Try pest prevention first, remove sources of food, water and shelter, store food in sealed plastic or glass containers. Repair leaking pipes and don't allow water to build up anywhere in the house. Clutter provides places for pests to breed and hide and makes it difficult to get rid of them. Pest control involves more than simply identifying a pest and using a control tactic.
The treatment site, whether an outdoor area or within a structure, generally contains other living organisms (such as people, animals, and plants) and non-living environments (such as air, water, structures, objects, and surfaces). All of this could be affected by the pest control measures you choose. Unless you consider possible system-wide effects in which the pest exists. Your pest control effort could cause damage or cause new or ongoing pest problems.
Trust your own judgment and, when pesticides are part of the strategy, on pesticide labeling. Using threshold information can improve your pest control strategy by helping you make a decision about when to start control tactics. Two examples of organic materials for pest control include Spinosad (specifically for insect control) and kaolin clay, an ingredient used in insecticides and materials for disease control. Monitoring is important to many pest control strategies, because it helps determine if the threshold has been reached and if control measures have been effective.
Continuous pests are almost always present and require regular control; sporadic pests are migratory, cyclic, or other occasional pests that require control from time to time, but not on a regular basis; potential pests are organisms that are not pests under normal conditions, but that can become pests and require control under certain circumstances. This was the first highly successful case in which an alien plague was controlled by introducing its natural enemies from a foreign land, a technique that is now known as classical biological control. Unfortunately, natural controls often don't control pests quickly or completely enough to prevent unacceptable injury or damage. In homes, people generally take steps to control some pests, such as rodents or cockroaches, even if only one or a few have been seen.
Devices, machines, and other methods used to control pests or alter their environment are called mechanical or physical controls.
