Pest Proof Your Backyard with These 10 Tips

A backyard to be serviced in Baton Rouge LA - Dugas Pest ControlEveryone is happy to be out and about enjoying the sunshine this spring here in Baton Rouge LA. Unfortunately, the combination of consistent warmth and rainfall in our climate creates a haven of resources and shelter for all kinds of regional critters. If you aren’t careful, you could allow your backyard to become a home to many kinds of pests for several different reasons. Our expert exterminators at Dugas Pest Control are here to help prevent this. Read on for advice on how to make your backyard pest-free through the summer!

10 Pest-Proofing Tips for Your Backyard

The hot and humid weather we experience for most of the year in our region creates ideal conditions for a plethora of pests. This makes it crucial to incorporate pest prevention into your maintenance routines. Here are ten tips we suggest you take to keep a pest-free backyard this year:

  1. Trim your plants: Keeping your bushes, trees, and shrubs neat and orderly will prevent shaded resting areas for common spring and summer pests like mosquitoes, ticks, and fleas.
  2. Get rid of yard waste: Piles of yard waste or scattered scraps can provide temporary shelter or even food for insects and small animals. Clear them out to discourage pests.
  3. Deal with standing water: Standing water serves as breeding grounds for mosquitoes and a hydration source for many other kinds of insects. Pour out or cover standing water when you find it building up in gutters, planters, buckets, tarps, or elsewhere.
  4. Mow the lawn regularly: Mowing your lawn once a week can prevent tall grass blades from trapping standing water and housing pests.
  5. Consider garden netting: If you have a garden, you could be unwittingly offering a food source for tiny bugs like aphids and large wildlife pests like raccoons. Garden netting can keep them from robbing your plants.
  6. Dethatch your lawn: A thin layer of thatch can help insulate your lawn to regulate temperatures and promote healthy growth, but too much of it will suffocate your grass and offer shelter to many common lawn pests.
  7. Keep bins sealed and distant: Several kinds of insects, rodents, and wild animals are known to break into our trash cans looking for food. Seal your bins if possible and make sure that they’re as far away from your yard and home as they can be.
  8. Ensure proper lawn hydration: Both overwatering and underwatering can cause problems for your lawn, so ensuring a regulated supply of water can help prevent pests. This can be best attained using a sprinkler or irrigation system.
  9. Store your firewood high and far: Woodpiles stacked against the side of homes or wooden decks are common contributors to termite infestations. Keeping a covered firewood rack at a distance from your home can prevent termites and other insects from infesting your backyard.
  10. Look for professional pest control: An experienced technician can assess your yard for vulnerabilities that you haven’t caught to help determine the best ways to go about pest prevention for your particular property.

Pest Control for Your Backyard in Baton Rouge LA

If you’re looking for a calculated approach to pest control in your backyard in Baton Rouge, reach out to your local exterminators. At Dugas Pest Control, we train our technicians to shape their services to the individual needs of each property that they service. We pride ourselves on our holistic approach to pest control, complete with site-wide inspections, safe control and exclusion practices, and preventative maintenance to ensure that our customers never deal with pests again. Contact us today for a free quote!

What Just Bit Me? Identify Common Bug Bites

A mosquito biting a person in Baton Rouge LA - Dugas Pest Control

Bug bites of any kind can be worrisome. Especially when you don’t catch the culprit, bug bites can leave you anxious, wondering what got to you and whether or not there are more of them waiting. Many people that wake up with bug bites after a night’s sleep misidentify the markings, which leads to a drawn-out process of catching and removing the biting pests from your home. If you’re wondering what bug bit you in Baton Rouge LA, read on. The pest experts at Dugas Pest Control are well-versed in the habits and attributes of biting pests in the region and can help you identify and remove the ones that you’re dealing with.

Pests that Draw Blood

Some blood-sucking pests might not appear as menacing as other biting bugs but are able to transmit dangerous diseases to humans. Because of this, it is important to be able to identify which kind of bite you’re dealing with. Blood-drawing pests in Baton Rouge LA include:

  1. Mosquitoes: Mosquito bites start out as a raised, white welt and turn into an itchy, red bump, usually no more than 1/2“ across. They usually don’t come with any side effects besides pain and itchiness, but mosquitoes in tropical regions can carry deadly diseases like malaria and the Zika virus.
  2. Ticks: Depending on the species, tick bites can look like a mosquito bite or a smaller, darker mark. They can develop a light red ring that circles the bump at a distance. If you catch a tick bite early, they will still be latched onto your body. Ticks are known for spreading the dangerous Lyme disease.
  3. Fleas: Fleas bite our pets more often, but they bite humans, too. It won’t often result in initial pain, but it will be itchy. The worst outcome of a flea bite is an infection caused by excessive itching.
  4. Bed bugs: If you wake up in bed with tiny, red bites aligned in a zigzag pattern on your skin, you’re dealing with a bed bug infestation. Bed bugs do not pass on diseases through their bites, but they can pick up and carry diseases on their bodies through their travels.

