Tackling Pests As US Urban Areas Start To Experience New Waves
The USA has always had pest problems, especially so in major urban areas. As ABC7 highlights, the latest figures from pest experts Orkin suggest that all of the most pest-impacted cities across the country are only going to see more and more rats, mice, insects and bugs getting into homes and businesses. As such, there is now a new battle being fielded across the USA to try and push back pests and retain a good quality of life. By embracing principles that together form integrated pest management, homeowners and businesses can find some respite.
Defining integrated pest management
Integrated pest management, or IPM, is a relatively new term concerning the matter of pest control – but one that only seeks to bring together a number of common sense elements. As the Environmental Protection Agency highlights, IPM is a smart way of working against pests which seeks to understand the pest risk in any one space, and then set targets on the level of intrusion, and any signs of intrusion, to ensure that infestations are rectified. In addition to this, proper integrated pest management will seek to take preventative measures to ensure that pests have as difficult a time as possible in getting into a building. These measures are tied up in the latest advances in building materials and seek to ensure that renovations and new developments are set up in the right way to combat the push of pests into urban areas.
Action through architecture
As the Architectural Digest highlights in their profile of measures to take against termite infestations, the best preventative actions make use of modern day materials. Specifically for termites, removing as much wood as possible from building materials is advisable. Expanding this out further to rodents, it can be advantageous to look at metal fiber containing materials and composites to caulk and block the property’s crawl space with. Ventilation is key to keeping pests at bay, too; mold, damp and dank environments are perfect growing regions for pests who enjoy the degradation of wood and other substrates that mold causes. Finding the balance between ventilation and protection is the challenge.
Changing habits
More than anything, it’s a case of changing habits that will prevent pests becoming a serious issue. A well renowned case study of rat infestations in Portland, Oregon, by The Atlantic, highlighted how the populations there were less aggressive and less visible than in other cities. The key there was found in reducing waste. Providing less opportunity for food to pests, and ensuring that areas are kept very clean in order to reduce the amount of detritus they can graze on, is the absolute most effective method of keeping pests at bay – and rodents in particular.
Pest control will soon become a fact of life for an increasing number of urban residents. The need to find long-term solutions to the increasing burden is not something that can be easily ignored. While the latest solutions seem high-tech, they are really just combining common sense and best practice from the ages.
