Bob Vila in Dangerous Insect Home Invasions

April is National Pest Management Month and home improvement expert Bob Vila joins The Hype magazine to talk about the different ways to protect our homes from termites, stinging insects, mosquitoes and ants. Pest proofing is an important part of spring cleaning. Spring is the season where homeowners start thinking about home improvement tasks. With the warmer weather, it’s the perfect time to get some major work done. Unfortunately, it’s the time of year pests wander inside our homes, looking for a place to nestle for the summer. Pests are much more than an annoyance, they can cause some real damage to our home. That is why Bob Vila is taking the time in a short satellite presentation, to talk about ways to take a stance, help protect your health and your property.

What are the top 3 things can we do right now to keep our home safe from pests?

Well yeah! The enemy is ants, tick’s mosquitoes and termites. They cause an enormous amount of damage to our homes. So, the key thing during this time of year, is to be aware of them, take a good look at your house and make sure that you’re not providing a superhighway for these guys to get into the house and start doing damage. Make sure the house is well sealed, that you don’t have any cracks around the foundation, or in areas where you might have a utility wire or a pipe coming into the house that is cocked. So that you know you’re fully closed in. You want to be aware of any situations like swarming termites around the house this time of year or seeing puddles of what looks like excrement that the termites toss around and get rid of right on your floor. So, in other words, taking a good close look at what’s happening is the important thing to do.

With concern still high over pest-transmitted diseases including West Nile virus and Zika virus spread by mosquitoes and Lyme disease and Rocky Mountain spotted fever from ticks, how can we limit our exposure to these biting pests this summer in our own backyards?

I mean it’s a huge concern especially the mosquito-borne diseases and the tick-borne diseases. With the mosquitoes and the Zika virus, until we develop a vaccine for Zika, we must take preventive care. So, it’s very important to make sure that the area around your house is not providing a breeding ground for mosquitoes. That means no standing water. Mosquitoes lay their eggs and little puddles, and it can be as small as a bottle cap full of water or it can be something like an old automobile tire leaning up against the shed that collects a bit of water down there. that’s where they’re going to lay their eggs. So, do the spring cleaning, and keep that in mind. No standing water. Then of course you want to protect yourself by making sure that your window screens are in good repair, that your screen doors are working on your behalf.

Then you know the sensible thing to do, which is to wear long sleeves and long pants and use some sort of 20 percent deep insect repellent when you’re outdoors. There are some areas in the home where pests can be more problematic. Well then again, the biggest problem is termites, but you also have other wood-boring bugs, like carpenter ants and carpenter bees. But termites cause billions of dollars’ worth of damage, and you want to partner with a professional if you’ve got an infestation.

The thing to look for is their tunnels on the outside of any wood components. Sometimes the paint will bubble up and that’s not a moisture issue, but the termites behind the paint. Inside the house, if you’ve got wood trim around the windows and doors and you tap against it and it sounds hollow, that’s bad news. As we were saying a minute ago, the main thing is that they’re leaving their excrement by throwing it out from the area where they’re living and eating and if you find what looks like sawdust on
the floor, that’s an indication you’ve got termites at work.

You know home improvement better than anyone. What one thing should I look at doing in the spring to spruce up my home?

This is spring cleanup time and that means obviously looking for problem areas like we’ve just been discussing. Not just insects, but you know any critters that may have gotten into your attic over the winter and made holes in the trim, it’s spring cleaning time, so it’s a good time to make sure that windows are cleaned, that screens are in good repair so that you keep the mosquitoes out of the house and a fresh coat of paint. On the front door, which goes a long way towards brightening up appearance of your home.

Where can our viewers at The Hype magazine go for more information?

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Tags: Bob Vila, DCypher Studios, PestWorld

About the Author

David Morales is the Executive Editor of The Hype magazine. A graduate of Eastern Michigan University, David has a background as an artist manager, writer, blogger, drummer, and in the human services industry. He is passionate about helping others, learning and has a deep empathy for the creative process. You can follow his social media @dcypherstudios