Living in Arizona certainly has its advantages – such as mild winters, amazing hiking trails, and stunning sunsets – but our desert region also comes with its share of annoying pests. This is particularly true during the summer months when every living thing is looking for a cool space to escape the heat, and too often the bugs, scorpions, and snakes view our cool homes as their own hideaway.
At Heers Management, we’ve encountered a host Arizona critters that like to try and slip into our managed homes and properties. The following are some of the more common summer animals that will try to make your home theirs, and how you can dissuade them.
Keeping Insects Out
Arizona has more than 250 identified insects, the most common of which are crickets and house flies. While neither of these bugs is particularly dangerous, they are plenty annoying. Crickets enjoy the cool spaces between your home’s framing, but when caught inside of your walls they can make quite the chirping racket. House flies prefer flitting around your kitchen in hopes of an easy meal during the height of the summer heat, and can likewise be quite the buzzing annoyance. These two insects are also known to be a major food source for scorpions, so keeping them out can also help prevent against scorpion issues.
Some steps you can take to reduce and eliminate the amount of house flies, crickets, spiders, and other bugs you see around your home include:
- Hiring an exterminator or asking Heers Management to call in their team
- Taking out the trash a minimum of once a week, preferably twice. If you have a problem with fruit flies, try keeping your food trash in a sealed container, such as a plastic coffee canister, which is also thrown out once a week. .
- Keep your home and yard clean. To eliminate fly breeding grounds, spray and wipe down your sinks every night so that there is no standing water.
- Put up bird feeders to encourage birds to come into your yard and feast on the outside pests.
Keeping Scorpions Out
Ridding your property of scorpions’ primary food source, crickets, is a great first step to deterring these dangerous critters, but sometimes it isn’t enough. During the summer, the long, hot days lead scorpions to search out cool, dark hidings spots like your garage, basement, and underneath porches to rest during the day. Even if these areas aren’t full of their food source, they still provide scorpions respite. Unfortunately, should you, a family member, or even your pet come across a resting scorpion, the shock can cause them to attack leading to a dangerous situation.
In addition to reducing the crickets and house flies around your home via the above steps, consider the following precautionary measures:
- Seal your house. You can either call in a professional scorpion sealing company, or buy and install sealing products yourself.
- Raise chickens. If you rent, you’ll first have talk with your landlord or Heers management team before considering this option. However, if you own your own home, you’ll likely find raising chickens to be the best pest control available. Chickens love eating scorpions and other little pests. Plus, you’ll get plenty of free eggs along the way.
However, if you do keep chickens, it can lead to another pesky Arizona critter: snakes. Keep their numbers low by regularly collecting eggs and keeping your coop closed in the evening.
And if you’re still looking for your own place to call home (without the Arizona pests), contact us at Heers Management.