Why Are Pests More Active During Summer?
Why Pests Ruin Summer Fun
The warm summer months often bring an unwelcome increase in pest activity. As heat rise, many types of bugs, rodents, and wildlife become more lively and visible around homes and yards.
Learning what drives this seasonal boost in pest sightings can help you prevent issues and deal with any increased sightings effectively.
1. Warm Temperatures Get Pests Moving
Warmer months simply makes cold-blooded creatures like spiders, and some reptiles more active. As external warmth increase, so does their internal body temperature. This gives them extra energy to move around more in search of food, water, and shelter.
Many common pests also spend winter in dormant or less active states. Once summer heat arrives, the higher degrees rouse hibernating pests and get them back into action. Expect to see more ants leaving trails along walls and floors, spiders spinning fresh webs, wasps buzzing around outdoor areas, and snakes slithering through yards.
2. Sources Of Food Become More Plentiful
Another major reason their presence increases in summer is that warm weather makes more food available. Plants produce fresh growth, flowers, seeds, berries, and vegetation – perfect nutrition for a range of wildlife and insect population from squirrels and rats to aphids, caterpillars and beetles.
Backyard gardens, compost piles and outdoor trash cans offer even more appealing smorgasbords for hungry pests like raccoons, mice, flies and ants. More availability of food sources to go around generally means larger pest populations, especially with each new generation.
3. Fast Reproduction Adds to Growing Numbers
Warmer temperatures also enable faster reproduction for many pests. Crickets, cockroaches, spiders, mosquitoes, rats and other prolific breeders can produce multiple generations over a single summer.
One fertile female mouse giving birth to a litter of 6 to 10 babies every 3 weeks means exponential increases. A few lone spiders spotted in spring can turn into a pest infestation of hundreds by mid-summer. More pests breeding rapidly inevitably leads to more activity.
4. Longer Days Keep Pests Out and About
Increased daylight hours in summer give nocturnal and crepuscular (dawn/dusk active) pests more time to hunt for sustenance and roam each day. Where rats, mice, opossums, raccoons and cockroaches may have limited nighttime hours to forage during winter, summer offers extra hours of operation.
Day light also gives diurnal (day active) pests like ants longer working hours. The combined effect allows more activity phase for both day and night creepy crawlies compared to shorter winter days.
5. Added Moisture Boosts Pest Presence
While excessive rain or dry spells can deter some pests, the right amount of increased moisture in summer is another activity driver. Rain showers and watering keeps plants and vegetation thriving for pests to infest and feed on.
Added humidity also gives many stinging insects the water sources needed for survival and reproduction. Mosquitoes must have stagnant water to breed. And damaged structures offer inviting environments for termites, carpenter ants, cockroaches, and molds.
6. Life Cycles Bring Seasonal Swarms
Some pests like termites, cicadas, and locusts are on fixed life stages that culminate in mass seasonal activity. Cicadas can spend years underground before emerging en masse once soil temperatures reach 64° F. This triggers mating, egg-laying, and the infamous cacophonous chorus.
After termite alates take their post-rain mating flights in spring or summer, large worker colonies actively seek out wood-based meal over summer. Locust nymphs also transition to aggressively grazing adults mid-year, forming migratory swarms that decimate crops.
7. Increased Human Activity Draws Hungry Pests
Finally, warm climate equals more human activity – and more pest opportunities. Picnics, cookouts, patio dining, outdoor chores, sports matches, and kids playing all provide sustenance for cunning opportunists like bees, wasps, ants, and flies.
Overflowing trash bins, neglected pet food bowls and gaps around AC units offer easy pickings for rats, mice, raccoons and opossums. Even simply watering plants and mowing lawns stirs up a buffet of insects like chinch bugs, grubs and caterpillars. With more human activity comes more leftover food, waste and access openings for uninvited guests large and small.
Conclusion: Plan Ahead to Prevent Summer Pest Problems
Knowing what makes summer a peak season for pests allows smart prevention to stop problems before they start. Key steps like keeping yards and structures maintained, eliminating food and drink access, sealing gaps, and filling in breeding spots stop the endless all-day, all-you-can-eat buffets many pests enjoy in summer.
Taking some time for solid pest-proofing and vigilance when activity spikes mean you can still enjoy lazy summer days without the buzz, bite, and destruction many uninvited seasonal guests bring.
Reach out to your local pest control experts for a full prevention plan tailored to your property if increased activity becomes an issue. With the right prevention, even hot spots like compost piles, gardens, and patios can stay pest-free all summer season long.
Dealing with pests? Call our professional pest control service. Trained experts stop issues fast.
