What pest-enabling environmental conditions should you be aware of?
- Wet or Rainy Season
- Hot and Dry Weather
- High humidity
The environment is one of the major factors that affect the activity of insects and animals — including pests. Pests are frustrating to deal with because they can also cause serious damage to your health and your home. This is why pest control is an important aspect of home maintenance.
However, what many people might not know is that corrective measures and treatments are just half the battle when it comes to pest control. The other half is about observation and research. This means being knowledgeable about the different qualities of pests and knowing the telltale signs of an infestation.
Going back to the environment, knowing certain conditions that enable pest activity will be important in preventing damage that they may or may not have already caused.
With that being said, here are three pest-enabling conditions you should be aware of.
Wet or Rainy Season
The rainy season almost always comes with colder weather. With regard to that, the first thing you have to know about insects is that they are ectothermic. This means they are cold-blooded and depend on the environment to regulate their body heat.
Generally, the colder it is, the less active the insects are while the opposite is true when it’s warmer. On top of that, insects find it hard to move in the rain because the water droplets weigh them down. This is to say that insects would rather be in a dry, warm environment rather than a wet, cold one.
Other pests such as rodents also prefer not to get wet or deal with flooding. Therefore, rats tend to become more visible when it’s raining because they’re looking for dry shelter.
All these things can mean increased pest activity in and around your home. Because it’s warm and dry inside houses, pests will actively try to get into your house to seek shelter from the rain and cold weather. Some insects die when their body temperature goes low, so this can be a matter of life and death for them.
Aside from that, while not totally related to rainy weather, flying termite swarmers known as alates will try to breed right before the rainy season, so once you start seeing these irritating bugs swarming light sources, it’s time to prepare for rain. (Side note: If you see many of them inside your home, you could be dealing with a termite infestation, so be mindful).
Before the rainy season comes around, make sure to seal potential access points to your house including holes, broken pipes, and windows. Make sure to also get rid of still water sources around your home because these are prime breeding grounds for mosquitoes — a notorious insect that can transmit deadly diseases such as dengue.
Hot and Dry Weather
Moving on to the other prominent season in the country, insects love warm weather the most. Since the number of hot days outnumbers that of the rainy season, people, along with their respective living spaces, have to contend with high insect activity most times of the year.
Cockroaches and bed bugs tend to come out and are more active during the summer. In the case of bed bugs, high levels of heat dehydrate them and consequently make them thirsty. It urges them to come out of the crevices they’re hiding from and find humans to ‘feed’ on.
Meanwhile, cockroaches are fine with most temperatures given their resilient nature. However, when the temperature rises, so too does their activity, especially in reproducing. It is important to note that outside roaches also try to find shelter when it becomes too hot. Unfortunately for you, your house is that go-to shelter.
Once inside, they will begin to multiply rapidly so you should do well to practice disciplined pest control methods such as spraying insecticide every day at spots where they could be nesting.
The last thing of note with regard to environmental conditions and pests is humidity. Insects love humid environments to the point where they have a ‘sixth sense’ when it comes to detecting humid areas.
As a general rule of thumb, the more humid it is in a given location, the more insects will be present. If you don’t want to foster a pest community, manage the humidity levels in your house.
No matter what the environment is like (cold, hot, or humid) pests will always have a reason for invading your property. It is best to be mindful of how these insects and animals behave given certain environmental factors, so you become better prepared to defend your home from potential infestations.