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Thanks for the words of advice. I actually didn't see anymore ants today, but we did find another big roach in the basement while doing laundry, once again around dark (9PM). I'm petrified of what might pop out tonight if I happen to have to get up.
We have a pest control company coming tomorrow to do an inspection, I'll keep everyone updated once I know more.
If I were OP, I would get the house and yard professionally exterminated. Start off with a clean slate.
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Originally Posted by CarnivalGal
Call an exterminator. Totally worth the money. Actually, it probably won't cost more than all the do-it-yourself stuff you would have to buy, not to mention the time savings. And they almost all offer a guarantee, so they will come back out for free if you are still having problems.
Just call a pest control company. They'll come and inspect, and spray. They can do the house and the yard, and usually will want to spray on a regular basis, like every 2 months or quarterly.
Get one that will come back out and spray again for free if the problem is not corrected with the first spraying.
The best guy we ever had was actually a trained entomologist. He could tell us all about the habits of certain bugs.
If you're leery of chemicals, look for a "green" pest control company. They treat with things like orange oil and peppermint.
Also, make sure you get the house treated regularly for termite prevention.
It's getting warmer now, so bugs are going to start appearing. They're a bummer here in Texas.
carpenter ants can do major damage, just like termites, chew right through the wood
my uncle one day sitting in the kitchen of my grandma's house (old house) saw an ant on the ceiling and he stood up and brushed it with his fingers, and a good portion of the ceiling came down and literally fell on the kitchen table, ceiling plaster, tons of ants and the sawdust remains of beams that had been eaten through by the ants
as others have said, pest control is your friend, well worth the cost, and have them return on a regular basis.
well worth it.
one of the companies we used said they'd show us how to do some of the treatments ourselves, since they'd already drilled the small holes all around the house on the outside, and it just entailed re-adding the spray or liquid or whatever into the holes, he told us what to buy and how to apply it. we tried it but decided we'd rather keep using the company, i didn't want to mess with handling and storing it.
Thanks for the words of advice. I actually didn't see anymore ants today, but we did find another big roach in the basement while doing laundry, once again around dark (9PM). I'm petrified of what might pop out tonight if I happen to have to get up.
Oh, honey -- down here in the South we make pets out of 'em and give them names! :-)
Seriously though, I understand the repugnance. Just kill the damn thing and move on, and keep up with your pest control. Roaches (or "palmetto bugs" as they are quaintly referred to in the Deep South) are a fact of life. It's a bug. Nothing more. It doesn't have an agenda or is planning world domination -- although there are a lot of theories that they will be the last to go extinct because they are so good at adapting. :-)
we went with pest control company here too . The termites are what scare the crap outta me . But I know enough that I don't want roaches in my house either because of the dieseases they carry .
This happened to us with our current house. It was a FSBO and the owner had a lot of pride of ownership and even bragged about the fact that despite being in the south, they had NO bugs in their home, to the point where they didn't need a pest control service.
We moved in and oh boy, the BUGS. They were EVERYWHERE in the house. Constantly. It was a daily battle against spiders, silverfish, earwigs, centipedes, millipedes. It was horrible. It felt like a horror movie.
Called in a pest control service company who promptly treated the indoors and outdoors. Added termite traps all around the outside perimeter of the house as a precaution. We've now been in the house 10 years and in that time we maybe get 5-10 bugs in the house throughout the entire year, thanks to quarterly sprays from the pest control company.
I live in northeast Texas and would expect to have a bug problem, but we don't - not in the house, anyway. We do have a contract with an exterminating company and apparently it's effective - we had them come out before we moved in and then once a year or so.
We live across the street from a creek, and when we moved in, the mosquitos were terrible. TERRIBLE. We couldn't even enjoy our porches or patios. So we hired an mosquito control company - they come out and spray our yard once every three weeks. This is VERY effective. We can sit outside all summer long now. We're just a little spoiled by using a service because you can buy the stuff and spray it yourself and I'm sure it's less expensive and I've heard it's effective that way too.
I haven't seen a single spider in the house and we've lived here two years. Also, no roaches. But when I lived in a very old house that was pier and beam, we did have those large roaches occasionally (the smaller, more invasive, more awful ones - the light brown ones - are the German ones and those are the ones that can reach infestation stage - AUGH). They always freaked me out but they were not at any sort of infestation stage - I'd see one about every couple of weeks. Still - no bueno. However, I'm not sure you can ever get completely rid of them in an older house but an exterminating company can sure knock them for a loop!
Maybe the reason we don't have many bugs or spiders in our yard or house is because we DO have snakes - I found one on my patio just the other day. We've found three or four in our backyard in the past two years - they were all non poisonous and small and I just shooed them away. I want them to stay in the yard because they do tend to keep other pests away. But I don't want them in the house!
The very first thing that we do when we buy a house is to bug bomb the whole place. Easy to do while it's empty, and then I wipe everything down. Gives you a great idea of what you're dealing with. We did that with this house and then a few months later had a problem with small ants. The root of this problem has a lot to do with landscaping too close to the house and the need for some caulk wherever we can find a tiny gap once we remove the bushes. Meanwhile we called our favorite exterminator to come out and give us a short term fix, which has worked beautifully. So kill what you can, hire a professional, figure out a long term solution, and make it happen.
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