Only at first glance, it may seem to an uninitiated person that the destruction of insects in an apartment is just spraying walls and furniture with special products from spray cans or spray guns. “Pushed” them in the air, on the floor - and you’re done, the corpses of dead parasites cover the floor and the apartment is forever protected from their re-invasion ...
However, in practice, everything turns out to be much more complicated, since a number of questions immediately arise:
- What drug to use? Will, for example, a cockroach remedy be effective against bedbugs, ants, or fleas, and vice versa?
- And how specifically the selected drug is safe for human health and pets? And are any of them generally safe?
- And where, in fact, does it need to be processed?.. If we are fighting fleas, then animals? But after all, fleas have eggs, which are full in the apartment, there are worm-like larvae that are not at all on the animal. And other insects also have their own biological characteristics that must be taken into account for their effective destruction.
Therefore, the approach to the destruction of insects should always be comprehensive and take into account a number of important nuances, which we will discuss later.
On a note
A set of measures for the destruction of insects is called pest control.This word comes from the French des - extermination and the Latin insectum - an insect.
The procedure for the destruction of insects at home usually consists of the following steps:
- Determining the types of insects in the apartment that are planned to be destroyed. The fact is that many drugs for the destruction of insects are specific and focused only on certain pests. For example, insecticidal gels can effectively and without much time to remove cockroaches, but they will be absolutely useless against bed bugs. Therefore, the enemy, as they say, you need to know in person.
- Identification of places of accumulation of insects in the apartment, as well as the main ways of their movement.
- Choice of insecticide.
- Preparing the room for processing.
- Carrying out disinfection.
- Room cleaning.
- Implementation of preventive measures.
Approximately according to the same plan, the simultaneous destruction of insects and rodents in private homes, basements, attics and industrial premises, including with the involvement of professional pest control services (only other means are used against rodents than from insects).
Most often in apartments you have to deal with the following insects:
- Cockroaches - large black and small red (Prussians). In rare cases, both of these species can “live” in the house, although usually red cockroaches sooner or later crowd out black ones. All of them are usually kept in kitchens, in closets, on loggias behind furniture and in it, behind baseboards, near garbage cans.
- Domestic ants (they are pharaohs) are red and very small, only 2-3 mm in length. They can settle anywhere, even outside the premises.Sometimes ant colonies form a kind of communicating network of anthills located in different apartments - a super anthill. Accordingly, the destruction of one such anthill in a single apartment will not be enough to get rid of these insects for a long time.
- Moth, in which some species harm clothes and are kept in wardrobes and bedside tables (clothes), while others eat groceries and are found in the kitchen and in places where cereals and pasta are stored (food).
- Bed bugs that live more often in bedrooms - in furniture, under mattresses, in bedside tables next to beds. With a significant infestation of the room, bedbugs can be anywhere, even in household appliances. These blood-sucking parasites are especially unpleasant and even dangerous with their bites.
- Fleas, most often kept near the resting places of pets. Their larvae can be found in the corners of the apartment, in dust and trash cans. Adult fleas are potential carriers of dangerous diseases and can bite not only animals, but also humans.
The effective destruction of each of these insects requires the use of different means and methods.
Fighting methods
Perhaps one of the most versatile and simple ways to kill insects indoors is to use insecticides, sprayed either from an aerosol can already ready for use, or with a preliminary dilution of the concentrate and spraying it from a household spray bottle. Many of these preparations have a very wide spectrum of activity against a wide variety of insect species, and, when used correctly, are quite safe for humans and pets.
Such funds sometimes allow you to completely destroy insects in an apartment in just a few hours.
You can also destroy insects in the apartment by the following methods:
- Laying out poisoned baits, effective, for example, against cockroaches, ants and wood lice - insects that feed on various food residues. But against moths, bedbugs and fleas, they do not work.
- Setting up insect traps. There are different types of traps that differ in the principle of operation (glue, electric discharge, insecticide, etc.) and in the type of insects they are designed to capture. It is important to take into account that usually traps do not allow to destroy the entire population, and their action is extended in time.
