The Problems Clogged Gutters Can Cause

No matter where you live in the country, clogged gutters can cause issues. But, if you live here in Macon, Georgia, where rain can happen any time of year, it is even more important to have gutters that work.

When gutters clog, they can cause water to run down the side of your home and create conditions that will allow spores to attach, and wood damage to begin. If you have a home that isn’t protected by vinyl or fiber siding, this wood damage can happen quickly. And, even with the protection that synthetic siding material can provide, water has a way of finding its way in. But, keeping large amounts of water from flowing down the side of your home isn’t the only reason to have a working gutter system. Obstructed gutters can:

  • Create overflow that will moisten the soil near your foundation, and attract subterranean termites. These are destructive insects. The fewer reasons you give these pests to target your home, the better. This dampness will also attract other moisture pests like silverfish, earwigs, centipedes, springtails, millipedes, cockroaches, and more.
  • Allow pest birds a bird bath on the roofline of your home. This will increase the odds that birds will create nests on your roof, and increase the amount of droppings left on your roof and on the side of your home.
  • Give mice and rats an incentive to build their nest near, or inside, your home. Rodents prefer to live near food and water resources. By giving them a drinking hole, you are increasing the likelihood that they will explore your exterior walls, roofline, and soffits.
  • Create a place for mosquitoes and other insects to breed within the debris collected, and makes your gutters more attractive to pests.

Protect Your Gutters

It can seem strange that a company like Active Pest Control, a leader in the pest control industry, would be an installer of guards for your gutters. But, when you’re aware of the above problems, it just makes sense. Protecting gutters is one more way that we use natural measures to protect homes from pest invasion. And, while our system is keeping you safer from bugs and wildlife issues, it will also be making your life easier. No more climbing ladders to clean those gutters out. When you have gutter guards, your gutters do what they’re supposed to do, without any assistance from you.

If you would like to learn more about gutter guards, or set up an appointment to have your roofline surveyed for installation, reach out to us today. Here in Macon, guarding gutters just makes sense. Let Active Pest Control help you get your new gutter system in place.

How Do Floods Affect Pests?

Some experts are saying that we’re going to get a lot of rain this year. And with more rain, comes a greater chance of flooding, which is why we’ve thrown together this quick article on how floods affect pests. Let’s see what we can learn in order to protect our Macon, Georgia homes.

Direct Impact

When areas flood, creatures living underneath the ground must find a new place to live. Even bugs that require lots of moisture, like millipedes and termites, will evacuate when the ground becomes oversaturated. This is why you’ll find hundreds of millipedes all over your exterior walls, deck, or patio after a torrential downpour.

Bugs aren’t the only things that live in the ground. Furry creatures that live in fields and forested areas can get displaced when flooding occurs. Water creeps in and they must leave their holes and tunneling for higher ground. This can bring them right into your yard and, possibly, into your home.

Indirect Impact

Fire ants pose another kind of threat when flood waters rise. Sure, they’ll be driven into your yard, like other pests, but their natural behavior to make a living raft can pose an indirect problem. When hundreds, or even thousands, of fire ants cling together, they form a floating raft. If you live near an area that is flooded, be aware that these living rafts can come ashore and all of those ants will be sitting on top of the ground. They won’t have to file out of their colony to attack you. They will have immediate access to your feet, ankles, and legs.

When heavy rains saturate your yard, it can make it more enticing to yard pests by wetting down wood products in your yard or pools. Wet wood is an attractant for termites, carpenter ants, and other wood-destroying pests, and those pools will lure wildlife with the offer of a nice drink.

What to do before the floods?

  • Make sure you have your exterior walls sealed, window screens fixed, door sweeps in good working condition, and weather stripping seated properly.
  • Be sure to check all your gutters to make sure they are not obstructed or broken, and that they function to channel water away from your home. Moist soil near a home, collecting pools of water, and wet wood draw many pests in.
  • If you have stacked wood, piles of twigs, construction materials, or some other wood product piled in your yard, move them to at least 20 feet from your exterior walls.
  • Have the professional pest technicians here at Active Pest Control Pest create a barrier that pests cannot penetrate.

Bugs and wildlife are a problem all the time, but heavy rains and floods can give them even more motivation to invade your home. Make sure they are unwelcome when they find their way into your yard, and be sure that your defenses are in place. Those flood waters will displace bugs and wildlife, but those creatures don’t have to find a new home inside your house. Get help from Active Pest Control by contacting us today.

Fall Decorating Tips

Fall season represents one of the more exciting times of the year. The seasonal change of climate begins ushering in cooler, more pleasant temperatures. The weather change also introduces bright colored leaves as Jack Frost brings us the beauty of foliage. Harvest season also means corn stalks, straw bales, and pumpkins. This allows many decorating opportunities as homeowners begin adorning their home with fall colors.

