Fall Pests That May Get in Your Home

Asian lady beetle on door frame

Asian lady beetle on door frame

Does it seem like there are more insects in your home during the fall and winter? Unfortunately, it’s not your imagination. It’s fall pests looking for ways to get out of the increasingly cold weather. Some of these fall pests will migrate to warmer climates or burrow under debris, but others may decide they want to spend the winter in your warm, dry home. This phenomenon is referred to as overwintering, and it pays to look for warning signs before you end up with an infestation in your home.

Finding a bug on the countertops or in the corners of a room in your home is no fun. However, what’s even worse and could cause even more damage, are the pests hiding where you can’t see them. The fall pests most likely to take refuge here can include Asian Lady beetles, stink bugs, termites, wasps, and rodents. Let’s learn more about how and why these pests may try to get into your home.

Fall Pest #1: Asian Lady Beetles

If you find what looks like a ladybug in your home, it may not be a ladybug. If it’s larger than your garden-variety ladybug, you may be looking at an Asian Lady beetle (which may or may not have spots). And if you’ve found one, the odds are good that it’s not alone. Asian Lady beetles travel together in groups, using pheromones to communicate their location. That means that if one comes into your home to get out of the cold, the result can be an infestation. These bugs may not eat the wood in your home’s structure or sting its residents, but their waste can stain as well as trigger an allergic reaction or breathing difficulties in sensitive individuals. You can prevent this, along with most other fall pest infestations, by making sure you seal any gaps or openings in the exterior of your home.

Fall Pest #2: Stink Bugs

The species of stink bug you’re most likely to encounter in your home in the US is the Brown Marmorated stink bug, which is an invasive non-native species from Asia. They’re flat and shaped like a shield, colored in mottled shades of brown and gray, and range in size from around ¼” to ⅜”. They’re fond of quiet, out-of-the-way parts of your home like the attic or crawlspace, or anywhere else where they won’t be bothered. If they get discovered and feel threatened (or squashed), they’ll release a deeply unpleasant odor, which is where this insect gets its name. 

Fall Pest #3: Termites

Termites are easily the most destructive pest in the US. The annual cost of termite damage and mitigation in the US is estimated at up to $30 billion. Termites, if you have them, are always trying to enter your home. But fall and winter is when subterranean termites – the most damaging species – tend to burrow deep into the ground to wait out the cold weather. So if you have an infestation you may not notice it until spring. And at that point, the nest, and the damage, could be much more extensive. Once termites can get in your home, they will consume wood and anything else that contains cellulose. Signs of termites in your home may include blisters on painted surfaces, hollow-sounding wood, and unexplained pinhole-sized holes.

Fall Pest #4: Rodents

Squirrels, roof rats, and mice are all agile creatures and excellent climbers. You’ve surely seen them make their way from branch to branch or along narrow fences. It shouldn’t come as a surprise they can get into your attic and make a nest. Luckily these rodents don’t tend to be very stealthy. After some time you’ll hear them scratching or gnawing from up above or inside the walls. Those are both good signs that you have a rodent inside your attic or wall voids, and that means it’s time to call an experienced rodent exterminator like Active Pest Control 

Fall Pest #5: Wasps

Wasp colonies do not overwinter in the colder season, which leaves the workers to die with the oncoming winter. Fertilized queens, however, survive the cold outdoors and leave the nest for shelter like hollow logs, tree stumps – or in certain structures, like the attic of your home. Here’s a question for you. How sure are you that your attic vents are all screened from the outdoors? If you’re not very sure, consider calling us to inspect your attic and install them for you. They can prevent wasps, birds, and all manner of creatures from making themselves comfortable without you knowing.

Top Exterminators for Fall Pests

Active Pest Control has been proud to provide Georgia residents with quality pest control services for over 35 years. If you have some unwelcome fall pests in your home, Active Pest Control is ready to help. Contact us now for a free quote!

Common Spring Pests to Prevent

Prevent spring pests by spring cleaning your Atlanta GA home! Tips from Active Pest ControlSpring is almost here, which means pests are on their way! While pest problems are a fact of life in Georgia year-round, springtime sees a big fluctuation in pest problems. This is because many pests that are less active throughout the winter are encouraged by warming temperatures to start invading homes again. To keep spring pests out of your property, it’s important to prepare your home now! Keep reading for tips from the experts at Active Pest Control.

5 Common Springtime Pests

It’s pest season, and there are many pests to be on the lookout for in the next couple of months. The most common pest problems this time of year are:

  • Ants. With warmer weather comes hoards of ants in your home.
  • Termites. Termite swarming season is here! Termite infestations often start in the spring.
  • Rodents. Although they’re active year-round, rats and mice are a problem in the spring.
  • Stinging insects. Wasps and hornets are gearing up to build nests this time of year.
  • Stink bugs. After overwintering, people report a resurgence in stink bugs.

How to Prevent Pests this Spring

Chances are, you’ll be doing some spring cleaning around your home. Why not throw in pest prevention measures while you’re at it? To prepare your home for spring pests, implement the following tips:

  1. Clean your windows and doors, and make sure there are no cracks or crevices. If there are, seal them properly.
  2. Deep-clean your carpets by vacuuming and shampooing, if possible.
  3. Clean your kitchen with a focus on your appliances. Crumbs and spilled liquids are easy bait for rodents, cockroaches, and more!
  4. Remove debris from your yard, and trim back tree branches away from your home. Also clean out gutters and downspouts.
  5. Ensure your plumbing is working properly and fix any leaks.
  6. In general, tidy up your home. Clean under furniture, wipe down surfaces, and inspect areas of your home that need some fixing up.

