No matter how you say it – pest control, pest management, or extermination, you want them gone. We deal with a variety of pest infestations that can be difficult to get rid of by yourself. Our services treat all pests from ants and cockroaches to ticks and termites. Our structural pest control service covers most pests encountered in New England. Pest control and extermination are essential to protect your property. Your structure is simply a home for pests. Even on the coldest day, temperatures in our area won’t kill structural pests. Our technicians are trained to find and eliminate pest problems. Greenhow training starts with our internal training on pest biology. Next, the training progresses to outside courses in integrated pest management. Finally, the training culminates in the achievement of Associate Certified Entomologist (ACE). These are the pests covered by our structural pest control services.
Ants
We treat over 15 species of ants regularly including the most common one; carpenter ants. In addition, we manage acrobat ants (distinguished by a heart-shaped abdomen), Argentine ants, big-headed ants, (occasionally) cornfield ants, crazy ants, ghost ants, and larger yellow ants. Also little black ants, odorous house ants, pavement ants, pharaoh ants (confused with rover ants), red European fire ants (primarily in and around Lexington and Cambridge), rover ants (often confused with pharaoh ants), thief ants, and the common white-footed ant. Pharaoh and rover ants are distinguished by their small size and habit of multiplying when annoyed. For instance, spraying them with pesticides annoys them and leads to more ants.
The big four cockroach types we handle include American cockroaches, brown-banded cockroaches, German cockroaches, and oriental cockroaches. These are not social insects with a colony. Roaches are gregarious and like to hang out with other roaches. As you can imagine, all roaches can be disease vectors. Bacteria and viruses are carried on the exoskeleton. They frequently move from trash and waste onto food preparation surfaces like countertops.
Ectoparasites and Mosquitoes – the bloodsuckers.
We control blood-feeding insects. Ticks and mosquitoes to fleas and bedbugs. Ectoparasites are live and feed on a host. Fleas and ticks are true ectoparasites which means they live on the host. They are pests outdoors in your yard and inside on your pets. We treat them inside and out. Mosquito control service outside is provided by our licensed and certified team. Adulticide misting spray service and larvacide trapping services.
Occasional Invaders
The term occasional invader sounds innocuous. Most occasional invaders don’t cause any problems because they do not infest structures permanently. They just live in them for a brief period. We recommend most be quickly removed with a vacuum. They are annoying and some have alarming traits. Centipedes are quick-moving grey insects with many legs. They can be as large as 3 to 4 inches in size and can have a nasty bite if handled. Always associated with moisture. Millipedes a small and slender dark soil insect may be found inside if you have a moist crawl space or sump pump pit.
Sowbugs and pillbugs, or rollie pollies, are not insects. They are crustaceans (don’t eat them) that occasionally get indoors. In wet areas with starches, psocids, or booklice and silverfish. Indoor overwintering insects include Ladybugs, and a variety of insects called stink bugs, including the western conifer seed bug, box elder beetle, and brown marmorated stink bug.
Rodents, Rats and Mice
Rats and mice are active all year round in New England. Rats need a source of 1/2 to 1 ounce of water each day. Indoor rats accompany sewer line issues like broken pipes. Mice can enter a hole the size of a dime. Both rodents climb many surfaces.
The most feared insect we deal with isn’t even an insect. Spiders are arachnids like mites and ticks with eight legs. We deal with the common yellow sac spiders, cellar spiders, and house spiders. Finally, though rarely found, we also deal with black widow spiders and brown recluse spiders.
Stinging insects including hornets, yellow jackets, and wasps. All are treated as one-time services. We treat ground-level and in-ground nests with protective clothing, hats and veils, and elevated nests with specialized equipment like dust sticks. We do not treat non-aggressive species that are important pollinators like solitary ground bees, mason bees, and bumble bees.
Our favorite pests to control are wood-destroying insects and organisms including termites, powder-post beetles, and wood-destroying fungi. These organisms destroy structural elements and cost property owners a lot of money in damage. More than any other insect an ounce of prevention here is worth a pound of cure. We use our termite monitoring stakes to check for termite activity in the soil around customers’ structures. In New England, humid air makes a dehumidifier essential if you have a basement.
