Make 2018 A Pest-Free Year

Make 2018 A Pest-Free Year

With 2018 quickly approaching, you may be starting to think about making some New Year’s resolutions. If making your home more healthy and comfortable for your family is how you want to make a fresh start in 2018, then you may want to look into some year-round pest control programs. There are many benefits to year-round pest control. One of those benefits is making your home pest-free all year long, and not having to worry or lose sleep over what pests are lurking in the dark corners of your home. As you know, pest’s aren’t just a nuisance; some can be very dangerous. Cockroaches and rodents inside your home can be extremely detrimental to your family’s health through bacteria, viruses, and parasites that they may introduce to your home and food. In addition to the many health concerns those pests can cause, pests like termites can cause serious structural damage to your home before you even know that you have an infestation. These and other damaging pests can cost you hundreds or thousands of dollars in damages, not to mention the stress and sleepless nights they can cause you and your family.

Year-round pest control means you don’t have to worry about pests all year long, and that saves you money in the long run. You won’t have to call an exterminator after an infestation of any of these pests creeps up on you. That will just cause you to scramble to get them exterminated when you could have avoided the inconvenience altogether. Once these pests have been evicted, the only sure fire way to make sure they won’t come back is with year-round protection. Take a look at these year-round pest control programs from Russell’s Pest Control in Knoxville and Eastern Tennessee. We are a trusted home pest control company that understands just how important your family and your home are to you. That is why we have been fighting pests for over 45 years, and we want to offer homeowners in Tennessee the safest, most effective and efficient pest control available.

Our Power Program gives you year-round protection from over 30 common household pests, like ants, spiders, roaches, mice, silverfish, fleas, beetles, stinging insects and other common bugs. We start with a thorough inspection of your home for pests and follow through with four service treatments per year that are guaranteed. If pests return, so do we!

The Power Gold Program gives you the same great protection as our Power Program with the addition of termite control by the use of the Sentricon® System with Always Active™. This system is useful not just for effectively eliminating termites, but monitoring for their presence in the first place!

With the Power Plus Program you also have the Power Program benefits, but with the addition of control for seasonal pests like mosquitoes, fire ants, fleas, and ticks. In addition to the four regular visits per year, our experienced technicians will use outdoor treatments that target those seasonal pests monthly while they are active.

Our Power Platinum Program offers the best protection overall that covers all of the 30+ most common pests included in the other programs, plus Sentricon® with Always Active ™, as well as treating for mosquitoes, ticks, carpenter bees, and fire ants seasonally.

As you can see, Russell’s Pest Control has something for every need and budget. If you are a homeowner in Knoxville and Eastern Tennessee, give us a call with your pest control New Year’s resolutions. All of us at Russell’s Pest Control would like to wish you a very Happy New Year, and we look forward to making your home pest free throughout 2018!

Why Rodents Enter Our Homes

Why Rodents Enter Our Homes

Winter is on its way, we can feel it in the air as it is getting colder outside. Unfortunately, pests are feeling the same temperature change and will be in a search for a warmer place to call home throughout the winter months. Besides warmth, these pests are in search of shelter to raise their young, as well as food and water to survive. These particular pests are rodents, like those mischievous mice and rascally rats that scurry about and skulk around the pantry foraging for food. And here’s the problem with rodents inside your house: they carry diseases, chew everything in sight, and cause damage to your home. Not a creature you want to have around.

Let’s start by talking about the diseases they can carry, like the deadly hantavirus, which can lead to hemorrhagic fever or acute respiratory failure. You and your family could be at risk for other diseases as well, like leptospirosis, lymphocytic disease, and salmonella as a result of a rodent infestation. Rodents can also bring parasites like mites, fleas, and ticks into your home that can affect the health of your family and pets too. On top of this, rodents are looking for food, and will contaminate anything they can get their claws into.

Since rodents have incisors that continuously grow, they chew incessantly to prevent overgrowth of their teeth. They can chew the legs of furniture, picture frames, books, clothing, wires, pipes, insulation, and much more. Normally the chewing would just damage single items, but if an electrical wire is chewed, it could spark a fire in your home. Likewise, if a plumbing pipe is chewed through, you could experience a lot of water damage.

