Saturday, April 7, 2012

Ways to Get Rid of Pests

By Sandra Smith


Pests like mosquitoes, termites, cockroaches and rodents are a major threat to people's lives and properties in many parts of the world. No one is immune to them where they live. The extent may be different from one place to another, but the problem is found worldwide. For the people who live in areas with warmer climates, to get rid of pests is an unpleasant task they must undertake daily. In fact, in countries like India, where mosquitoes, houseflies and cockroaches are rampant, people have to set aside a certain portion of their monthly income just for this purpose.

Some of the most commonly occurring pests in Australia are rats, mice, flies, cockroaches, ants and termites. All of these pests like to live in houses for because of the easy availability of food and shelter. Rats and mice devour millions of tons of foods and crops every year. They also carry diseases that used to take the lives of millions of people every year in the past. Ants and termites make their homes inside the walls and under the floors of houses and eat them hollow from inside. Flies and cockroaches are also ubiquitous. They enter our kitchen, dining tables and even our refrigerators. They are a major carrier of diseases like typhoid, cholera and dysentery that can be deadly to people. Birds like crows and sparrows eat tons of crops from fields. Mammals like possums, foxes and raccoons can cause significant trouble by spilling garbage from garbage bins in search for food. They also harass domestic livestock.

Traditionally, getting rid of pests involved simple measures such as poisoning, trapping, hunting and burning. Rats and mice were either trapped or poisoned. Mosquitoes, flies and cockroaches were swatted or poisoned. Fleas and bedbugs were eliminated by spraying. Foxes, rabid dogs, rogue monkeys and other troublesome animals were trapped and hunted. Birds were usually scared away by erecting scarecrows in fields. Cats were kept to kill mice, and dogs were kept to scare away wild animals. Sometimes, when the infestation became widespread, people resorted to extreme measures like setting fire to the entire infested area. The trouble with these traditional methods is that they are not very successful, and are harmful to people's health and ecology. They are also appalling practices from the modern perspective. However, many of these methods are still used in parts of the world for want of better techniques.

Getting rid of pests has turned into big business in many urban areas around the world. With an increasing number of manufacturers jumping into the bandwagon, new methods have evolved and are evolving that are more effective, eco-friendly and, in case of mammals and birds, more civilized. While remove an occasional termite, rat and fox, large scale ecncroachments require professional approach. Fortunately, there is no dearth of companies in Australia that are specialists in pest control. These companies make use of a structured approach to pest control which involves evaluation of infestation, formulation of treatment plan, monitoring of infested area, and targeting the pests to eliminate or remove them.

In towns and cities where pests are a major problems, DIY pest control may not work as many pests are known to quickly return to the areas they have been wiped out from. In such cases, the only option is to get help from the professionals for structured methods that involve environmentally sound devices, poisons and drugs. This is the only way to get rid of pests for the long term.




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