How to Get Rid of Spring Pests

You’ve thoroughly cleaned your kitchen and tidied your backyard, but there’s still ants crawling across your kitchen counters—now what? To prevent inevitable spring pests, it’s best to team up with a professional pest control company. The exterminators at Active Pest Control will work with you to ensure your home is safeguarded from pests this spring and all year long.

Stink Bug Invasion

Invasion season has begun! Homeowners throughout the region have recently been spotting rather large brown or green bugs crawling around windows, doors, and exterior walls of their house. These armies of invaders, unaffectionately called stink bugs, have one goal in mind and that is to gain access to the warmth and comfort of your home. They have a natural instinct that alerts them and lets them know that the cold winter months are just around the corner. The focus of this very unwelcome bug is to find a crack or crevice big enough for them to fit through and take up residence inside the house.

Stink bugs are exactly that—bugs that stink! While this appears to be a very simple statement, any homeowner who does not recognize these nuisance pests and swats or steps on them will suddenly find out why they are called stink bugs. The stink bug puts off a very unpleasant smell that one doesn’t easily forget. If they gain entrance into the home, the preferred method of removal may be with the use of a vacuum cleaner. Even then, be sure and change the vacuum filter as the smell can linger for some time.

Stink bugs are threatening to the agricultural industry and local gardeners. They are especially fond of fruit trees. However, the good news is they do not bite or sting humans or pets. Neither do they cause structural damage to property. As with all household pests, the key to stink bug control is prevention. As stated in the old idiom, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Once stink bugs get inside the attic or walls of the home, they are extremely difficult to remove. There are several tips that homeowners should apply that will prevent stink bugs from invading the home.

Think like a bug and search your home for any gap or crack in the exterior of your house. Look around windows and doors for any crack and repair accordingly with caulking. This is an easy and inexpensive repair that will keep pests out and increase the heating efficiency of your home. Check the foundation for any cracks that may have developed and seal shut. You may also place a section of window screen over attic louvers and soffit vents.

Active Pest Control understands the aggravation of homeowners when it comes to removing unwanted guests. Our technicians are highly trained and able to make your home pest-free*. Our pest solutions plans will provide a year-round solution for stink bugs and other common household pests. You will find peace of mind by contacting Active Pest Control today for the perfect solution to your pest problems.

It’s Fall, What’s All the Stink About?

Well, it’s that time of year again. The weather starts to cool off giving us warm wonderful less-humid days and cool, crisp nights. The leaves begin their annual ritual of changing from their deep hues of green to their dancing fall colors of red, yellow, and orange. You cannot go for a drive anywhere without at least a glimpse of this remarkable beauty. This truly is one of the most beautiful times of year in Tennessee, but it also signifies a change.

The carefree days of summer have come to an end, and it is time to begin preparing for the winter months. We think about filling the fuel tank in preparation for heating costs this winter. We also reluctantly start picking up lawn furniture and ornaments to store through the cold months. The leaves begin to fall, so our weekends are filled with raking up this forlorn foliage and bagging it for disposal or burning it in the fire. It is the time of year when we give our vehicles a once over making sure they have the proper amount of tread on the tires, the windshield fluids are topped off, the radiator has the proper levels in it, and the oil is changed.

It is the time of year when the harvest comes in, and we reap the bounty of our crops. The weather is finally cool enough to light the ovens and we begin to bake our apple pies and apple crisp with those red juices overflowing from the trees. There is hardly a home where the smell of cinnamon and nutmeg is not flowing from the kitchen windows. Along with it, you can usually smell the fresh, baked bread as that warm, yeasty scent fills the air and wafts through the window. The squash is finally ready and the potatoes are fresh for harvest. It is a wonderful time of year full of harvest and feasting, but it is also full of preparations and toil.

We are not the only ones that spend our fall feasting and preparing for the cold months ahead. Stink bugs and other pesky insects are doing the same thing. Those shield shaped, tannish stink bugs are not just gathering on the walls of your home or barn to catch a few rays in hopes of a darker suntan. They are actually working. That’s right, working. They are in search of the tiniest of cracks or crevices that will allow them entry into your home for the winter. After spending the summer months feasting on your fruits, vegetables, and flowers, they are now ready to settle down for a long winter’s nap inside of your house.

These odd looking little creatures really can cause quite a stir once they choose your house as their winter destination. Although these little pests are not known for carrying diseases to humans, although not very commonly reported, they are known to cause allergic reactions and skin rashes in some people, so that fall cold you think you have may actually be the rhinitis or conjunctivitis that the stink bug shared with you!

These insects will actually gather in very large numbers, so if you have seen one inside, just look around – you just might see hundreds more emerging from your baseboards, ceiling fans, light fixtures, and door or window frames. Then, just try stepping on one or squishing it with your hands – but be sure to hold your nose. The smell of rotten cucumber will fill your nostrils and send you running for the door! So as you begin all your fall preparations, don’t forget to make sure you prepare for the invasion of stink bugs and other pests. Preventative measures need to be taken now in order to spend the winter in a pest-free* home.

  • Fix cracks around windows and doors
  • Be sure your screens are in good working order and have no gaps or tears
  • Fill any holes around utility pipes and chimneys with silicone or latex caulking
  • Keep bagged leaves and debris or piles of them stored away from your house
  • Make sure your trash cans have tightly covered lids and are emptied regularly
  • Inspect your foundation for signs of trouble and repair any breaches
  • Keep gutters and drains free from debris and in good working order

When fall preparations bring you face to face with unwanted pests, give Active Pest Control a call. We have the expertise and experience to safely deal with your pest issues. Our family owned pest control company has been dealing with pests for almost 40 years; and has the training and technology to eliminate pests while protecting your environment. So, whether you are dealing with stink bugs or any of the myriad of fall pests that want to wander in your home, we are on the job waiting to serve you with friendly, professional service.