A lot of people consider spiders pests, and I will admit up front that I am not one of them. I can identify with the reasoning of people who want to condemn spiders as pests and get rid of them, but in my opinion the potential benefits of spiders far outweigh any negative factors that are chalked up to them. In this article we will look at some of the reasons spiders may be on a pest list, but we will also take a look at why spiders can be beneficial.

* They are scary. This is the number one reason why people don’t like spiders around. Let’s face it, with eight eyes, eight legs, webs, and a venomous bite, spiders aren’t the most endearing creatures. Many people are willing to condemn them on looks alone. (more…)

As pests go, there is probably none that receives more unfair publicity than the opossum. These creatures certainly meet a couple of the criteria attributed to pests (one being their ability to reproduce rapidly) but as pests go they are much more mild than most. Let’s take a look at some common areas where pests annoy people, and see which ones the possum fits into.

* Creepy. This is another area where the opossum fits the bill for most people. They look like really big rats, and a lot of people find that look unbearable. It’s important to note that possums are not rats, nor in fact rodents at all. Rather, they are marsupials, the only species of the group naturally found outside of Australia. With that said, the long naked tail, pointy face and teeth, and general body shape of the possum does indeed resemble a rat. Possums are actually much more benign creatures, though.

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As pests go, moths are probably less harmful than most. After all, they don’t carry or potentially carry a bunch of diseases, like cockroaches, flies, and rodents can, and they don’t pack a bite o0r sting like yellow jackets. In fact some people don’t mind having moths around at all; they may even consider them beautiful and nice additions around the house. Some species of moth are amazingly complex.

There are some moths that most people would consider pests, however. While most species of moth cause no harm either to people or to plants, a few can be downright costly for the homeowner. Let’s take a look at a few of the problems these species of moth can cause both inside and outside of the home.

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Lice have a bit of an undeservedly bad reputation. There are actually over 3,000 species of lice, some of them very beneficial to humans and our environment, but we tend to think of these little creatures only in their most negative sense, as the wingless creatures tend to stir up quite a bit of heat whenever they appear. Let’s take a look at some of the problems that lice cause in their pestilential forms.

* Social ostracisation. Nothing will get a kid laughed at quicker in school than the discovery of lice. No matter that lice are more likely to be found on clean hair than on dirty hair or that it is rarely the fault of the child, peers will inevitably mock any school mate who is sent home until a lice problem is cleared up. This can be pretty hard on any kid.

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Probably the most common pest that has to be dealt with in any household in North America is the fly. Both fruit flies and house flies grow to plague like populations in some areas of the continent during the warmer months. In this article, we will take a look at just what is the problem with the house fly. Keep in mind that when we talk about house flies we are talking about a few dozen different species, but in general the problems that come with flies are the same.

They are annoying

Most people will agree that the biggest problem with house flies is that they become extremely irritating. The noise of their wings is enough to get you running for a swatter during the day and can drive you insane at night time. They are unpleasant to look at, and it is disgusting to see a fly walking around on your food!

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Sometimes the best decision you can make when it comes to pest control is to find out what problems, exactly, you can expect when you find a specific pest taking up residence in your home or garden. In some cases you might find that you really don’t mind the “pest” at all.

Analysis of the situation is a big part of the integrated pest control management approach. It’s good to know what you can expect so you can make the decision about whether or not to call your local pest control company to take care of a pest. One common complaint is leveled at the gopher. I am sure that we all agree that in some cases gophers can indeed be pests, but let’s take a look at what exactly they do that is detrimental.

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Few species are more destructive than those that have been introduced by humans to areas instead of developing alongside the other species in the region, and there is no better example in the United States than that of the fire ant. There are a couple of different species of fire ant that have been imported to the country as well as a couple that occur naturally, and the imported species are rapidly increasing in number.

In addition to their ability to breed and adapt quickly, and the fact that they are incredibly tough insects, the fire ant probably packs more of a punch as a problem pest than any other insect. They may not yet have the population numbers or range of the common house fly, but where they occur they cause a number of different problems which run the gamut from the physical to the economical and even the ecological. Let’s take a look at the different problems that fire ants cause.

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Most species of ants are considered pests, but some deserve the reputation more fully than others. Fire ants are probably the worst kind of ant pest as far as their general evilness goes, but carpenter ants sit solidly in the middle, just above sugar ants. Let’s take a look at what it is about carpenter ants that qualify them as pests.

* No one likes to see ants. The first thing to look at when it comes to the carpenter ant is the same pest quality that applies to all ant species; ants have their place, but they are not in the home. No one likes to see a troop of ants going across their basement floor or around their windowsills, and all ants seem to have a way of finding any food you may have lying around, including fruit.

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Part of the approach when it comes to integrated pest management is understanding how and why a pest species is likely to show up around your home or garden. Once you know what kind of foods a pest prefers and where it is likely to make a home, you can use the knowledge to create preventative measures so that the particular pests don’t show up in huge numbers.

It’s important to note that integrated pest management strategy operates with the fundamental principle that pest species will not be annihilated. For decades peoples have worked to eliminate designated pest species, and most efforts have led to spectacular failure, even increasing the numbers of pests that we wished to eliminate! IPM means using the least toxic approach to pest control and preventing pest problems by denying pests their ideal conditions.

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The new approach to pest control is known as integrated pest management, and it is all about understanding how pests work and using that knowledge to limit their numbers. Limiting pest numbers using the integrated system means selecting the least toxic means of control possible, in order to minimize the potential harm to organisms other than the pest involved.

Integrated pest management also means recognizing that in many cases, total elimination of the pest in question is just not possible. Even with the incredibly dangerous and toxic campaigns used for the last five decades or so, no pest was ever totally eradicated; part of the secret of being a good pest is to be resistant to a lot of forms of poison control and so on, and to reproduce so quickly that some portion of the population is bound to survive. Pest control today is more about managing a certain number of pests to ensure that they do not get out of control; fortunately small mammals such as gophers are easy to manage in this way, and unlike insects smaller rodents may actually have a local population wiped out or at least forced to go elsewhere with good management. And the key to this management is prevention.

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