It’s every homeowner’s worst nightmare: you are going through a box in a garage and you unintentionally disturb a  cockroach. Or worse still, multiple roaches.

As it (or they) skitter toward the darkest possible corners, you run inside, disgusted and call your spouse, explaining what happened. After you calm down a bit, your partner asks: “What kind of roaches were they?”

A majority of homeowners have no idea what kind of cockroaches they’re dealing with. Most of us aren’t exactly roach experts, after all, and barely anyone likes to get up close and personal with the critters.

Why does it matter, anyways?

Most Texans are surprised to hear that there are about 30 different cockroach species in our state alone, and that the type of roach infesting your home can inform how you can try to get rid of them—and what you might do to prevent future infestations.

Unfortunately, getting rid of roaches may be … Read Full Post »

Cockroaches have been crawling across the Earth for quite a long time—350 million years, to be exact. That’s far longer than human beings have been around; in fact, roaches even predate dinosaurs. This hardy, adaptable species with incredible longevity is certainly disliked, arguably for good reason. Roaches spread bacteria including salmonella, streptococcus and staphylococcus, and they have been linked to health problems including asthma, dysentery and even polio. Their ability to feed on almost anything can also lead to extensive property destruction, as they will happily eat their way through cardboard boxes, books and magazines and even electrical wiring.

For all these reasons and more, it can be alarming to find roach eggs in your home, since the presence of roach eggs means that roaches are living and breeding nearby. If you think you may have found roach eggs, read on to learn about how to identify different types of cockroach … Read Full Post »

Do you live with a furry pet? If so, whether you have a dog, cat, ferret, guinea pig or something else, there’s a possibility that you are also living with fleas. This is true even if you are meticulous about cleaning your home and bathing your pet. Furthermore, the risk of a flea infestation increases if your pet spends time both indoors and outdoors.

Unfortunately, it’s also possible to have a flea infestation in your home even if you don’t have pets. If squirrels, rats or other rodents make a nest or get trapped inside your attic or walls, they can carry fleas that travel into your living spaces in search of a human blood meal.

A flea infestation is a highly undesirable situation. Not only are flea bites itchy and annoying at best, these tiny parasites can also cause health problems in dogs and other animals such as anemia, hair … Read Full Post »

Love to travel? Many of us do—until a chance encounter with dreaded bed bugs leaves us wishing we’d never set foot outside our homes. “Dread” is not too strong a word when it comes to these pests, which are the bane of travelers and hoteliers alike. Travel isn’t the only way these pests can come into your home.

Bed bugs are notoriously difficult to get rid of once they infest a sleeping area, or any other part of your home, for that matter. If you’ve ever encountered them and suffered their incredibly itchy bites, you may have taken a DIY approach to handle the problem. You may have read that bagging your luggage, linens or clothing and leaving it in the hot sun is an effective do-it-yourself technique. But how long do bed bugs live in a plastic bag?

Unfortunately, the answer to that question is that it depends. Bed … Read Full Post »