Protect your home from pests

Felicia Ratiu, a service and sales rep with Abell Pest Control, parks her new, white S10 pickup in the driveway of a two-storey home in a suburban Oakville, Ont., neighbourhood and says, “Let's see where the problem is.” The “problem” is that in the past couple of weeks the homeowner has caught a dozen mice with a single snap trap set under her kitchen sink.

Ratiu begins the visit with a perimeter inspection of the house. Along the way, she finds a gap around the garden faucet where it enters the house, another where wiring runs into the garage, vents that haven't been sealed with steel mesh, possible gaps in the caulking around basement windows and even a thumb-size crack in a brick at the base of a windowsill–all of which could be used by mice as gateways into the house.

“Mice only need a two-millimetre space to get in,” she says in her Romanian-accented English. “Basically, they can enter all over this place.”

Inside, along with dispensing advice on how to seal the breaches, Ratiu will try to quash this invasion by placing snap traps, glue boards and poison bait in favoured mice haunts: under the sink and stove, in the attic, in the furnace room and even on top of the tiles in the basement's drop ceiling.

Whether you live in the suburbs, the city or the wide-open countryside, there's a whole host of critters scheming to become your uninvited guests. With the potential for bats in the attic, mice in the pantry and termites eating through the walls, it's easy to feel like your home is under attack. And these pests are more than an annoyance. Left unchecked, wood-boring insects can affect the structural integrity of your home and, by Abell Pest Control's and others' rough estimates, mice and squirrels chewing through wiring are responsible for a quarter of all unexplained fires and household power outages. Insects and rodents also carry diseases, and exposure to their droppings can cause serious health problems.

Here we look at two types of pests–small nesting mammals and wood-boring insects–what you need to do to get these unwanted visitors out and how to keep them out.

Carpenter ant

Aliases: Camponotus herculeanus, C. pennsylvanicus

Identifying features: Red or black in colour, its three-segmented body is 0.5 cm to 2.5 cm long

Known haunts: Found nationwide in woodpiles, dead trees, water- or rot-damaged wood in the home

Property crimes: While they don't actually eat the wood, they chew through it, and their tunnelling can affect the strength of structural lumber

Sentencing recommendation: Death penalty.

 

Termites

Aliases: Several families known in Canada; Reticulitermes is native to British Columbia.

Identifying features: From 0.5 cm to 1 cm long, with sharp mandibles on head

Known haunts: Colonies can form wherever wood and soil are in contact

Property crimes: Non-native species are found in select Canadian cities, including Toronto, Winnipeg and Edmonton. A colony can eat enough household wood to cause structural damage

Sentencing recommendation: Death penalty.

 

 

Raccoon

Alias: Procyon lotor

Identifying features: “Mask” around the eyes, black and grey coat with striped tail, can weigh up to 30 lbs.

Known haunts: Raccoons are well-adapted city slickers

Property crimes: Trashing garbage cans, making nests in accessible attics or chimneys, damaging shingles or fascia to enlarge an opening

Sentencing recommendation: Eviction.

 

 

Norway rat

Aliases: Rattus norvegicus, brown rat, sewer rat

Identifying features: Larger than a mouse, with a body length of 25 to 45 cm, Norway rats can weight up to 500 g (1 lb.). Despite their nickname, can also be grey or black

Known haunts: Found nationwide (except in Alberta) in crawl spaces, cold rooms, basements, compost bins or anywhere else they can find food

Property crimes: Chewing wood and wires, eating food stores and leaving droppings

Sentencing recommendation: Eviction and/or death penalty..

 

Deer mouse

Alias: Peromysus maniculatus

Identifying features: Big ears, brown or grey body with white belly and feet

Known haunts: Common in rural areas and newer subdivisions

Property crimes: Chewing wires, wood and almost anything non-metallic

Sentencing recommendation: Eviction and/or death penalty.

 

 

 

Based solely on physical size, small mammals such as squirrels, rats, mice and raccoons can be considered the “biggest” problem homeowners face. The damage these animals can cause ranges from gnawing holes through wood walls and cladding, scavenging insulation and other materials to make nests and, as mentioned above, chewing through wires or even plastic pipes, not to mention raiding your food and ruining furniture, books, clothing and other household treasures.

In the city, “masked bandits” on B&E runs through garbage bins are more of a nuisance than a threat to the home. Until they move in, anyway. While their bulbous bodies may make them look comical, raccoons are agile climbers. It's common to see a whole family moving from house to house, shimmying along branches and hydro wires. If they find a large enough opening along the eaves of your home, they will move in and set up a nest.

