Coping with creepy-crawlies
What can homeowners do to help prevent pest invasions?
Given how weeds, grasses and other wild plants in the Santa Fe area lapped up waves of moisture during the winter and spring, you’d think rodents would be abundant this summer. Not yet, say the experts. “I would not say, compared to years before, it’s as heavy at this time,” said Roman Valdez, owner of local pest control company Bugman. “I think because of all the vegetation, there’s a lot of food out there for them now. But when conditions get drier, we could see an increase of activity in the dwellings.” Bugs, however, are a different matter. Valdez said he has seen an increase in the number of calls about ant activity this year, as well as scorpion reports from the hills around Santa Fe.
“We just had the moth infestation, but it’s already died down,” he said. “Now we’re getting chinch bugs that are flying around; we’re getting calls on those all the way from Albuquerque up to Española.”
Whether they’re in season, or if the season is just delayed, the question remains: What can homeowners
do to help prevent the inevitable pest invasions?
One method suggested by the Santa Fe office of Truly Nolen is to cut trees that are very close to the house so rodents can’t easily get on the roof.
“We also recommend that people with piñon and juniper trees cut away the low-lying branches that touch the ground, which makes a perfect environment for pack rats to build nests,” said Tom Larrabee, a district manager with the company. “And cut weeds on a regular basis. All of that ground cover creates shelter for rodents.”
Larrabee said Santa Fe has unique problems with rodents, thanks largely to its eclectic mix of properties, terrain and landscape.
“It’s because of the way we build our homes here and the fact that a lot of people have a decent piece of land and they keep it pretty natural,” he said. It’s an entirely different picture from what he called the “cookie-cutter subdivisions and lawns” around his home office in the Fort Worth, Texas, area.
In Santa Fe, native landscape often comes right up to the house. The tiniest of openings can turn into a highway for critters trying to get away from heavy rain, for example — and once they realize a garage or the inside of a wall is a fairly predatorfree environment, they’ll be there for good.
“Generally, with mice and pack rat populations, you will see some activity on the inside in the summer, but that will really pick up when the weather cools off and they look for places to get in to protect themselves in the winter,” said Steven Glancy, Truly Nolen’s Santa Fe manager.
“Right now, you might see them chewing on the patio cushions, you might see the droppings start to build up in the garage or behind that storage cabinet,” he said. “This is the time of year to really start protecting yourself for the wintertime.”
A homeowner should routinely check the house for those openings, perhaps places where utility cables and plumbing pipes go into a wall.
“The main one we find is on the portal, where you have vigas coming out of the wall,” Glancy said. “Over time, the vigas start to sag and the stucco comes away and you’ll have an opening right at the top.”
Valdez said that when it comes to mice and rats, his company focuses on exclusion. Rather than employing traps or poisons, his technicians inspect a house, looking for penetration spots to seal up.
“We want to do whatever we can to control them on the exterior so there are no issues on the interior,” Valdez said.
Poisons are part of Truly Nolen’s strategy when it comes to ants and centipedes, but the company does not employ chemicals. Its technicians use multiple-catch traps inside compact black containers. The company’s maintenance program in Eldorado, Las Campanas and other more rural areas aims to deal with rodent populations outside the house.
Of course, you can set your own traps, but dealing with trapped animals can be distasteful, frightful or just plain sad.
“That’s why a lot of people bring us in,” Larrabee said. “They don’t want to be the one to deal with it.”