The pleasantly temperate climate of St. Petersburg can make it easy to enjoy the great outdoors, year round.
The problem: This climate also attracts a broad range of pests, making the city a true pest magnet.
The good news: Effective pest control methods exist and we’ll share specifics in this comprehensive St. Petersburg guide, including what insects are common in our area, how they can cause problems, and how you can respond.
Because this guide is so in-depth, we’ve included plenty of headers so you can skip to relevant information. If you know that you need St. Petersburg pest control services now, please contact us online or call 813-565-7333.
“Apparently, humans have been facing off with bedbugs—or at least their ancestors—since the time of sabertooth tigers.” (ABC News)
Just a few years ago, scientists discovered fossils of “ancient relatives of bedbugs” in a cave in Oregon. These critters lived between 5,100-11,000 years ago and, before this discovery, the oldest known insect from this species had lived in Egypt about 3,550 years ago.
These bugs may not have bothered humans but, by the time the railroad chugged through the United States, their population was spreading into ever-increasing numbers of people’s homes, riding in on luggage, clothing, and much more. By this point, they were feeding off of people’s blood and truly making a real pest out of themselves.
To keep them out of your St. Petersburg home, examine what you bring inside after a trip or what you buy, second-hand. Once they get inside, these tiny, reddish-brown critters settle into bed frames and other pieces of furniture, baseboards, and so forth—even in homes that are quite clean.
You may notice signs of them before you notice actual insects. Signs can include:
Bed bugs are increasingly more common in the United States and they can survive for months without food (meaning, blood). DIY bed bug treatments, unfortunately, aren’t usually effective, but Thermal Remediation® by Turner Pest Control is a safe and effective alternative. Here’s more info about our St. Petersburg bed bug treatments.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), mosquitoes arrived by ship in the Americas back in the 17th century, bringing with them the yellow fever virus, dengue, and malaria. There were numerous outbreaks after that, with malaria spreading especially quickly during the American Revolutionary War and the Civil War. It’s possible that the use of door and window screens, starting in the 1880s, helped to lower the number of cases, and medical advances have also been made with some diseases carried by mosquitoes.
That said, it’s important to protect the health of friends and family members, given that more than 80 species of this disease-carrying pest live in Florida. One key step is to reduce standing water on your property since this is where mosquitoes breed, including water in bird baths, watering cans, flower pots and vases, old kiddie pools, and more. Fix leaking pipes and faucets and flush seldom-used toilets.
Plus, proactively check your St. Petersburg home for potential entry points and seal them up. If mosquitoes get in, cover baby cribs and young children’s beds with net canopies. Stay indoors at dawn and dusk, when possible, and use appropriate mosquito repellants when going outside, covering yourself well with pants and long-sleeved shirts.
Then, to exterminate this disease-carrying pest from the egg stage to adulthood, ask us about our comprehensive mosquito control treatments: they’re ultra-low volume, fact acting, and long lasting.
“The earliest recorded instance is perhaps that given in the Bible in the account of the pestilence among the Philistines, which they ascribed apparently to ‘the mice that marred the land.’ Avicenna refers to the association between rats and plague in his description of the epidemic in Mesopotamia about the year 1000 A.D. Nicephorus Gregoras, writing of the Great Plague of 1348, which entered Europe by way of Constantinople, makes a similar reference.” (Scientific American, 1911)
These are just some of the examples included in the Scientific American article that discusses rodents and disease. Rats and mice spread more than 35 different ones, directly and indirectly, including the plague, hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, rat-bite fever, lyme disease, encephalitis, Colorado tick fever, typhus and more.
More than 70 rodent species live in North America today, chewing through wood and wire alike in homes, damaging structural integrity and having the potential to start house fires. Rodent infestation signs include:
To keep them out of your St. Petersburg home:
Rodents breed quickly, so a small population can quickly become an out of control infestation. To take control, we recommend our St. Petersburg rodent control services.
“A team of researchers have found a vast network consisting of more than 200 million regularly-spaced termite mounds in northeastern Brazil covering an area the size of Great Britain. According to the research, published in the journal Current Biology on November 19, 2018, the still-inhabited mounds are up to 4,000 years old and so tall they can be seen via satellite. . . . The termites’ activities over thousands of years has resulted in huge quantities of soil deposited in approximately 200 million cone-shaped mounds, each about 8 feet (2.5 meters) tall and 30 feet (9 meters) across.” (EarthSky.org)
Huge numbers, right? Now here’s a number on the other side of the scale: termites can slip into St. Petersburg homes in foundation cracks as tiny as 1/32 of an inch.
Although more than 20 species call Florida home, three of them are the most common:
Termites never stop eating, so one large colony can threaten a home’s integrity. Nationally, they create billions of dollars in damage every year in the United States and DIY treatments aren’t effective. To help, we provide these three levels of professional termite services:
Our St. Petersburg termite control treatments use a soil treatment that exterminates these pests before they get into your home. This system works ten times more quickly than traditional baiting methods.
For more information:
Your affordable monthly fee will be based on the size of your St. Petersburg home, so you’ll never pay more than what’s necessary.
With TurnerClean Disinfection Misting (a service we added during COVID), we use a safe, broad-spectrum disinfectant (Nisus DSV) that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has deemed to be effective against SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19. This disinfectant is also listed for emergency disease control purposes, globally, by the United Nations’ Food and Agricultural Organization.
You can count on powerful virus protection in bathrooms, home offices, kitchens, living areas, and places where surfaces are frequently touched. Please stay out of your home, post-application, for two hours for complete drying and maximum impact.
Whole Structure Fumigation Service
When infestations of bed bugs, beetles, drywood termites and so forth are severe, home or business fumigation can be the solution. We provide whole structure fumigation, residential and commercial, in St. Petersburg with our experts guiding you from start to finish. Estimates and initial inspections are free and there’s no obligation.
We offer simple, flexible services based on square footage and we prioritize services strategically to address urgent needs first. We are committed to your satisfaction as we keep your home pest-free, as this customer explains: “The Turner Pest technician was extremely knowledgeable! He did an outstanding job!”
In short, we stand behind our service, our people, and our products, just as we’ve done since 1971. As Turner Pest Control has grown and technologies improved, we’ve made changes, but we’ve never wavered from our focus on providing prompt and courteous customer service.
Turner Pest Control is:
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To get started, just contact us online or call 813-565-7333.
Ready for expert pest control? Find a Turner Pest Control location near you.