While a raccoon needs a good-sized entranceway, deer mice and bats can squeeze through a gap as small as two millimetres wide. “As long as their skulls can get through, they can get in,” says Bill Scully, a biologist and pest control expert who happens to go by the nickname “Bat Boy Bill.”

“Bats are an indicator that your house has a problem,” says Scully. Unlike opportunistic mice and squirrels, which can chew a small opening into the rodent equivalent of a garage door, bats just aren't equipped to make holes on their own. “If bats are flying out of your house, that means you already have openings where weather, rot and mould can get in.”

Before worrying about the holes, you need to reduce the attractions on the outside of your home that draw the animals to the area in the first place.

Make your home less attractive

As any urban dweller can tell you, raccoons will eventually figure out even the craftiest bungie-cord configuration to get the lid off garbage cans. A rodent-proof storage box can keep them out and tidy up your yard.

Compost piles are another potential grocery store for local wildlife. Reduce the snacking by using a compost bin lined with a tightly meshed, heavy-gauge hardware cloth or chicken wire. Likewise, bird feeders are a tempting food supply for furry critters. Pole-mounted feeders should have a concave rodent guard below the seed and be located at least 10' from overhanging trees and wires. You might also want to reduce the amount of seed you put in the feeder. All these precautions are pointless if the birds scatter half the seed on the ground around the feeder.

And don't think the scent of Fido will prevent wildlife from sampling some of his kibble. If you leave a pet-food dish outdoors, bring it in at night. Also remember that a perpetually filled dish, indoors or out, is a 24-hour buffet for both pets and pests.

If you do discover mammals nesting inside your home, you need to get rid of them before sealing off the exits. Regulations vary by province, but in Ontario, for example, homeowners are allowed to humanely kill a variety of nuisance animals that are damaging or threatening to damage their property.

Traps

With the eternal quest to build a better mousetrap, there are dozens of methods to choose from, each with its own pros and cons. The classic Victor snap traps start at around $1 each. They're effective, although sometimes cruel–they don't always kill instantly–and you have to dispose of the carcass before it starts to smell. Ditto for glue strips. For the squeamish, there are higher-end traps that enclose the body so you can dispose of it sight unseen. Even pricier methods use techniques ranging from drowning to electrocution in order to exterminate vermin.

Whichever you use, set several traps a few feet apart along the base of walls. Leave them out unset for a couple of days so the rodents grow accustomed to the traps before you bait them. Cheese is the traditional temptation, but the wafting scent of peanut butter attracts both rats and mice.

Live trapping has become a popular, conscience-easing option. The downside is that mice have been known to return to a favoured site from more than a kilometre away, and unfortunately some municipal wildlife regulations prevent you, or a hired contractor, from relocating animals far from the trapping location (in part to prevent the spread of disease).

Poisoning

Poisons are also effective, but they take up to a week to kill, they can be a hazard to children and pets, and you'll have to live with the fact that your wall cavities will probably become permanent morgues for desiccated rodents.

Once you've evicted or exterminated all the invaders, it's time to do a thorough perimeter inspection of your home to find out where they got in. Remember, you may be looking for a gap as small as a two to six millimetres. Pay careful attention to seams where two materials meet: soffit and fascia, troughing and fascia, flashing and shingles, and so on.

Sealing holes

On the rooftop, loose or missing shingles obviously should be repaired. Inspect the seal on your chimney cap (or install a cap if you don't have one). Gaps in the flashing or even the mortar around the chimney can also be used as entrances. Seal off roof vents and gables with hardware cloth.

At ground level, you'll need to fill around holes made for television and phone lines, garden faucets and other utilities. If the gap is more than six millimetres, backfill it with polyurethane foam or, better yet, steel wool, before sealing with caulking. While you're at it, block off exhaust vent caps with hardware cloth.

The most potentially damaging critters that may invade your home are wood-boring insects, particularly termites and carpenter ants. “Termite” is a terrifying word for woodworkers and homeowners alike. Luckily the most famous of the wood-boring insects is found only in a few areas of Canada. British Columbia is the only province to have native-born termites. Termites were first introduced to Toronto's harbourfront area in the 1930s, likely travelling as unwanted cargo on wooden shipping crates. Since then, they've spread around the city and into neighbouring communities. Other Ontario cities with infestations include Hamilton, Guelph, Kitchener and Kincardine. More recently, Winnipeg and Edmonton have joined the ranks of cities with pockets of these unwanted invaders.

