Pests typically invade homes and yards because of food, water, or shelter. To prevent pests, remove their sources of attraction. Store food in sealed containers, regularly clean up spills, and sweep up fallen leaves, branches, and twigs.
Rats can chew through electrical wires, creating a fire hazard and spreading diseases such as salmonella and lymphocytic choriomeningitis. To keep them away, garbage cans should be tightly closed, and ponds covered with netting. Click Here to learn more.
A pest control system is only effective if it prevents infestations rather than reacting to them once they occur. Preventive measures include regular inspections of facilities to identify and address pest problems before they spread, eliminating conditions that draw pests to a site (food, water, shelter), and sealing cracks in walls or foundations that allow entry. It also includes good sanitation practices to eliminate attractants, including proper storage of food products in sealed containers and regularly removing garbage, as well as the use of screens on doors and windows to keep pests out.
In addition, vigilance in checking for signs of pests and promptly taking action if a problem is detected – like keeping trash receptacles closed or using tightly-sealed garbage bags – helps to keep pest numbers low. Uniform cleaning practices that don’t invite pests and establishing regular wellness checks for employees to make sure they aren’t inadvertently bringing in pests can also reduce the need for more aggressive prevention tactics.
Keeping exterior walls and roofs free of holes and loose siding is also important. Woodpiles should be moved away from a building’s exterior, and gutters should be cleaned regularly. Grass should be kept trimmed to minimize its attractiveness to critters looking for shelter. And exterior walls should be periodically painted to maintain their protective barrier.
Inside a facility, clear communication and training on pest prevention strategies is key for employees to understand what they can do to help prevent a problem from happening. This includes storing food in properly sealed containers, using screens on windows and closing doors, keeping garbage receptacles tightly-sealed and throwing out trash frequently to minimize buildup, washing or otherwise treating clothing that could attract pests and making sure that the proper cleaning procedures are used when handling incoming shipments of merchandise or artifacts.
Museums are especially susceptible to pests that enter buildings through sewers and air vents or through poorly sealed doors and windows. In addition, pests can be carried in on merchandise or artifacts or by staff members and may cause damage from chewing or gnawing, moisture intrusion leading to wood rot and fungus attack, or through the introduction of disease organisms. Preventive methods for museums can involve identifying and removing attractants, quarantine, inspection, treatment of artifacts through low or high temperature exposure and controlled atmosphere fumigation, or even pesticide application.
Suppression
As the name implies, suppression reduces pest numbers or damage to an acceptable level. It is usually a secondary goal of control programs, used when other methods fail or are impractical. Preventing pests from ever occurring is the best strategy, but when it’s not practical or possible, the goal must be to suppress them as quickly and effectively as possible once they are present.
This may be done by using physical modifications to the growing environment, such as crop rotation or tillage to disrupt breeding, or by removing infected plant material. Cultural controls are also employed to deprive pests of a comfortable habitat or prevent their movement through the growing area. Plowing, cleaning greenhouses and tillage equipment, and good manure management are all examples of cultural controls.
Insect pests are also targeted by a variety of natural enemies. Some of these are easily seen, such as aphids and lady beetles; others are less visible but equally effective, such as parasitic wasps and flies (more than 8,500 species); nematodes with their bacterial symbionts; and pathogenic bacteria, fungi and viruses. In natural communities, predators and parasitoids compete with each other and sometimes interact antagonistically to determine the strength of pest regulation.
Field and landscape characteristics can have significant influences on the functioning of natural enemy guilds. For example, the presence of uncultivated or perennial vegetation in a field can increase predator and parasitoid populations, thus enhancing the ability of the natural enemy community to suppress pests. In contrast, the use of continuous cropping and tillage can diminish the strength of natural enemy guilds and therefore reduce the capacity of these organisms to suppress pests.
