Calling in Professional Pest Control

We have never in all of our almost 35 years of marital bliss had to deal with any type of pest control that would involve hiring a professional agency.  Then we bought the house in Florida.  Even though it was only a couple of years old we finally broke down and hired a professional pest control company to deal with palmeto bugs and fire ants.  We bought this house and started moving in the first of September to later uncover a rodent and ant problem.  We started dealing with it ourselves with sealing all food sources, trapping, baiting and sealing all entry points.  Within the last two weeks we have trapped three mice and let me tell you that can easily be a mess.  My husband made the executive decision to call in the professionals.  This was not an easy decision because quite frankly calling in the professionals costs money but if you want the job done right sometimes that is what you have to do.

What to expect:
Professional pest control services will target from attic to basement or crawlspace.  They will deal with any pest problem you have.  They will charge between $300 (vacation home) and $600 or more (permanent residence) based on square footage for regular pest control (eg. ants, rodents, insects).  If you have a problem with skunks, raccoons, or squirrel there will be an additional charge for trapping.  The service personnel will first assess the problem then treat as necessary.  All trapping including bait traps is very, very discrete.  You and your guests won't even notice any signs of pest control anywhere.  They will place bait traps that insects and rodents can take back to the nest where it will kill them off.  The bait traps are colourless and odourless.  If rodents are a problem they set specialized bait traps where rodents will take the bait back to the nest preventing any trapping (aka killing in the home).   They may spray down drains, into the dead space under cabinets, in electrical outlets and behind appliances but you will never see it.  Everything they do is and I can't stress this enough very discrete.  They will bait and spray as necessary outside of the home as well as notify you of any potential pest problems.  From start to finish our experience has been about 2 hours for the initial visit.  They will check any traps and your property upon request if the pest(s) they treated for is spotted again and at regular intervals as part of their maintenance plan.  The maintenance plan will call for regular inspections, resetting traps and putting out fresh bait.  Expect the maintenance follow-up to last between 40 minutes and an hour each time.

Cost:
The cost will depend on the size of the home and what they are treating for.  In general expect to pay between $300 and $600 for an annual guaranteed treatment.   Included in that cost will be quarterly inspections in addition to any emergency treatment required free of charge.  That is included in the initial cost.  Other costs may be occurred as a result of pest damage but in general that is the responsibility of the home owner not the pest control company.

Guarantee:
A reputable pest control service will give you a solid guarantee.  We pay $300 per year for pest control at our vacation home (mainly insects).  If we see anything moving inside the house that shouldn't be moving we just call them and they treat the house again.  We just paid $600 at our permanent residence which is larger square footage and adds in the problem of mice but the same guarantee stands.  Anything moving, call them and they will take care of it with no additional charges.  That is what you are looking for with this type of service.  Get the initial treatment then use whatever follow-up treatments recommended.

Annual vs. One Time Treatment:
In general, once you have a problem with a pest it will come back even if eliminated initially.  Some pests have homing devices where they will return to where they were born but others are simply location selective.  If you border on rural land, farm land or you are in certain pest heavy zones the annual treatment is the way to go.  If you have a transient problem with raccoons or squirrels getting into your home then a one time treatment should solve your problem

Garden Gnome
©2006-2012

Laundry or Utility Sinks

This is the second permanent residence we have owned that does not have a laundry sink.  Our vacation home doesn't have one either but I don't have any plans for painting there.  Let me tell you, not having a laundry sink is a major pain when you are painting.  I used my laundry sinks for everything but laundry.  They were more in line of a utility sink.  The mess stayed there without messing up the kitchen or bathroom sinks. 

I can't abide a dirty sink which explains why I was up at 2 AM shining my kitchen sinks.  I've been working on painting the kitchen for the past 8 days.  Without a utility sink I had to resort to using my kitchen sinks.  Talk about a nuisance.  I have scrubbed and polished those sinks daily because painting really takes its toll on sinks.  I was doing the same in the main bathroom when I painted it a couple of weeks ago.  The worst part is with my plans to paint all the rooms in the house this winter, those sinks are going to get a lot of scrubbing!

Garden Gnome
©2006-2012

Field Mice Problems

Until our last three houses, we did not have to deal with field mice getting into the house.  Oh good gosh, these little critters are horrid to deal with.  All of our food is protected in glass, metal or heavy plastic containers.  The problem is when the fields come off the mice come in and if there isn't an easy access they will gnaw one so you have to keep a constant vigilance.  All holes, cracks and points of entry must be sealed.  You can bait outdoors providing the bait is out of the reach of children and pets but this really should be a last resort.  The reason being is poisoned mice will poison any predators, something you don't want.  Predators (eg. hawks, owls) act as a natural population check for mice. 

Even though our community is urban there is ample surrounding farmland surrounding the community and pockets of farmland within the community.  Any building regardless of its age within the vicinity of this farmland is fair game for the field mice.  Our new house backs onto a small stretch of a farmer's field that has residential homes on each side with our street ending at the larger field to the west.  Field mice are a problem for all the homes on both sides of the field as well as a couple of churches and school in the area. 

We saw signs of a mouse in the pantry in late December so took the steps to get rid of it.  The mouse was smart enough to get the peanut butter off of all three traps.  We saw no signs of the mouse so figured it was gone.  Then it snowed and sure enough there was a trail of mouse tracks across our deck into the corner where the garage meets the house, precisely where we thought the mouse got in.  My husband reset the traps with cheese, pushing hard into the bait holder.  The next morning we had caught the mouse.  It snowed again two days ago and I noticed mouse tracks in the same area of the deck.  My husband set another trap with cheese successfully catching another mouse yesterday afternoon.  The trap has been reset and we have a pretty good idea where to look for the point of entry. 