So, how do you prevent rodents from entering your house in the first place? You will need to block off all entry points by caulking all gaps and holes around your foundation and exterior walls, the preferred method is to stuff a hole with steel wool and then caulk it, as rodents can chew through the caulk alone. You will also need to fix or replace all damaged vents, screens, chimney caps etc… Try to keep trees and bushes trimmed back away from your house and eliminate piles of wood and junk near your home. Your garbage cans should have tight-fitting lids as well. Inside your home, keep all of your food secure in containers with tight-fitting lids, and never use food that has ripped, torn or chewed packaging. You should also be on the lookout for rodent droppings that look like small black rice with tapered ends. As an extra precaution, you should clean up food and drink spills right away and repair leaky pipes and faucets.

If you already have an infestation, you should contact a professional pest control service in your area. If you live in the Knoxville and Eastern Tennessee area, call on Russell’s Pest Control for full-service pest management. Our year-round home pest control services effectively address all rodent activity to ensure proper eradication of the rodents and keep them away with a multi-step process. So, if getting rid of pests for good is what you are looking for, look no further. Russell’s Pest Control has solutions that will give you the peace of mind you need, that ensures you a rodent free home all year long.

What Mice Are Looking For

What Mice Are Looking For

Are you hearing strange noises in your walls? Have you discovered little black pellets in the back of your food cabinet? Are there tiny footprints in the dust on your pantry shelves? It wouldn’t be surprising. This is the time of year when mice enter homes to escape the bitter cold of winter. But those cold temperatures aren’t the only reason mice come in. Besides warmth, here are some of the things mice look for inside your home.

Safety

When those little, furry intruders breach your exterior walls, the first thing they’re going to notice is that it is safer inside your home. Mice like confined spaces that give them protection. In nature, they’ll hide in a tree, log, rock crevice, or a hole in the ground to keep birds from swooping down and carrying them away. Your wall voids are the perfect hiding place.

Quiet

These are skittish creatures. In your home, they’re going to settle in locations that are secluded, like your attic, storage room, pantry, basement, or wall voids. When they hide in these areas, they can get into stored boxes, taint food, damage insulation and other items, and leave their urine and feces everywhere.

Something To Eat

Your home is filled with food options. Mice have teeth that allow them to get into cardboard or paper packaged foods. They nibble on remnants left on plates. They can leap as far as 2 feet into the air and gain access to your trash. They’re happy to dine on leftover pet food, and bread that is not left inside a bread box is fair game. These are only some of the many food resources your home can provide a mouse.

Dark

Mice are mostly nocturnal. And your home has the perfect places for these critters to explore at night. When they do, they’ll spread bacteria and disease in your home, and carry ticks, fleas, mites, lice, or some other parasite to every corner of your home.

Since your home has a lot of things mice look for, when mice get in, they don’t usually leave. Reach out to Russell’s Pest Control, if you’re in our Tennessee service area, for industry-leading mouse and rat control. We offer one-time service and ongoing rodent control as part of our year-round pest service for residential customers. For more information, or to establish service for your Tennessee home, drop us a line. Our QualityPro Certified team looks forward to assisting you.

Tis The Season For Pantry Pests

Tis The Season For Pantry Pests

Well, the holiday season is approaching fast, and soon we will be gathering in kitchens to prepare fantastic feasts and delicious desserts for ourselves and our loved ones. There is so much more cooking and baking to do than usual as you pull out the treasured recipes again, and it is especially fun creating food traditions with children. You will want to plan ahead, not only for the menus and recipes but for the ingredients too. You may already have everything you need in your pantry, but some of those ingredients might have been there awhile and might contain some nasty pantry pests. Nothing could be worse than reaching for some important ingredients only to find it has been contaminated with pests, causing you to delay your baking for another day.

