Hidden Breeding Grounds and Harborage areas for Pests

So that's why my company , you know I created a special service of a pending patent on it , whatnot ? We do a special foam treatment with insecticides . We can change it up , but we treat those areas like rock bed , mulch bed areas . Those are . Those are typical breeding sites , sometimes in tree hollows .

That's another good breeding site , but it's also harbridge areas too . Okay , wall voids we have done , we have foamed inside wall voids at times for certain issues . It's a good application , just depends on what it is .

Sometimes there's a better call just because we do , you know , like my company , just because we're doing foam , we're not just , it's not a gimmick , we're not using it just for the sake of saying , hello , we're , we're called EvoFoam . So we're going to always use foam for everything we like to , because it's very effective . But at the same time we do a lot .

We do all the traditional things the other companies are doing well too . Okay . So , and that's the important thing to understand , is that there's what's the old saying there's many ways to skin a cat , and that's you know . There's definitely a few ways to skin a cat when it comes to doing pest control and every step of the way meaning .

You know there's different preferences on how to treat certain just doing service in general different types of equipment . People have different sprayers , people choose different insecticides that they utilize , everything's you know pretty much the same , but you know there's some different options out there and some folks like different things .

Obviously , I use a lot of foam . Hardly anybody does that . I'm one of the only companies that do that , probably in the whole US for crying out loud . But some companies use it for subterranean termites in the wall voids Quite a few do , actually because most effective , one of the most effective treatments .

If you have wall voids , termites in your wall void , how are you going to contact them ?

Well , if you use foam foam as a carrier , with the termite aside , they're harboring and feeding on those walls in there you're able to literally fill that wall void up and carry that termiticide vertically and then , once that dissipates and dries , it'll leave behind that active ingredient Well , particulates it leaves behind . I call those little bullets .

You get a much greater coverage area but also a little bit better results , better kill , obviously because of that . Okay , and I'm going to do a podcast , just on phone winning these days for sure I should Haven't done it yet . Definitely it's going to be on the list here . But getting back to Brady sites and harborage areas , you know people wonder .

My dad asked me this before and he's like well , you know , where are these bloody mosquitoes coming from ? Where are they ? You know , where are some of these pests going during ? Do these go dormant during the wintertime or do they just die off , which is all of the above , but a small percentage of them that do survive over winter .

What they do is they find adequate harborage , typically in your wall voids , like going through a weep hole and getting into that brick pocket of your home .

If you have weep holes on your home , that is a really ideal area for them to harborage in what we call overwintering , and they typically will do that either in the egg stage or the larval stage and then , when you have adequate temperatures come spring , they will continue that life cycle and emerge from there and Then complete their life cycle into an adult , and

then there we go again . So Tree hollows are a very big one , I feel like they harbors a lot of mosquitoes over winter , especially in the south . We just don't have all typically have freezes , even though you've had a few freezes in the last couple years . Climbing is really changing the Austin area .

You know , at one point it wasn't so darn hot , and hundred , so many hundred strings , a hundred degree temperatures , days that we've had . It's just getting ridiculous . And then we've had some brutal winters . This past winter was very mild . Therefore , here we go . We're gonna have a very hot summer , which I don't know .

We had a brutal winter the year before , with all the freezes and stuff we had . It wasn't , I guess it didn't last that long , but we did have some hard freezes , and then we had a really hot summer last year too .

But this year is shaping up to be even hotter , and so I mentioned before previously , probably last week's podcast , that it was the perfect storm this year . Things are just emerging like crazy right now because of all the moisture and that , and that's essentially what they need .

They need food , water and shelter shelter being the harborage water being a good source for for breeding . Okay , um , and so when you have a lot of trees on your property , especially like live oaks , things of that nature , you're gonna have a lot of acrobat ants and mosquitoes .

And if you have , especially if you have , cedars on your property , hopefully you don't um , they're call conducive conditions and rock bed .

If you have a rock all around your house and you live West Austin or even just west of third interstate 35 , you probably have an occasional scorpion or or or or a lot of scorpions , like I have had at my house because I have rock beds all the way around my house and the more shrubbery and shaded areas and everything .

It just brings a lot of pests because it just makes more of an ideal breeding grounds and climate . You know area for them . So the landscape .

So keeping your landscape landscape trimmed and keeping your lawn well groomed , ensuring that you don't have a bunch of conducive conditions like brush and debris and firewood stacked up that's going to hold moisture , any standing stagnant water , not having clutter in your yard . Make the kids , teach them some responsibility .

Make them pick up their toys when they're done . I don't care how old they are . Do it with them . Show them that you're doing it , because what's going to happen is you leave some of these toys over there outside for a couple of weeks . Well , we had a couple of rains and then you have a little bit of water .

Now you got mosquitoes breathing like crazy and you know , timmy's little race car or something like that , so that becomes a breeding

site .

Okay , so it's really important to not have excessive mulch that can be harbored in breeding , because of the moisture and the decay which leaves a food source , and a lot of insects are going to be drawn to that , because it's just the perfect situation for them and therefore you're going to have more scorpions , spiders , seeking out their prey , which is the other

bugs that you know . So it's really important not to have , if you're going not to have , layers upon layers of mulch . If you're going to mulch your yard every year or have pay someone to do it , be sure you do it . They do it correctly or you do it correctly yourself . Remove the old mulch .

