Professional pest control across Reading
Pests can have additional hazards that can affect your health and your business - don't accept pests, control them!
Having a problem with pests in Reading? We have the solution for you.
Any insect pest poses a hazard to either you, your family, or your workforce, largely through the uncontrolled nature of its actions and movements of whatever pest is sharing your space. All pest infestations are best tackled early, the approach of waiting and hoping that things will ‘work themselves out’ is not really taking control of the situation and that is what we do. Have you noticed that in America they call us exterminators but here in the UK we are called pest controllers?
This blog is a brief rundown of all the different hazards posed by insect pests, any pest left to its own devices is an uncontrolled situation which means that you have no way of managing any risk and that is not a healthy place to be as you will find out.
Hazards from cockroaches
Cockroaches are our Number 1 insect pest as far as the degree of potential harm and risk goes, whether it’s a domestic household setting or a restaurant, cockroaches are seriously bad news. Firstly, they will walk across just about every surface so they will spread bacteria everywhere; if the cockroaches have access to a drain, potentially they are walking through faeces one minute, then across your kitchen worktops the next. Young cockroaches, called nymphs, will manage to squeeze through the seal of fridge doors meaning that you can find them inside the actual fridge feeding on half opened packets of food.
One of the main risks from cockroaches is from their faeces, cockroach infestations are rarely noticed in the beginning, so this gives the chance for their faeces to build up. As they breakdown a protein is released into the atmosphere and these proteins cause respiratory problems which may trigger an asthma attack, the proteins also cause diarrhoea and can lead to food poisoning.
If you run a business establishment and you are found to have a cockroach infestation by the Councils’ Environmental Health Department you most likely will be closed down and you face going to Court, a large financial penalty along with the loss of business and most importantly, a blow to your reputation that could ruin your business for good. Something as simple as a monitoring contract from a pest control company can prevent this and all pest control companies provide this service.
Hazards from wasps
Our Number 2 insect pest and for good reason, wasps are a summer pest and if a nest is ignored through the early months of the colony’s development, instead of a couple of hundred wasps to deal with you may end up with thousands of these stinging insects. Wasp stings are painful; just ask any pest controller as it’s an occupational hazard for us as we can inadvertently encounter a wasp nest when looking for other pests such as rats in a loft, accidentally disturbing a wasp nest in the process and triggering an aggressive response.
The trouble with wasps is that they react in an highly aggressive manner, when a wasp nest is disturbed the individual wasps release a pheromone which provokes any other wasps nearby. They get worked up into such a fury you can often see venom dripping out of their stinger when they’re in flight; at this point I’m wearing my protective suit, but you can feel your blood pressure surge!
If a wasp stings at this point another pheromone is released which increases the rage in the others and this is when somebody who is unprotected would get multiple stings, and wasp venom can be fatal. When we get stung by a wasp, our immune system releases histamine and this can be a problem in itself as this can cause a severe allergic reaction known as anaphylaxis which can have fatal consequences in around 2% of the population.
If you’ve never been stung by a wasp then you have no idea if you will develop this reaction and for those people who have been stung, we don’t develop an immunity to wasp stings but quite the reverse. The more you get stung the worse the reactions get until such time that you are facing a severe reaction, I know of pest controllers who have given up treating wasps due to their increasing intolerance to the venom. So wasps are more of a risk that you’d think, dealing with a wasp nest early on is the best advice and getting a professional pest controllers to do it for you is the best course of action.
Hazards from ants
Ants? Do ants pose a risk to us? Well yes of course they do, just like cockroaches, ants will walk everywhere in the search for food and so they spread bacteria in kitchens and pose another problem for commercial properties, where they can be a health hazard. Ants can also inflict a painful bite, and some may have the ability to sting as well so all in all, although a major nuisance they can pose a risk and so should be controlled when inside buildings.
There are different types of native ants most of which are a nuisance but it’s the exotic invasive species that pose the problem.
Fire Ants – not the south American species called this for their painful sting which incidentally are now spread throughout the southern states of north America and causing major problems. These are an Asian species of ant that has a liking for electricity and will build their nests in electrical junction boxes. The build-up of ant bodies brushing against electrical contacts causes short circuits in electrical equipment and they have been the cause of several fires.
Pharaoh ants – these are a tiny ant that hails from Africa and again they will walk through contaminated surfaces spreading bacteria onto clean ones; the big problem with Pharaoh ants is their biology and certain unique traits that make these tiny ants a major issue. Pharaoh ants are about 2mm in length making them the smallest ant in the UK and they infest warm buildings; modern blocks of flats, offices and hospitals are all places to find these ants.