- Freezing or, conversely, destroying pests with heat (you will need to open all windows in winter, or turn on several special heat generators to create a high temperature). However, freezing the entire apartment is fraught with the destruction of heating pipes, and the removal of individual furniture in the cold often does not allow to destroy all the insects in the room. To raise the temperature in the room, you will need special expensive equipment for the destruction of insects by heat (which, by the way, is not always affordable even for some professional pest control services).
- You can finally try to exterminate insects with folk remedies - alcohol or kerosene, steam or decoctions of various herbs (wormwood, tansy). Usually these are inefficient and rather time-consuming methods, almost never giving a reliable result.
And, finally, the most effective and simple method of getting rid of insects is to call special pest control teams. Due to the constant spread of parasites and pests in cities, the insect extermination business is flourishing not only in regional centers, but even in large metropolitan areas and small towns. And if you find really conscientious exterminators, they are guaranteed to destroy insects, and the owners of the premises will only have to clean the apartment after their work.
On a note:
Most insect control services offer not only pest control, but also deratting services, that is, the extermination of rodents.
Means for removing insects from the apartment
For self-destruction of insects in an apartment, the best means are, perhaps, modern odorless insecticidal preparations. Many of them have already been adapted for domestic use, packaged in small containers and produced in the form of concentrates. It is enough to dilute such a concentrate with water, pour it into any household spray bottle - and the product is ready for use.
Among the fairly effective drugs include, for example, the following: Get, Lambda Zone, Delta Zone, Dobrokhim FOS, Hangman, etc. Often they turn out to be even more effective than aerosol preparations, and if necessary, complete treatment of the entire apartment or house is more economical .
When using any insecticides, no matter how safe they are, it is important to use personal protective equipment: rubber gloves, a respirator, goggles.
On a note
Pest control workers often use insecticide concentrates for professional use: Tetrix, Sinuzan, Diazinon, etc. They are really very effective, but they have a strong and unpleasant odor, and are quite toxic even to humans.
Aerosol preparations for the destruction of insects are the well-known Raptor, Reid, Kombat, Dichlorvos and their various clones. Usually they include additional fragrances that mask the smell of active ingredients. These tools are easy to use, but if necessary, the total processing of the apartment is very expensive.
Both aerosols and concentrates for dilution and subsequent spraying should be used in cases where insects need to be destroyed quickly and all at once.
Of the poisoned baits against insects, the most famous gels are Globol, Raptor, Absolut, Brownie, Dohlox, Fas. They are very attractive to ants and cockroaches, leave almost no marks on the surfaces after drying and destroy insects, even just soiled in the preparation.
Insecticide gels are especially advisable to use in cases where there are not very many insects in the house and there is no urgent need to carry out massive persecution. With the help of gels, cockroaches and ants, for example, are not removed immediately, but within a few weeks, however, the whole process goes unnoticed by the residents of the house, there is no unpleasant smell in the room, there is no risk of being poisoned by the agent.
It is interesting
One drop of German cockroach gel Globol contains enough insecticide to kill about 500 adults.Although in practice, of course, much less dies, since most of the funds are wasted (it just dries up).
Now a few words about insect traps. Traps are of different types:
- Sticky suspension used against adult food moths and flies. They are very effective - with their help, you can catch all the flying insects in the house in a few days. But such devices, especially with insects adhering to them, can hardly be called aesthetic ...
- Folding sticky traps - they are placed on the floor in places where insects move or along with strong-smelling bait. When properly positioned, they can be very effective against any crawling insects.
- Carbon dioxide traps used against bedbugs. In our country, they are not sold, and abroad they are only tested “in the field”.
- Lamp traps that kill moths and mosquitoes. They are usually used in the yards of private houses, occasionally - in apartments.
- Electric "houses" from cockroaches. They are comparable in effectiveness to sticky folding traps, but can be used multiple times.
Insecticidal powders and crayons (pencils) are contact poisons by type of action, or contact-intestinal action - insects are poisoned by simply running over them and then cleaning their paws and mustaches, sometimes eating particles of the product. Compared to aerosols and sprays, powders and crayons are generally less effective.