Other Biting Pests in Baton Rouge LA

There are other kinds of biting pests in our region, but the aforementioned pests are the ones that you should be more worried about. Some kinds of pests in Baton Rouge LA either rarely bite or cause nearly negligible symptoms. Ants, cockroaches, and centipedes fall into this category. Some ants, like fire ants, bite someone that’s threatening them only to latch on to deliver a more acute sting, similar to a wasp. Bites from these pests are very rare, though.

A few spiders in the area are able to deliver painful bites, but again, only in rare circumstances. Wolf spiders, brown recluse spiders, and the feared black widow fall into this category. If you experience a black widow bite, seek medical attention immediately.

Need Protection from Biting Pests?

If you are worried about bug bites this summer, reach out to your local pest control company to see how they can help. Our technicians at Dugas Pest Control have experience identifying and removing all of the biting pests in Baton Rouge LA and can teach you exclusion efforts to help you keep them out of your home once we’ve dealt with them. For a free quote, contact us today!

What Are The Flying Insects You’re Seeing All Over The Place?

What flying ants look like in Baton Rouge LA - Dugas Pest ControlEvery spring, we see a huge rise in calls from people in the Baton Rouge area whose homes have been overrun by flying insects. With the current weather conditions here in Louisiana, this year’s termite swarming season is expected to be widespread. Eastern subterranean termites and Formosan termites are both swarming now, but if you’re starting to find flying insects in your house, how can you be sure if they’re termites?

Can Termites Fly?

Certain termites can fly, although they’re not very good at it. They are very weak, and can only travel considerable distances in windy climates. There is only one class of termites that can fly – these are the reproductives, a type of termite specifically tasked with spreading the colony to new homes.

A termite colony will start producing reproductives once it has reached a certain level of maturity, usually about three years of development. The reproductives will fly to new locations to mate and find a new place to proliferate. After they mate, the male reproductive sheds its wings. Finding discarded termite wings or living winged termites in your home could be a sign that there is a termite colony thriving somewhere in the wooden structure of your house. If you think you might have a termite problem, let your local pest control company know.

Termites vs Flying Ants

It’s easy to mistake termites with their less destructive friends, flying ants. Here are three indicators that the flying insects that you’re seeing are termites, and not ants:

  1. Their appearance: Termite swarmers have longer wings, but shorter limbs and antennae. Flying ants will usually be larger – termite sizes vary by species, but some, like the Eastern subterranean termite, are as small as 10mm long.
  2. Signs in your house: If you’ve noticed damaged or hollow-sounding wood anywhere in your house, those flying insects in your house are most likely termites. Contact a local termite exterminator to assess the extent of the damage.
  3. Signs in your yard: If a subterranean termite colony is swarming near you, look out for tunnels on the surface of your yard. These are called mud tubes, and they are the paths that subterranean termites take from their nests to nearby food sources.

Other Flying Insects

The flying bugs around your house might not be termites or flying ants! Plenty of different winged insects reemerge around springtime, so you could be dealing with:

Visit our pest identification library for help narrowing down what kind of pests you’re dealing with.

Professional Pest Control in Baton Rouge LA

If you’re ready to get rid of the flying insects in your Louisiana home, it’s time to ask your local extermination experts at Dugas Pest Control for help. Our employees are trained to specialize on pests that commonly plague the Baton Rouge area. Over decades of service, we’ve helped loads of families rid their homes of pests with environmentally-friendly tactics. Reach out today for a free quote!

Benefits of TAP Pest Control Insulation

TAP pest control insulation is energy efficient and protects your Baton Rouge LA property against pests - Dugas Pest ControlThe most successful, long-lasting form of pest control is pest prevention. That’s where TAP® Insulation comes in! This industry-changing home insulation service not only surpasses traditional insulation, it also works to control pest problems in homes throughout Baton Rouge LA. Made out of more than 80% recycled paper, it is environmentally friendly and is an informed investment for any property owners looking to prevent pest infestations.

