Blog

Few pests are as unwelcome as a cockroach scurrying across the kitchen floor when you flip on the light, and it happens more often as the weather cools. If you have wondered why do roaches come in the house just as fall arrives, the answer comes down to the same things every pest wants: warmth, moisture, food, and shelter. As those grow scarce outdoors, your home starts to look like the best option around. Understanding which roaches you are dealing with, and why they turn up when they do, is the first step to keeping them out.

If you want to know how to keep mice out of your house, the honest answer is not a better mousetrap. It is a methodical walk around your home with a caulk gun and a critical eye, done before the cold weather sends rodents looking for a way in. Trapping deals with the mice already inside. Rodent-proofing, done right, stops the next ones from ever getting there. This is the checklist we work through on a professional inspection, adapted so you can start on it yourself this fall.

Most homeowners think of termites as a springtime worry, something to deal with when the swarmers appear on a warm April afternoon. So the question of when to get a termite inspection usually gets answered by the calendar of visible activity, which is exactly backward. By the time you see termites, a colony has often been feeding quietly for months or years. Here in North Carolina, one of the highest-risk states in the country for termite damage, the smarter move is to inspect before the obvious signs arrive, and fall is arguably the best window of the whole year to do it.

Every fall, as the days shorten and the nights cool, a familiar cast of insects starts gathering on the sunny sides of houses across Wake County, looking for a way inside. Brown marmorated stink bugs lead the pack, and homeowners who want to know how to get rid of stink bugs quickly discover that the real answer is to keep them out in the first place. These are the fall invaders: nuisance pests that do not damage your home or bite your family, but show up in frustrating numbers on warm autumn afternoons and settle in for the winter if you let them. A little preparation now, before they arrive, makes all the difference.