Ants
There are more than 10,000 species of ants
Ant colonies can range from 300,000 to 500,000.
Worker ants live for up to 7 years while queen ants can live for up to 15 years.
They enter through tiny cracks in search of water and sweat or greasy food.
When ants find a food source, they leave an invisible scent trail containing pheromones for other ants in the colony to follow.
Carpenter Ants
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Normally workers are black or red and black in color and range in size from 3/8 to 1/2 inch.
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They prefer dead, damp wood in which to build nests, but they don’t eat it like termites do.
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Carpenter ants can damage wood used in the construction of buildings.
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They can leave behind sawdust like material called Frass that provides clues to where their nest is.
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Control involves the application of insecticides in the form of dust and/or liquids.
Pavement Ants
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Tiny and shiny black in color and 1/16 to 1/8 inch in length.
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They are usually found outdoors or in wood inside a home that causes it to decay.
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Colonies can be found in logs, cracks in cement, open areas, and lawns.
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These colonies are at their height from June – August, when mating occurs.
Bed Bugs
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Bed bugs are flat, reddish-brown, oval, and about 3/16 inch long.Approximately the size of an apple seed.
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They are swollen and reddish after drinking blood.
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The lifespan of a bed bug is up to 300 days and can live up to one year without eating.
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They can lay between 5-7 eggs in a week, and 200-500 eggs in a lifetime.
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Bed bugs live in cracks, crevices, mattress seams, box springs, sheets, furniture, baseboards, electrical outlets, and behind picture frames.
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You can find bed bugs in homes, hotels, offices, stores, personal belongings, luggage, and even people.
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Bed bugs can live in temperatures from nearly freezing up to 122 degrees Fahrenheit.
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They feed on blood and usually feed while people sleep, about an hour before dawn.But if they’re hungry and given the opportunity, they feed anytime.
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Bed bug bites are most commonly on the upper body, neck, arms, and shoulders.
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The bed bus’s saliva numbs the skin allowing them to feed for up to 10 minutes.
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Some people do not have a reaction to bed bug bites.Others develop itching, red welts, or swelling anywhere from hours after being bitten up to 2 weeks after.
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Bed bugs are not known to spread any diseases but can lead to itchy red welts that can become infected.
Mice
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Light brown or gray colored, and between 3-4 inches long with large ears and small eyes.
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They build their nests in hidden places within 30 feet of their food source, and they are most active at dusk or during the night. They do not like bright lights.
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House mice prefer to feed on grain cereals, but will eat plant matter, seeds, and some meat.
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They carry diseases such as salmonella, leptospirosis, rat-bite fever, and lymphocytic choriomeningitis.These can be transmitted from the mice contaminating people and pet food.
Cockroaches
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Light brown or tan in color, oval bodies, and about 1/2 inch to 5/8 inch long with 6 spiny legs.
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They like to eat starchy, sugary foods, grease, and meats. When there is a shortage of foods, they may eat household items such as soap, glue, and toothpaste.
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Roaches are known to spread at least 33 different types of bacteria such as Dysentery, and typhoid.
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They can cause allergies and asthma from body parts, saliva, and fecal matter when inhaled. Especially in young children.
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Roaches are nocturnal and prefer to live in warm humid places such as kitchens, bathrooms, and places people eat and drink.
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They enter through cracks and crevices, vents, sewers, and drain pipes.They can also be brought into houses through grocery bags, boxes, purses, and on a person.
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The eggs are protected from insecticides so the infested area would need to be treated multiple times.
Termites
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Termites are often mistaken for flying ants since they look very similar.
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However, while ants have three distinct body segments, the termites only have two. Termites also have four wings of equal size, while the flying ant has four wings of two distinct sizes.
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Termites feed on dead plants and trees, wood, cardboard, paper, books, carpets, furniture, flooring, and window frames.
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Termites can cause major structural damage.
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If termites are left uncontrolled they can literally chew a whole house down.
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Winged termites are attracted to light and most active in the spring time.They could be seen around windows and doors.
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They live in the wood that they consume and infest walls and furniture.
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Termites build tunnel systems and mud tunnels to access above ground food sources.
Flies
House Flies
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Adults are 8–12 mm long with a grey thorax, and their whole body is covered with hair-like projections.
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They have a lifespan of 2 weeks to a month.
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The female can lay up to 500 eggs.
