Month: March 2020

It doesn’t get cold enough in Tennessee for all the pests to go away, but there will be a resurgence soon. The types of pests we will be seeing a lot more of soon are ants, spiders, wasps, and mosquitoes. There will also be more activity from pests you won’t see, like subterranean termites, carpenter ants, and mice. Now is a good time to start thinking about pest control, and a good place to start is with a good spring clean. Let’s take a look at how your spring cleaning can affect pest activity.

Spring Cleaning Addresses Attractants

There are many reasons bugs and wild animals will come into your yard. Your spring cleaning addresses many of them. Here’s how:

• Removing clutter will eliminate harborage options and hiding places for a wide range of potential pests.

• Removing items from your yard that capture water can have an impact on moisture pests and make it more difficult for mosquitoes to breed in your yard.

• Trimming your grass and raking up any leaves or debris will reduce moisture and remove locations that moisture pests hang out.

• Getting rid of spider webs can prevent hundreds of spiderlings from hatching near your home.

• Cleaning your gutters will allow rainwater to flow down and away from your home and prevent the dampness pest are looking for. It also helps to prevent wood rot which will attract wood-destroying pests to your Nashville home.

Spring Cleaning Gives You A Reason To Do An Inspection

When you get out into your yard to do improvements and clean things up, you’re likely to notice pests that might have gone unnoticed, such as wasps attempting to build a nest under the roofline of your shed or yellow jackets coming and going from a hole in your yard. A good spring inspection is an important first step for getting control of pests for the year. Be sure to check often-forgotten places.

Spring Cleaning Repairs

When you repair areas that are rotting, or you seal gaps, cracks and holes, you won’t just be improving your curb appeal, you’ll be creating a stronger barrier to keep pests out of your home. A good tool for sealing potential entry points is a caulking gun. You can use it to fill in holes created by mice, rats, carpenter ants and other pests that damage wood. You can use it to seal gaps around your window and door frames. It is a versatile tool. If you have a large hole, you might need to use expanding foam. For foundation cracks, a polyurethane crack injection repair kit can give you a quick solution. Be sure to seal gaps inside your kitchen and pantry, especially in moisture points.

Interior Cleaning

When pests get into your home and find it nice and clean, many of them are going to have less reason to stay. Food is a strong motivator. Deep cleaning can remove organic matter that pests feed on. Your cleaning efforts will not go unnoticed by pests.

After Your Spring Cleaning

Once you’ve done what you can do (or even before), reach out to All-American Pest Control and look into our residential pest control options. It can make a big difference to have a knowledgeable service professional doing routine inspections all year long to identify trouble areas and provide your exterior with appropriate maintenance and seasonal treatments to reduce pest populations. Spring is a great time to get started with perimeter pest control, termite protection, and the reduction of biting insects, like mosquitoes. It’s nice to have a helping hand—especially when that helping hand knows all about Tennessee pests. Get in touch with us today. Our licensed and experienced service team members are standing by to assist you with all your pest control needs.  

It can be scary when you come home from grabbing groceries at the store to find thousands of winged insects crawling on your home, especially if you know that spring is the time of year when termite colonies send swarmers out. Termites are destructive pests that can literally eat you out of house and home. Today, we’re going to give you a few ways to tell the difference between winged ants and termite swarmers so you can prevent termites from making a meal out of your Donelson home.

If It Looks Like An Ant

When you see winged insects that look like ants with wings, they’re probably ants with wings. This may sound oversimplified, but it’s true. A winged ant is just an ant with wings, and you can probably pick an ant out in a lineup of insects even if there is a termite in that lineup. Ants have three distinct body parts: head, thorax and abdomen. At the waist of an ant, between the thorax and abdomen, there is a significant pinch. Termites do not have this pinched waist. It almost looks as if a termite only has two body parts.

Winging It

You don’t have to wing it when it comes to telling winged ants and termite swarmers apart. The wings of a termite swarmer are quite distinct. They are so distinct, you should be able to identify a termite swarmer from a distance.

The wings of a termite swarmer are:

• White.

• Stacked on top of each other.

• Rounded at the tips.

• Twice as long as a termite warmer.

• The wings of an ant are:

• Yellowish.

• Split, with two stacked on one side and two on the other.

• Split by a cleft at the tips.

Wingless Ants

If you see lots of winged insects mingling with wingless ants, you’re looking at ant swarmers, not termites. Termite swarmers would not be mingling with ants. What you’re seeing are winged ants that shed their wings after mating. The ants that still have their wings haven’t mated yet.

What It Means When You See Swarmers

Termite swarms do not last long or travel far. When swarmers appear on the outside of your home, it is an indicator that you may have a colony of termites somewhere nearby. While it is possible that you don’t have an infestation, it is also possible that at least one colony of termites is already feeding on your home. Termites quietly feed on the inside of wood without revealing themselves. It is scary but true.

You should also be aware that a colony of termites doesn’t produce termite swarmers until it has matured. This can take three or four years. That means it is possible that those termites have had years to damage your property.