Weather is hindering any sealing on the outside but if we can get to the point of entry on the inside by moving the footer insulation, it will be possible to block from the inside.  We will still have to patch that spot on the outside when the weather permits as mice will simply gnaw their way into the house  again.  So far this looks like the only point of entry but we will continue to keep the traps set even after this entry point is sealed up just in case.  I'll be glad when spring arrives so we can do a good check of the house exterior for anywhere field mice can get in!

Garden Gnome
©2006-2012

Nixing the Smell of Paint

I tend to use acrylic laytex paint whenever possible.  While this paint is not as low odour as the newer eco-friendly paints with no VOCs, it has a lot lower odour than oil based enamel paints.  I have extensive experience with the acrylic laytex paints, limited experiences with enamel paints and no experience with the eco-friendly paints.  My winter project is painting every room in the house and given my druthers I would have tried the eco-friendly paints except my local Home Hardware has had no feedback at all on these paints other than they are not selling well.  So I went with the tried and true Beautitone acrylic laytex paint.

Acrylic laytex paints are wonderful to work with and they are easy to clean-up but there is still a smell.  Unfortunately the odour can bother those like me with sinus and asthma, more so when the windows can't be opened to rid the house of the odour.  I use two techniques to help rid the house of acrylic latex paint odour:

• exhaust fans - An exhaust fan can be quite beneficial in removing odour from painting.  This can be quite effective at removing odour during the painting process.  The downside to using exhaust fans is they suck out the heat along with the odour.  
• a bowl of vinegar - A bowl of white vinegar neutralizes the paint odour.  Place a bowl with about an inch of white vinegar in the room while painting and leave it there a couple of days.  It really does help.

Garden Gnome
©2006-2012

Problems with Red Paint

I have spent the last couple of weeks getting close and personal with paint.  My winter project is to paint the entire interior of our new home.  The main bathroom was first and is completed with the exception of the custom made trim for the tub recess.  Last Monday I started the kitchen that was originally supposed to be a pale taupe but thanks to my husband is now the same colour as our dinnerware, a deep and rich burgundy.  After almost a full week of working on the kitchen, I'm exhausted.  The room is turning out to be absolutely gorgeous (pictures to come shortly) but talk about a major pain in the keester!  The real problem lies with the red paint itself.

Paints colours are mixed in a base of clear, white, medium or dark.  Now the bathroom, a pale taupe mixed in a base of white covered nicely in two coats.  The burgundy in the kitchen was mixed in a base of clear.  The result was a thinner paint taking three coats to cover.  Red in general when it comes to paint is just a royal pain.  It needs a grey base coat primer if going over lighter colours and don't even think about skipping the primer unless you want to paint the walls about ten times.  It really is not a good choice of colour for any area that will receive a lot of light as for some reason the red pigment is very, very prone to fading.  Getting a nice, clean line is almost enough to pull your hair out as well.  So a room that should technically have taken two days has taken me six days and there is still another two good days of work in the kitchen putting me a bit behind schedule for my winter project.  Knowing how DIY projects go that two days will stretch out to four days.

Garden Gnome
©2006-2012

Choosing Paint Colours

As soon as we knew we were moving here, one of our friends suggested as they did, have a professional painter come in and paint everything neutral. Well, we actually like some of the colours so decided against this. However, I have always maintained that you should not immediately change paint colours upon moving into a new home. Get settled first then observe how the natural light affects the room colours. Chances are the nice creamy yellow in the kitchen was quite welcoming under artificial lighting when you viewed the house and now is a bit garish while sipping your morning coffee.

I spent a couple of days on the Behr ColorSmart site.  This is an amazing tool that can help you find the perfect colours and even shows you what they will look like using your own photo.  After finding a mossy green (Promenade, 400F-5) very close to what was used in the master bedroom and fairly close to one of the colours at our vacation home. All the other colours in the house will co-ordinate back to that green. My husband wanted to deal locally at Home Hardware but they don't sell Behr paint. Home Depot does but that means a good half hour drive each way that will waste a lot of time if I go on a per room basis. Anyway, Home Hardware can mix the paint to the Behr code so that is a real bonus for me!  It will save countless trips outside of our community.

Another great way to choose a colour for a room is to look at one of the fabrics you already have in there.  Squint and the predominate colour will pop out.  Take the fabric sample with you to start building of colours that will co-ordinate with that fabric.  I actually chose co-ordinating colours this way for our old house.  I loved the tone of the existing wallpaper but not the design or age of it.  The end result was quite pleasant to the point I ended up basing the entire house colours on that particular colour!  I even found a wallpaper border later with all the colours.  The neat thing was I had chose the colours for the walls using the squint method and the Behr ColorSmart tool well before I ever found the border and yet the border matched perfectly.  Sometimes working backwards still gets good end results!



Garden Gnome
©2006-2012

Let the Painting Begin

Our new house was built in 1994.  It is a 5-bedroom executive house that we moved into in September of 2011.  We really liked the room colours with the exception of two when we did the walk-throughs but after five months of living here I think I have noticed every single painting flaw in the house.  The colours are almost but not quite co-ordinated and the previous owners tried to use a three colour shadowing technique in the entrance/living/diningroom/hall unsuccessfully.  Then the warm taupe tones in that space clashes with the cooler taupe in the kitchen.  In fact the cooler taupe in the kitchen really doesn't work as well as it could with the warm oak, ceramic tile (counters) or marble tile (floor) tones.  The visual aspect could have been overlooked but what could not be overlooked was the amateur painting!  My massive winter project is painting each room in the house.  Over the next few weeks I will be doing a bit of blogging about that.

Garden Gnome
©2006-2012