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Houseflies feed on feces, open sores, sputum, spoiled food, eggs, fruit, and flesh.
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They are capable of carrying over 100 pathogens, such as typhoid, cholera, salmonella, bacillary dysentery, tuberculosis, anthrax, and parasitic worms
Fruit Flies
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Fruit flies are yellow-brown in color.
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They have a lifespan of 10 to 18 days.
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The female can lay up to 2000 eggs in its short life time.
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Fruit flies are attracted to just about every source of food, but mostly sugary fruit.
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They can carry and spread the same diseases as the house fly.
Gnats
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Gnats are usually small, black or gray, with short legs, and antennae.
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They can live from 2 to 4 months.
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The female can lay from 200 to 300 eggs in a lifetime.
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There are different types of gnats which will determine whether they bite or not and if they feed off of plants, other insects or blood.
Ticks
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Ticks are brown or red in color, have 8 legs, and a pear shaped body.
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Ticks satisfy all of their nutritional requirements on a diet of blood.
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Ticks are the leading carriers of diseases to humans in the U.S. such as Lyme disease, Ehrlichiosis, Rickettsia, and Rocky Mountain Fever.
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It is not the bite, but the toxins, secretions, or organisms in the tick's saliva transmitted through the bite that causes disease.
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Ticks secrete small amounts of saliva that contain neuro toxins which prevent the host from feeling the pain and irritation of the bite.
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Sandy soil, hardwood trees, rivers, and the presence of deer are good predictors of where ticks might be found.
Fleas
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Small, wingless insects 1/12 – 1/16 inch long, covered in spine, with mouthparts adapted for piercing skin and sucking blood.
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They have shiny reddish-brown bodies.
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A flea can jump vertically up to 7 inches and horizontally up to 13 inches.
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The lifespan of a flea is up to 100 days.
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They are parasites that attach to the host and drink its blood.
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Fleas mostly attach to dogs, cats, people, chickens, rabbits, squirrels, rats, and mice.
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One flea can bite over 100 times in a day.
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They can lay up to 20 eggs at a time, usually on the host.The eggs drop and infest carpets, beds, and furniture.
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Eggs hatch in 2 weeks.
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Fleas can transport viral and bacterial diseases.
Yellow Jackets
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1/2 inch long with black and yellow bodies.
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The waist is thin and defined, and the wings are as long as the body.
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Yellow jackets can produce multiple stings, and the stings can cause an allergic reaction in some people.
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Colonies can contain 1,000 workers.
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The colonies can be found under porches, steps, in sidewalk cracks, bases of trees, bushes, low hanging branches, or corners of buildings.
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They eat other insects, overripe fruit, sugary drinks, human food/food waste, and meat.
Wasps
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Dusty yellow to dark brown or black in color.
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Two long legs hang down visibly during flight.
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Most eat other insects.
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They construct hives in protected spaces such as attics, eaves, soil cavities, or trees by chewing wood into papery construction pulp.
Hornets
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Black and dark body with some yellow.
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They construct hives on top of trees, in attic rafters, and other covered areas by chewing wood into papery construction pulp.
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A colony can contain 700 workers.
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They release pheromones to raise alarm of nest attacks and to identify prey.
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Hornets can mobilize the entire nest to sting in defense, which is highly dangerous to humans.
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They eat mostly other insects, such as honey bees.
Black Widow Spider
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Females are shiny black with a red hourglass on their abdomen. While some do not have an hourglass.They have a pair of red dots or no markings at all.
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Females grow to about 1 ½ inches.
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Males are usually gray or brown.They sometimes have an hourglass marking on their abdomen, but it is usually yellow or white.
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Males are ¼ the size of females.
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They are nocturnal and primarily found in habitats with sparse vegetation, stumps, hollow logs, and piles of debris.
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Black Widows are rarely found indoors, they may enter human dwellings on piles of firewood brought inside.
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They prey on insects, woodlice, diplopods, chilopods, and other arachnids.
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Black widow venom is fifteen times more potent than a rattlesnake’s.
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Black widow bites can cause severe muscle cramps, abdominal pain, weakness, and tremor. In severe cases, nausea, vomiting, fainting, dizziness, chest pain, and respiratory difficulties.
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People rarely die from a black widow's bite. Life-threatening reactions are generally seen only in small children and the elderly.
