Pest Evidence: Reading Skins, Webs, Nests, Stains and Smells
Five kinds of trace, each with a short suspect list. What to look at when the insect has gone and all that is left is what it built or left behind.... Read more.
Shredded Paper and Nesting Material: What Built It
Finely shredded, tightly packed and hidden means rodent. Loose, papery and layered in a sphere means wasp, and the two are never confused a second time.... Read more.
Damaged Food Packaging: Pest Signs in a Pantry
Chewed corners, pinholes through foil, webbing inside a bag. The packet that failed names the pest and tells you whether it arrived with the food or found it.... Read more.
Gnaw Marks: Reading Rodent Damage on Wood and Plastic
Groove width separates mouse from rat, and fresh gnawing is pale against a weathered surface. That colour difference dates the activity better than droppings.... Read more.
Sawdust Piles Indoors: Four Things That Make Them
Texture decides it: shavings, pellets, powder or pulp. Each points at a different insect, a different urgency and a different thing to look at next.... Read more.
Small Holes in Wood: Identifying What Made Them
Diameter and shape narrow it to a family before anything else. Round, oval or slot, powder or none, and whether the hole is an entrance or an exit.... Read more.
Carpenter Ant Frass vs Sawdust: How to Tell
Coarse shavings mixed with insect parts, not chewed pulp. Carpenter ants excavate wood rather than eating it, and that changes what the pile underneath means.... Read more.
Termite Frass: The Pellets That Mean Drywood Termites
Six-sided pellets poured from a kick-out hole mean drywood termites. Subterranean termites produce no frass at all, and that absence is the useful half.... Read more.
Droppings in Kitchen Cupboards: What Left Them
Four realistic candidates, separated by size and by which shelf they sit on. Most specks in a cupboard are not droppings at all, and one test proves it.... Read more.
Bed Bug Droppings: The Black Dots on a Mattress Seam
Digested blood, so it bleeds into fabric when damp. That smear test separates a bed bug spot from a speck, and the seam it sits on tells you the rest.... Read more.