Crawl Space Encapsulation: More than Pest Prevention

In many areas of the pest management industry today, exterminators are following up on their work by encapsulating the crawl space.  Encapsulating a crawl space involves sealing all crawl space vents and doors with airtight covers, covering the crawl space walls and floors with a durable plastic crawl space liner, and, in the case of block foundation walls, adding a plastic covering over the open cavities of the blocks to keep humidity from filtering upwards through the crevice.  In some cases, the contractor may complete the job with a crawl space dehumidifier to remove residual humidity, or a crawl space sump pump if there’s been a history of flooding.

Why are pest management professionals encapsulating crawl spaces?  By sealing off the crawl space vents and doors, they prevent those from serving as access points for infestations of insects and animals that could reenter the space, causing problems in the area.  And lining the crawl space walls and floor with a polyethylene liner will also help to deter pests, such as subterranean termites, beetles, and carpenter ants, from entering the space through the foundation or floor.

A crawl space moisture barrier, in combination with a crawl space sump pump and dehumidifier when needed, will create a dry, healthier crawl space.  By removing humidity, the environment can become inhospitable to mold, dust mites, rot, and certain pests, such as the American Cockroach.  Foul, mildewy smells are reduced, and the smells of the animals, that live, create waste, and die in the area will be gone.

Crawl space encapsulation of a dirt or concrete crawl space- especially a vented one- will make the space much more energy-efficient.  By sealing off the vents, winter cold and summer heat are kept out of the space.  Cold winter air on furnaces, hot water pipes, and heating ducts located in the crawl space forces them to work harder just to maintain status quo, and a cold crawl space means a cold floor above.  In the summer, heat and humidity enter the space, where the humid air condensates on the wood and metal or travels upwards into the home.  Humid air is much harder to cool than dry air, and therefore more expensive to condition.

Swat Pest Management of Evansville Indiana has been working with the best pest control solutions in the IN area since they opened their doors for business in 1999, and they’re happy to share their professional experience with you.  If you’d like to learn more about encapsulating the crawl space and making the home a cleaner, healthier, and more energy-efficient space while eliminating potential pest problems, they can help.  Visit their web site for a free estimate, or call them at 800-391-5356 today!

More Phoenix Pests to Control – Springtails

A Springtail or Collembola issue came up recently. A Phoenix pest control customer with a severe case of springtails contacted me and went to her home to make a comprehensive inspection to see if we can alleviate the problem.

Adults and immature Springtails are generally 1/16th to 1/8th inch long and are gray or brown in color. They may be distinguished from other tiny insects because they have a projection or “tail” which they lock under their abdomen and release to “spring.” Springtails need high moisture in order to survive. Occasionally they build up in high numbers during wet years in irrigated areas. When this area dries up, they are attracted to the lights and moisture in yards, and may become severe nuisances in interiors.

As I always do, I like to prepare myself, before I go out on the inspection, so I pulled up information on the internet and found that I probably have better information than what I found available on the internet.

I like to look at Educational sites from entomology departments and cooperative extensions around the country because generally they have very good information produced by experts who study pests. However, I was surprised that I found a lot of out dated information that included advice on treatment with products that are no longer available or pulled from the market, as well as the home remedy advice that while simple may provide some temporary relief, such as a mixture of dishwashing liquid, vinegar or lemon juice to kill the pests in a environmentally friendly way. But there was little to no advice on getting to the source of the problem and much of the information was about exterior problems with springtails and a very limited amount of information on the interior of properties.

Based on the phone calls we receive at Invader Pest Management, it’s the problems on the inside of the house that get the phone’s ringing. People get frustrated with springtails because they are inside and everywhere!

So, let’s get to looking at this springtail issue: first of all whether inside or outside, springtails are a direct result of excessive moisture. So the first thing that I look for or a homeowner should look for is moisture. Of course, springtails are an introduced pest that could be brought into a home via potted plants, or a crack in the foundation, through open windows or exhaust fans and the infestation could and most certainly started outside. However, in most cases the customer is calling about the little bugs everywhere inside, in the bathroom, kitchen, laundry room, etc… are you seeing a pattern here? Moisture areas, right? They almost always say they see them in the sinks or around the drains.

