With 30+ years of collective experience in residential pest management, there is one thing we know for certain: every home has pests. Most pests don’t like humans, so they keep to themselves in low-traffic areas of your house, such as inside the walls, attics, basements and underneath furniture. Just because you don’t see them, doesn’t mean they aren’t there. Here are the 5 pests that live in every home:
Spiders
Alberta is home to 526 known species of spiders, with hundreds more that are yet to be collected and described. Believe it or not, many of these types of spiders prefer to live inside rather than outside. Spiders will climb inside and live within the roof of your home, in your attic, and in the basement. Certain types of spiders, such as wolf spiders, love cotton and will live inside of closets, bedding, and laundry hampers. Every home has spiders, it just depends how many.
Mice
With our Home Protection Plans, we have installed and actively monitor rodent control equipment at over 1000 homes in Alberta. How often do we check our stations and find no rodent activity on a property? Virtually never. We have found that less than 0.3% of homes have no mice. House mice and field mice (voles) are abundant in Alberta. Everyone has them around to varying degrees.
Centipedes
Most people have seen a centipede or two at some point in their homes. Whether it is coming up the drain (a story that is way more common than I would like… ew!), or you flick the basement lights on and see it go scurrying across the floor to its hiding spot within the walls. Centipedes live in damp, dark and cool areas of the house, like basement storage, garages, or utility rooms. They keep away from the light, so they are rarely seen, however they come out at night and have been known to bite people while sleeping, leaving a small red bump.
Ants
Alberta is home to 53 unique species of ants. Most people have a variety of ants nesting inside and outside of their homes. Some are more harmful than others. The two most destructive types of ants that we see are pavement ants and carpenter ants. Pavement ants will dig up sand piles in your driveway, walkway and patio. Over time as they remove the sand from underneath they will disturb the foundation and cause sinking, shifting and cracking.
The other most destructive type of ant we see is carpenter ants. These are not as common as pavement ants, but they are still very common throughout Alberta. These guys will live inside of the walls, often going completely unnoticed, and cause severe structural damage to the home. They are often called the termites of the north due to the similar damage they cause.
Our Recommendations
We recommend, at a bare minimum, to have your home inspected once a year by a professional in order to be aware of what is going on inside of your home. Just because you do not see pests, does not mean that you don’t have them. Once you have an idea of what the activity levels are inside of your home, we can recommend preventative measures in order to keep your home pest free!
