Home: Depending on where you live, determines the absolute need for pest control. If you live in the South, or southern areas, it may be a necessity because of termites. If uncontrolled termites can destroy a building in a few years. We pay a little over s hundred per year, and there is a insect destruction part of the contract. From your perspective, never store wood next to a building, and keep wood piles many feet from the buildings.

Yard: The big problem we have is ants and ticks. On years they become a big problem I spread a pesticide on the yard to control the ants. Other years I will put some in problem locations. In some areas fire ants are a big problem, and require constant and continuing attention. We use Amdro or a similar product applied per instructions. ALL pesticides, Fertilizer and the like must be applied per the instructions, to protect children and animals.

As for tick, the best thing is to keep your yard mowed. Birds and small animals can then control the ticks for you.

Spraying for mosquitos (or other flying insects) must be done at a neighborhood level or it's pointless - more just fly in. Eliminate standing water, keep shrubs trimmed and keep the grass mowed.

Generally I just perimiter spray to discourage things from moving into my house

Maybe termite prevention?

I still use Round Up when I do a cost benefit analysis. I'm not against chemicals but am realistic.

We are on 11 acres so we do our own spraying. We buy some stuff online that says it's for "professional use only" that's very concentrated and it works great. I wanna say it's under $50 and then a dedicated hand/backpack sprayer will be another $50-100.

Where did you just buy a home? Is it somewhere that's warm enough for year round bugs, or is it still cold there and you may not really know yet what you have going on? If it's cold, maybe wait till it warms up to see what bugs there are.

I have 25 acres. I have never sprayed the yard areas (around 4 acres), and am not always up on keeping the grass low. There are a few ponds, a creek, and some wet on the property. So control is treating the people rather than the land. At first it was a lot of spraying. Now it's just dressing sensibly and treating the clothing/outergear. And lots of tick checks, lol. If we eat out on the patio, I will use candles/spray to "clear" the deck before we eat.

Our property is a diverse and thriving environment. If I started spraying to kill stuff, it would kill a lot more than just the couple kinds bugs I'm aiming for. And those couple bad bugs are beneficials in feeding other yard critters. I have a goodly variety of critters that eat skeeters and ticks. I greatly appreciate those critters, so I don't mind leaving their food alone.

As said above encourage the natural defenses against insects. As part of our landscape we have several flower gardens and a butterfly garden. The butterfly garden has bird feeders and bird bath. The garden attracts both seed eating and insect eating types. They also bring in various small animals that eat other things in the environment.

where are you .... big city name..

are ticks prevalent in your area? .. contact you county extension office and find out...

we usually need to find and ID a problem.. and then specifically treat for it.. rather than just NUKE the backyard .. over and over again ...

i would rather spray the kids when they needed it.. rather than having monthly applications of toxic material sprayed on all my bushes and lawn... if the kids are on the lawn.. why would you want to poison the lawn???

btw.. attack skeeters where they hide during the day... in the bushes..

and keep the grass well mowed to reduce ticks.. and maybe get some chickens if they are a real issue...in your area..

i would not trust any snake oil salesman.. as to what is needed... they will ALWAYS find a problem to solve..

educate yourself.. and do it yourself.. IF THERE IS ACTUALLY A PROBLEM >>

when needed... i would have the kids stand on the porch.. grab a giant breath... close thier eyes.. and spin.. and i would spray them bug juice.. and when i said go.. they tore off across the yard.... thats was a 6 buck can a month for 2 kids ... and me...crikey on what they are quoting you ...

ken

I'd be more concerned about the chemicals you're spraying than the bugs.

I have had Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, recently, and Encephalitis several decades ago.. With the Encephalitis I was in the the hospital for over a week. With the Spotted Fever, they caught it early, so here was no hospitalization. While I have not had it yet Lime Disease is also carried by insects.

The controlled use of pesticide, ie per the manufactures instruction, is far better than running the risk of getting these types of diseases.

How long have you lived there and what have noticed about how intense the bug problem is? Do you have neighbors on either side of you? If so, what do they do, how do they handle the bug situation?

I have a hard time believing that any chemical is going to keep mosquitos from your backyard. I tried endlessly to do so but any standing water can become a breeding ground. My next door neighbors left their kids's toys outside and every time it rained, all of the toys collected water in any indentation and boom, mosquito breeding ground.

I would be concerned about toddlers playing in an area where pesticides are sprayed. I have not had much luck with eco friendly mosquito products.

Get treatment for your specific issues. I pay $120/ 4 times a year for cockroach, spider, etc. I haven’t done mosquito control yet but I’ll try it this summer. It’s expensive at about $80 month for the summer months but I now have a pool and lovely backyard. I’ll decide if it works, though my son believes in it. live in Houston area, so it’s treated year round except for mosquitoes. There’s a guarantee that he will come out until the problem is fixed, at no extra cost. He’s only had to return once in two years to “finish up.”

Guessing a clickable link to his company will be inserted soon.

Frankly, I'd worry a lot more about the chemicals being sprayed than a few mosquitoes. Ticks are pretty rare. I've lived and hiked in areas known to have ticks where precautions are recommended, but never seen a tick ---except dog ticks on dogs.

While we knew that there was many forms of wild life on our lot when we got trail camera we were surprised at the number. One of the things we learned was there were many semi feral cats in the neighborhood. In addition to the many raptors, we had the full spectrum of small animals. from moles, mice, rabbits, squirrels, deer, etc which every one has seen in their yards. We have all so got possums, raccoon, coyotes, and foxes that we have seen on the trail camera. We have no idea what we have not seen.

So the point of my messages is just because you do not see the wild life, does not mean you do not have many small animals in your yard, so you can not assume you have no ticks

We have a motion-activated security camera, which has shown us a lot of wildlife in our suburban yard which we've never seen in real like. Opossums, Coyotes, Skunks. Then the visitors we rarely see, like Woody and Chucky and Rocky Raccoon. I saw some sort of weasel just once.

Using a fungicide on some diseased plants produced some voles or moles, which we never see. Unfortunately, they were dead. That was the last time I used fungicide and the last time I saw the voles or moles.

Jumping into the conversation about hiring pest control for your new backyard—definitely a hot topic! From my experience, it's like nipping a problem in the bud. I've seen beautiful backyards turn into bug paradises in the blink of an eye. If you've already got your dream yard in the works, a little extra protection can go a long way.