The Unwanted House Guest

You awaken during the night in need of a drink of water.  Getting up and heading to the kitchen you notice sudden movement as you turn on the light.  Something darted across the floor, diving under the stove.  There is something else dashing across the counter disappearing in a crack between the wall and counter-top.  Suddenly the dreadful thought penetrates your tired brain—you have cockroaches!

How can this be?  You keep your house spotlessly clean!  What will your friends think?  Let’s look at some facts regarding roaches before you worry yourself into a state of anxiety and embarrassment.  Cockroaches are not an automatic sign of a dirty house.  While keeping a clean house will reduce the chance of roach invasion, it is a misconception to think that roaches will only look for filth, clutter, and dirty homes.  Just remember that there are mainly three things that attract roaches; food, water, and shelter.  Of those three, food is the greatest attraction for cockroaches.

Cockroaches are disgusting and repulsive.  The very thought of an infestation of roaches is enough to make one shudder.  This isn’t totally undeserved.  There are multiple health problems that arise when a home is infested with these nasty bugs.  They will contaminate food, dishes, counter-tops and anything else they may touch.  Human pathogens such as Salmonella and E. coli are often spread by cockroaches resulting in food poisoning, diarrhea, and other human diseases.  Feces, saliva, and shed skins combined become a source of allergens.  This brings an additional problem of allergies to children and people with asthmatic issues.

There are very few places that are exempt from the threat of cockroach infestation.  They can be found in homes, restaurants, offices, break rooms, schools, hospitals, nursing homes, and just about any place that people and food exist.  Cockroaches can be introduced into a home or other location in grocery bags, boxes, and even someone’s luggage.  Corrugated cardboard boxes are a very good location for roaches to hide.  They can burrow down in the corrugated ribbing to hide, deposit eggs, etc.  It is best to remove boxes from your home as soon as you unpack the items.

The reason why proper sanitation and cleanliness is a great weapon to fight cockroach infestation is that it automatically removes food crumbs, food and drink spills, and sources of other sources of food.  Do not let food sit out overnight; place the food in the refrigerator or in pest-proof containers.  Keep the area under the stove, in cracks, and in the pantry vacuumed.  Remove garbage regularly and keep the containers clean.

In addition to eliminating food sources, check all faucets and water pipes for leaks or drops of condensation.  Even the smallest droplets of water would be sufficient to sustain a roach.  Repair leaks as needed.  Any waterlines where condensation exists can be covered with inexpensive pipe insulation tubes.

The moment you see any sign of cockroaches, contact Active Pest Control.  Active Pest Control specialists can customize a cockroach control plan to fit the unique needs of your home.  We will also equip you with a prevention service plan to prevent any future issues with roaches.

How Active Pest Control Works To Save You Money

When bugs and wildlife get into your Georgia home, they can cause all sorts of problems. That is why it is so important to keep them out. Let’s look at the issues you can expect to deal with this coming year.

Nuisance Pests: These are pests like stink bugs or lady bugs that can squeeze in through the tiniest cracks and crawl all over everything. They love to block your view; they like to crawl all over your window screens blocking the view of your backyard or all over your television screen blocking the view of your favorite movie.

Disease Vectors: These are the creatures that have the ability to carry human spread diseases inside their bodies. When you have rodentscockroach, ticks, or mosquitoes on your property, you can get things like E. coli, Salmonella, hantavirus, hemorrhagic fever, Lyme disease, plague, and many more. Some of these will leave you with uncomfortable flu symptoms. While others can lead to lifelong illness, and even death.

Illness Spreaders: Some creatures spread illness through a home by picking up harmful bacteria from dumpsters, trash cans, rubbish piles, and sewers. Fruit flies and house flies land on toilet seats and then crawl on food that is left out. Ants go from the trash can to your food prep surfaces, causing illness in a home that is often mistaken for the flu or the common cold.

Home Wreckers: These are the pests that damage your house. On the top of this list is the subterranean termite. These are pests that can live inside the wood of your home and eat it twenty-four hours a day, all year long. Other pests come to chew on wires, chew through walls, and tear up your insulation.

Biters and Stingers: These are the pests that will leave you with a welt–or worse. When you have bed bugs, wasps, spiders, fleas, and other biting pests in or around your home, they can make life miserable.

At Active Pest Control, we know that no two homes are the same, and no two homes need the same pest control. One house may be dealing with skunks and the lice they can bring in, while another may be fighting a millipede invasion, but one thing is true about both, they won’t be fighting only one type of pest. So, rather than charge for each and every pest we protect homes against, we’ve created three packages that cover a range of pests. Our base package, Active Pest Control Edge, covers over 30 common household pests for a base cost of just $30 a month. This is great overall protection that keeps most pests out of your home. When you step up to Active Pest Control Advantage, you add more complex pest control systems, like termite protection and rodent control. This is the best bang for your buck if you want to keep all pests out of your home. But, some homeowners want to control pests in their yard as well. If you’re looking to add seasonal control of mosquitoes, fire ants, as well as property-wide control of termites and rodents, Active Pest Control Complete is the complete solution.

