As a whole, crickets are not as invasive a pest as, say cockroaches or termites. However, when weather changes in the fall, they may be looking for protection and will enter your home through gaps, cracks, and crevices. Ill-fitting doors and windows, or openings in the crawl space can create an open invitation.

While some may think that a cricket is a cricket, there are actually different types. The levels of their presence and the damage they can cause vary with the different species.

Field Cricket

The most common is the black field cricket – the one that gives off the sound we are most familiar with on a summer evening. This variety ranges from half an inch to an inch in length and are black-brown in color. Because they are attracted to light and because they are nocturnal, outside lights can bring them from their tree home to your home.

While they mainly eat other insects, they can also damage fabrics (natural fabrics such as cotton, wool, linen and silk) and furs. Particularly at risk of cricket damage are fabrics that have been soiled by food or perspiration. Fortunately, the field cricket does not reproduce indoors, limiting any infestation to just a few stray crickets.

House Cricket

The house cricket is lighter in color than the field cricket. It is easily identified by the three dark bands on head and pro-thorax (the section bearing the first set of legs). Ranging in size from three-quarters of an inch to one inch in length, this species will breed indoors. This means they can be more of a problem than their cousins the field cricket. Like the field cricket, they can also cause damage to natural fabrics such as cotton, wool, linen and silk.

This is also the same species that is often raised commercially to use for feeding small animals and rodents, and as fishing bait.

Camel Crickets

Camel crickets are not even thought of as a cricket due to their different appearance. They are tan and have a humped back and can grow to be one and a half inches long. Their powerful back legs give the appearance of a grasshopper or katydid. Because they have no wings, they have no song. Although harmless, their strong jump can be quite startling to someone who happens upon them.

Camel crickets love damp places and are often found in crawl spaces, basements and damp garages. For this reason, they have earned the nickname “cave cricket.” Because they will reproduce in these damp places, they can become quite a nuisance to the homeowner.

Dealing with a Cricket Invasion

As with any unwanted pests, homeowners can take common-sense measures to prevent crickets, such as caulking and sealing cracks and crevices around the home. Good sanitation measures can also deter crickets.

Many times, however, in spite of all that has been done, a proven professional is needed to ensure the extermination is done effectively and efficiently. If the lovely song of the cricket has become an irritating sound that keeps you awake at night, call the professionals at Connor’s today!

How Do They Get In?
Stink bugs travel and breed outside all throughout the summer months, but when it starts to get colder these bugs invade your home. While a few may find their way inside by clinging to your clothes, most crawl in through other spots in and around your home. For instance:

Any small opening represents a potential place for insects to enter your home, making it difficult to keep the pests outside. To make matters worse, pesticides have little effect on stink bugs. Though there is no surefire way to remove stinkbugs from your home, you can utilize structural exclusion methods to reduce their numbers around your property.

The stink bug invasion is starting. If you want to reduce the pain of the pending infestation, you need to make sure you are doing everything you can to keep them out. Call Connor’s Pest Control today to learn more about our stink bugs exclusion procedures and how we can prevent them from becoming too much of a nuisance.

Q: Have You Tried Alternative Pest Control Options?
In most cases, whole-house fumigation is not your only choice. Often, people commit to fumigation without first exhausting all other avenues. There are many methods of removing pests that involve fewer/no chemicals, and which can be completed quickly when put in the hands of trained experts. Most of the time, these alternative methods are sufficient to completely eradicate the pests from your home, rendering fumigation is unnecessary. These alternatives should almost always be tried before resorting to fumigation.

Q: How Bad is The Pest Control Problem?
Fumigation is only truly necessary when a pest infestation has overtaken your entire house. If the infestation is limited to only a few rooms or areas of your home, chances are good that Connor’s Pest Protection will be able to offer alternatives to remove the pests with fewer chemicals involved.

Q: Have You Asked For a Consultation?
Often times, the best thing you can do before fumigating your home is to ask an expert. If you are considering fumigation to remove the pests from your home, ask Connor’s Pest Protection for a consultation. We are happy to talk to you about the pest control needs for your property, and seek out alternatives to fumigation whenever possible.

Choose a Name You Trust
Fumigation is tough for everyone. If you need to fumigate your property, you need a fumigation company who understands the importance of safety, and who will take the utmost precautions to prevent damage to your belongings. When fumigation is absolutely necessary, Connor’s Pest Protection is there to make the process as easy as possible.

What Are Wasps?

Wasps are not related to bees, but they do come from within the same suborder of bees and ants (Apocrita). Wasps have two pairs of wings, fewer hairs than bees, and only the females have stingers. There are hundreds of thousands of different wasp species and have thinner bodies than most bees.

What Are Hornets?

Hornets are actually a type of wasp, so by technical definition there is no difference between hornets and wasps. However, when most people think of wasps they think of either yellow jackets or the long, black wasps that appear to fly solo. Hornets tend to look similar to yellow jackets, but hornets are less aggressive because they tend to only feed on other insects, while yellow jackets sometimes become interested in human food and fly indoors.