There is more bad news. Swarmers have a job to do. They swarm for a short period of time, select a mate, pair off, and establish new nests. If you’re seeing swarmers on the outside of your home, some of those swarmers could have already paired off and started new nests on your property. If they have, you might see shed wings lying around.

What To Do If You See Termite Swarmers

If you determine that you have termite swarmers crawling on your Donelson home, you should contact All-American Pest Control immediately. We have the experience and track record to give your home the protection it needs to eliminate termite colonies that attempt to attack your home. We would love the opportunity to guide you in this important protection for your property. Reach out to us today. We’re standing by to assist you.

At All-American Pest Control, we’re committed to providing our customers with the highest level of pest control while using the least amount of pest control products. This alone is enough reason to choose green pest control solutions. But you might be surprised to know that green pest control isn’t just gentle on the environment, it often produces results that last longer. Here are a few things to consider.

Spiders Vs. Green Pest Control

Do you know that a spider can lay more than 300 eggs in its web? If you have webs on the exterior of your home, you have the potential for hundreds (or even thousands) of spiders to emerge. Spraying your exterior in an attempt to kill spiders is just not the best way to deal with them. That is why we have added spider web removal to our pest control services. Our service team members use a long pole to get spider webs in hard-to-reach places. This removes eggs from your exterior and prevents all of those little spiderlings from hatching. It also looks nice. See? It’s a win-win!

Termites Vs. Green Pest Control

Are you aware that subterranean termites feed almost exclusively on the inside of wood, and that they can damage a home for years without being detected? This makes it hard to treat them. Pest control companies that inject termiticides into walls must remove outlet covers or drill holes to get that product in there. Our service team installs the Sentricon® System with Always Active™. This amazing, award-winning termite colony elimination system uses the natural behavior patterns of worker termites against the colony that sent them. The worker termites that are in your walls go in and out of your home. As they go out, some of them will continue to look for food sources. When they do, they find the bait stations with the Sentricon® bait. They feed on the bait and share the active ingredient with the other termites in their colony. This works to eliminate the colony. No more colony, no more termite damage. Green pest control doesn’t just address the symptoms of a pest problem. It is often a permanent solution that stops the pest problem at its source.

Mixing Traditional Pest Control With Green Pest Control

When it comes to protecting a home from dangerous pests, like mosquitoes, ticks, etc. It is sometimes necessary to use mists and granules to achieve the level of control necessary to reduce the threat of illness. We mix traditional treatments with green pest control to find the right balance to ensure the protection of health and property. We also work with our customers to find the right balance for their specific needs. Some folks are more sensitive to the use of pest control products. In these cases, we select botanical solutions, or apply essential oils to solve issues. In all cases, we seek to provide the highest level of control with the least amount of chemicals.

Green Pest Control In Hendersonville

If green pest control is important to you, connect with us. We would love to tell you all of the many ways our service team members achieve great results for Hendersonville homeowners using smart green pest control solutions. We can also schedule to have someone visit your home, perform a pest control inspection, and provide you with an evaluation. A free home evaluation is a good first step in getting control of the pests that can impact the health of your family and the health of your home. Drop us a line today.

Do you know someone who dedicates themselves to making our families, schools, churches or community better? Do you know someone who is hardworking, and who has the heart of a servant? If so, you may be able to show them how much you appreciate them. How? By nominating them for the 2020 Hometown Hero Award from All-American Pest Control. Not only do we celebrate the winner for all they have done, they receive 10 years of FREE pest control, mosquito reduction, termite protection, and yard treatments! Here’s what you need to know most about this award.

What qualifications do we look for in a hometown hero?

We look for someone who upholds the same core values we do here at All-American Pest Control, values that define who we are and what matters most to us. These values are reliability, remarkable service, teamwork, respect, thoughtful innovation, and servant leadership.  We’re looking for someone like last year’s recipient, Coach Bill Robinson of Watertown, Tennessee. Coach Robinson worked as a teacher and a coach in the Wilson County School System for more than 37 years. Now, he serves as a board member for zone 2 on the Wilson County School Board. He attends commission meetings, finance meetings, and other committee meetings to stay informed of all facets of our local government, so he can make well-informed decisions for teachers, students, parents, and the taxpayers in our community. He is a tremendous mentor and a role model for students and athletes of the Wilson County School System. We love good people like Coach Robinson, and we look forward to crowning a new Hometown Hero Award-recipient for 2020 who inspires us as much as he does.

What is the deadline for nomination?

If you have someone in mind, you’ll have to nominate them before 8 p.m. on Thursday, April 30th, 2020. You can do this by going to our Hometown Hero Award page.

Who is eligible to receive this award?

Any individual who meets our qualifications, and who lives in Davidson, Williamson, Maury, Dickson, Rutherford, Wilson, Montgomery, or Sumner country.

When will the winner be announced?

We will hold an event on Thursday, May 14th to honor the winner.

Tell Us About Your Hero

If you know someone deserving of this award, let us know. We look forward to hearing from you. And we can’t wait to let you know who we select this year!