Des Moines Pest Control | Exterminator Des Moines
ANT CONTROL
As a leading pest control company Miller Pest Control offers dependable, flexible, and effective residential and commercial ant control and ant extermination services. We are the ant extermination experts. Clients can choose from a wide range of preventive and responsive pest management services and solutions, all delivered by trained and dedicated ant control professionals.
Ants are the most common pest problem facing homeowners. Do-it-yourself ant control treatments can often make the problem worse and rarely address the source of the problem which is the nest. Our ant control treatments are based on proper identification of the ants infesting your home. Request a Free ant control Inspection today! Miller Pest Control can get rid your ant problem quickly and affordably.
While there are many different types of ants that can find their way into our homes, including pavement ants, carpenter ants, odorous house ants, crazy ants, fire ants, and pharaoh ants, just to name a few, for the most part the strategies for dealing with them are all the same.
Types of Common Ants
Argentine Ants
Argentine ant colonies can grow to an enormous size. The ant gives off a musty odor when crushed. Worker argentine ants are about one sixteenth of an inch long. Queen argentine ants are one eighth of an inch to one quarter of an inch long.
Carpenter Ants
Carpenter ants get their name because they excavate wood in order to build their nests. Their burrowing results in smooth tunnels inside the wood. Carpenter ants range in size from one-quarter inch for a worker ant to up to three-quarters inch for a queen.
Odorous House Ants
This ant gets its name from the strong, rotten coconut-like smell it gives off when crushed. These tiny insects range in size from one-sixteenth of an inch to one-eighth of an inch long.
Pavement Ants
Pavement ants get their name because they make their nests in or under cracks in pavement. They can also infest structures like houses and garages.
Red Imported Fire Ants
Red imported fire ants nest in soil and build mound nests. They are known to also infest detached garages.
Crazy Ants
The crazy ant often forages long distances away from their nests, so the nests are often difficult to control. Its name arises from its characteristic erratic and rapid movement, and habit of not following trails as often as other ants.
Pharaoh Ants
The pharaoh ant is a small and is a yellow or light brown, almost transparent notorious for being a major indoor nuisance pest, especially in hospitals.
Carpenter Ant Control for Homes
Carpenter Ants cause millions of dollars of damage annually to homes and buildings.
Miller Pest Control’s ant control service will eliminate infestations in your home and help prevent new infestations. Once we have located the area where the ants enter your home, we can use several methods of carpenter ant extermination. However certain conditions can make a home more vulnerable to carpenter ant infestation. For more information on our carpenter ant control program call Miller Pest Control today. Carpenter ants do not eat wood as termites do; Carpenter ants chip out wood in order to make a nest inside of walls, beams, sills and joists in a house. They expel a frass like sawdust from their nests.
Our Carpenter Ant extermination treatment will also include service for the following:
Carpenter Ants, Mice, Crickets, Spiders, Pharaoh Ants, Cockroaches, Silverfish, Sow bugs, Pavement Ants, Water bugs, Earwigs, Pill bugs, Odorous House Ants, Centipedes, Millipedes, Asian lady beetles, Carpenter Bees, Hornets, Yellow jackets and Paper Wasps (Bees & Wasps up to 20 feet off the ground)
Carpenter Ant Nests
The most important aspect of carpenter ant extermination and ant control is tracking down the main nest as well as the satellite nests that connect to it. The main nests are usually located in rotting stumps or trees and are easily found in the middle of the night when the ants are most active. If the ants have formed a nest in your home, it will likely only be a satellite nest. Carpenter ants set up satellite colonies in the walls, sub floors and void spaces in our homes. Structures with carpenter ants can have as many as 10 to 12 satellite colonies.
Carpenter Life Cycle
They lay eggs in the walls twice a year, in the winter and the summer. The eggs can take 2-10 months to mature. The ant goes through 4 stages of growth; egg, larvae, pupae and adult. Thus their development is taking place all throughout the year. The crawling ants you see are out foraging for food to bring back to their young.
* A recent survey in the State of Connecticut found that there were on average of 10-12 carpenter ant satellite colonies in structures with carpenter ants problems.
Click on www.ct.gov for more details.