All that's going to do when you put new mulch on top and do it the lazy way , or they do it the lazy way . Put on top of the old mulch every year .

Well , over time , you're creating layers , which is going to bring more decay , which is going to be a food source for a lot of pests and ultimately is going to bring a lot of moisture , which just makes an ideal situation for them to breed and you're going to have an influx of bugs around your house period . So that's important .

If you have a pest control company , make sure they're they're dusting your weep holes .

If you don't have them sealed up and I don't mean sealed with foam insulation or sealing them up tight where the walls can't breathe , because you don't want that you need to be able to have them breathe because you need to be able to have moisture escape those wall voids so you don't have any issues with that . That's what they're designed for .

That's what they're designed for , especially if you ever had , like , a plumbing break inside your walls , it'll allow that excess water to exit the walls , okay . So it's really important to keep those breathable and the way you do that . They have different types of . We use a roofing material at my company . It works extremely well .

It doesn't tarnish , it doesn't . Copper mesh is one of the more common things that's used . Sometimes it can look ratty and wires kind of stick out . I don't like that for aesthetic purposes and that nice copper finish it looks great at .

It looks great for a couple first month or so and then it loses its copper finish and it'll tarnish , which it's not horrible . It's definitely one of the better choices out there . But there is some . There is some better choices . I believe that what we use works better than that . So it just from an aesthetic purpose as well . It just looks good .

It's black in color and it just kind of shaded darks in . You can't even notice that you really did anything in there . Actually it looks good . So there's a couple different options . Some companies might do little inserts . That tends to be a little bit expensive , expensive and they're difficult to work with and I like the idea .

It's just a lot of work and it's there . You can't always seal up every weep hole properly with those , so I don't like those for that aspect and it's just a way to keep the cost down for the customer and ourselves , of course , as a business . So we like using the mesh that we use . It's called Cobra Mesh . Actually I don't mind mentioning what it's called .

They sell it in big rolls and it's got a vent mesh for soffits . It works extremely well . I believe it's called Cobra Mesh but it works quite well . So we do that . We seal up our customers . We pull all the time for them .

Sometimes we do the garage corners , but usually now what we're doing now is actually doing garage rodent proof , garage door seals for the garage doors so which help keep rodents from chewing in the corners and helps keep a lot of other pests from getting in there , and then we actually use quick creep to seal up .

So there's , there's ways and , like I said , you might already have a company . You might like the guy or gal that you have coming to your house . They may not do this . Not every company does what we call exclusion , sealing things up like weep holes . A lot of companies do weep holes but they don't do garage doors .

They don't seal up roof free like the roof joints , roof returns , they call them . They'll put cages on mushroom vents on your roof . They don't do what we call exclusion , the full-blown exclusion . Most companies don't . We're a full service company and there is a few other companies out there in the Austin area that do give a full service .

Now , of course we're better , but you know okay . But anyways , if you have any questions , if you're interested in that , I don't mind , we'll come out and give you a free quote at my company . But if you just want to chat and you don't want us coming to the house , that's fine too .

Like I always said , this isn't all selfishness here Love for you to try my company out , but at the same time , I'm this isn't all selfishness here Love for you to try my company out , but at the same time I'm here to help folks .

So , um , that's what I enjoy to do and that's that's the mission of this and content for my website , and that's just me being brutally honest with it . Um , so always uh , open to uh questions . Um , really , you know that's that's .

Uh , uh , those are the main areas I wanted to hit on and talk about getting your attic inspected , because obviously that can be a big harbinger to get through roof returns . Having exclusion will prevent that . Having insulation up there , they'll burrow underneath the insulation . Typically , I'm not even just rodents , but other scorpions and everything .

A lot of companies will dust addicts I'm not huge on dusting acts . Can it help kill , you know , a bug here and there ? You know like a rack , then like scorpion ? Yeah , I can , but if it's 120 130 degrees in that attic , do you really think they're running around on top of that ?

No , just like they are during the day outside they're actually flat in their body . They're underneath rocks or mulch during the day , or inside of a , underneath some bark on a tree , because they're trying to stay out of the sun and the heat so they don't expel , excrete the little bit of moisture that they do have in their bodies and dehydrate and die .

So they will hunt in the evening because they're very what they call nocturnal and they'll go hunting for their prey in the evening . So if they're in an attic , what they typically do is they're going to burrow underneath the insulation and be right on top of the ceiling , right above your head . You know eight , nine feet , or whatever your ceilings are .

They're gonna be right there because in general , probably about you know 10 , 12 , 15 degrees top max change in temperature right above that's , right underneath that insulation , above that ceiling if you keep your house at 70 is probably 80 , 82 , 85 degrees right underneath that insulation above your head . So that's where they're really going to be .

So what's the solution for that ? Well , you can treat an addict and there's , like I said , there's some merit in that , but it's not really a solution . It's a band-aid to a cut that needs a stitch . And that's the way I look at everything .

I look at the behavioral aspects and what you need to do is you need to make sure the home is sealed up well , prevent them from being able to get in the first place as best as you can . It's going to limit that chance of activity . So , anyways , I really appreciate you all tuning in .

If you have any thoughts , questions , concerns anything , feel free Give me a call , 512-588-2998 . Or email me at damian D-A-M-I-A-N , at evo E-V-O foam F-O-A-M . Pest P-E-S-T dot com . Y'all be good .