Pest Library

A Guide To Helena, MT Pest Identification & Prevention

As a locally owned business, Aegiss Pest Control has become intimately acquainted with the pests of Helena. Our Pest Library is where we bring our knowledge to you by providing important information about the pests most likely to invade your home or business. Use this as your resource guide when pests invade.

Ants

Every Montana homeowner has discovered a trail of ants walking across their yard, deck, or kitchen at one point or another. Ants are common pests whose small bodies allow them to easily invade our structures. As people have taken over more space, animals and insects like ants have adapted to living near us. Ants are common in our yards and homes because our gardens, trash cans, compost piles, kitchens, and basements offer them food and shelter. These insects are social and live in large colonies, working together to ensure the colony's success; this makes controlling and eliminating them a difficult task.

If ants have found a way into your home, the most likely culprits are either carpenter ants, harvester ants, pavement ants, or crazy ants. All four species are common invaders into Montana yards and structures. Carpenter ants are the most dangerous, not because they affect people's health, but because they invade structural wood to create nests. Over time, the damage that carpenter ants cause becomes difficult and costly to repair. No matter the type of ant, they do not belong in our homes. They all cause problems like spreading bacteria, contaminating food, and attracting other pests.

If ants ever become an issue inside your home or yard, know that the local pest professionals at Aegiss Pest Control can help. Our pest control solutions will eliminate your current unwanted houseguests and prevent a reinfestation. We also want to help you protect your property from ants by offering some easy-to-execute prevention tips:

Keep lids on trash cans, compost bins, and recycling bins to stop ants and other pests from foraging for food in them.
Regularly clean your homes by vacuuming and dusting to remove stray crumbs of food.
Remove debris from your lawn where ants could create their nests like brush piles, leaf piles, fallen trees, and fallen fences.
Seal any cracks in your home's exterior, no matter how small, to keep ants out.

Bed Bugs

Bed bugs are small insects that live with people in our homes and businesses. Blood is their sole source of food, and we are their preferred hosts. These bugs have a flattened, oval-shaped, reddish-brown body, short antennae, six legs, and a lack of wings. As their name suggests, bed bugs typically hide in sleeping areas and are often first spotted in the seams of mattresses and box springs. Bed bugs are nocturnal, and being in our bedrooms puts them near their favorite food source. However, many other areas in our Montana homes can also hide bed bugs, including upholstered furniture, cracks in walls, spaces behind door trim, and piles of clutter!

Bed bugs use a specialized mouthpart to bite through our skin and suck out our blood. The process is painless, and some people do not react at all and have no idea that these insects have used them as a food source. Those allergic to their saliva will develop an itchy raised red rash around the bite site. Bed bugs are not significantly responsible for spreading diseases like other blood-feeding pests. Still, their presence in our homes is alarming, and they are difficult to both avoid and eliminate. Bed bugs are avid hitchhikers. Their success partially comes from living inside our temperature-controlled structures and partly from their ability to hitchhike with ease from place to place on people and our belongings. The bed bug's small, dark body allows these pests to move into our homes and businesses without notice.

If bed bugs ever become an issue inside your home, know that the local pest professionals at Aegiss Pest Control can help. Our bed bug control solutions will eliminate your current unwanted houseguests and prevent a reinfestation. We also want to help you protect your property from bed bugs by offering some easy-to-execute prevention tips:

Regularly wash and dry bedding, inspecting mattresses and box springs for signs of bed bugs.
Place bed bug-proof covers on mattresses and box springs to eliminate favorite hiding spots.
Routinely vacuum your floors and upholstered furniture to pick up stray bed bugs.
When out in public, keep your personal belongings away from other people's belongings and up off the ground.
Beware when purchasing used furniture or mattresses that they could be harboring bed bugs.

Centipedes & Millipedes

Centipedes and millipedes are those annoying leggy pests that tend to find their way into our homes, usually when the weather becomes too hot or cold for their liking. They typically use our homes as a place of shelter, not as a place to feed and breed. While these pests do look similar, some physical differences help to tell these two apart. Centipedes have an elongated, flattened body with one pair of legs per body segment, while millipedes have a more cylindrical body and two pairs of legs per body segment. Centipedes are a yellowish-gray or brown color with very long antennae, and millipedes are dark brown or black with short antennae.

Centipedes are carnivores and feed on insects. Millipedes are scavengers and feed on decaying organic matter. Our yards, gardens, flower beds, and the soil under woodpiles or trash cans provide them with plenty of food. Since these pests tend to live near the outside perimeter of our homes, they can easily move inside when necessary. Centipedes and millipedes move indoors seeking moisture and therefore often wind up in our basements, crawls spaces, laundry rooms, and basements. They don't cause major damage in our homes but are a major annoyance.

