If you’re preparing for your first outdoor pest control visit by barricading yourself in the bathroom against invading earwigs and skittery spiders, relax. We’ll be there soon.
Table of Contents
- First, How Exactly Does Outdoor Pest Control Work?
- Which Pests Can You Control with Perimeter Treatments?
- Tidy Up Around Your Home’s Exterior
- Move Outdoor Furniture
- Clear Away Kids’ Toys
- Move Pet Bowls and Toys
- Take Precautions with Firewood
- Your First Pest Control Visit Is Done - Now What?
Meanwhile, a few pest control tips will help make sure your first pest control treatment will be as effective as possible against those icky invaders.
How do you prepare for pest control at home? Tidy up your home’s exterior. Talk to your technician about any firewood piles. Clear away kids’ toys, and pet bowls and toys. Scoot any outdoor furniture out of the way.
Let’s learn more about ways to get ready for outdoor pest control, and other tips for pest control.
First, How Exactly Does Outdoor Pest Control Work?
Let’s start with pest control basics:
Unlike indoor pest control services, where technicians come inside your house and treat for bugs in your basement, attic, and other indoor areas, perimeter pest control stops pesky insects before they enter your house.
Indoor pest control technicians hone in on inside areas where annoying pests are most active, like baseboards, corners, and behind appliances, and apply treatments to those spots.
But even better to keep those spiders outside than to worry about them skittering out from behind your fridge and causing you to spill your hot mocha latte all over your lap, right?
Perimeter pest control is an outdoor barrier spray that helps prevent bugs from entering your home and foundation in the first place.They hate the spray, so they turn around and head somewhere else. Maybe your neighbor’s house.
Lawn Buddies technicians spray around the perimeter of your home and yard to keep pests like ants, hobo spiders, and beetles from entering.
It’s all about prevention. Lawn Buddies technicians typically treat about three feet up on the house and six feet out, creating a wide protective barrier around the house that includes the landscaping and lawn directly around your home.
Which Pests Can You Control With Perimeter Pest Treatments?
Here are just some of the creepy pests that perimeter pest control keeps away:
- Ants
- Hobo spiders
- Black widows
- Earwigs
- Box elder bugs
- Wasps
- Fleas
- Beetles
Perimeter pest control services happen outside, so you don’t need to be home while technicians treat your yard.
But you can help make the treatment work as effectively as possible by doing a few simple tasks ahead of time:
1. Tidy Up Around Your Home’s Exterior
We’re not talking about a full-scale landscaping blitz, but the outdoor pest control will work best if there aren’t piles of leaves obstructing your foundation or overgrown brush blocking the way.
You want a clear area so technicians can apply the barrier spray to as much of your foundation and the surrounding area as possible.
2. Move Outdoor Furniture
If your outdoor furniture is tucked close to your house, move it farther away before your pest control services arrive so they have a clear path around your house to work.
If they can’t reach the nooks and crannies around your house where insects typically live and hide, your treatment won’t work as well. You want them to have as much clear access as possible.
3. Clear Away Kids’ Toys
Do a thorough search for bikes, sand pails, toy trucks, and other kid toys and put them away before your pest control services arrive.
This isn’t just about easier access for your technicians, but safety for your kids.
4. Move Pet Bowls and Toys
Make sure Champ’s food or water bowls are away from areas to be treated. If you forget, discard any food or water and clean out the bowls after the treatment.
And put away that bouncy ball, tug rope and favorite chew toys. Safety first.
5. Take Precautions with Firewood
Ideally, pest control services pros like to treat the soil where the firewood will be stacked before you put the firewood in place.
Talk to your outdoor pest control technicians about your plans for any piles of firewood.
Some insecticides allow for firewood to be treated with a certain time restriction before burning. It’s typically one month before burning. So if you don’t plan to burn your firewood for at least 30 days, it can be treated with outdoor pest control.
If we can’t be certain when the homeowner will burn their wood, we won’t treat it, just to be safe.
Your Outdoor Pest Control is Done — Now What?
Nice job getting ready for your outdoor pest control services. Once your treatment is done and the truck has pulled away, there are a couple more pest control tips:
Stay Inside Until the Spray is Dry
How long does it take to dry? It depends on the weather, but usually about one to two hours.
Pets should stay inside, too. You don’t want your dog to come in contact with the spray while wet.
Some dog owners wipe their pets’ paws with a wet cloth after they come in from outside, as an extra precaution.
Plan on Treatments Every Three Months
Professional perimeter pest control lasts about three months.
Once that three months has passed, you’ll want another treatment, depending on the time of year. Spring through fall is when pesky insects are lurking here in Idaho.
A late fall outdoor pest control treatment will help prevent these crumb and heat-seeking pests from coming inside, but once it’s freezing, perimeter pest control service won’t do much good.
At Lawn Buddies, our last exterior pest control treatment is done in October. Once the winter freeze arrives in Idaho, bugs aren’t hanging around outside your house anymore.
Heads up: If you have a bug problem in winter, it’s time for an indoor pest control treatment to take care of the winter pests bugging you inside.
Ready to Banish Bugs with Outdoor Pest Control? Trust Lawn Buddies
Why stress about shudder-inducing spiders and earwigs inside your house when you can keep them from coming inside in the first place?
When you call Lawn Buddies for perimeter pest control services in Boise and Idaho Falls, you can relax, knowing creepy invasive pests aren’t on their way inside your safe and cozy home.
The first step to taking advantage of Lawn Buddies perimeter pest control is to sign up for our 6-step complete lawn care program.
You’ll be glad you did.
Choose an Idaho Falls or Boise professional lawn care and pest control service that makes it easy, bundling your yard’s most-needed treatments into one convenient, no-fuss plan.
Got a few minutes? That’s all you need to get started. You can simply fill out the form on this page, call us at (208) 656-9131 or read more about our services. Then, you can kick back and relax in your clean, pest-free home.