The answer to the first question we always get is NO. No we can’t spray pesticides down the drain! Now that being said, along with scrubbing drain pipes, we do have environmentally and pipe friendly bio-remediation products that we can utilize in drains and they have been found to help reduce springtail problems by eating the buildup of fungus, mildew and mold. However we have had some cases where that wasn’t enough, and generally we have found there to be other moisture problems than just the drains.

Springtails thrive in humid areas and so does their food source. Springtails eat molds, mildews and fungus than can develop in areas that retain moisture content. Unfortunately, many of these potential sites can go unseen for a long time, and the problem gets worse even though the customer has tried everything, even numerous pest control companies in some cases.

I know that in Phoenix, Arizona we joke that, “it’s a dry heat”, so why would there be such a humidity issue? Well, that all depends, but some simple factors are, irrigation leaks not being fixed, sprinklers systems spraying to close or on the house, leaf litter and debris under bushes and shrubs holding moisture to ground, vines and trees growing on or to close to the structure, rain gutters clogged with debris, potted plants with drip irrigation with no catch basins, etc… all these items and more could be creating a moisture problem around your structure which could be the perfect breeding zone for springtails. On the inside, pipe leaks, floor drains not properly draining, cracks in tiled showers/tubs allow seepage inside walls, and simple sweat on the bottom of a tub from temperature difference of hot water in tub and cool air under it could keep it damp under the tub.

Anyway, lots of stuff here, and I hope that you see that when it comes to controlling springtails, it’s all about controlling the humidity and the food sources. Yes, there are some pest control options however the Integrated Pest Management (IPM) options such as inspection, sanitation, moisture control, mechanical repairs to moisture issues are much more likely to solve the problem than simply trying to spray away the pest.

If you find that you have all these tiny bugs around your sinks, drains, tubs, showers and you are tired of having to live with them, call Invader Pest Management at 623-435-0228 and we will be happy to put together an Invader IPM Program that will solve your pest problem, reduce the pesticides utilized around your properties, and guarantee you peace of mind, at least when it comes to Pests!!!

Related Pest Control Articles

My mother in law came to stay with us and 1 wk after she left I found a cockroach in my bathroom. Does that mean there’s more. Also the room she stayed in is right by the bathroom and where she was at before staying with us is infested with cockroaches. What do I do?

Fumigation used to result in hundreds of dead cockroaches leeching out of the cracks and dropping to the floor .. new pesticides are useless i haven’t come across one dead body.
I have used a wide range of products to rid myself of german roaches, have hired and payed for hundreds of dollars of domestic pest control services and can honestly say that my coffee cup catches more roaches than all of them combined.
Restaurant friends, who had success with their own pest erradications, suggested I hire a company who erradicates pests to industry standards ..ie..for restaurants, motels, and some very well known resorts etc.
I figured if it was good enough for them it was going to work for me.
The company in question travelled from another city and took aprox 3 hrs to fumigate my house interior/exterior and workshed, it was very expensive but i didn’t care so long as the treatment worked.
Sadly..I still had roaches!!
I’ve lost faith in all exterminators since then they simply Don’t Work!.. and i refuse to pay for services i have NOT received.
Are they using different strengths of chemical for domestic areas than they do in Commercial Areas?

I used to play runescape, just every now and then, after a while, I got into it, and decided to start really playing, you know like daily. I later decided to become a pure, and i need to know which helps with strength experience more, pest control or killing rock crabs. If you dont have time to answer this question, you may add me on runescape. My username is :
V A R 1 A L.

In .177 caliber what would be better for small game hunting or pest control? A rifle with FPS upwards of 1000 but the accuracy isn’t very good, or an air rifle with FPS around 600 that has dead on accuracy? Also, please answer this question for rifles in .22 caliber.

I’ve set out wooden and disposable traps and caught a few. But I still see more mice. So i set out more traps but somehow they are not getting trap. How? Im tired of mice! Please help me!
I dont want a cat and im not using poison

Many people have dreamy ideas about what their lawn ought to look like. They imagine the picturesque lawn with absolutely no weeds and lush, vibrant grass with no bare spots. However, this is an unattainable goal, and the purpose of lawn care products isn’t to achieve the perfect look but to make your yard look the best that it can. The best lawn care products help you to get a great (although probably not perfect) looking yard without using too much in the way of somewhat toxic (only toxic at concentrated levels) substances. In short, the best looking yard with the least amount of chemicals.

