelter in our homes.

• House mouse: The house mouse is one of the most common species of mice in the world and, as you can imagine from the name, is quite common to the home and usually lives in proximity to humans. In the winter, if a house mouse has not found shelter of its own, it likes to make a nest in the attic. While house mice are cute, they can transmit diseases, get into your food, and be a general annoyance.

• Norway rat: Commonly known as the brown rat, the Norway rat is the dominant rat in Europe and most of North America, which makes it one of the most successful mammals on the planet next to humans. They can live wherever humans live and are often kept as pets. However, wild brown rats can carry a number of pathogens, including Weil’s disease, rat bite fever, and Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome.

• Roof rat: The roof rat, or black rat, is not as common as the brown rat but is well-known for causing the spread of the bubonic plague. While you really don’t need to worry about a plague resurgence, black rats are still known to carry a number of pathogens.

Spring

The season of clearer skies, warmer weather, and blossoming flowers often brings a whole host of insects out of hibernation.

• Honey bee: Honey bees are social animals common to several continents. These insects are best known for producing and storing honey in complex nests made of wax. They tend not to be a problem, but many will establish their hives on or near homes. You may appear as a threat without knowing it, leading to some painful stings. This can be an even bigger issue if you have kids or if anyone in your family is allergic to bees.

• Domestic house spider: While these spiders aren’t venomous, they tend to come out in larger numbers during the spring, causing that creepy-crawly, unsettled feeling. Spiders are one of the most feared creatures in the world, and nobody wants to share their home with them.

Summer

Summers in SoCal tend to heat up, and the excess warmth and humidity brings out some of the worst pests.

• Cat flea: The cat flea is one of the most abundant species of flea on Earth. Fleas thrive in the summer heat and tend to hide in grassy, brushy areas, where they will latch onto any animals that pass by. Fleas lay eggs almost immediately. This soon gives way to larva and full infestations. Flea bites cause extreme itchiness, leading to dry skin, rashes, and bleeding from too much scratching. Getting rid of fleas requires concentrated efforts to remove adult fleas while eliminating eggs and larva.

• Yellow jacket: This is the common name for what we know as wasps. They create large aerial nests and are social hunters. They can give painful stings, and unlike bees, yellow jackets won’t die after a single sting.

Autumn

The leaves change color and the air gets a certain chill. However, autumn in Southern California remains fairly warm and inviting for pests.

• Cockroach: The American cockroach is a common, resilient creature and one of the most common household pests the world over. They feed on human and pet food and can passively transport pathogens and harmful microbes on their bodies. They give off an offensive odor and can trigger allergic reactions in some people.

• Silverfish: Despite the name, silverfish are actually insects. The name derives from their silvery bodies and fish-like movements. They aren’t harmful to humans but their diet consists of anything containing polysaccharides, which includes several household products, like glue, book bindings, paper, photos, coffee, clothing, and even tapestries.

Remember this hint when it comes to pest control: proactive instead of reactive.

Here are a handful of reasons to invest in a professional ongoing pest control service.

1. Pests are known to carry a variety of diseases.

Pests can carry any number of easily transmittable diseases, which is an especially prevailing issue if you have kids or pets in the household. Ticks, for example, can transmit about ten different diseases, most notably Lyme disease and Rocky Mountain spotted fever. The latter can lead to fever, nausea, and hallucinations, while the former can cause paralysis, heart problems, and even death.

Other pests, like cockroaches and flies, don’t directly transmit disease but can carry harmful pathogens into your home.

2. Pests can cause damage to your home.

Termites cause thousands of dollars of damage to homes and businesses each year, and many people don’t realize until it’s too late. Termites aren’t the only wood destroying pest either. Carpenter ants also destroy wood, and in some cases, are even more dangerous than termites.

Aside from the money required for repairs, damage to your home’s structural integrity is a danger to you and your family.

Rodents can also chew through wood, but they are better known for causing electrical damage. A mouse chewing on an exposed wire could lead to an electrical fire.

Investing in ongoing pest control ensures safety in your home and could save you quite a bit of money in repairs in the long run.

3. Many pests are naturally resilient.

We’ve all heard that cockroaches would be the only creatures to survive in the event of a nuclear war, and it’s not untrue. Cockroaches are one of the hardiest insects in the world. Some can go without air for up to 45 minutes. Some species can remain active for months without food. They can survive on limited resources, like eating glue from the back of postage stamps, and as it turns out, they do have a much higher resistance to radiation than vertebrates.

