While you may be ready to pull out your bags of candy and chocolate for those neighborhood trick-or-treaters, there is something else that you should be ready to deal with in this month of more than just friendly ghouls and goblins.

October brings with it not just a fun holiday, but also some unpleasant bugs that may invade your home. The pests we will focus on this month all have in common their tendency to bite humans and even draw blood. The four pests of October to look out for include: bed bugs, mosquitos, ticks, and fleas.

Bed Bugs

Bed bugs spread through clothing and baggage of travelers and through secondhand beds, bedding, furniture and laundry. Experts believe that the cause for the rise in bed bugs are due to an increase in global travel and mobility, the banning of DDT along with reduced use of urban pesticides. In fact, about a year ago, a wide-scale bedbug epidemic enveloped New York City. While the bed bug threat is not a red flag in Texas, homeowners should employ control methods to keep them from hiding in mattresses, clothing, and/or other bedding.

Control Bed Bugs

First, you must know where the bed bugs are hiding in order to remove them. Once you know where they are, improve sanitation by vacuuming or removing the bugs by hand. Depending on your situation, you may need to treat the infested area with an insecticide approved for this use and specifically for bed bug control. Spray or dust bed slats, springs, frame, and other hiding places in the room. Do not use any insecticide on a mattress unless the product label specifically gives directions for this use.

Some additional prevention/control methods include:

- Store all your accessible food in rodent-proof containers such as glass or metal

- Bag up all clothing in plastic garbage bags, which must be sealed airtight.

- Bag books, papers, pictures, most loose objects and contents of closets to exterminators have access to all cracks and crevices in the home.

If your bed bug situation is serious and will not be solved by do-it-yourself methods, please contact a professional to assist you.

Mosquitoes

While bed bugs do not carry diseases, mosquitos are a whole other story. Besides the annoyance factor, mosquitoes can also transmit many disease-causing organisms to humans and animals. They spread such diseases as West Nile virus, encephalitis, dengue, yellow fever, malaria and filariasis. Mosquitoes are also responsible for transmitting heartworm in dogs.

Mosquito Control

The TX Cooperative Extension provides many ways to prevent mosquitos from invading your home and biting you and your family:

- Use screening in your homes and pet kennels. Keep the screens in good repair and be sure that they seal around the frames of the door or window.

- Schedule outdoor activities during times when mosquitoes are not active. Mosquito species that are active at dusk and dawn can often be avoided. Species that bite throughout the day are more difficult to avoid.

- Use repellents whenever in a mosquito infested location.

- For short-term relief in outdoor areas such as patios and picnic areas, use a fogger and citronella candles or punks as a deterrent.

Ticks

Ticks can be found on both humans and dogs. In urban areas, the most common tick is the brown dog tick. Dogs can become seriously infested with ticks to the point where it can be fatal, due to heavy blood loss. Ticks usually feed on more than one host during their lives, thus, they are able to transmit diseases to both humans and animals. Some transmitted diseases can be similar to the flu while others result in rashes, fever, or joint stiffness.

Tick Control

Protect yourself and your pets from tick bites by following some of the control methods the Cooperative suggests:

- Make it harder for ticks to enter clothing by tucking shirttails inside pants and wearing long pants and shirts.

- Around the home, keep tall grass and weeds cut short. Ticks like to climb vertical surfaces to rest after feeding. When treating yards for brown dog ticks, spray the siding of the house, fences, trees and other hiding places as well as the lawn.

- When using insecticides, follow label directions carefully and do not apply more than is recommended. Tick insecticides can be dangerous to pets and children if misapplied.

Fleas

Fleas that have fed on rodents may transmit diseases, including plague and murine typhus. Proect yourself from these diseases by avoiding close contact with wild rodents such as squirrels, rats, and prairie dogs. On the other hand, cat fleas do not carry plague.

Flea Control

The Cooperative suggests keying in to an integrated flea control program to prevent and eliminate fleas from the home.

Sanitation: Change pet bedding regularly and vacuum thoroughly. Vacuuming removes up to 30 percent of the larvae and up to 60 percent of flea eggs from a carpet, as well as the larvae’s food supply of dried blood. Vacuum under furniture, cushions, chairs, beds, and along walls. Discard vacuum cleaner bags at least once a week.

Got Fleas, but No Pets?

Just because your home doesn't have pets does not mean that you are 100% safe from fleas. Homes can become infested with fleas when no pets are present. Wild animals such as bats, roof rats, squirrels, raccoons, and wild dogs and cats around the home, especially if you live in a highly wooded and forested area, may be the source of an infestation.

Call a pest control professional to seal off any openings that wildlife and rodents may use to enter your home.

While October may be a month of Halloween and fun festivities, make sure you know how to control bed bugs, mosquitos, ticks, and fleas, before they control your home, family, and pets!