Not Always the Costliest

The secret about the best lawn care products is that they don’t always cost the most out of all the lawn care products. In fact, many of the more expensive treatments aren’t as effective. Treating a yard should never take more than two to three hundred dollars a year, and you can save much of that if you just buy the products and apply them yourself anyway. With the best lawn care products, you don’t need to worry about the toxicity of the substances that you’re applying to your yard either. At the very low concentration at which lawn care products are applied, you would need to roll around in the still-wet-from-the-herbicide grass for hours to get sick. After all, thousands upon thousands lawn treatment professionals who use these very same best lawn care products work with them everyday and don’t get sick from them. However, you may want to make sure that they use pet safe lawn care products if you have some pet toys lying around the yard. Your dog Toto might become sick if picking up his tennis ball with toxic lawn care products sprayed on it.

Worse than the toxicity of many substances is the fact that they are designed to not break down, meaning your body has a harder time getting rid of them. Short of drinking a bottle of pesticide, these products certainly can’t kill you, although most lawn care professionals attach notes of “stay off till dry” to the invoices they leave with their customers. By maintaining your yard each year, you can increase the vibrancy of your grass from year to year, and yearly maintenance simply makes it easier to keep weeds out of your yard. The longer you use the best lawn care products, the less you need to use them as your yard becomes stronger.

Spike is a pre-owned cat. When we got him from the humane society in their adopt-a-pet program, his name was Lonnie. I couldn’t in good conscience continue to use that name for a cat, so I renamed him Spike. I know that seems more appropriate for dogs, but I think Spike has always appreciated the new handle.

As cats go, Spike is a good example of the species. He sleeps most of the day on a warm spot on top of the couch or on the table on the front porch if the sun is out. He chases squirrels in the front yard when the mood strikes him and lays in wait in the back for any chipmunk that might be dumb enough to cross his path.

He guards the house when I’m gone and he keeps the garage free from varmints at night. Well, that might be a stretch. Let’s just say that he must have a quota for the amount of raccoons that he will allow at any one time in my garage.

It gets a little crowded out there when there are more than four at a time ravaging my garage, while he stoically observes the situation from his perch on top of the old refrigerator. He learned his lesson about getting involved in the chaos when a large raccoon almost bit off one of his legs.

Spike is an indoor/outdoor cat. When the weather is cold he comes around to the back sliding glass door, meowing pitifully that he is freezing. He must have had acting lessons somewhere before he came to us.

Just a few days ago, Spike’s summer cousins came to visit him, destroying my garage in the process. I’m not sure where raccoons go in the winter, whether they hibernate or what, but it’s unusual for them to visit my garage during this time of the year.

If they would only stay a short period of time and leave, I wouldn’t mind them hanging out in the garage every once in a while. Unfortunately they manage to destroy everything in their path in their insatiable quest for food. The first thing to go is Spike’s cat food dish. If there is any food remaining in the bowl, they fight each other for it, often dragging the bowl around the garage as if it were a dog toy.

Spike watches the scene from his box on the workbench. I’ve sneaked around to the outside of the garage and peeked in through the windows and watched him quietly observing the chaotic scene being played out before him.

It’s a lot like a scene from Gremlins, where all those little critters find themselves alone in the kitchen and they start tearing everything they find in to little tiny pieces. Snarling, hissing and biting, teeth gnashing as they try to open containers that might contain food, the raccoons have even managed to knock a paint can off its shelf. I have little paw prints all over my garage, through the pet door and down the sidewalk.

Last year as a last resort I hired a guy who proudly presented the name of his business on his van, “Critters Be Gone”. Unfortunately, while he had a great commercial name, he wasn’t much better than I at raccoon removal. After three weeks he packed up his traps and left, complaining that if I had kept my cat locked up and out of his cages, he could have caught the animals he was being paid to catch!

In Spike’s defense, the aroma from the cheap canned cat food that was used for bait was very tempting. It’s hard to keep him out of the cage when he knows that gourmet heaven is just a few feet away, tucked in the back of a wire cage.

Last night for the first time, I had a good look at one of the raccoons that was tearing up my garage. It was the largest coon I’ve ever seen in my garage. I opened the door and there he was staring at me, one paw in the five gallon bucket that holds Spikes cat food. After stuffing a handful of Meow Mix into his mouth he sprinted to the pet door and was gone.

For several years now I’ve had a raccoon problem in the spring and summer when families of them would invade my garage. Now it looks as if I’m to be blessed with the winter version of “Animal Capers”.