Keep reading to learn about the benefits of TAP pest control insulation, a service proudly offered by the team here at Dugas Pest Control.

Pests Controlled by TAP Insulation

At Dugas, we want to provide our customers with pest-free living all year long. The biggest selling point of TAP pest control insulation is, of course, its pest management features. Within the TAP Insulation, a borate product designed to kill off pests is embedded. When some insects come into contact with the insulation, they will die off as they groom themselves and ingest the borate. Although TAP pest control insulation will not kill rodents or wildlife, there are many insects that it does kill, including:

Why Get TAP Pest Control Insulation?

TAP Insulation doesn’t just control pest infestations—it has many other benefits as well. This home insulation can be installed right over any existing installation in your home. Even better, once it’s installed, it never needs to be replaced! Additional benefits of TAP pest resistant insulation include:

  • Reduces energy bill costs
  • Reduces outside noises
  • Improves indoor air quality
  • Mold & mildew resistant
  • The borate serves as a fire-retardant
  • Made of recycled, eco-friendly materials

Our TAP Insulation Installation

TAP pest control insulation is a smart choice for any property owner. It provides long-lasting pest control, not to mention outperforms traditional home insulation in a number of other areas. Whether you own a new home or are looking to upgrade your current insulation, the TAP Insulation experts at Dugas Pest Control can help. To learn more about this game-changing service or to set up an appointment, call Dugas today!

Getting a Handle on Fleas and Ticks

The spring and summer months are upon us, which means so is flea and tick season. For Baton Rouge residents, fleas and ticks never really go away because the winters are mild and the pests can still thrive. Still, spring and summer are when these pests are at their highest numbers, so you’ll need to work hard to keep your home and pets free of these nuisances. Fleas and ticks are persistent, but with the help of a professional exterminator and simple steps you can take at home, you can keep these blood suckers at bay.

Why Fleas and Ticks are Stubborn Pests 

Fleas have a complicated life cycle and can survive in the outdoors in temperatures as low as 30 degrees. As long as the flea finds a suitable host to feed off of, it will stay warm and healthy through the winter season. This host can be a wild animal or your beloved pet. When springtime rolls around and the temperatures climb into the 60s, the growth and reproduction of fleas is at an all time high. Interestingly, flea pupae can remain dormant for up to one year waiting for the temperatures to be ideal.

When the temperatures are warm, the pupae will emerge from their cocoons, resulting in a mass of fleas. They then swarm around the first host they find, which may be your pet. Since fleas can survive the Baton Rouge winter, they do linger in the area over the colder months and become more aggressive in the spring and summer. Only low humidity and temperatures lower than 30 degrees will impact their life cycle. This is what makes fleas stubborn pests.

Ticks are also able to survive cool winter temperatures, providing that they find a host to feed off of. They aren’t quite as hearty as fleas since they can be killed off when temperature reach 45 degrees. However, it’s still important to protect pets during the winter months because ticks will thrive under the right conditions.

Dealing with Fleas and Ticks around the Home 

While you can’t eradicate fleas and ticks completely, there are steps you can take to minimize the problem:

  • Practice year-round flea and tick control by using a veterinarian-recommended product for every pet in your household. Even indoor pets are at risk.
  • Remove brush debris from around the home. This prevent animals from building nests and bringing around ticks and fleas they may be carrying.
  • Avoid having old upholstered furniture outside your home where your pets like to lie. These are prime places where fleas build nests.
  • Keep your home well sealed. Place screens over attics and ensure that all screens over doors and windows are free of rips, tears or holes.
  • Plant rosemary, sage and garlic plants around the home to make the area smell good but keep fleas and ticks at bay.
  • Keep the home clean by vacuuming and dusting regularly.
  • Contact a professional exterminator like Dugas Pest Control to learn about the severity of your tick or flea problem.

Disease Carriers for Humans and Pets 

Fleas and ticks are not just nuisances; they also spread disease and can infect animals with parasites. Some of the most common things they leave behind include tapeworm, dermatitis and allergies. Ticks are also known for spreading Lyme disease and Rocky Mountain spotted fever. Pet owners often catch wind that their pet may be dealing with fleas or ticks when they started scratching, licking and chewing incessantly. Pets that spend a lot of time outdoors are at most risk, but even indoor pets need year-round protection.

Fleas and ticks must have a host to stay alive, but they also live much of their life cycle in the environment. This is perhaps what gives them added resilience; people think that if they can’t see them, they must be gone. However, they do a good job of lingering in the environment and then feeding off their hosts, which can be anything from a mouse to a human.