How Do You Get Rid of Fruit Flies? 3 Steps In Eliminating Pesky Flies
Before you try any sort of fruit fly trap or other recommended removal methods, it is highly recommended that you treat the source of the problem otherwise you will just send up fighting a losing battle.
By being proactive in your approach, this will ensure that another infestation will not raise its ugly head after you successfully get rid of the first one.
Let’s have a look at a failsafe, 3 step process that you can follow from the comfort of your own home and that is guaranteed to work:
The First Step: Take out your trash regularly and always try to keep the lid on your bin. Additionally, try your best to keep the bin away from your home, especially if you have discarded old food or other rotten items.
Other obvious steps would be to throw away any old food lying around your kitchen as they will be targets for fruit flies. This is extremely important as you will never actually get rid of fruit flies effectively if you leave them a source of food or nesting place so please ensure that this is not properly and thoroughly before you move on.
The Second Step: Pour bleach down your drain pipes. This will kill off the larvae and make sure that another wave of fruit flies do not come buzzing out to infest your home again. This is an important step so make sure that you do this.
Any bleach will be fine, just make sure that you treat all your drain pipes, even those that are located outside of your home. It has been found that normal household cleaning bleach works very well so you don’t need to go and purchase anything expensive.
Also, make sure to dilute the mixture with a little bit of water, this will make it last longer and allow you to cover a larger area.
The Third Step: Build yourself a decent fruit fly trap. There are many guides on how to do this, some of them offer fairly humane methods of removal while others focus on just getting rid of them, regardless of the process involved.
But, trapping fruit flies and releasing them away from the house can often result in them finding their way back, only to infest your living area once again.
Also, considering the rate in which they reproduce, killing a few hundred of them really isn’t going to hurt their overall population. Basically, putting vinegar in a glass attracts the fruit flies and then the plastic covering prevents them from escaping. Many homeowners have used this method and found it to be very effective, albeit temporarily
Alternatively, you can always purchase a couple but it’s a bit of a waste of money, considering that each fruit fly trap will take you about 5 minutes to build. These little traps are very effective in getting rid of fruit flies in your home.
Springtails
They jumps around like fleas but they are no longer considered insects by many scientist. Springtails. These tiny creatures can jump a distance of over 10 centimeters. They are not harmful to human beings but are pain when you are trying to grow plants in your space. This is because they chew the roots of plants inside the soil inhibiting the growth and health of the plant.
Why aren’t springtails considered insects?
Because they belong to the family of hexapods known as collembola, which together with two other modern hexapods in the diplura and protura family, have been declassified as insects. They have internal mouthparts while insects have external mouthparts.
Springtails are omnivorous meaning they eat both plant and animal matter. They love moist conditions and contribute the decomposition of matter in the environment by fragmenting the substances in question. Considering the fact that these little creatures consume fungal spores and hyphae, pollen, plant and animal remains, and bacteria one would be tempted to let them be. But if you have a garden or potted plants a heavy infestation of springtails will cause the plants to remain stagnant not growing or becoming productive.
Lifecycle of springtails
They reproduce very quickly which is why they can form swarm very quickly. Their eggs hach within five days meaning in a month’s time you could have a mammoth level of infestation if they are not gotten rid of.
How to get rid of springtails
These are tiny wingless creatures that can jump in the air meaning they can get around quite a bit. But they love to flock together and bunch up into each other in dense swarm. When the swarm is disturbed they will scatter into the air forming visible clouds as they are airborne. They will gather under the carpet, in your garbage cans, in the kitchen or floorboards.
You can spray the space with home friendly pesticide or use diatomaceous earth to kill them. Just make sure that the diatomaceous earth used is food-grade which is safe for use around pets and children. Good old fashioned vacuuming of the floor and stands where plants are kept is also an effective way of wiping out the infestation.
How to prevent springtails
Springtails are generally an indication of a bigger problem with mold and fungus in the house. They enter the house through window screens, vents, open doors. As the weather goes into summer and the outdoors become more and more dry the little creature find comfort inside the damp areas of your house.
Keep them away by sweeping plant matter away from your yard and burning it. You should also seal cracks and crevices in the house including around the windows and basement openings. Also, because they appear to love the soil of the potted plants, make sure you inspect the soil before using it on your potted plants indoors. You can just test the soil with your fingers to see if any little creatures will jump out. If you have infested soil take it out and let it dry out completely to eliminate any springtails.
Things You Need To Know About Brown Dog Tick Infestation
The brown dog tick is part of a group classified as arthropods, which are invertebrates with an external skeleton, segmented body, and joint appendages.