You should always check your pantry before you plan to use any food that has been stored there. These foods include all dry cereal, pasta, flour, spices, crackers, seeds, nuts, and fruit. Foods stored in paper are particularly at risk for contamination from pantry pests. Some of these pests are grain moths, Indian meal moth, rice weevils, drugstore beetles, tobacco beetles, and flour beetles. Sometimes these pests come into homes already inside the packaged foods, but they can also come in from outside sources. Even if your house is spotlessly clean, pantry pests can still become a problem. Usually, the early larval stage of the pest will spend much of its time in the stored food. During the pupal stage, they will stay close by to the source in cracks, corners, and packaging. The adults will venture further away from the food source, and in favorable conditions, breed and create several generations each year. Once you have discovered an adult pantry pest it’s almost certainly too late, your food will have already been contaminated and will need to be thrown away.

In order to avoid pantry pests this holiday season you will need to:

  • Inspect food on a regular basis

  • Keep food in containers with tight lids

  • Clean your kitchen and pantry shelves regularly

  • Buy foods that have packaging that does not have rips or holes

  • Keep old and new food separate

  • Throw away old and contaminated food

  • Thoroughly clean empty containers before putting new food in them

  • Keep kitchen and pantry food areas dry

Now is the perfect time to consider year-round pest control to eliminate the possibility of spoiling the holidays. DIY pest control can certainly make a difference in many cases, but with the holiday rush and the challenge of eliminating every last pest that could lay eggs and begin the process all over again, consider an alternative that will free you up to focus on the joys of the season rather than the pests in your seasoning. Russell Pest Control in Knoxville and Eastern Tennessee offers effective pest control solutions for household pests including pantry pests. We are a full-service pest management company and know how to apply proven solutions in a personalized treatment plan. Just give us a call today for more information about our year-round pest control program, and how we can solve your pest problems and prevent them from ever being an issue again.

Aggressive Stinging Insects

Aggressive Stinging Insects

You’ve seen the wasps, hornets, bees and yellow jackets around all summer and they have been somewhat ominous, but now they are becoming much more aggressive. What’s going on to make them that way? Their main focus is a sweet treat, so you’ll want to be aware of those stinging insects when picnicking, barbecuing and having any type of outdoor event.

The yellow jacket queen, in particular, and all of her daughters have laid eggs, cared for their larvae and pupae, and have increased their population to up to 1,000 workers. These workers are now at the stage of their life where they no longer need to care for and feed the young, they can freely seek out what their appetites desire, which tends to be sweets. Sweet nectar, sticky candy, aromatic perfumes, luscious pastries and beverages.

Make sure you look into beverage bottles, cans and cups before taking your next sip so you don’t inadvertently anger an eager stinging insect that is lurking within. Better yet, keep your drinks covered so they won’t be tempted to dive in there in the first place. You should also keep foods tightly covered and trash can lids securely sealed. Keep an eye out for nests as well, because if you accidentally disturb their nest they are apt to be even more aggressive. These tips will help you avoid some stinging insects, but won’t protect you completely.  

These stinging insects, including wasps, hornets and yellow jackets can sting multiple times. Their stingers are not barbed and do not remain in your skin after a sting. They will all aggressively defend their nest and colony by attacking the intruder. Some people that are allergic to the venom will have a severe reaction and require immediate medical attention.

The best thing you can do if you experience a stinging insect problem on your property is to call a pest control service right away. You will not want to attempt nest removal on your own, you could potentially get stung and aggravate the colony even more.

The trained professionals at Russell’s Pest Control in Tennessee can help resolve your stinging insect problem. Once the problem has been removed and area treated, you will want peace of mind knowing that they will not return. Russell’s Pest Control offers year-round pest control services that will prevent any future issues.

Here at Russell’s Pest Control, our mission is “to provide the highest quality pest management services to homes and businesses in Tennessee through our determined quest for customer satisfaction and employee excellence”. So, give us a call today at Russell Pest Control.

2 Big Reasons Overwintering Pests Come Inside

2 Big Reasons Overwintering Pests Come Inside

Are you enjoying the mild winter we’ve been having? You can bet that bugs and wildlife are. They usually have to find a place to hide when snow and cold temperatures come to Tennessee. You are probably also aware that cold temperatures are one of the big reasons overwintering pests explore man-made structures in fall. But what happens in a winter when temperatures don’t dip way down? Well, there is another reason bugs and wildlife enter homes. And that is what we’re going to be looking at today.