Fleas are another hardy pest. The adults might be easy to get off of Fido, but the eggs and larvae can easily embed in your carpet or clothes. Those eggs and larvae quickly turn into adults which can lay even more eggs.

This just goes to show the resilience of cockroaches and many other pests. Regular service from a pest control professional ensures that these hardy pests are kept out of your home.

4. Pests can return.

Just because you got rid of the ants now does not ensure that they won’t return in the future. It’s possible for pests to return after your home or office has been professionally treated once. Pests, like humans, need food and shelter, and your home happens to provide both.

Bats often fly into attics, but during their active hours at night, bats fly out quite willingly to hunt. They return to roost as the sun comes up.

This illustrates the problem with all pests. They can usually find their way out of your home but know how to return. Regular pest control service gets rid of the pests but also ensures that they stay out.

5. Professionals know what they’re doing.

Many homeowners choose to deal with pests on their own, and find that the problem continues to recur. There are reasons that professionals exist—they have the in-depth knowledge of both common and exotic pests, the technique and skill to find pests in your home and treat the problem at the source, and the proper equipment. Exclusion for bats and rodents in the attic, for example, is not a simple task and requires professional know-how. With an ongoing pest prevention plan, you know you’re getting knowledgeable, professional assistance.

With such a huge population, it makes sense that a rodent or two might wander into your home or business and cause a bit of a problem, but how do you know for sure that you have a rodent problem?

Droppings

Droppings are one of the easiest and most obvious signs of a rodent problem. Unlike humans, rodents don’t have a designated bathroom and will lay their droppings essentially anywhere, mainly in places providing shelter. You’ll most likely find droppings in cabinets and pantries, under the sink, and in random cracks in your flooring.

Once you’ve found the droppings, you can determine how old they are to establish how long the rodents might have been hiding in your home or if their nests are nearby. Old droppings are a dull gray and tend to crumble. Fresh droppings are darker, softer, and shinier. You can also figure out what rodent you’re dealing with based on the size of the droppings. Mouse droppings are small, about half an inch in length. Rat droppings are larger than half an inch in both length and diameter.

Nests

Rodents will build nests to have a place to wind down after long days of scurrying and scrounging. These nests are usually made from bits of fabric, shredded paper, dry grass, small twigs, and sometimes even furniture stuffing. The nests are located in quiet areas, safe from predators, and nearby food and water.

You should be able to find remnants of a rodent’s nest building, like tipped over trash bins, paper that has been bitten through, or holes in furniture. You may find the nest if you search in cabinets and dressers, inside boxes, or inside the crawlspace.

What You See, Hear and Smell

If you suspect a rodent problem, you’ve probably already seen one in your home. Most rodents are nocturnal and can be spotted with a good flashlight and a bit of hunting through cabinets and dark spaces. However, rodents aren’t fond of human attention and prefer to keep to themselves. If you’ve seen a rodent during the day, you may already have a full-on infestation on your hands.

Despite their relatively small size, rodents are not quiet housemates. You should be able to hear them scratching, gnawing, clawing, and scurrying in your walls, rafters, and vents. In the event of an infestation, you may even hear squeaking and the occasional scuffle.

During an infestation, it’s common to smell a strange musky odor in rooms with poor ventilation. This smell is the trademark of mice. Rodents in general don’t smell particularly pleasant.

Remember that rodents have a limited living space range. Some mice may only live within a 10 foot diameter, depending on the food that’s available. Rats, however, have a much larger active area of over 150 feet, which means they may be moving in and out of your home at their convenience.

Stolen Food

Rodents have powerful teeth and jaws. A rat can gnaw through glass, concrete, and even metal. They can also fit into any hole that they can fit their heads into. That means your average rodent should have no problem getting to your food, whether it’s in a cardboard cereal box or a “heavy duty” Tupperware-style container.

The good news is that rodents aren’t especially sly about the food they take. You can discern from the mess, the hole in the box, the missing food, and the nibbled bits they left behind.

Gnawing

As mentioned, rodents have teeth that grow continuously. They need to file their teeth down by regularly gnawing on whatever they can find, which includes wood, clothes and cloth sacks, paper board, and even bricks. You can usually hear gnawing sounds at night, but it’s not uncommon for table and chair legs to show tooth marks and gnawed spots during a rat infestation.