This type of tick is found throughout the United States and primarily feeds on dogs while the deer one, also known as the black-legged tick, is usually found along trails and feeds on both humans and animals. In animals, they cause anemia, paralysis, and transmit other diseases.
Ticks don’t like to crawl far, jump or fly, they’re like hobos. They are transported from one area to another by hitching a ride on passing pets or people.
Tick infestations start when they are brought into a yard or home by rats, mice, squirrels, opossums or raccoons. Sometimes the infestation source is the farm or the pet hotel. You can even pick them up while walking the dog in your neighborhood.
It only takes one tick to start an infestation as each female can lay 2000 to 3000 thousand eggs at a time.
An infestation can seem to appear overnight but in reality, it probably has been building for weeks. When the tick eggs hatch the nymphs are about the size of a pencil dot. They may look like dirt and even when they are fully grown they are hard to see.
When a tick feeds it uses cutting teeth to break the skin and then it inserts a suction tube into the wound. Once the skin is pierced the tick spits it’s saliva into the wound which contains a numbing agent and an anticoagulant.
The numbing agent masks the bite and the anticoagulant thins the blood to makes it easier for the tick to drink. The diseases they transmit to us are carried in the saliva.
They have the ability to transmit infections such as Lyme disease. Lyme disease is an inflammatory disease that affects humans and animals and causes rashes, anemia, swelling, fever, headaches, and fatigue.
Typically, ticks are found in grassy areas or shrubs where they attach to the skin of a host, usually either humans or animals and feed off the blood for nourishment. At times, they may appear inside homes by crawling through cracks and crevices.
If bitten by a tick, it is important to clean the area and apply antibiotic cream to reduce symptoms. If severe reactions occur, consult a doctor for further treatment options.
The transmission of infection to the host is the result of the transfer of toxins from the tick’s saliva into the host. Ticks can multiply in number quickly and an infestation can occur with few visible signs, which makes it increasingly difficult to get rid of ticks.
Tick control is important for preventing an infestation in the home. The best way to prevent ticks from attaching to the skin and entering the house is to wear long sleeves while walking along with wooded or grassy areas and applying insect repellent.
Caulking any cracks around the house, installing screens outside windows, mowing the lawn frequently, cleaning cluttered areas around the home, and getting rid of excess wood are all helpful methods for tick control.
Learning how to kill ticks is also important. Do-it-yourself methods are effective in removing and killing ticks. Tweezers or forceps are useful tools to pull ticks away from the skin. Once the tick is removed, rinse it down the sink or flush it down the toilet.
Outside the home, chemical treatments are effective in getting rid of ticks. When getting rid of ticks becomes difficult or infestation occurs, contact a professional exterminator to apply professional treatment and eliminate ticks completely.
Centipede Bite
A bite from a centipede doesn’t involve the arthropod using its mouthparts to inflict the bite. It usually means the centipede has utilized its clawed point legs situated at the front of its body to puncture your skin. All centipedes bite.
Centipede venom
The caliber of venom depends on the size and species of the centipede. The smaller centipedes do not have too much venom to inject into your system so their bites are probably not as painful. But a large enough centipede can release venom into the bite that will cause excruciating pain for a couple of hours and even days.
When the centipede traps your skin between its claws it reflexively squeezes the muscles around the claw which also contain the poison gland. Once the gland is squeezed it releases the toxic venom into the claws ducts and straight into your skin. The modified pair of legs that appear claw like are known as maxillipeds so the bigger they are the more capable they are to piece skin.
The venom produced by centipedes is not fatal to human beings regardless of how large the centipede is. However, the bite is fatal to other insects to which a centipede is a predator. The worst symptoms experienced from a centipede bite include nausea, vomiting and fever.
A centipede’s bite produces a variety of toxins that include serotonin, histamine, and a cardio-depressant known as toxin-S. These will respond to anti-histamines and hydrocortisone creams to soothe the pain, swelling and the localized irritation. Centipede venom can also cause anaphylactic episodes much like the bee and wasp stings.
Where do you find centipede
Centipedes are outdoor creatures although there are some species that can be found indoors. The outdoor species can be found under rocks, tree barks, mulch, stones and other areas that are damp. When these areas are near the house the centipedes will find their way indoors increasing the chances of a bite.
In addition, centipedes being the predators that they are feed on cockroaches and spiders which lure them inside. They are also attracted to the warmth and safe nooks and crannies within the floor boards and drains. Centipede move fast and they can cover 16 inches per second so once they bite you they will run away as fast as they can.
Effective treatment for centipede bites
Once you have bitten you should clean the bitten area with water and soap immediately. Make sure to wash the wound at least twice to get rid of the venom. An anaphylactic shock episode typically occurs after a few minutes of the bite so if you start to notice symptoms put pressure on the bite and head to the emergency room of the nearest hospital.