However, hornets – like all wasps – do become very aggressive when their nests are threatened, so for safety it is always a good idea to contact a pest control company if you are concerned about a nest in or around your home.

Which Stings Are More Painful?

According to the Schmidt Sting Pain Index, bald faced hornets and yellow jackets have the least painful sting – at least when compared to other types of wasps – however, wasps can sting multiple times so the pain can be increased exponentially depending on the number of stings you receive.

The tarantula hawk – a type of wasp – is believed to have the most painful sting in the wasp family. Since wasps are predators, the tarantula hawk is, as the name implies, a predator of the tarantula, which requires a stronger venom to bring down. The paper wasp is also considered to be more painful than yellow jackets and some hornets, but less painful than the tarantula hawk.

Regardless, these insects can be a tremendous hassle, which is why if you are concerned for your safety it is a good idea to contact Connor’s Pest Protection immediately.

• “Like a hammer smashed my hand…”
• “Burn like a hot coal…”
• “Like someone burned me with a lighted cigarette…”
• “Felt like someone cut off the tip of my ear…”

The viciousness of a sting can depend on several factors. The first is how many stings happen at once.

People tell stories of a chance encounter with a nest of say bumblebees, or hornets, or wasps and being stung repeatedly. Along with the pain comes intense swelling. (If such an incidence occurs to a child, it can also result in an ongoing phobia.) A honeybee, on the other hand, can sting only one time and then goes off to die.

Other variables can include the location of the sting. One beekeeper who had been stung many times in his career with no ill effects was one day stung on his upper lip. Suddenly his entire face swelled and the pain was intense.

Interestingly enough, there are scientists who have voluntarily undergone controlled sting tests to report what they then believe to be the worst (most painful) sting. Such tests provide some information, but as mentioned, it does not take into effect multiple stings, or the adrenaline rush that comes from the fear and panic of meeting head on with a nest of angry hornets (for instance), or even the possibility of intense allergic reactions.

For the most part, preventing stings from happening when families are active in the out-of-doors during the summer months is difficult if not impossible. After all, we are invaders in the insects’ territory, who are only protecting their boundaries. At the home, however, there are measures to take to control the pests inside. Connor’s takes pride in helping families and businesses control stinging pests.

So, what’s the most painful sting that you’ve ever encountered?

There are also hundreds upon hundreds of different ant species. In fact, as many as 10,000 different species of ants have been discovered, with the possibility of more undiscovered ant varieties spread out in the many regions of the world. In North America, it is estimated that there are roughly 700 to 1,000 different ant species, and still a chance of further ant discovery.

Ants in Virginia and Maryland

When it comes to ants in the Virginia and Maryland areas, there is some good news and some bad news. The good news is that there are very few species that go inside the home – most thrive outdoors, and are very unlikely to infest your residence beyond the occasional worker wandering and looking for food. The bad news is that event one species of ants mean lots of ants invading homes, and without the proper ant control these home-invaders can be a tremendous nuisance. Some of these species include:/

• Carpenter Ants – Possibly the most damaging to your home, carpenter ants may live inside of your wall or insulation and eat away at the materials that keep your home in shape.
• Pharaoh Ants – Pharaoh ants are unique, in that they nest almost exclusively indoors. They can also split into groups, making ant control difficult.
• Odorous House Ants – Odorous house ants are also prone to nesting inside of the home, and they can emit a foul smell if squished.

You also may find other ant invaders like pavement ants. As the name implies, these are the types of ants that you see on pavement. Yet it’s not uncommon for them to stray in and around your home. Although there may be fewer species of ants in the Virginia area, these pests are no less invasive, which is why Connor’s is a great choice to remove them from your home.

The Diseases of Pest Bites
One of the most common concerns about bed bugs is that they may carry disease. Everyone is familiar with mosquitos and how they may carry West Nile virus, as well as rats and how they may carry rabies. These pests can bite, and if they bite, they may have diseases that can be carried to humans.

Luckily, bed bugs do not have this same problem. The bumps you get from bed bugs are able to cause rashes and welts, but these are due to the bites themselves. Studies have shown that there are currently no diseases that can be spread from bed bugs to humans – at least nothing that human beings should be concerned about. With any luck, that will help you and your family sleep a bit better tonight.

Removing Bed Bugs Still a Priority
The good news is that bed bugs can’t give you an illness. The bad news is that they are still a lot of trouble. They feed, they breed, and they take over your home. You can also develop an allergy to bed bug bites that could get dangerous over time. If you have bed bugs in your home, your best bet is to reduce their numbers with good pest control techniques, including the K9 Pest Detector division of Connor’s Pest Protection, which is known to be one of the best ways to sniff out the hiding spaces of those pesky bugs and remove them from your home.

