Homeowners are tenacious people. They spend so much time working on their homes themselves and making improvements, that when many discover they have a pest problem they think it’s something they can handle on their own.

While the can-do attitude is an awesome one to have — especially in the game of homeownership — pest control is its own beast.

Our Toronto pest control professionals are highly skilled and educated not simply on pest activity but also on the methods to deal with them safely in your home.

When you attempt pest control on your own, you’re taking some big risks with you and your family’s safety. Here are some of the most common mistakes we see Toronto residents doing in their quest for DIY pest control.

Misidentifying Pests

The ant pest control experts at Greenleaf know that treating your home effectively requires precise identification of the pests causing problems. Do you know how many types of ants commonly enter Toronto homes? Did you know treating each of them is a different process?

If the pest isn’t properly identified, then it cannot be adequately treated – and that’s one of the biggest issues we see with DIY pest control methods.

Many pests look similar at first glance or leave behind signs that may seem similar to people without an experienced eye and specifically educated about the differences between pests.

Universal pest control is not going to help you solve your pest problems. Effective pest control takes into account specific pests and targets each.

Underestimating the Pest Problem

For every pest you see, you can assume there are many more lurking in your home. The experts at Greenleaf abide by the rule of thumb that it’s the pests you don’t see that are causing the largest problems.

One of the reasons DIY pest control fails is that it doesn’t take into account the true scale of an infestation. Pests are smart and can navigate and communicate quite well in your home. That’s why many pesticides and traps can fail.

Treating Symptoms Instead of the Underlying Cause

DIY pest control is normally a response to seeing a pest in the home. If you see ants in your kitchen, for example, you may decide to spray them and think that’s the solution to the problem – but it’s not.

Treating the underlying cause of the ants you see is what will ultimately take care of the problem, something pest control experts are trained to do.

Human Error

It doesn’t matter who you are, you’re going to make mistakes. Unfortunately, mistakes are more likely to happen if you don’t really understand what you’re doing. A good example is spraying insecticide on everything when you see bugs.

While that sounds like a great idea at first, the insects will scatter, and that ultimately makes it much more difficult to get rid of them completely.

You’ve unknowingly bandaged the problem without actually solving it – not because you don’t want to solve it but simply because you don’t know the right way to go about solving the issue.

Injury

 

The truth of the matter is that many of the pesticides used to kill pests are dangerous. Even though the over-the-counter pest solutions you purchase for your home aren’t as good as the stuff professionals use, they can still be dangerous – especially when not used correctly.

Improper use of pesticides is a danger to you and your family and possibly one of the biggest risks with DIY pest control. Instead of dealing with the risks of handling pests on your own, contact the pest control experts at Greenleaf for help today.

About the Author:

Daniel Mackie, co-owner of Greenleaf Pest Control, is a Toronto pest control expert and a regular guest on HGTV. He is renowned in the industry as an innovator of safe, effective pest control solutions. Mackie and business partner Sandy Costa were the first pest control professionals in Canada to use detection dogs and thermal remediation for the successful eradication of bed bugs. In his free time, he is an avid gardener.