To continue with the first aid place a hot compress on the bite site to reduce the pain and swelling. You can alternate between a hot and cold compress. Take some over the counter pain medication to alleviate the pain. We recommended using any other medication at the doctor’s direction.
The Black Carpenter Ant: How Destructive Are They To Your Home?
The black carpenter ant is one of the common pests that invade our homes apart from mice, roaches and other insects. These ants usually invade the house in droves and are considered to be harmful to the wood of the house.
But, how do you know for sure that they have infested your place? It’s easy. When you see an ant or two, there is no reason to panic.
The problem occurs only when a colony of ants makes your home as their dwelling.
Homeowners can look for the following indications to find out if their house is infested by carpenter ants or not:
Worldwide, there are over 900 species of carpenter ants. These ants are long-legged, fast-moving ants that are capable of inflicting a painful bite. They are among the largest of ants and do invade homes to forage for food and build nests.
Description
Carpenter ants are large reddish-brown to black ants from 1/4 to 1/2 inch in length. Their abdomen pedicel consists of one segment. The black carpenter ant, most common in the northeastern states is a dull black color and has yellow hair covering its abdomen.
The red carpenter, most common in the gulf coast states, has a red head and thorax with a black abdomen.
Life Cycle
Ants develop from an egg to larva and pupa, to an adult worker or reproductive. They make new nests by sending out winged reproductives that mate and start a new colony.
The mating flights take place in spring and depends on temperature and other environmental conditions. Winged reproductives fly at night during the rainy season.
Following the flight, the queen drops to the ground and begins searching for a suitable nest site. Nests are often constructed under loose tree bark and in wood that is on the ground.
When a suitable nest is found the queen lays eggs, which will mature into adult ants within 50 to 70 days. A carpenter ant colony can reach several thousand workers.
Feeding And Foraging Habits
Ants forage at night, from just before sunset to two hours after sunset. They have loose, not very well defined trails. The ants are found feeding on sweets such as honeydew on shrubbery, and nectar from flowers. These ants will also eat live and dead insects when young ants are being reared in the colonies nest.
How To Get Rid of Carpenter Ants
Direct treatment or removal of the nest is recommended. However, finding the nest site can be very difficult. Sealing gaps in your house’s exterior, removing tree stumps, woodpiles and chemical treatment will provide effective control of your ant problems.
To find a nest inside your house, follow foraging ants in the evening hours as these ants will lead to the nest.
When the nest is found, treat it with a labeled insecticide for carpenter ants. Insect baits are also available and should be placed according to the product label, where they are foraging for food.
With the combination of a bait application, nest removal or chemical treatment and excluding openings outside your house, you will be able get rid of carpenter ants like a professional.
The Carpenter Ant
One of the largest ants marching in homes that are commonly found in the United States is the carpenter ant.
They are well known for invading and infesting homes and if they are not discovered early, they may cause expensive damage to the building structure.
Although there are many different species around, the two most commonly found in the country are the black carpenter ants and Florida carpenter ants.
What Carpenter Ants Eat
Carpenter ants can eat a wide source ranges of food, depending on the location and places where they nest. When indoors, they can feed on most sweets, meats, and other foods rich in sugar and protein.
And, when they are in an outdoors environment, they will eat living and dead insects. One important point to note is that although carpenter ant damage wood, they don’t eat wood.
Where Carpenter Ants Live
Carpenter ants prefer to build their nest in the moist wood environment. Indoors, they are likely to nest in decayed wood, bathroom tiles, tubs, walls, behind siding, in the attic, insulation, sink, attic beams, showers, and dishwashers or hollow spaces such as wall voids, curtain rods, and doors.
Outdoors, they will found rotting trees, tree roots, tree stumps and logs buried or lying on the ground as the best places.
Damage
There might be serious damage in the building structure if carpenter ants invade as they will tunnel through the wood and create galleries.
Prevention
Don’t wait for the carpenter ants to invade your home before you take action.
Prevention is always the best way. To effective prevent carpenter ants from invading your home, regular visual inspections is necessary and to enforce that, you will need to have a list of steps and plans. Check out some of these action plans:
1. Reduce or remove any possible ‘doorways’ for carpenter ants to enter your house. If any trees touch your house roofing or siding, trim it so that there is no direct contact between them.
2. Focus on all openings where pipes, wires or anything that connect and enter the house. Make sure that they are tightly sealed. Repair any plumbing or outdoor water taps leak as well as check out roof edges, attics, door, window frames.