Carpenter ants are the big black ants that seem to never go away no matter how many times you spray them. They are common in the Mid-Atlantic States, and can cause damage to your building’s wooden structure in much the same way as termites. In fact, they are often mistaken for termites. The best way to differentiate these ants from termites is that termites are much smaller than carpenter ants. Carpenter ants are some of the most difficult variety of ants to control when an infestation occurs, since a carpenter ant colony consists of a central colony and numerous satellite colonies, so that finding the main colony is very difficult.

Pavement ants can look a lot like carpenter ants, due to their similar coloration. However, they are much smaller, and are probably what you think of when you think of “common ants.” These are the ants that you can find throughout the entire United States, ruining picnics and even finding food that has been left out indoors. They are generally harmless, and this combined with how difficult it is to locate nests results in pavement ant control generally focusing on the individual groups in a home rather than total colony destruction.

The odorous house ant, also known as the stink ant, is a native species to the United States, and give off a foul odor when crushed. Standard ant control products usually do the trick with this variety of ants, though it is recommended to examine the house for cracks and caulk possible entry points.

Everyone knows what a fire ant looks like. Their distinctive red color identifies them immediately to all who see them and convey one important message: “Be careful, I sting.” There are two varieties in the DC area: native and imported. The imported variety is classified as an invasive species, and is much more aggressive. This variety can be differentiated by its numerous above ground “ant hills” in an area as well as the workers being of a darker red color than the native species. Due to their aggressive nature, fire ant control is best left to professionals.

If you have an ant infestation, call Connor’s today and we’ll help remove these pests out of your home.

But there are other types of insects – stinging insects – that almost everyone is at least a little bit afraid of. These stinging pests are not necessarily an immediate danger, but if they do sting it can hurt a great deal, and those with an allergy may be at risk for a severe allergic reaction. In addition, these pests are social insects, and if a nest is disturbed it’s possible to receive a harmful amount of stings as these bugs sometimes swarm in groups.

Although there are several thousand species of insects that sting, most fall into three distinct and simple categories.

Types of Stinging Pests

• Bees
  Unless their nest is disturbed, bees are actually not that likely to sting. They tend to sting as a way of protecting their nests, so if their nests aren’t in danger, they are unlikely to sting. Still, they are by no means harmless. If you come too close you can be stung by accident, and if a nest is nearby it can put you in danger.
• Wasps
  The “bees” that most people are afraid of are yellow jackets. Yellow jackets are actually a type of wasp, not a type of bee. Wasps are more aggressive than bees and can sting more than once, which makes them much more of a danger. There are other types of wasps, like hornets, that are also a risk inside of your home.
• Ants
  Most people don’t think of ants when they think of stinging insects, but many different species of ants can sting. The ones that are most harmful to humans are called fire ants. Fire ants can burn quite a bit, and have a surprisingly high allergy rate. There are also a few other types of ants that can provide a serious burning sensation if they sting.

Pest Control for Stinging Insects

All bugs are irritating in their own ways, but stinging bugs are the ones that cause people the most fear and discomfort, and may put your family at risk for serious injury. It’s important to be careful around these types of insects. Call us here at Connor’s Pest Protection if you need any assistance removing these bugs from your home.

Waiting for a Ride
They hide in shrubbery and grassy areas waiting for a host to pass by. They can sense the vibrations of an animal’s movement as well as detect the odors of the breath. If the tick can get high enough in a shrub, it’s a simple process to drop down as the host passes beneath. Or latch onto a furry leg as your pet walks through the grass.

Keep the Environment Clean
Take steps to keep the area where your pet roams, clear of brush and tall grass. Keeping the pet out of wooded areas and tall grass can also help. Rodents, deer, and other wild mammals are famous for being tick carriers. For that reason it’s vital to control these animals as well. But even in a clean back yard, a tick can jump on board pets and people alike.

Cats Not As Susceptible
Tick problems are much more prevalent with dogs than with cats. That’s because cats groom themselves constantly. Once they feel the movement of the tick, the cat will either devour it or chew it till it’s killed and drop it. However, many long-haired cats have as much a problem with ticks as a dog – especially if they live out of doors.

Continual Inspections
A female tick can lay over 10,000 eggs at a time. As soon as they hatch and become larvae, they are able to latch onto a host. That adds up to a lot of pests.

The first step in tick control is a continual overall inspection of your pet. If you locate one of these little pests, remove it as quickly as possible. It takes over 12 hours of being attached before the tick regurgitates bacteria back into the host’s body, so make that search soon after an outdoor romp.

Tick Removal
The safest, most effective way, to remove a tick is with a pair of tweezers. Grasp the tick as close to the head as possible. Rock it back and forth or slowly turn in a counter-clockwise direction until it lets go. Be careful not to pull the body and leave the head in. If this happens take the tweezers and continue to gently pull out as much of the head as possible.

Ticks are known disease carriers which makes them more than just a bothersome pest. There are many products for keeping your pet tick-free:

Keen oversight of your pet, along with keeping their environment clean, and utilizing any of the products listed above will go a long way in successful tick eradication.

Do you have questions about ticks? If so, let us at Connor’s know!