Give us a call today and see if one of these packages is right for you, or have one of our trained specialists custom tailor a package specific to your needs. At Active Pest Control, we have only two goals: Make happy customers, and keep pests out. Bundling pest control options is just one of the many ways we work to do both.

Do I Have Cockroaches?

Cockroaches are known disease carriers. In fact, they are capable of carrying over 33 of them, including big ones like Salmonella and E. coli.  Not only are they able to hold disease on their bodies and transfer these diseases to humans, they spread these scary things around by climbing into boxes, bags, and other objects we transport, and use them to move from place to place. Today, we’re going to ask the big question. Have they moved to your place?

If severe stomach pains, diarrhea, nausea, and vomiting are not your thing, here are the signs cockroaches will leave to let you know they are living in your home:

  1. Is that what I think it is? The most obvious sign that you have these disease-ridden pests in your home is actually seeing one, but you should also know that if you see one cockroach in your kitchen you can be sure that it is not alone in your home. There is actually a good chance there are hundreds of cockroaches where that one came from.
  2. What are all these crunchy shells? If you’re finding crunchy insect skins in your home, especially in secluded areas, you may have cockroaches. These insects have a couple of ways they leave their skins behind. As cockroaches mature, they have to shed old skins to make room for their developing bodies. Female cockroaches also shed something called an ootheca. This is a shell that protrudes from the back of their bodies to protect their eggs. They need this shell because they produce a lot of eggs–as many as 400 in a single year.
  3. Honey, do you smell that? Cockroaches release a chemical smell to attract a mate. This is a strong oily smell that you will not find attractive at all. If you go into an attic space, basement storage area, or the garage and you smell something nasty, you may have cockroaches.
  4. What are these black streak marks? Roaches do not find a quiet, secluded place to take care of their business. They leave their dropping wherever they go. You’ll most often find these droppings in your silverware drawer, on your food shelves, in the cabinets where your dishes are, and on the floor near your baseboards. They will also leave nice streaks on your baseboards and walls as they skitter away. If you’re finding droppings you think were left by a mouse and streak marks on your walls, there is a good chance you have cockroaches.
  5. There is another, less obvious, sign that cockroaches are living in your home. If you have children fighting with asthma symptoms or flu-like illness spreading through your home, these could be evidence of a cockroach infestation.

Don’t allow cockroaches to live in your home. If you find signs of an infestation, call a professional like Active Pest Control and have your home inspected and treated for these pests. Life is complicated enough without unexplainable illness. Get your pest shield in place and keep your family healthy and active.

Problematic Pests in Our Favorite Jacksonville Restaurants

Recently, ABC News reported on two Jacksonville area restaurants that shut down due to reported pest problems. Nick the Greek in Atlantic Beach was closed down after investigators found 20 live roaches and also some dead roaches, even discovering one in the restaurant’s oven. And at Philip Sushi in Orange Park, investigators claim to have found live roaches and shut down the restaurant accordingly.

We all know those feelings that wash over you when you hear a restaurant you love is closed due to pests. But unfortunately, restaurants aren’t always immune to pests, even in spite of owners’ best efforts.

A sanitary restaurant takes extensive measures to prevent pests. For most local restaurants, this means frequent visits from commercial pest control specialists in Jacksonville and regular applications and treatments. The owners and managers also strive to ensure their employees adhere to high standards of food management, storing boxes away from the floor and properly discarding food scraps to prevent pests.

However, because of the sheer abundance of food storage, often paired with warm and wet crevices in and around the kitchen, pests will occasionally make it into the restaurant. After all, most pests are simply interested in eating and staying warm, and restaurant kitchens typically offer access to both of those things.

While pests in restaurants will never be 100% preventable, a good restaurant owner or manager will contact a pest control expert at the first sign that there may be some unwelcome visitors hanging around the restaurant kitchen. A pest that appears in plain view typically means there are many others lurking in the shadows.

The good news is that even if a restaurant has been shut down due to a pest infestation, it will likely return with new measures in place to help prevent pests. That means that just because your favorite restaurant had a health inspection violation, it doesn’t mean that you need to stay away from it for good. Often it will close to immediately deal with the infestation, and will reopen with new standards in place to help prevent pests.

If you’ve spotted a pest in your restaurant or home, contact our team of Jacksonville pest control experts for a consultation today!