You’ve probably already guessed what the second big reason is. Yup. Food. Those critters are always looking for it; spring, summer, winter, and fall. They can enter your home any time of year to find a bite to eat but, in winter, outside food sources are harder to come by, so their desperation has pests working overtime. This will have them exploring your exterior walls and foundation.

Three of the pests we’re seeing a lot of are roaches, rodents, and ants. These aren’t your typical overwintering pest. While stink bugs, lady bugs, and boxelder bugs will have a hard time finding a bite to eat inside your home, roaches, rodents, and ants will not. These pests can live on a wide selection of food, including many of the foods you and your pets eat.

When roaches and rodents get into a home, they rarely have any reason to leave. Most homes are target rich environments for these invading armies, and they are more than happy to build a home inside your home.

Most ants live in the soil. So, unless you have crawl spaces under your home, you won’t have to worry about ants moving in–except for one. Carpenter ants live in wood. Since your home is made of wood, there is a good chance they’ll find plenty of habitat options. Of all the ants that invade homes, carpenter ants are the worst. They aren’t just a nuisance pest. Their home-building efforts can hurt your equity.

If you’re seeing roaches, rodents, or ants, it isn’t surprising. This is the perfect winter for these overwintering pests to invade. You can also bet that all of these critters will be more abundant this spring, since they didn’t have to spend too much time in dormancy this winter.

Get protection for overwintering pests this winter, and all year long, with a little help from the friendly professionals here at Russell’s Pest Control. Our certified pest specialists know the habits and habitats of Tennessee pests, and are trained in the most advanced pest protocols. With our year-round pest control plans, Power, Power Gold, and Power Platinum, you’ll get exactly what you need.

At Russell’s Pest Control, we get pests out and keep them out, all year long.

What Troubles Can Odorous House Ants Cause For You?

What Troubles Can Odorous House Ants Cause For You?

While it is true that odorous house ants are typically considered to be a nuisance pest, that does not mean that they will not cause issues for you. It simply means that they do not bite and transmit serious diseases to humans the way dangerous pests like mice, cockroaches, and mosquitoes do. And while these ants do not transmit dangerous diseases to people, that is not to say that they don’t contaminate food sources, because they certainly can.

Whenever odorous house ants enter homes they are searching to meet their three basic needs of food, water, and shelter. While they roam through your home looking for an area high in moisture to nest in such as behind the walls of the bathroom or under the floorboards beneath the leaking kitchen sink, they will also take note of any food sources. Once they are settled, they will go into your kitchen pantry, into cupboards, across counter tops, or under stoves and refrigerators to feast. As they walk through food stores and across food preparation areas, they can contaminate these with germs and chemicals that they produce and emit. These resourceful little creatures will lay down ‘trails’ to help guide other ants to sources of food such as sweets, meats, grease, dairy products, pastries, vegetables, or fruit. Thus contaminating any food they come in contact with.

The odorous house ant is tiny, about 2 – 3 ½ mm in length. They are dark brown to black and emit a disgusting odor when they are crushed that resembles the smell of rotten coconut. These ants live in large colonies sometimes numbering in the thousands. These nests are typically located in shallow soil under large rocks, logs, mulch, and other debris. Once established inside a home or other building they will nest behind walls near hot water pipes, under heaters and sinks, behind cabinets, and under floors.

Once odorous house ants have discovered your home, the only way to completely eradicate them is with professional help. DIY treatments may kill some of the ants that happen to come in contact with the materials you laid down, but they are incapable of penetrating deep into the hidden recesses of your home where the majority of these ants are nesting. You may even notice a reduction in ant traffic for a short time, but their numbers will swell again and the headache will continue.

If you live here in Tennessee, your best choice when odorous house ants invade is to contact the ant specialists here at Russell’s Pest Control. Our specialists are armed with the latest products, protocols, and technologies that are effective in eliminating odorous house ants quickly and safely.

To learn more about our ant control solutions or to learn about or effective year-round services that will keep ants and other pests from accessing your home all year long, simply give us a call today.