• Stop unintentionally making your home such an attractive space for pests. Pests are often only looking for an appealing place to set up camp. Most tend to love damp areas that feature a nearby source of water. Fix any leaky pipes in the bathroom, basement, and kitchen.

• Pests are also on the prowl for a good, ready-made meal. Spills and dropped food make for easy pickings for pests. Even tiny crumbs and drops of bacon grease are appealing feasts for pests. Clean up any dropped food items as soon as possible. Even a day is enough to attract insects and furry intruders.

• Garbage emits a pungent aroma that makes the average person tear up or gag, but to pests, the smell of garbage is as enticing as a fresh batch of cookies. Avoid keeping garbage inside your home, or empty out your trash bins as soon as possible. Make sure the trash is stored securely outside under a heavy lid.

• Don’t place scraps of meat, fish, or cheese in your compost.

• Food scraps definitely attract pests, but other inedible messes are just as attractive. Large messes, piles of clothes, and excess clutter just give pests places to hide.

• Make sure you clean in all the small cracks and oft-ignored parts of your kitchen. This includes the sides of kitchen cupboards, behind the fridge, and the sides of the oven. You might not notice those lost bits of food, but those pests certainly will.

• Make sure all your food items are properly and safely stored. Make sure lids are tight. Wipe the outsides of jars that feel sticky. Clean your cupboards regularly to prevent any small spills from remaining for too long. Store your cereal in lidded plastic containers. Mice, rats, and other rodents can easily chew through cereal boxes, while smaller insects can crawl into them without much problem.

• If you have pets, try to clear away their food dishes immediately after they’ve eaten. Animal dishes should be cleaned regularly. You may consider elevating their food bowls a few inches off the floor, but you should avoid leaving them out on display overnight. If your pet is a messy eater, make sure you pick up any food that might have been dropped mid-meal.

• Seal up entry points throughout the home. This includes gaps around window frames, holes in the roof, and tiny cracks in your home’s foundation. As small as those cracks might be to you, they’re huge doorways to a colony of ants.

• Plumbers tend to make holes too big for pipes. Mice enter through these holes quite easily. These plumbing holes can be found in airing cupboards, water storage areas, and bathrooms. Try to block the holes using caulk or bits of rolled up aluminum foil.

• Dust crevices in your home using boric acid, which acts as a stomach poison for several common pests and is abrasive to insect exoskeletons. If you have pets, you may swap out the boric acid for baking soda for similar but safer results.

• If fruit flies are a problem, consider purchasing Venus flytraps from your local home garden center. These are an effective, eco-friendly solution to capturing flies and other insects before they can breed and create a larger population. They can be difficult to grow though, so patience is important.

• Consider planting mint near doors. The smell of mint disrupts the smelling capabilities of ants and other insects, preventing them from entering your home. You can also place mint leaves in and around windows, shelves, and cupboards. Just make sure to replace the mint frequently.

• Mosquitoes, midges, and other flying insects hate the smell of Citronella oil, a concentrated oil that is commonly used in soap, candles, and incense.

That said, spiders are still not welcome guests in our homes. Aside from bites, most spiders naturally create webs that can be bothersome, and no homeowners want to deal with an outbreak of spider babies.

If you’ve been finding spiders around your home, use our guide to see if you can identify them.

Cellar Spider (Pholcus phalangioides)

Cellar spiders, skull spiders, daddy long legs—these spiders go by various names. They are very common household spiders found all over the world, primarily in warm areas as they are incapable of surviving in cold weather. They are known for their small bodies and long, thin legs that are about five or six times the length of their bodies. They are known for living on the ceilings of garages, rooms, and cellars, explaining one of its common names.

Cellar spiders are considered beneficial because they prey on pests like mosquitos and other insects. They are also known to kill and eat other spiders, some of which are highly venomous to humans, such as redback and hobo spiders. These spiders are much larger and more aggressive than daddy long legs, which has led to the misconception and false urban legend that cellar spiders are the most venomous spiders in the world.

Common House Spider (Parasteatoda tepidariorum)

The common house spider, which is internationally known as the American house spider, exclusively benefits from humans and usually builds its web in or near human buildings. They tend to be a dull brown color in appearance with an average body size of a quarter inch long and an inch across, allowing them to blend into background quite easily.
The common house spider primarily feeds on insects and other small invertebrates that are considered pests, including ants, flies, mosquitoes, and wasps. For prey that is too agile, the spider will actually shoot its web to catch the escaping prey and reel the thread in. Larger females can also eat small lizards.