3. Don’t delay the repairing of any cracks to the foundations as somehow, these insects are able to found it faster than we do.
4. If you need to bring the firewood into your home, examine them and make sure that they are carpenter ants risk-free. Never store firewood on the ground or stack against the sides of the home. Stack them up off the ground with non-organic material.
5. The nature of carpenter ants is that they are very attracted to moist, soft or rotting wood. So, regular checking of your house surroundings is necessary. Remove any moist, soft or rotting wood, log stumps, and waste wood will greatly help to minimize the risk factor.
How To Get Rid Of Moths: A Closer Look At The Pest In Your Pantry
A common complaint that pest control companies receive from customers is about moths in the kitchen.
The moth most often responsible for this type of complaint is a pantry pest called the Indian Meal Moth. This moth is a stored product pest that is picked up from food material that is brought into the home, typically from a grocery or organic food store.
There are characteristic signs of an Indian Meal Moth infestation. The most common complaint heard is that there are adult moths flying around the kitchen.
The adults are about ½” long and have pale gray wings with a copper to rusty color shine. The adults are a sure sign that there is a problem, but upon further inspection of the cabinetry and areas where the wall meets the ceiling, a cotton tube-like mass will be found.
This mass is the pupal stage and it’s one of the reasons the problem continues. The Indian Meal Moth has 4 life stages of life, they are egg, larva, pupa, and adult.
Of the 4 stages, 3 will be visible during an inspection of the infested areas and food materials.
As stated earlier, this pest was brought into the home with some type of food material. The most common materials are grains, pasta, birdseed, dry dog food or some other similar type of product.
The key to stopping the problem is to find the infested food source. This, unfortunately, will take some doing and often can get expensive as most people will throw all of the food in their cabinets away.
This practice is neither recommended or necessary as rarely will all of the food be affected. Focus on finding the items which have been affected, the other items can stay. All canned goods are safe and need not be inspected.
In order to inspect your food storage for Indian Meal Moths, you must inspect each individual package of dry food for the presence of larva (a yellowish worm) or the aforementioned cotton pupa mass.
If a product is infested it will be obvious upon inspection if you have found the culprit. By throwing the infested food material(s) out you have effectively interrupted the life cycle.
After the infested food material is gone, you must catch or kill the adults and remove all the pupa stages before they are able to pupate into reproductive adults.
Failure to do this will allow the insect to repopulate your home. The adults are easily caught by using sex scented sticky pheromone traps available at most home improvement stores.
The pupa stages are best scraped and cleaned from the areas they are sticking to. A crack and crevice application of a pesticide to the cabinet interior corners and cracks may help to prevent re-infestation, but sanitation is the best method of control for this pest.
In some circumstances, a problem may continue even after all the preceding steps have been taken.
In this situation, it is best to contract with a pest management professional who can help identify areas and items that may have been missed.
It’s possible that an unforeseen harborage area in a wall void or under a cabinet may be the source of a continued problem.
Lifespan of a Fly
The house fly and ant are probably the two insects that never seem to have diminishing populations. You are likely to see them everywhere you go. Haven’t you always wondered how long a housefly lives and whether it has an interesting life before a fly swatter dispatches it to the afterlife?Or whether they die of natural causes? So to help us answer that question, we have mapped out the natural life cycle of the housefly.
Where does the life of a house fly begin?
To know the end, we must start at the very beginning. A female house has the ability to lay more than 150 eggs at a go. The eggs look like single grains of rice. Over the course of several days she will lay from five to six batches of eggs. The preferred egg laying sites by female houseflies are dark, smelly surfaces such as manure, compost and other decomposing organic material.
The egg mark the beginning of life for a housefly. Amazingly after the eggs have been laid, the gestation period of the eggs is a mere 24 hours after which they will hatch into legless maggots. The hatched eggs will then feed from the same laying site for a period of 4 to 5 days within which they molt several times. This feeding serves to stock on protein in preparation for the coming metamorphosis. They then seek a dark place to pupate.
The pupal stage will then take 3 to six days after which, lo and behold! a full grown fly will emerge with fully formed wings, legs and body. The pupal stage of a fly is often compared tothe butterfly’s cocoon stage. The brown hard shell serves to protect the inactive maggot as it metamorphoses into a fully formed housefly.
What is astonishing is the fact, within days of emerging from the pupalstage, the female houseflies are able to reproduce. They can lay up to a thousand eggs in their short life time. And then the cycle begins all over again. I guess that in a sense explains why there is never a shortage of house flies at any given time.
