Pest Control Guides
Plain-English help with ants, seasonal upkeep and choosing a service, plus the pest control words you may hear on a visit.
Guides for Homes Around Orlando
Plenty of pest trouble can be sorted out before anyone visits. Knowing which ant is crossing the counter, what the wings on a windowsill mean, or what to fix around the house before the summer rains often settles the first step, whether you own a house or rent a condo.
- Ants in the House Work out which ant you have from where it shows up, then take the right first steps.
- Seasonal Pest Prevention A month-by-month upkeep routine for Central Florida’s wet and dry seasons.
- Choosing a Pest Control Service One-time treatments, recurring plans and termite work compared, with what shapes the cost.
Where to Begin With a Pest Problem
Start from what is in front of you. If ants are already inside, the kind of ant decides the first step: ghost ants by the sink, carpenter ants out at night and fire ants in the lawn are each handled differently, and spraying the wrong one can split a colony into several.
If nothing is wrong yet, prevention is mostly a matter of timing. The wet season, roughly June to September, brings mosquitoes, flooded ant nests and roaches looking for dry ground, and the cooler months send rats and mice indoors.
If you are comparing companies or plans, look at what each kind of service is for before you look at the cost. A one-time treatment, a recurring plan and termite work solve different problems.
And if your question is about the visit itself, such as getting the house ready or keeping pets out of the way, look through the questions about visits.
Look Up a Pest Control Term
Type part of a word, or pick the letter it starts with, to see what it means.
Type a word or pick a letter, then press Find Terms.
Glossary of Pest and Treatment Terms
These are words you may hear from a technician or read on a quote or a product label, explained in everyday language.
- Aedes mosquito
- A small black-and-white mosquito that breeds in containers like plant saucers, bromeliads and gutters, and bites by day.
- Bait station
- A small closed container of bait for ants, roaches or rodents that keeps the bait off counters and floors.
- Bromeliad
- A spiky plant common in Florida yards whose leaf cups hold rainwater, where mosquitoes breed unless the cups are flushed weekly.
- Budding
- How ghost ants and similar ants spread: workers, often with a queen, split off to start a new nest nearby. Sprays can set it off.
- Conducive conditions
- Things that help pests settle in, such as wood touching soil, leaks, mulch piled against a wall or standing water.
- Crack-and-crevice treatment
- Placing a small amount of product into the cracks, gaps and voids where pests hide, instead of across open surfaces.
- Drywood termite
- A termite that lives inside dry wood, such as trim, furniture or attic framing, with no soil contact. It leaves pellets, not mud tubes.
- Formosan termite
- A subterranean termite that builds very large colonies. Its swarmers fly on warm late-spring evenings and gather around lights.
- Frass
- Insect droppings. From drywood termites it looks like tiny hard pellets, often in small piles under a hole in the wood.
- Gel bait
- Bait in paste form, set in small drops in the cracks and corners where roaches or ants travel and feed.
- German roach
- A small light-brown roach with two dark stripes behind its head. It lives and breeds indoors, mainly in kitchens and bathrooms.
- Ghost ant
- A tiny ant with a dark head and pale, almost see-through legs and body, often trailing along kitchen counters.
- Gnaw marks
- Chewed edges on wood, plastic, wiring or food packages, left by rats and mice. Fresh marks look pale and rough.
- Harborage
- A place where pests hide and rest: behind appliances, inside walls, under sinks, in clutter or in mulch.
- Insect growth regulator
- A product that keeps young insects from growing into breeding adults, often shortened to IGR.
- Integrated pest management
- An approach that starts with inspection and prevention, like sealing gaps and fixing moisture, and treats only where pests are. Often called IPM.
- Kick-out hole
- A tiny round hole that drywood termites use to push their pellets out of the wood.
- Label directions
- The instructions on a pest control product: where it may go, how much to use and who should stay away. In the trade, “the label is the law.”
- Larvicide
- A product that kills mosquito larvae in standing water that cannot simply be emptied, such as an ornamental pond.
- Mud tube
- A pencil-wide tunnel of soil that subterranean termites build up a foundation or wall to reach wood without drying out.
- Non-repellent
- A treatment insects cannot sense, so they walk through it and carry it back to the colony instead of avoiding it.
- Ootheca
- A roach egg case: a small brown capsule holding many eggs. German roaches carry theirs until the eggs are about to hatch.
- Palmetto bug
- What people in Florida call the American roach: a large reddish-brown roach that lives outdoors in mulch, palms and drains and wanders inside.
- Perimeter treatment
- A band of treatment along the foundation and around doors and windows, meant to stop pests before they get in.
- Re-entry time
- How long people and pets should stay out of a treated area. For many sprays it lasts until the surface has dried.
- Residual
- A treatment that keeps working for some time after it is applied, rather than only on contact.
- Rub marks
- Dark, greasy smudges along walls, beams and pipes where rats and mice brush past on the same route night after night.
- Satellite colony
- A smaller nest linked to a main ant colony, such as carpenter ants in a wall while the main nest is in a tree outside.
- Snap trap
- A spring-loaded trap that kills a rat or mouse when it touches the trigger, set along walls where rodents run.
- Soffit
- The underside of the roof overhang. Gaps and loose vent screens there let roof rats, wasps and bees into the attic.
- Soil treatment
- A liquid termite treatment placed in the soil along and under the foundation, so termites coming up from the ground meet it first.
- Subterranean termite
- A termite that nests in the soil and reaches wood through mud tubes, such as the Eastern subterranean termite and the Formosan termite.
- Swarmer
- A winged termite or ant that leaves its colony to start a new one. Swarmers or shed wings indoors point to a colony nearby.
- Tamper-resistant station
- A locked bait station that children and pets cannot open, used wherever children or pets could reach rodent bait.
- Weep hole
- A small opening at the bottom of a brick wall or window frame that lets water drain out. It should be screened, never sealed.
Problems That Need a Closer Look
No guide can see your house. If the problem is new to you, or it keeps coming back after the upkeep, describe it when you book an appointment, or call and talk it through. A clear photo of the insect, the droppings or the damage, sent by email, says a lot before anyone arrives.
If you cannot put a name to what you are seeing, call and describe it.