As they live near humans, common house spiders are not aggressive and will even let humans approach their webs. However, if they feel threatened, they will bite in self-defense, but the bite is as painful as a bee sting. While females can deliver venom, the venom is not potent enough to do much of any harm.

Barn Funnel Weaver (Tegenaria domestica)

As you can probably guess from “domestica,” barn funnel weavers are common household spiders that inhabit all areas of the world. A barn funnel weaver possesses an elongated body, flattened cephalothorax, and straightened abdomen. Coloration is typically dark orange to a grayish brown or beige with stripes down the legs.

These spiders weave funnel-shaped webs to catch their prey. The webs usually consist of numerous silk threads spun over a flat surface with a funnel structure reaching for the corner where the spider usually resides.

Barn funnel weavers are not an aggressive species and are more likely to retreat or even play dead if threatened by larger creatures. They rarely bite, but when they do, the bite is painless. In fact, these spiders can be quite docile, enough that they can be manipulated, caught, or taken away from their webs without any aggressive behavior.

Brown Widow (Latrodectus geometricus)

A “cousin” to the more widely known black widow, brown widows are generally lighter in color, ranging from tan to dark brown to black. Like the black widow, brown widows have the trademark hourglass-shaped marking on their undersides, though these markings tend to be a bright orange or yellow instead of red.

In Southern California, brown widows are more common than black widows. In fact, in the city of San Diego, you might find as many as 20 to 30 brown widow spiders in your backyard. Brown widows are actually competing with and pushing out native black widows.

Brown widows have neurotoxic venom that is just as potent as the black widow’s. However, research shows that a brown spider bites are not dangerous or lethal and no more painful than bites from common house spiders. Some researchers claim this is because brown widow venom is confined to the bite area and surrounding tissue. Others suggest that brown widows are incapable of delivering the same amount of venom as a black widow.

Have you seen any of these spiders lately? Like we said, most of these spiders are harmless for the most part, but the last thing you want is for a spider, which can turn into several, to set up camp in your home. If you’re especially squeamish about spiders or unsure of what you’re dealing with, be sure to give us a call.

Mice spread disease and can also be quite destructive. They build nests in walls and chew on anything in their way, including electrical wires. They get into human and pet food and leave their feces on every surface they touch, spreading diseases such as hantavirus and bacteria such as salmonella.

Sometimes it’s impossible to keep mice out of your home, especially if you live in a warm or wet climate where they thrive year round. But there are a number of measures you can take to help mouse proof your home. As with many household pests, when it comes to keeping mice at bay, prevention is the best method.

Tips for Keeping Your Home Mouse Free

There are a number of easy preventative measures you can take to help discourage mice from taking up residence in your home, and some of them may even help improve your home. For example, sealing up holes and cracks where mice can get through can help keep your heating and cooling bills down too.

Get rid of the things that attract mice: You’ll find signs of mice most often in the kitchen, because mice are looking for food. You’ll have fewer mice by keeping the kitchen clean and limiting the food items they prefer.

• Mice will gnaw through items like cereal boxes and bags of grains, so keep these items stored high off the ground. Try storing your food in airtight containers such as Tupperware and mason jars that mice can’t penetrate.
• Keep dishes out of the sink, the countertops clear, and prep surfaces like cutting boards clean at all times. Mice are nocturnal and come out at night when humans aren’t around, so make sure you leave a clean kitchen behind before retiring for the night.
• Keep food in the kitchen in order to contain the things that attract mice the most to one room in the house. Don’t allow your kids to take food into other rooms and set a good example by doing the same.
• Watch out for pet food that may attract mice. Pets usually eat down on the floor and sometimes leave bits of kibble around that can attract mice. Clean the area around your pet’s food bowl daily and remove any food left in the bowl after meal times. Store your pet’s food in an airtight container too.

 Secure your structures: Solid construction is a good mice deterrent. When a home is airtight, mice have a much harder time taking up residence inside. Keep in mind that the average house mouse weighs only half an ounce and has a body that’s only a couple of inches long. Most mice can fit through a hole the size of a dime or through a crack the width of a pencil.