The satellite nests are often located in wall voids or eaves or in attics and crawl spaces. This is why you need the experts at 1-800-PEST CONTROL to professionally handle your ant control problem.
Dangerous Pests – Cockroaches
Cockroaches are known carriers of serious diseases, such as, salmonella, dysentery, gastroenteritis and other stomach complaint organisms. They adulterate food and spread pathogenic organisms with their feces and defensive secretions. Let Miller Pest Control get rid of these vermin today!
Asthmatic Reactions
Cockroaches must molt regularly throughout their life-cycle. The discarded skin becomes airborne and can cause severe asthmatic reactions, particularly to children, the elderly and people with bronchial ailments.
The Cockroach Begins as an Egg
The female produces an egg sac which she carries or deposits in a safe place. The young cockroach or “nymph” will undergo a series of molts, shedding its external skeleton, as it grows to adulthood. The entire life cycle may extend to a few months depending on the species and environmental factors, such as, access to food and moisture, adequate shelter and warm temperatures.
The Cleanest Homes can be Infested
Cockroach pests and their eggs are spread throughout the community in food and other packaging. Although sanitation and hygiene are important deterrents, even the cleanest homes become infested with cockroaches due to minute deposits of grease, sugar and other food deposits in difficult to get at places, such as, in drains, behind refrigerators and dishwashers, inside cracks and crevices in kitchen cupboards.
Cockroaches are Omnivorous
Cockroaches will eat almost any organic matter no matter how rancid. Once inside the home, they will seek out food scraps, unsealed food containers, sugar and grease deposits, pet food, rancid meat, glue and even book bindings. They even eat each others feces, to feed the young “nymphs” and extract all nourishment from an organic food source. If you see a clump of pepper-like specs in your kitchen cupboards, it is likely cockroach feces marking their courtship and nearby nesting territory.
Cockroaches are Nocturnal Feeders
Cockroaches rest during daylight hours in dark warm secure harborages in your home, such as, in wall cavities, the sub-floor, roof void, cracks and crevices in the kitchen and bathroom, electrical appliances and foodstuffs. They will emerge from these harborages in the still of the night. Cockroaches have an array of acute sensory and survival instincts. If you see cockroaches in your home during the day, you have a serious problem.
Rapid Breeding Cycle
If left unchecked a cockroach infestation can rapidly expand its numbers in a few weeks or months to become major risk to health and safety.
Cockroach Control
Cockroach control is one of the single most challenging pest control issues out there. Unfortunately, choosing any single method of cockroach extermination is setting yourself up for failure. Cockroaches are just too geared towards survival for any one method to do the trick. Instead, the best method of cockroach control is a comprehensive plan that includes keeping a sanitary home along with the use of baits, dusts, pheromone traps, growth regulators, and when necessary, insecticides.
Keep a Clean House
In order to combat a cockroach control problem, it’s important to understand how these bugs think. Cockroaches in house are survivors, and as such their primary concerns include eating, drinking, and making more cockroaches. As long as there’s shelter and a source of food and water present, they will do their best to make themselves at home. That being said, the first step in any cockroach extermination is making things a little less hospitable. Make sure all foodstuffs are sealed and stored away when they’re not being used and never leave food out that’s not being eaten. That includes dirty dishes, old pizza boxes, crumbs on the floor, even dog food should be put away at night. Also, be sure to fix any leaky pipes as cockroaches are drawn to those high moisture areas as well.
Find out Where They’re Living
Once you’ve addressed your end of the problem, the next step in cockroach control is identifying where they’re living so you can try to close off and eliminate those areas. Look for cracks, holes, and other small spaces behind counters, appliances and in cabinets. Cockroaches in house like tight, dark places, and spend about ý of their lives there. By identifying these places and sealing them off (usually with some kind of caulking material), you’re taking another big step towards on getting grid of your unwanted guests. You see 1 for every 100 behind the walls!
Besides poisoning, pheromone traps are an effective form of cockroach control as well. The traps emit a pheromone scent that cockroaches interpret as another roach ready to mate. They are attracted to the trap, head inside for some good times, and quickly find themselves stuck and dying. The other product that addresses the reproductive side of things are growth regulators. It’s a spray that when applied to immature cockroaches damages their ability to reproduce, heading the problem off at the source.