The varieties of ideas are endless with people using corn stalks, corncobs, pumpkins, and gourds to prepare for Halloween and fall decorations. Golden yellow corn on the cob, bright orange pumpkins along with green, white, and yellow gourds suddenly grace our homes and tables with a plethora of colorful arrangements.

Front porches are beautifully adorned with bales of straw and bundles of corn stalks surrounded with bright orange pumpkins of all sizes. Fall has arrived and Halloween is on the way as kids begin celebrating the season by carving faces in the sides of those pumpkins. There is also a degree of satisfaction in knowing you have created your own arrangements and decorated your home inside and out with minimal expense.

However, it is prudent to know that anytime we bring nature inside, we also bring the risk of attracting unwanted pests and other potential problems, some of which could compromise the health of family members and pets. One of those health risks can come from pumpkins – especially those carved pumpkins. Fungus will quickly begin to grow in that freshly cut pumpkin. You will then see black specks appear as mold and suddenly discolor that beautiful orange decoration.

Minimize the risk of mold or fungus on your pumpkins with careful selection at time of purchase. Look for the brightest orange pumpkins with strong stems that are still somewhat green in color. This is a good indication that the pumpkin is relatively fresh and came from a healthy vine. Also look for any soft spots or discolored areas. This is a probable fungus area and that pumpkin should be avoided. Be sure to inspect the bottom of the pumpkin and any other areas that have had a long-term exposure to the moist dirt.

Inspect your decorations on a regular basis for worms or larvae. Turn the gourds over to see if there is a soft or damp spot. This is a probable location for tiny larvae to begin eating into what was once a beautiful decoration. Also check those ears of corn and corn stalks for cutworms or other pests that may have been transported inside with your decorations. Enjoy the fall season and have fun with your decorations but inspect regularly and discard before those pumpkins begin turning soft and rotting. And, remember, the experts here at Active Pest Control are trained in the latest technology and product uses and can tackle any of your pest control issues, contact us today if you have unwanted fall visitors.

West Nile Virus In GA

Often when we talk about things that we read or hear in the media we say ‘they say’, I wonder many times who ‘they’ is. Well, here in Georgia our health departments have been placing mosquito traps in different parts of our wonderful state to monitor these insects and to get an accurate idea of how many of them are actually carrying the West Nile Virus. In one county, DeKalb County, 81 have tested positive for the West Nile Virus. That’s a lot. Juanette Willis, program director for DeKalb County Board of Health agrees with me. She says, “This is a lot more than the past few years.” When we hear that ‘they’ say that we need to take precautions when dealing with mosquitoes, and when ‘they’ say that there is an increase in the cases of mosquito borne illnesses in our state, we can know that ‘they’ are usually our health departments, doing what they do best, looking out for our health and well-being.

So, here in Macon we should be listening to what ‘they’ say. Mosquitoes should be a concern for everyone. We all need to understand them better and know their habits and weaknesses to aptly prepare ourselves for battle with them. Our yards, school playgrounds, hiking trails, ball fields and parks are just a few of the more common battlegrounds where we will encounter these disease-carrying insects. Here some key prevention tips to help you to arm yourself for battle:

  • Try to avoid being outside during the most active time for mosquitoes; early morning and late afternoon to dusk.
  • Wear light colored, loose fitting clothes that cover as much of your skin as possible. The less exposed skin equals less tempting places for mosquitoes to bite.
  • Wear insect repellent that contains DEET.
  • Consider the benefits of wearing insect repellent clothing and insect netting clothing made to wear over you clothes.
  • Avoid high exposure areas like swamps, muddy ponds, woods, etc.

To keep these biters out of your home here are some easy to do fixes and places to check:

  • Replace or repair all widow and doors screens.
  • Repair or replace all door sweeps.
  • Keep lights turned down at night so as not to draw them in.

To help deter mosquitoes from living and breeding on your property, here are a few things that you can do:

  • Do not allow any standing water of any kind. Mosquitoes can lay eggs in a water filled cap of a 2 liter soda bottle, resulting in hundreds more of these biting insects, so just think how many are in that old tire or bucket.
  • Keep grass trimmed short because mosquitoes use the cool grass as a hiding spot during the hottest times of the day.
  • Keep trees and shrubs properly trimmed because mosquitoes use these cool and shadowy places for refuge from the hot temperatures of the day too.

While all of these prevention tips are great for yourself, your loved ones, your property and your home, the best and most comprehensive way to lessen the amount of mosquitoes that you have to deal with at your home or business is with the help of the professionals here at Active Pest Control. With a mosquito control program from us, you will be pleasantly surprised at the massively decreased amount of mosquitoes that you are dealing with. This treatment will also help to prevent ticks on your property too! It’s a win-win situation. Start to enjoy your outdoors again, contact us today because your greatest defense against mosquitoes is Active Pest Control.