Pharaoh ants are extremely clever in that rather than using a positive pheromone to lead other ants to food sources, these ants use a negative pheromone to keep their brood mates away from hazards. If you purchase over the counter pesticides to tackle these ants, they will move the colony away from the treated area and when this happens a defence mechanism kicks in. The worker ants will start to produce more Queens from the eggs and then take these away to form sperate colonies; this is known as budding. Because these colonies are all related, they work together to find food with workers from one colony feeding those from another; your single ant colony is now a network of ‘clones’ and so the infestation escapes any form of control. They have found Pharaoh ant that spread for hundreds of miles in the Mediterranean; all of the ants shared the same DNA and worked together.
The biggest hazard posed by these ants is that they infest hospitals where they do two gross things; firstly, they invade sterile areas getting onto surgical instruments and secondly, they feed on open sores with patients being bitten. As a rule never attempt to treat these ants yourself get in a professional pest controller as soon as you notice them, if you do attempt to treat these ants you will only make things worse and harder for professional control
Hazards from fleas
Fleas are a common parasite on pet dogs and cats and it’s important to keep your pets free of these pests as they pose a risk to us, as fleas are carriers or vectors of disease. Something as simple as having fleas on your dog can be a major risk as they transmit the bacteria that causes typhus.
Cats and dogs also pick-up ticks, which generally speaking is a veterinary issue it would be wrong not to mention the hazards from ticks. Ticks are found all over the UK and they are a type of bloodsucking parasite and when they bite, they pass on a small amount of infected material that enters our bloodstream.
We are seeing the start of chemical resistance in fleas to pesticides, the best way to combat this is to change the active ingredient on your flea control treatments from time to time.
Hazards from bedbugs
Without a shadow of doubt these insects pose one of the biggest hazards to us in a way that many people would not appreciate, having an infestation of bed bugs affects our mental health in the most detrimental way. For a start its not something that you can go to work and share with work colleagues around the coffee machine, so people are left isolated with their problem.
We often see infestations that have gotten completely out of hand and its only when a member of the extended family intervenes that action gets taken; this is usually in the elderly and I would think that they feel that having bed bugs is a reflection of themselves: the word dirty is often used.
Bed bugs have nothing to do with hygiene, quite simply these are blood sucking parasites that are especially adapted to live with us and are highly successful, studies show that right across the globe, bed bug infestations are becoming more common and so we as pest controllers should dispel some of the myths about these pests.
A bed bug infestation will lead to sleeplessness, stress from having repeated bites and dealing with the mess from the blood spotting, an allergic response to the bites, shame and in some cases deeper-seated psychological issues. Roughly 80% of people with a bed bug infestation will suffer some form of mental anguish ranging from insomnia, distress to anxiety.
Human beings are REM sleepers; we are one of the few animals that sleeps in a bed and that should be our safe place where we can rest and recharge, when you’re faced with getting into a bed with bed bugs, you will not feel that way. I know from experience having had to sleep in a hotel bed (the last available room) with bed bugs; when I travel I always check the beds, mattresses and the headboard and in this case I found one walking across the top sheet so I really didn’t have to look further. I don’t think that I slept for more than a few minutes at a time, constantly waking to turn the light on and check the bed, we got bitten but the bites were no worse than mosquito bites, however it was the mental aspect that took its toll.
That was for one night as we were traveling on from that hotel, imagine having to do that every night? In a household situation it’s no-good moving rooms, bed bugs detect CO2 so when they are hungry, they will track us and spread throughout the property, there literally is no hiding place from bed bugs.
The physical aspect of bed bugs themselves do not pose a threat as they do not carry disease and their bites are harmless, it’s the shame and the stress that pose the greatest risk to us, affecting our mental wellbeing. Bed bugs have evolved to live off mankind, they are extremely good at it and slowly developing resistance to the range of pesticides used in their control, this adds further distress to the victims as expensive treatments with the attached promise of sorting the problem may fail.
We always use heat when delivering our bed bug treatments and use this as the main mechanism of control, chemicals are used but only to mop up stragglers and we include a growth hormone that prevents young bed bugs reaching maturity and breeding. Together this approach will deliver guaranteed bed bug eradication.
Local pest control throughout the Reading area
Whatever the insect pest that you’re suffering from, we do offer free telephone advice and free surveys to let you know the extent of the infestation and what course of action we can take to get you pest free.
Don’t suffer in silence get the problem sorted with a professional pest controller.