Should You Use Insecticide?
Insecticides haven’t proven to be as effective with cockroaches in house as with some other insects. Because of their high reproductive rate, many cockroach communities have developed resistance to insecticides, and cockroaches will often retreat from a treated area to another place in the house until the insecticide wears off. You might not see too many roaches for a while, but it doesn’t mean they won’t be back, either.
By far the best approach to cockroach control includes utilizing all of the tactics mentioned above, and more if you can find them. Also, keep in mind that cockroaches give even the pros a rough time. Honestly, your chances of eradicating them yourself are pretty slim. If you’re suffering from a cockroach infestation, your best bet is to call in a Miller Pest Control with a proven track record of total cockroach extermination.
Wasp and Bee Control
Wasp control and bee control are essential for the safety of your family, friends and neighbors. You can depend on Miller Pest Control to control these annoying and potentially dangerous insects. We have over thirty years of experience in wasp control and bee control.
Each of our trained professionals has a minimum of 100 hours of classroom training, and also receives ongoing education. This insect control instruction includes the latest on wasp and bee infestation management.
Why is wasp and bee control so important? While most stinging and biting pests don’t present a significant risk to many people, their attacks can be very painful. In addition, a number of bug bites and stings can be dangerous to babies and young children, the elderly and people with severe allergic reactions to insect venoms.
Bees and Wasps
Although they are generally considered to be pests because of their ability to sting, Wasps and bees are generally speaking beneficial insects. Wasps become a problem in autumn when they disrupt many outdoor activities.
While both social wasps and bees live in colonies ruled by queens and maintained by workers, they look and behave differently. It is important to distinguish between bees, wasps and hornets because different methods will be necessary to control them if they become a nuisance. If you are unsure of whether you have bees, wasps or hornets call Miller Pest Control for an in home estimate today.
Appearance of Wasps
Wasps have a slender body with a narrow waist, slender, cylindrical legs, and appear smoothed-skinned and shiny. Yellow jackets, bald-faced hornets, and paper wasps are the most common types of wasps encountered by people
Appearance of Bees
Bees are robust-bodied and very hairy compared with wasps. Their hind legs are flattened for collecting and transporting pollen. Bees are important pollinators. Honey bees are responsible for more than 80% of the pollination required by most fruits and vegetable seed plants as well as many shrubs and flowers that are grown in our landscapes.
Bees and Wasps Food Preferences
Wasps are predators, feeding insects to their young. They prey on many insects, including caterpillars, flies, crickets, and other pests. During late summer and fall, as queens stop laying eggs and their nests decline, wasps change their food gathering priorities and are more interested in collecting sweets and other carbohydrates. Some wasps may become aggressive scavengers around human food and may be common around outdoor activities where food or drinks are served.
Bees feed only on nectar and pollen from flowers. Honey bees sometimes visit trash cans and soft-drink containers to feed on sugary foods.
Bees, Wasps and Yellow Jacket Nesting Sites
Yellow jackets, bald-faced hornets, and paper wasps make nests from a papery pulp comprised of chewed-up wood fibers mixed with saliva. Yellow jacket and bald-faced hornet nests consist of a series of rounded combs stacked in tiers. These combs are covered by an envelope consisting of several layers of pulp. Paper wasps construct only one comb without any protective envelope. Yellow jackets, bald-faced hornets, and paper wasps nest in quiet, out of the way places. Unfortunately, in urban areas this may conflict with people and their interests.
Yellow jackets commonly build nests below ground in old rodent burrows or other cavities. They can also build nests in trees, shrubs, under eaves, and inside attics or wall voids. Bald-faced hornets commonly build nests in the open in trees as well as under eaves and along the sides of buildings.
Paper wasps build nests under any flat surface and are commonly found on limbs, overhangs, in eaves of buildings, beams and supports in attics, garages, barns, sheds, and other similar places.
Honey bees make a series of vertical honey combs made of wax. Their colonies are mostly in manufactured hives but they do occasionally nest in cavities in large trees, voids in building walls, or other protected areas.
Bumble bees use old mice burrows, cavities in buildings, and other locations to make their nests. Like honey bees, bumble bees make cells of wax. These sites should be investigated by the trained professionals at Miller Pest Control. Call today.