• Seal cracks around windows and doors. Use the flashlight test at night to identify spots where your home isn’t airtight. You’ll need to have one person on the outside of doors and windows with a flashlight and one person on the inside to mark the spots where the light shines through. Perform the test a second time to make sure you’re all sealed up.
• Mice can enter homes through spots around plumbing and pipes, such as the areas underneath your bathroom or kitchen sink. You can fill in these gaps with spray foam insulation.
• A leaky roof, untreated wood, rotting siding, and structural damage to your home’s exterior can all be invitations to unwelcome mice. If mice can get inside a damaged wall they can take up residence there and create further damage. Replace any dilapidated materials around your home’s exterior.
• Freestanding sheds, garages, and other structures around your property can also harbor mice. Securing these structures keeps mice off your property and even further away from your home. Move wood piles away from the home and clean up piles of brush and yard waste.

Population Control

Mice multiply quickly. Most mice live for under a year, and a female can have fifty or more young during her lifetime. Her young can begin reproducing when they’re less than a month old. There are a few tactics for keeping mice populations down, in addition to prevention techniques.

• Dogs and cats are excellent mousers. Encourage your pets to hunt mice by sending them outdoors to the spots where you see signs of rodents. Adopting a barn cat to live on your property can help keep mice away from your home, while indoor cats will hunt the ones that make it inside.
• Trapping mice with traditional or live traps can get rid of a mouse problem before it escalates out of control.

Photo Credit: “Field mouse at bay” by Zorba the Geek

Here’s a list of the most common ants found around Southern California homes and properties, and some solutions for preventing and removing them.

 Argentine ant: This nonnative species is California’s most common household ant. In addition to invading your home and property with their rapidly multiplying colonies, the argentine ant kills off beneficial native ant colonies and harbors honeydew-producing pests such as aphids, mealybugs, and whiteflies that destroy plants.

 Carpenter ant: This species is easy to identify because it’s one of the largest ant species in North America. Their nests are fairly easy to identify as well. Big, black carpenter ants burrow into wood to build their nests and leave fine piles of wood pulp behind. Look for this sign around your home to make sure you don’t have carpenter ants, because they can cause significant damage to wooden homes. They can also inflict a painful bite, so be careful when controlling them.

Carpenter ants like water and feed on honeydew and other sugars, in addition to live and dead insects, so limit these things in and around your home to help control them. Keep wood on your home and other structures properly sealed and remove any rotting wood from the property to help discourage them from building nests.

Thief ant: This very tiny ant is light brown to yellowish in color and earns its name by stealing the larvae of other ant species for food. In your home they’re attracted to greasy foods and sweets and can be seen carrying bits of food. They’re also small enough to get inside food packages that other ants can’t penetrate. Thief ants colonize under rocks and decaying wood around your yard, and behind baseboards and cabinets in your home.

Pavement ant: Pavement ants build their nests over cracks in pavement and cement and in lawns, giving them their name. Like most ants, they are attracted to sweets, and they also enjoy greasy foods. This ant is dangerous to homes because it can travel through electrical wires and plumbing pipes running into your home.

Odorous house ant: This ant will build a nest almost anywhere, and has been found nesting in insulation, houseplants, and heat sources in homes. It gets its name from the profuse smell it gives off when crushed, so this is one way you can test these ants to determine their species. They are attracted to heat and water, so keep this in mind when controlling their populations.

 Pharaoh ant: The pharaoh ant is a nuisance because it will chew through almost anything, including rubber. They are light brown to yellowish in color but are not to be confused with the thief ant because they are much larger. The pharaoh ant is a nonnative African species that prefers the hot, dry climate of Southern California.

 Imported fire ant: Southern California has recently seen spikes in this invasive ant species native to South America. It is more threatening than the native Southern Fire Ant because they are extremely aggressive and have painful stings. They can attack and kill smaller animals that step on their mounds and may hurt children or attack the leg of an adult. They kill other ant species, are very resilient, and spread their colonies quickly. They also destroy crops and plant root systems with their aggressive mound building. This is not an ant you want to mess around with!

 Try the following solutions to remove ants from your home:

• Keep kitchen surfaces clean and countertop food items (fresh fruit, cooking oils, and sugars) hidden away.

• Store perishable foods in airtight containers that ants can’t penetrate.

• Caulk and seal spots where you can see ants coming in.

• Keep a spray bottle of soapy water on the countertop and spray ants as you see them.

• Look for signs of ants around your home outdoors and remove anything that’s attracting them, including populations of the honeydew producing pests they harbor.

• Remove indoor and outdoor plants that ants and honeydew producing pests have infested.

• Set out ant bait with delayed-release poisons that ants carry back to the nest and feed to other members of the colony.

“Working at the aphid farm” Jennifer Molajen