And further: We caught bedbugs and tested the effect of GEKTOR powder on them - a pretty killer thing turned out to be ...
Folk remedies for insects are used either when industrial preparations are unavailable, or when the owner of the apartment is afraid of being poisoned by "chemistry". Really effective among them are borax and boric acid, which are added to baits for cockroaches and ants. Dried chamomile powder can also be noted separately, with the help of which they destroy nests of bedbugs and anthills.
Instructions for self-destruction of insects
Before destroying insects with sprays and aerosols, you must first take care of the safety of the occupants of the premises. All people and pets should be removed from the apartment for the duration of the work. The whole procedure will take about 5-6 hours, so it is worth planning a picnic or a visit to relatives for this day.
All indoor utensils and guaranteed insect-free clothing are packed in plastic bags. Furniture is moved away from the walls, bed linen is removed from the beds, and carpets are removed from the walls.
If a concentrate is used, it must be diluted in accordance with the instructions in water and poured into a household spray bottle. For this purpose, for example, containers from household cleaning products are well suited.
Further, all surfaces in the apartment (and against moths, including the ceiling) are sprayed with the drug. Particular care should be taken to treat insect hiding places, corners, crevices, baseboards, heaps of garbage, linoleum edges, parquet, kitchen furniture. After spraying carpets, they should be rolled up and the surface under them treated.
After that, the apartment stands for several hours, then it is ventilated, all surfaces in it are washed with a damp cloth, things and linen are washed.
Important!
The treatment of the premises with sprays and aerosols can only be carried out in personal protective equipment - a respirator, gloves, long-sleeved clothing. If a symptom of poisoning occurs, stop work, go out into the fresh air, if necessary, consult a doctor.
When using poisonous baits, it is necessary to lay them out near the places of shelters of insects and on the ways of moving around the apartment. Gels from cockroaches and ants are applied in dotted lines, baits with boric acid are simply laid out in the corners. Traps are set up in the same way. From time to time, baits need to be updated, and traps should be cleaned of dead insects or replaced with new ones.
We call professionals: what needs to be done?
Professional exterminators save the customer from the most difficult work - in fact, from processing the premises. But before they arrive, you need to prepare:
- put things and dishes in bags;
- move furniture away from the walls;
- remove bed linen from beds, sometimes curtains from windows;
- provide access to walls in pantries and closets.
Many companies offer to carry out these works for an additional fee. They can also restore complete order in the room after the destruction of insects.
Important!
If the treatment is carried out by the pest control service, there should be no one in the room except the handler and the owner. The latter is given a respirator and gloves.
Protecting the apartment from insects is an integral part of the fight
After the destruction of insects in the apartment, care should be taken to ensure that they do not enter here again:
- Close the ventilation holes with thick nets.
- Regularly lubricate the boxes of doors and windows with decoctions of wormwood or tansy.
- Hang moth sections in cabinets.
- Check purchased products for the presence of moth or ant larvae.
If cockroaches or bed bugs live in your neighbors’ apartment, you should regularly update the protection around windows, ventilation ducts and front doors with special crayons or barrier aerosols, and place traps in the bathroom and toilet that will catch random “defectors”.
In conclusion, we note that although the methods of combating household insects are quite well developed, the number of parasites and pests in apartments, even in large cities, is steadily growing. Moreover, this problem is global - insects are equally intensively fought in Europe, the USA, Russia and Southeast Asian countries. Accordingly, the insect extermination business is actively developing, and with the right approach and the purchase of insecticides in bulk, it turns out to be quite profitable.
In addition, it is not difficult to master the process of removing insects, having the appropriate equipment, and the initial investment in such a business is about 4-5 thousand dollars. Not surprisingly, the number of companies offering insect extermination is constantly growing, and, unfortunately, sometimes this leads to the emergence of small and not very professional companies. Therefore, it is important for consumers to be able to choose from them those services that, for reasonable money, will reliably, quickly, efficiently and with a guarantee help get rid of insects.
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