Life Cycle of Wasps and Bees
Wasps and bumble bees have annual colonies that last for only one year. The colony dies in the fall with only the newly produced queens surviving the winter. The new queens leave their nests during late summer and mate with males. The queens then seek out overwintering sites, such as under loose bark, in rotted logs, under siding or tile, and in other small crevices and spaces, where they become dormant. These queens become active the following spring when temperatures warm. They search for favorable nesting sites to construct new nests. They do not reuse old nests.
Honey bees are perennial insects with colonies that survive more than one year. Honey bees form a cluster when hive temperatures approach 57° F. As the temperature drops, the cluster of bees becomes more compact. Bees inside this mass consume honey and generate heat so that those in the cluster do not freeze. As long as honey is available in the cluster, a strong colony can withstand temperatures down to -30° F. or lower for extended periods.
Wasp and Bee Stings
Wasps and bees sting to defend themselves or their colony. Stinging injects venom made of protein that causes pain and other reactions.
Wasps and bumble bees can sting more than once because they are able to pull out their stinger without injury to themselves. If you are stung by a wasp or a bumble bee, the stinger is not left in your skin.
When adults, children or pets frequent an area where bumble bees have made their nests, the beneficial bumble bee can become a pest. A disturbed nest can become an angry nest! Dogs are often on the receiving end of angry bees. A dog’s curiosity can get it into trouble with stinging insects. While investigating the activity of a nest, dogs usually get stung on their face since their snout and noses are easy targets for the bees.
Honey bees have barbs on their stinger which remain hooked in the skin. The stinger, which is connected to the digestive system of the bee, is torn out of the abdomen as the bee attempts to fly away. As a result, the bee soon dies. If you are stung by a honey bee, scratch out the stinger (with its attached venom gland) with your fingernail as soon as possible. Do not try to pull out the stinger with your fingers. Doing so only forces more venom into your skin, causing greater irritation.
Most people have only local reactions to wasp and bee stings, although a few may experience more serious allergic reactions. Local, non allergic reactions range from burning, itching, redness, and tenderness to massive swelling and itching that may last up to a week. These local reactions can be treated with ice, vinegar, honey, meat tenderizer, or commercial topical ointment to relieve the itching.
An allergic reaction may include hives or rash, swelling away from the sting site, headache, minor respiratory symptoms, and stomach upset. These allergic reactions are not life-threatening and can be readily treated with an antihistamine. Very rarely, a person may suffer a life-threatening, systemic allergic reaction to a bee or wasp sting, which can cause anaphylactic shock (fainting, difficulty breathing, swelling, and blockage in the throat) within minutes of being stung. These systemic symptoms are cause for immediate medical attention. People with known systemic allergic reactions to bee or wasp stings should consult with their physician to obtain an Epi-PenTM or Ana-Guard Sting KitTM to carry with them at all times. The venoms of bees and wasps are different, so having a severe reaction to a wasp sting does not mean a person will have the same reaction to a bee sting. If you have Bees and Wasps and a family member of neighbor is allergic please call Miller Pest Control today. We will make sure you and your family and friend remain safe all year long.
Control of Bee and Wasp Nests
The first step in wasp or bee control is to correctly identify the insect and locate its nesting site. Miller Pest Control provides professional wasp or bee control service.
Bee Removal requires a delicate touch, especially when the honey bees need to be removed from within your residential or commercial property. Do not attempt this on your own call Miller Pest Control to handle your Bee removal. It can also be very tricky since most of the time all you will see is a dozen or so honey bees going in and out of a hole on your property. What most people don’t expect and are surprised to find is that right behind that opening are thousands if not tens of thousands of bees helping build and protect the colony. Once the cavity is opened and we expose the honeycomb, for most customers it is shocking to find that there can be 50, 60, even over 100+ lbs of honeycomb waiting to be removed if the hive has been there for a while.
Learn to Avoid a Bumble Bee Problem:
- Clean up your yard of unwanted mulch or other such organic debris.
- When working in flower beds, gardens, etc., or when cleaning up other such areas around the home, be cautious when dealing with any flat boards, stone, bricks, etc. These places are the most likely sites for a nest.