Just because you don't live in these areas doesn't mean you can't be eaten out of your woodwork. Carpenter ants are found nationwide, as are wood-boring beetles, whose traditional diet of live hardwood in forests doesn't preclude them munching on floors and furniture.

Preventing termite infestation

As with mammals, invasion prevention begins outside the home. Timothy Myles, a termite expert and director of the University of Toronto's urban entomology program, suggests homeowners enact what he calls a “yard wood management” plan. “Termites have to move into your yard before they can move into your house,” he says.

He cites tree stumps as the primary base of termite operations. With their roots reaching out far and wide, a stump can easily become the nest and launching pad for a termite attack on your home. If you have a stump, get rid of it. You should also prune any tree limbs that come in direct contact with the house. Insects-not to mention animals-will use the branches as a highway on-ramp into your home.

Next, ensure that the wood around your home never comes in direct contact with the ground. Myles warns that wooden retaining walls, flower boxes and even a doghouse can be open invitations for ground-dwelling termites, which bore tunnels directly from the soil into their food supply. Along with the bottom of stair risers, all of these items should be elevated on patio stones or paved pads.

Woodpiles are another potential problem. Not only are they a food source, you can accidentally bring these insects directly into the home on infested wood. Again, elevate your firewood or store it on the concrete floor of a detached garage, and keep it as far from the house as possible.

Ants

“To ant-proof [your home] is virtually impossible,” says Brett MacKillop, vice-president of Abell Pest Control in Toronto. You can, however, make it less inviting. Inspect for tight seals on window and door weatherstripping, functioning door sweeps and hole-free screens. Loose weatherstripping at the bottom of garage doors is another avenue for insect (and rodent) entry. If you haven't already mammal-proofed your exterior, follow the same steps explained above to seal holes and cracks in the walls.

If you already have an infestation, you have to go on the attack. Ideally, you'll want to locate the insects' nest, although MacKillop admits this is often “like trying to find a needle in a haystack.” With carpenter ants, the main nest may actually be outside, as much as 60 metres away. When the colony grows to about 10,000 ants in size, it will establish “satellite” colonies, often in the walls of your home. In some cases, however, you can actually hear the bugs rustling around.Since ants and termites target water-damaged wood, inspect suspect areas around plumbing fixtures, the dishwasher and anywhere that you've had water damage. If you do manage to find it, physically remove the nest where possible. (Of course, if you're in doubt about whether the lumber is load-bearing, leave it alone.) Otherwise, you or an exterminator will have to apply insecticides directly to it.

Felicia Ratiu's second call of the day was to a home with a heavy infestation of carpenter ants. Her investigation led her to believe the house had become home to a satellite colony. She sprayed all the baseboards with a residual pesticide that kills the ants when they walk through it, and injected an oil-based fogging spray into duct vents and behind electrical outlets that kills on contact. (Homeowners are advised to leave the premises for at least four hours, or overnight if they have respiratory problems.)

The final component of bug-proofing your home is regular and thorough housecleaning. Carpenter ants, for example, don't actually eat the wood they tunnel through. They feed on scraps of food they find in the house.

Preventing disease

The critters mentioned in this article can do more than harm your home. Many can be bad for your health, particularly for children, the elderly and the infirm. Here are some of the viruses you should be wary of and how to avoid them.

Hantavirus A virus found in the urine, feces and saliva of deer mice and other rodents. When inhaled, the viral spores cause a flu-like infection that is potentially fatal. Wear a HEPA-filter mask, gloves and coveralls when cleaning up mice carcasses, nests and droppings. Rinse down the area with bleach and water.

Histoplasmosis A respiratory infection caused by inhaling the spores of a fungus that grows on bird and bat droppings found in humid areas (such as an attic). “I've been in places that have colonies of 1,000 bats in a house or cottage,” says bat expert Bill Scully. “I've seen guano more than a foot high.” To clean up small amounts, wear a HEPA-filter mask, gloves and coveralls, and rinse down the area with bleach. For foot-high cleanup jobs, hire professionals.

Rabies While you may think of mad dogs foaming at the mouth, all mammals are susceptible to species-specific strains of the rabies virus. Rabid raccoons crossed the St. Lawrence River into Canada in the late 1990s, and now the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources is undergoing an extensive control campaign. Bats, skunks and foxes are other commonly afflicted animals. If you suspect an animal is infected-the most obvious symptom in wildlife is lack of natural fear of humans-contact your local animal control department, wildlife ministry or office of the federal Canadian Food Inspection Agency.


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