Killing pests
Reduce your family's exposure

Eliminate Pests While Protecting Your Family’s Health

Over the past decade, a small but growing segment of the pest control business, spurred by growing awareness of environmental and health hazards, has begun phasing out the indiscriminate use of pesticides once used routinely to kill pests in our homes, gardens, schools, parks and other community institutions. This new approach, which is called Integrated Pest Management, or IPM, employs carefully chosen, less-toxic methods to repel or eliminate pests.

But it’s not just the professionals that can benefit from such practices. You too can adopt integrated pest management procedures in your home and garden. As you become more knowledgeable at home, you will be better able to inform institutions in your community (such as schools, parks and religious institutions) about the use of IPM and encourage them to pursue it as well.

One of the important things to remember with IPM, or any pest control process for that matter, is that you don’t necessarily need to completely eliminate all pests. The key is to control their levels so that they don’t become a problem or to make your home and garden unattractive to insects, rodents and others so that they don’t come along to begin with.

IPM also doesn’t necessarily mean eliminating the use of pesticides. Sometimes that can be the result, but the more important goal is reducing pesticide use to modest levels. This is achieved through a variety of measures, including making structural changes that reduce pests’ access through food, water and other entry points, and choosing plants that are less likely to encourage unwelcome visitors.

As the National Coalition on IPM has said, “IPM is a strategy that uses various combinations of pest control methods, biological, cultural, and chemical in a compatible manner to achieve satisfactory control and ensure favorable economic and environmental consequences.”

In other words, IPM is not a specific process or product. Instead, it involves planning ahead to avoid pest problems before you have any problems. Here are just a few things you might do in your own IPM process at home:

• Make sure that moist soil doesn’t come into direct contact with the foundations of your home, which can help to reduce termites and other crawling critters’ access  to your home.

• Growing pest-resistant varieties of plants

• Weed around your garden and your home to remove cover for insect or animal pests

• Don’t leave pet food out overnight, especially outdoors, where is might encourage pests such as cockroaches, rodents, raccoons and others from coming to your home in search of food

For more assistance in planning out an IPM process that fits your needs, your lifestyle and your budget, use the “Related information” link on the left side of this page.