Tips for Selecting the Right Professional for Your Pest Problem

From gophers and rats to ants and termites, there is no shortage of pests here in Southern California. If your home has been overrun with any of these rodents or insects, a professional pest control servicecan help you reclaim your living space and remove these unwanted houseguests for good. But with so many pest control companies to choose from in Los Angeles County, how do you know which professional to choose? Here are a few tips for hiring the right professional for the job.

Look for Experience
Pest control is about more than setting traps or spraying chemicals. There is a definite art and science to pest control, and only a company that has been around for more than a few years has picked up the skills that separate great companies from good companies. Gopher Control has served the Southern California community for over 16 years, so you know we can be trusted with all of your pest control needs.

Match Their Expertise with Your Pest Problem
The right pest control company will depend on your pest control needs. For instance, if your home is infested with termites, you should look for a company that specializes in termite removal. On the other hand, if your home is overrun with gophers, moles, or rodents, only Gopher Patrol has the specialized skills and equipment needed to handle the problem. 

Ask Them about Prevention 
It’s one thing to remove pests from your home, but it’s something else to keep them from coming back. Look for a company that takes preventative measures to ensure that gophers, moles, mice, or rats don’t come back a second time. At Gopher Patrol, we set strategic traps and thoroughly seal your entire home to prevent the pests from coming back.

Gopher Patrol specializes in gopher and rodent control throughout Riverside, Los Angeles, and the rest of Southern California. We can also control squirrels, nuisance birds, ants, roaches, and other indoor and outdoor pests. Call us today at (855) 460-0564 to learn more about our pest control services.

What a Gopher Problem Means for Your Property

Gophers are infamous for their ability to destroy lawns, flower beds, and gardens in a short amount of time. If mounds of dirt are appearing in your lawn or garden overnight, you may need to bring in agopher removal expert to prevent the problem from spreading and becoming worse. Even one gopher is bad news for your property, so don’t hesitate to contact a trained pest control professional to eliminate the threat. Below are just a few of the problems that can result from a gopher infestation on your property.

Plant Damage
Gophers are insatiable herbivores. They will consume and destroy large amounts of vegetation in a single day, and left unchecked they can completely destroy your entire landscape. In addition to consuming plants, gophers will also gnaw on tree roots and bark. The resulting damage can cause trees to die. If you want to protect your landscape from this burrowing menace, contact a gopher removal expert as soon as you notice signs of a gopher problem.

Irrigation Damage
Gopher tunnels are usually between 2 to 3 inches in diameter and often run parallel to the surface, usually at depths between 6 to 12 inches. Because of the size and location of gopher tunnels, it is not uncommon for gophers to run into irrigation lines or sprinkler systems. Gophers can chew through hoses and wiring, wreaking havoc on your entire irrigation system and possibly flooding your yard.

Property Value Damage
Between the dead trees, broken sprinklers, and dirt mounds everywhere, your home or business won’t be much to look at after a gopher blows through. The resulting damage from a gopher infestation can lower the value of your property, so take matter into your own hands and protect your investment by hiring an experienced gopher removal expert to evict this unwanted guest.

When it comes to gopher eradication in Riverside, few companies have as much experience and expertise as Gopher Patrol. For more than 16 years, we have provided homeowners and business properties with quality gopher removal services. Visit our website or call us at (855) 460-0564 to learn more about our services.

Reasons to Call Pest Control Professionals Before Installing Insulation in Your Attic

Installing good insulation in your attic is essential for maintaining indoor comfort and reducing your energy bills. If you suspect that you have rodents living in your attic, however, installing new insulation could be problematic. Here are a few reasons why you should call a pest control professional to inspect your attic before you install insulation:

Identify and Remove Pests
If you have rats or mice living in your attic, they’re sure to ruin your new insulation soon after it’s installed. To prevent this from happening, you must have pest control professionals trap the pests, remove them, and take exclusion measures to keep them from returning.

Remove Existing Insulation
The next step is to remove your attic’s existing insulation. However, professional insulation installers may not be willing to clear pest waste, and pest control professionals may not know how to remove insulation. You can save time and money by finding a company that offers both pest control and insulation removal services.

Sanitize the Attic Area
Hiring a pest control professional who also handles insulation is a great way to make sure your attic is completely clean before you install the new insulation. Without proper sanitation, unpleasant smells or even harmful diseases could linger in your attic for years.

Install New Insulation
Lastly, another big reason to hire a pest control and insulation expert is so you don’t have to worry about installing it yourself. Some kinds of insulation—particularly fiberglass insulation—can be harmful if you don’t know how to handle it properly. For the sake of your own safety and to ensure that the insulation is installed correctly, hire a professional.

Gopher Patrol of LA is one of a few companies to offer pest removal, insulation removal, sanitization, and insulation installation. If you have squirrels, rats, gophers, or other rodents anywhere else on your property, we can take care of them, too. Call us at (855) 460-0564 to speak with a representative or visit our website to learn more about our pest elimination and exclusion services. 

What Are the Problems with Store-Bought Gopher Poisons?

Gophers have been homeowners’ nemeses for as long as people have kept lawns and gardens. All that time and work devoted to seeding, watering, planting, mowing, and weeding can be undone by a few fresh mounds of dirt. Some homeowners embrace store-bought poisons in order to eliminate gophers; however, poisons can be problematic for the following reasons:  

They Don’t Work
The poisons you might find at a hardware store probably have strychnine, a chemical compound used to kill small vertebrates. However, these poisons may only be .25 percent strychnine or less, and may not be strong enough to eliminate a gopher. For a comparison, a professional gopher control outfit should be licensed to use poison that’s almost 2 percent strychnine. No matter how much strychnine your poison has, it won’t be effective if you don’t know how much poison to apply or where to apply it. Many pest control professionals don’t use poison at all, and have more luck with gopher traps.  

They Can Cause Illness
The poisons you might use to eliminate gophers aren’t just dangerous for gophers—they’re also dangerous for other mammals. For example, your dog or cat could catch and eat a poisoned gopher and unwittingly ingest the poison meant for the gopher. Your children could accidentally ingest the poison while playing in the yard and become very ill as a result. For these reasons and others, you’re best off avoiding store-bought poisons altogether.  

They Can Harm Plants
The whole reason behind administering poisons is to eliminate gophers so they stop destroying your yard. Why, then, would you want a poison that causes harm to your yard? If you use the poison incorrectly, it could end up killing your plants, or worse, it could contaminate your vegetable garden.

The experts at Gopher Patrol of LA can administer gopher baits and poison in such a way that won’t harm you, your pets, or your yard. If you’d rather not use poison, we will use trapping techniques instead. Call (855) 460-0564 or visit our website to learn more about our gopher control services.  

Why Is Trapping the Preferred Method for Rodent Control?

Once rodents start eating your food and leaving their droppings everywhere, you may wish to get rid of them by any means necessary. However, poisoning rats and leaving them to die can leave you with a much worse problem.

If you poison rats, they’ll continue to wander around your property until they die. Pretty soon, you could end up with dozens of dead rats decomposing in different areas around your home. As you can imagine, the smell would make your home uninhabitable for quite some time. The best solution is to plant traps around your home—that way, professionals can periodically check the traps and promptly remove the rats. When paired with exclusion measures, trapping is an extremely effective means of eliminating rats from your property.

For expert rodent trapping and exclusion services, contact Gopher Patrol of LA. No matter how extensive your rodent infestation, our team of professionals will promptly take care of it. You can contact us at (855) 460-0564 or through our website.