- Carefully remove flat items that could provide a nesting site for bees: boards, plywood, other loose building materials, tarps or other junk. Flat rocks, stones or bricks should be removed unless they are part of a pathway or other decoration. Check these items to make sure that they are packed down to make good contact with the ground.
- If you find a nest, it is best to leave it alone and let the drones and workers die off during the winter. Use this option only when you are positive that children, pets or workers in the area are not at risk of being stung by the bees. If this is not the case call Miller Pest Control to professionally remove the nest for you.
Remember, foraging bees are extremely beneficial and want nothing to do with people or pets; encounters with bees in and around their nest can be harmful to people and pets.
MICE
Mice are defined as rodents, and can generally be differentiated from rats because they’re usually much smaller. They are more times than not, a grayish-brown and one of the most common house pests in the United States. They often enter homes through cracks in walls and floors, though they’re known to also gain access to your home through drainage pipes, oven gas lines, and windows. It’s important to try and eliminate mice before they reproduce and make your problem a full-on infestation (female mice have litters of five to six babies every couple of months).
Mice Control
The house mouse is remarkably well-adapted for living year-round in homes, food establishments and other structures. Homeowners are especially likely to notice mice during winter, following their fall migration indoors in search of warmth, food and shelter. Once mice become established inside a home, they can be extremely difficult to control. Although most people consider mice less objectionable than rats, mice are more common and cause significantly more damage. Mice are prolific breeders, producing 6-10 litters continuously throughout the year. The greatest economic loss from mice is not due to how much they eat, but what must be thrown out because of damage or contamination. Food, clothing, furniture, books and many other household items are contaminated by their droppings and urine, or damaged by their gnawing. House mice gnaw through electrical wiring, causing fires and failure of freezers, clothes dryers and other appliances. Mice also can transmit diseases, most notably salmonellosis (bacterial food poisoning) when food is contaminated with infected rodent feces.
Mouse Behavior
Mice are nocturnal creatures, and, therefore, are rarely seen by the homeowner. The most obvious indicators of their presence are droppings (1/8 – 1/2-inches long, dark and pointed at both ends), sounds of them running, gnawing or squeaking, or damage to stored food or materials used for nesting.
Compared to rats, mice forage only short distances from their nest — usually not more than 10-25 feet. When food and shelter are adequate, their foraging range may be only a few feet. For this reason, traps and other control devices must be placed in areas where mouse activity is most apparent. Mice prefer to travel adjacent to walls and other edges– another critical point to remember when positioning control devices. Mice are very inquisitive and will investigate each new object placed in their foraging territory. If control devices are not initially successful, move them around to a different location.
Mice feed on a wide variety of foods but prefer seeds and cereal grains. They also are fond of foods high in fat and protein such as nuts, bacon, butter and sweets (an important point to remember when choosing bait for snap traps). Mice are “nibblers” and may make 20-30 visits to different food sites each night.
How to Control Mice
To control mice, you must “think like a mouse,” keeping in mind the behavioral traits noted above. The best way to control mice is to prevent their entry. Mice are able to squeeze through extremely small openings narrower than the diameter of a dime. Cracks in the foundation 1/4 inch and larger should be sealed, as should gaps and openings under doors and where utility pipes enter the structure.
Good sanitation and food storage practices are helpful in reducing problems with house mice. Since seeds are a preferred food, all adjacent to the building should likewise be eliminated. However, because mice are able to occupy such small nesting areas and survive on minute amounts of food, sanitation alone will not normally eliminate an existing infestation.
Mice Extermination
You should to take action at the first sign of a mouse infestation. Populations grow rapidly and are extremely difficult to eradicate. It is best to target infestations when colonies are small.
Conventional mouse extermination methods include the use of snap traps, glue traps, live traps or electronic mousetraps. Snap traps, electronic traps and glue traps are designed to kill captured specimens, while live traps require homeowners to release caught mice into the wild.
The use of poison is not advisable within the home. Rodent poisons prove extremely dangerous to humans and house pets. After ingesting poison, mice often retreat to their nesting places within walls to die. This results in foul odors that are difficult to eliminate. Generally, the use of poison is advised only for extreme infestations, although professional pest control methods are safer and more effective.
Let Miller Pest Control take care of your rat and mice problems so you don’t have to!