If centipedes or millipedes ever become an issue inside your home or yard, know that the local pest professionals at Aegiss Pest Control can help. Our pest control solutions will eliminate your current unwanted houseguests and prevent a reinfestation. We also want to help you protect your property from centipedes and millipedes by offering some easy-to-execute prevention tips:

Rake mulch, leaves, and other organic debris back away from your foundation.
Store trash cans and woodpiles up off the ground.
Create a stone barrier between any soil or mulch and your foundation.
Seal spaces in your foundation to keep millipedes and centipedes from crawling into your house.
Use dehumidifiers to reduce moisture levels in humid areas of your home.

Mice

House mice and field mice both regularly use our yards and homes as a place of refuge. Outside, mice nest in dense vegetation, tall grass, tree stumps, woodpiles, brush piles, sheds, and playhouses, all things found in the majority of Montana yards. While searching for food or looking for a warm source of shelter, mice often move into our homes. They only need a tiny space (the diameter of a pencil) to move through, which is one of the biggest reasons these pests are so challenging to keep out of our homes. Mice can exploit openings that we don't even know exist.

Mice have an oval-shaped body, a long thin tail covered in a light layer of velvety fur, large ears, a triangular-shaped head, and a pointed nose. The coat covering the body ranges in color from light gray to black, with a lighter-colored underbelly. Mice and all rodents have front incisors (teeth) that continuously grow throughout their life. Mice are a considerable threat in our homes; they spread bacteria and diseases, contaminate food and food prep areas, and leave behind trails of urine and excrement. Mice also use their sharp front teeth to cause structural damage by chewing through wires, pipes, drywall, flooring, wood trim, and siding.

If mice ever become an issue inside your home or yard, know that the local pest professionals at Aegiss Pest Control can help. Our pest control solutions will eliminate your current unwanted houseguests and prevent a reinfestation. We also want to help you protect your property from mice by offering some easy-to-execute prevention tips:

Regularly and carefully inspect the exterior of your home for openings that could allow mice inside.
Cut shrubs, bushes, weeds, and grass back away from your home's exterior to eliminate hiding spots.
Keep lids on trash cans and compost bins.
Keep outdoor eating areas free of food debris and maintain garden areas.
Store food in your home in the fridge or in containers with airtight lids.
Eliminate clutter in your home where mice could nest.

Spiders

Spiders are common outdoor pests; we often run across them when spending time in our gardens, flowerbeds, yards, and wooded areas. Spiders are predatory arachnids that feed on insects, helping to control populations of mosquitoes, flies, aphids, and other garden pests. While spiders may act as a natural form of pest control when living outside in nature, they turn into pests themselves when they take over our homes and yards.

Two of the more common spider species to invade our Montana yards and eventually find a way into our homes are the funnel spider and orb-weaver spider. Orb-weaver spiders spin large, neat circular webs. Funnel spiders build flat webs with a small funnel-shaped tube attached that leads to a protective burrow. Spiders live outside most of the year, but when Montana's weather cools and insects move indoors, spiders follow their prey. Once inside and as long as there is food to hunt, spiders usually aren't motivated to move back outdoors.

If spiders ever become an issue inside your home or yard, know that the local pest professionals at Aegiss Pest Control can help. Our pest control solutions will eliminate your current unwanted houseguests and prevent a reinfestation. We also want to help you protect your property from spiders by offering easy-to-execute prevention tips:

Place weatherstripping around windows and doors, install door sweeps, and seal up cracks that develop in exterior walls to keep spiders and insects out of your home.
Keep shrubs, bushes, and trees cut back from your home's exterior.
Place garden areas a distance away from the outside of your house.
Inside your home, regularly vacuum, dust, and remove spider webs that develop.
Keep outdoor lights that attract insects off whenever they are not needed.

Stinging Insects

Yellow jackets, wasps, and bald-faced hornets are all examples of stinging insects. They and other stinging insects have a stinger extending from their back end used to defend themselves or paralyze prey. Stinging insects are most active and problematic during the summer season, when most people are also most active. When spending time in your backyard or any outdoor space, there is the potential to accidentally come into contact with a stinging insect or a nest. The venom that stinging insects possess is strong enough to trigger serious reactions in those allergic. So while stinging insects are beneficial (for pollination and reducing insect populations), their presence in our yards can put us in danger.

Things like trash cans, recycling bins, compost, and gardens are common foraging sites for stinging insects and attract these pests to our properties. When stinging insects are active in your yard, they decrease your ability to move around it freely. Common nesting sites include ground holes, tree branches, tree cavities, dense shrubbery, roof eaves, decks, and doorways. The best way to protect yourself and your family from stinging insects is to regularly inspect your property for their nests.

If stinging insects ever become an issue inside your home or yard, know that the local pest professionals at Aegiss Pest Control can help. Our professionals will safely remove their nests from your yard. We also want to help you protect your property from stinging insects by offering some easy-to-execute prevention tips:

Cut tree branches back away from your roof.
Install caps on chimneys, make sure screens in windows and doors are tight, and place covers over vents to keep stinging insects out.
Eliminate foraging sites by keeping lids on trash cans, grill areas free of food debris, and limiting the number of flowering plants near your home.
Build garden areas away from the close outside perimeter of your home.

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