Are you able to get rid of pests with outside only pest control? This is a common question I get since I joined the pest control business over 20 years ago. Some customers don’t like the idea of technicians getting too familiar with their homes while others are mostly away during the day.
Many clients ask if an exterior only pest control treatment is possible and if it’s equally effective. The answer is YES. If your home is pest-free to start with or does not have a full-blown infestation yet, perimeter pest control can take care of your pest problems and give you preventive protection all year round.
How to Treat Pests without Entering a Home
We are living in difficult times. The coronavirus pandemic has entirely changed the way we live. People are spending more time indoors and that means keeping your home pest-free all the more.
The spring and summer are the most active seasons for common house pests like ants, spiders, cockroaches, mice and rats. Because you’re spending more time indoors, the last thing you need right now is an army of ants on your pantry, roaches coming out of your bathroom drain, or rodents dashing across your living or dining room area.
But with COVID 19 policies advocating lesser interaction, unnecessary contact and social distancing practices, does exterior only pest control help? Will treating just the outside of the home be effective in keeping pests at bay?
Definitely! You can prevent pests from entering your home with outside only pest control. This is especially recommended during the start of spring as pests awake from dormancy during the winter, and as we move into the summer before they can reproduce at alarming rates.
Organic Outside Only Pest Control Methods
Regular outdoor perimeter treatments can eliminate destructive insects and bugs before they have a chance to become a problem inside your home. We get to the root cause of your pest problem instead of just treating the symptoms.
Take the case of ants, for instance. You think you have an infestation inside your home because you see ants in your kitchen and bathroom. So you spray these areas, only to notice more ants coming in after repeated spraying. The truth is, your problem isn’t inside your home – it’s OUTSIDE.
What you’re seeing are just scout ants searching for food to bring back to the rest of the colony. Scout ants comprise just 10% of the colony; the other 90% remain inside an ant nest buried somewhere outside your home. We need to get to these nasty guys if you want an ant-free and pest-free home.
At Ant & Garden Organic Pest Control in Beaverton, OR, our outside only pest control methods take on a proactive approach to help protect your home, your family and even your pets from ants and other pests. Everything we use in our exterior pest control treatments is natural, organic and environment friendly.
All our organic pesticides are 25B minimum risk, so they’re totally safe to use. No need to worry about exposure to hazardous elements that can cause headaches, nausea, dizziness, vomiting, eye or skin irritation, or even poisoning.
Foundation Treatment for Outside Only Pest Control
We start outside only pest control by treating your foundation with Essentria IC3, an all-natural, highly-concentrated combination of plant essential oils that disrupts the neurotransmitter function in target insects but is safe for vertebrates like birds, fish, dogs and humans.
Unlike chemical pesticide sprays, Essentria IC3 will not leave unsightly stains on your foundation. Rather, it will leave the pleasantly refreshing smell of peppermint instead of the obnoxious odor typically associated with chemical pesticides.
Essentria IC3 also has no aquatic toxicity and may be used near or over open ponds for such insects as spiders and mosquitoes without worry of hurting the fish.
Creating a Repellent Barrier
Next, we apply Essentria G, a strong but gentle granulated organic insecticide that creates a soil barrier extending up to 10 feet and onto your foundation wall. This environment-friendly repellent is 25B minimum risk so it provides greater flexibility to treat a wide range of outdoor spaces.
Essentria G effectively works on ants, Bermuda grass mites, centipedes, chiggers, chinch bugs, clover mites, cockroaches, crickets, earwigs, fall armyworms, fleas, leafhoppers, millipedes, sowbugs, pillbugs, and other insect pests in landscape, turf and perimeters around residential and commercial structures. It also has no bee restrictions and will preserve the beneficial insect population on your property.
Outdoor Baiting
Lastly, we do outdoor baiting for extended protection against tough pests. We use Niban Granular Bait, a professional-grade, weatherized bait for targeting the two most prominent invading pests you deal with: cockroaches and ants. Niban’s active ingredient is just 5% boric acid; the remaining 95% of the ingredients are just corn solids and other food products that attract the insects to the areas where we scatter the bait.
What’s great about Niban is that the particles are so tiny that pets can’t pick them up at all. Pet owners can rest assured their fur babies are safe because the toxicity of this product is just strong enough to kill small insects. The 5% concentration is also low enough so it doesn’t kill ants on the spot but gives them enough time to share the bait with other ants in the colony.
Because Niban is weather-resistant, it lasts longer and provides more effective protection between quarterly visits. This granular bait was formulated with a concern for the environment, so it’s the safest to use especially if you have kids and pets in the home. Niban is effective against ants (including carpenter ants), cockroaches, crickets, earwigs, silverfish, snails, slugs, and a host of other damaging insects.
The World’s Best Ant Bait Stations
We like giving our customers an added bonus. With every initial treatment, we give them the world’s best tamper-resistant ant bait stations specially prepared on-site so it’s fresh and inviting. Most readily prepared commercial ant baits sitting on store shelves for months contain 10% boric acid, which is actually too concentrated and will kill the scout ants before they can bring the bait back to the rest of the colony.
Our indoor baiting stations contain just 5% boric acid mixed with a water source, fat, protein & carbohydrates—a little bit of everything an ant love. These specially prepared baits work on every variety, so it doesn’t matter what type of ant you have. And because they’re freshly made, ants will find them in minutes so your infestation is over in the quickest time possible.
Note: We can do the initial placement of ant bait stations inside homes or customers can choose to place these themselves. We keep our clients’ homes ant and pest-free all year round without having to go inside!
How often should you have outside only pest control services?
We advise our customers to do outside only pest control treatment every three months. We also encourage them to work hand-in-hand with us to keep their homes and entire property pest-free. A collaborative effort between pest control technicians and homeowners is always the best way to go, so we give them other recommendations to get the best results. These include:
- Eliminating certain plant species that have the tendency to attract specific pests
- Trimming trees and brush away from the foundation and perimeter of the home so insects and rodents don’t use them as a bridge to get into the interiors of the house
- Taking the trash out at the end of each day
- Cleaning out leaf-filled gutters that tend to attract certain species of cockroaches
- Removing standing water that attracts mosquitos and wiping off moisture areas that attract ants
In case a property already has a severe infestation, however, we advise clients to have a thorough home inspection conducted so we can come up with a customized and comprehensive pest control plan that may involve interior treatments. Otherwise, an outside only pest control treatment is sufficient enough to keep the pesky bugs away.
Ant & Garden Organic Pest Control in Beaverton, OR works hand-in-hand with every customer to address their unique needs. Every pest problem is different in every home, so we do a thorough inspection and find the best solution whether you need outside only pest control, indoor treatments, or a combination of both.
