We use the umbrella term “pest” to describe anything undesirable or outright unpleasant that invades our living spaces. As humans, we have shaped the world around us to suit our needs and fundamentally changed the habitats of countless animal and plant species in the process. This has become a natural part of the evolution of our species and at the same time, the plants and animals have adapted, as is nature’s way.
Unfortunately for us, part of that adaptation is to learn how to live in the new environments we have created for them, which means they will be using our environment to survive. All of the pests we find in our homes and buildings are simply trying to adapt and survive, but this is not conducive to our wellbeing and as such these problems have to be dealt with.
Don’t ignore them
If you suspect you have a pest issue then do not simply ignore it, at the first signs of an infestation of any kind, call our pest control services team to quickly establish what you are dealing with and let us provide a course of action for you. The issue is that by the time there is significant evidence of a pest infestation, then whatever pest it is has already established itself and is rapidly multiplying. Quick and decisive action is needed to stop their progress, break their life cycles and protect your property from further damage.
Small, scurrying problems
Every type of infestation comes with its own set of horrors to contend with, and depending on who you ask, most people will have their own opinion of which would be worse. But let’s be honest, there is no “better” infestation, they are all terrible, but some will definitely be easier to deal with than others. Take rodents for example, if you catch sight of a rat once or twice, that is a fair indication that there could be in excess of 100 of them living in the local vicinity. If you were to dismiss this as just a lone rat, by the time you were seeing them regularly, that population is likely to have escalated to over 500, or maybe even 1000.
Dealing with rodents in these sorts of numbers can be daunting, but one fortunately our expert rodent control services are perfectly equipped to handle them. Quickly establishing a baiting program is the first course of action that will need to be taken, and once this is established the population of rodents should start declining rapidly. Our rodent control team will visit your property and ascertain exactly what type of pest you are facing and where they are nesting, which will allow them to devise an appropriately spread baiting program to tackle the infestation. Depending on the size of the infestation, this should take between seven and ten days to take full effect, but you should notice a significant difference after just a day or two. Our rodent control experts will visit your property to remove the carcasses of the deceased rodents and to rebate the traps as necessary until the infestation has been completely eradicated.
How Much Damage Can Be Caused
Rodents might not have the creepiness factor that insects do, but they also carry far more disease and risk. Before discussing the health issues associated with rodents, let’s consider the physical damage they cause. Rats and other rodents like to chew on anything and everything. This will include exposed wooden beams, electrical cabling, loft and pipe insulation and just about anything else they can get their teeth near. Anything affected by rats chewing on it will almost certainly need to be replaced, and this can mean a lot of rewiring and other repair work.
The thing that most people think about with rodent infestations is the hygiene factor, or rather the lack thereof. Rats are naturally suited to carrying a variety of nasty diseases that can be potentially deadly to humans such as hantaviruses and salmonella. This is due to their spending a lot of time in unsanitary locations such as sewers and refuse disposal facilities, and these diseases are spread in a variety of ways including contact, bites and in their droppings and urine. Rodent urine and droppings are a particularly big problem as they not only smell very strongly and carry disease, but rats alone can defecate up to 60 times a day, so their droppings are plentiful, and the smell will attract other rodents.
How Much is Pest Control
The cost of pest control and dealing with rodents will vary based on the size of the infestation, the type of rodent and the property size, but generally speaking it is going to cost several hundred dollars to tackle the animals, but the damage they cause is a different matter. The costs of repairing the damaged wiring, structural issues, floors, walls and everything else could well run into thousands of dollars; to make matters worse, most standard home insurance policies in Australia do not cover rodent or pest related damages.
Commercial rodents
Of course, rodents aren’t that picky when it comes to choosing which property to call home, they will just as happily settle in offices, factories and shops as houses. So long as the conditions are there to entice them in, rats will happily nest anywhere sheltered. This poses a slightly different problem as rats, and rodents in general, are usually more active at night, the time when most businesses are closed or on minimum staff. This allows the problem to potentially go unnoticed for much longer as no one will be in a position to notice their more active times and there may well be no one to take ownership of the problem. Couple these issues with the fact that commercial properties are typically bigger than domestic ones, and the scale of the infestation could be dramatically worse. This is why we have our commercial pest control team ready to help any businesses that find the signs of infestations. They are adept at tackling the larger scale problems associated with commercial infestations and will see to it that the rodents are removed before the damage bill escalates any further than it already has.