With that life cycle in mind, the life span of a housefly is somewhere in the range of 15-30 days depending on conditions such as temperatures and weather. Out in the wild, houseflies are more susceptible to danger and harsh conditions such as unforgiving heat and extreme cold, both of which can limit their lifespan. Incontrolled environments such as a laboratory, house flies can live much longer.
Conclusion
Although the housefly is short-lived, it is capable of horrendous trouble within the short time that it is alive. Houseflies are known carriers of pathogens and diseases such as cholera and tuberculosis. They carry germs on both their mouths and feet. If you notice an infestation in your area, its best to find some experts on houseflies and pest to help get rid of them completely.
Sign Of Termites Infestation
Signs of termite infestation is something that we do not want in our homes.
Despite our reluctance, we can’t be so sure about preventing termite damage since termites do not choose which homes to attack; therefore, making all of us at risk for grave property damage.
It is truly not pleasurable to have termites at your home and with them causing a lot of damage; this can be a great misfortune to anyone.
The best way to protect your property from serious termite damage is to have good knowledge about termites and to be able to determine their presence.
In fact, the reason why termites can cause multibillion-dollar damages is that they are difficult to determine. With large numbers of termites in a colony, these termites can already cause damage just in a short period of time.
These termites can affect any home and they are not choosy as long as the home has wood structures in it.
How To Know Signs Of Termites
The main problem why termites cause severe damages is because homeowners are not informed and they do not know that termites are already infesting their houses and causing damage.
Even in a small period of infestation, termites can already cause problems and damages at homes.
Termite damages are not easily seen and unfortunately, they are always found out very late wherein the damage is already severe. If you already have some knowledge about the early warning signs of termites, then you will be able to protect your house from major termite damage.
You need to know the signs that will alarm you that termites are already present in your home and you need to do something about it immediately before it can cause more problems.
Generally, not all of the termite damage is visible because termites would normally eat inside out. Because of this, it will take some time before you can detect the problems brought about by these termites.
You also need to be very careful when doing your inspection because these termites actually live on wood and that would include the walls of your house, your flooring, and your wooden furniture.
There are also different kinds of termites that can infest your home so you also need to know about these different termites.
You need to carefully check on for the presence of mud holes or the presence of mud and dirt woods inside your home.
This can be an indicator of the presence of termites and you need to do more inspection to find out more evidence of presence of termites in your house.
When you want to detect the presence of termites, you have to check on the areas where termites are more likely getting their food source.
Check your garden and look for tree stumps and mud holes. This can be an indicator of termites. You should be keen on identifying termites before it’s too late.
All About Drywood Termites
Drywood termites, really do not need to return to the ground for moisture.
There is enough moisture content in the wood that they are infesting to keep them happy. Subterranean Termites, on the other hand, need to return to the ground on a regular basis to get the moisture that they require.
While they may invade a structure such as a house, they are always coming from the ground up. As homeowners, this gives us an advantage in controlling them. We can treat the foundation of homes and businesses to catch them coming from or going back into the ground.
In general, the drywood type of termites lives in wood that does not have a lot of moisture.
Unlike damp wood termites, these termites will not harbor in decayed wood. Aside from that, this termite also does not need soil contact just to live, as compared to subterranean termites that are mainly found in soil.
Because of that, the drywood classification of termites can actually cause more damage as it can damage movable objects that are made of wood, such as furniture.
Typically, a male and female termite would start their own colony as soon as they pair and they find a perfect location for their nest.
When we say perfect location, this would actually refer to the wood that has no moisture but can be a good source of food. The queen, who is the founder of the colony, would then begin laying thousands to millions of eggs and let the colony grow.
When the eggs hatch, nymphs will primarily comprise the colony. Reproductive and soldier termites would then be developed from these nymphs.
Just like subterranean termites, the drywood classification does not have a worker caste in their colony.
Even though the drywood classification of termites prefers wood with less moisture, it can possibly attack any kind of wood products.
However, it is easy to identify if the wood is attacked by a drywood type of termite because the damage that it can cause is very different as compared to other types of termites.
These termites would generally cut across the grain of the wood and excavate large chambers that are connected by small tunnels.
Wooden structures in buildings, furniture, and other wooden objects can be attacked by the drywood type of termite.
Although it can generally cause serious damage to structures, it is less injurious as compared to subterranean termites because of the fact that the drywood kinds of termites are not as widespread as the subterranean classification.
When it comes to treating your property for drywood classification of termites, you have two options to eliminate these pests and stop them from destroying your hard-earned home.
You can do wood treatment and structural fumigation. If there is a limited infestation or if the infestation is only localized, you can consider spot wood treatment.
On the other hand, if the infestation is already extensive and widespread, then the best solution for you to employ would be structural fumigation through the use of chemicals which can drive away from the drywood termites.
