The temperatures are dropping.
Football is on.
You’re thinking about chili, Thanksgiving and finally being able to walk outside without immediately sweating through your shirt.
Unfortunately, some of Oklahoma’s bugs are also making their fall plans.
And their plan may be:
“Your house looks nice.”
The Pest Problem Changes in the Fall
During the summer, most of the pest-control conversation is about what’s happening outside.
Mosquitoes. Ants. Spiders. Wasps. All the things crawling and flying around while you’re trying to enjoy your backyard.
Then the weather starts cooling off and it can feel like pest season is ending.
Not exactly.
Some pests become less active, but others begin looking for protected places to spend the colder months. In Oklahoma, insects such as boxelder bugs and red-shouldered bugs commonly move toward buildings as cooler fall weather arrives. Field crickets are also notorious for entering homes in late summer and fall, and wolf spiders are commonly encountered around homes in the fall as they seek protected areas.
So pest control hasn’t necessarily become less important.
The battlefield has just moved closer to the house.
Your House Has Everything They Want
Think about what your home offers compared with the outdoors as temperatures fall.
Protection from the weather.
Warmth.
Dark cracks and crevices.
Garages.
Attics.
Crawl spaces.
Doorways.
And plenty of tiny openings that are basically enormous front doors if you’re a cricket.
Many of these pests aren’t coming inside because they’re plotting an attack on your family.
They’re looking for shelter.
We’re just generally not interested in sharing.
This Is Why We Treat From the Outside In
One of the biggest ideas behind our pest-control program is that we’d rather deal with pests before they get inside the house.
Once you’re seeing insects running across the kitchen floor, we’re already playing defense.
Exterior pest control helps establish a line of defense around the structure, but chemical treatment is only part of the equation.
OSU also recommends things such as sealing cracks around windows and doors, maintaining tight-fitting screens and reducing pest-friendly hiding areas around the foundation. Exterior perimeter treatments can then help reduce insects such as crickets before they make their way indoors.
That’s a much better strategy than waiting until something with eight legs runs across the bathroom floor at 11:30 at night.
Fall Is a Great Time to Look at the House Like a Bug Would
Walk around the outside of your house sometime.
Look at:
- gaps underneath doors
- damaged weather stripping
- holes around utility penetrations
- torn screens
- cracks around windows
- piles of leaves or debris against the house
- firewood stacked directly against the structure
- dense vegetation touching the foundation
To us, those things may not look particularly interesting.
To something approximately half an inch tall, some of them look like an interstate.
Cleaning up those areas and sealing obvious entry points can make a big difference.
And Then There Are the Spiders…
Spiders are actually beneficial predators because they eat a tremendous number of other insects.
We appreciate their contribution to the ecosystem.
We would just prefer that contribution take place somewhere other than the bedroom.
One interesting thing about seeing spiders around a home is that their presence may also tell us something about the insect population around the property.
If there’s plenty to eat, predators tend to show up too.
That’s another reason good pest management isn’t necessarily about trying to kill every living creature on your property. It’s about reducing pest populations around the structure and making the house a less inviting place for them to enter.
Don’t Shut Down Pest Control Just Because Summer Is Over
Mosquito pressure may finally be declining.
That doesn’t mean the pest-control calendar is finished.
Fall simply brings a different set of challenges.
As temperatures cool, we’re trying to reduce pest activity around the structure, treat likely entry areas and create another layer of protection before Oklahoma’s bugs decide your home looks considerably more comfortable than theirs.
Because you’re welcome to have family over for Thanksgiving.
The crickets, spiders and boxelder bugs don’t need an invitation.