In addition to affecting the abundance of natural enemies, the use of chemicals in pest control can affect their effectiveness. Chemicals can kill the pests they are intended to target, but they can also harm or even destroy beneficial insects, parasitoids and nematodes; cause disease in other plants; or disrupt the normal physiology of the pest’s host. For these reasons, careful identification of the pest is important. Incorrect identification can result in the wrong type of chemical being applied or the application timed incorrectly, both of which could reduce the pest control benefits.
Eradication
Eradication is the ultimate goal in pest control and involves removing the targeted species from a defined area or geographical region. It is a difficult and often unsuccessful endeavour, requiring significant resources and a complete understanding of pest biology and ecology. The removal of a single species can cause complex ecological interactions to unravel and can have far-reaching environmental impacts. Eradication programs are often attempted without this understanding, and the resulting effects can be devastating.
An alternative to eradication is management of the targeted pest in habitat continua. This is an ongoing and expensive undertaking which is likely to have less impact on biodiversity than eradication because it addresses the issue of continual re-invasion from neighbouring unmanaged areas. Despite these advantages, it is not widely practised due to a lack of funding and a need for a thorough understanding of pest ecology (Ji, Clout & Sarre 2000; Courchamp, Chapius & Pascal 2003).
In addition to a range of preventive measures, the use of biological controls may be useful in controlling some pests. These include parasites, predators and pathogens that naturally regulate pest populations. Biological control can be supplemented with chemical controls and the application of physical barriers such as traps, fences, and spraying equipment to deter pests from entering an area.
Phytosanitary procedures are also important to help control pests. These include inspection of goods arriving in New Zealand, screening of shipments from overseas and the establishment of quarantine areas for specific species. The quarantine system can be effective in preventing the spread of harmful organisms such as diseases, weeds, nematodes and vertebrates into agriculture, forests, urban landscapes and open space.
The state’s rating system for pests includes A-Rated pests which are very harmful and require action if found; B-Rated pests that are moderately damaging and require monitoring; C-Rated pests that damage crops but do not yet cause major economic damage and are therefore not considered urgent; and D-Rated pests which occur naturally in New Zealand but do not need to be controlled. The rating system does not currently consider Q-Rated pests which are suspected to be very harmful but the status of these is uncertain because of incomplete identification or inadequate information.
Chemical Controls
Chemical control is used when other methods are not effective or are deemed too harmful to use. This type of pest control can be very effective when it is used in conjunction with other methods as part of an integrated pest management plan (IPM). It is a requirement that anyone who uses chemicals as part of their pest control services be qualified and licensed and must follow the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH) regulations. Pest control products must be stored and applied correctly so that they do not come into contact with humans or non-target organisms, such as beneficial insects and wildlife.
In IPM, action thresholds are set to identify when pest populations reach unacceptable levels. Thresholds are usually set by monitoring pest activity and environmental conditions. Observing insect, insect-like, mollusk and vertebrate pests can be done by scouting or trapping. Observing weed and pathogen pests can be done by monitoring damage or identifying symptoms. Monitoring can also include recording weather conditions such as temperature and humidity.
When the monitoring shows that the pest population has risen above the action threshold, IPM practitioners must decide whether to take action. This may involve setting baits or traps to target the pest or spraying the area with a pesticide. Choosing the right pesticide and applying it at the correct time is crucial to success. If the pesticide fails to work, it is important to consider why. Sometimes resistance to pesticides develops because one pesticide is used too often or is applied in a way that allows the chemicals to drift away from the treatment site and into areas where the pest population has not been affected. Rotating pesticides can help reduce resistance.
Physical pest controls are not considered to be environmentally friendly and are often avoided by organic farmers. However, they can be very effective and are often less expensive than other forms of pest control. They can be as simple as removing the pest from its natural habitat or using extreme temperatures to kill or deter the pest. Another popular method of physical pest control is biological control, which is the use of living organisms to destroy or prevent a detrimental organism. Early attempts at biological control involved the use of soil microbes. However, these failed to provide reliable or long-lasting control of the pests.