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I really love California, as it seems most Californians do. Just think about all of the odes written to and about The Golden State: “California Dreaming”, “California Love”, “California Girls” (The Beach Boys), “California Gurls” (Katy Perry with Snoop Dogg) – and those are just the ones off the top of my head. In fact, there’s a whole Wikipedia article dedicated to songs about California. Do you have any idea how many songs are named simply “California”? Way too many.
But just because it’s a great state doesn’t mean it’s perfect. In fact, because we live in such an agricultural powerhouse, we’re susceptible to many pest problems. Here are four of the most common:
Mosquitoes
Mosquitoes must really love California, because so much of our natural water doesn’t freeze. And since they need water to lay their eggs in, that gives them plenty of possible hatching grounds.
There’s not much you can do for the local lake, but you should definitely drain any standing water currently on your property. Otherwise, it will be lousy with baby mosquitoes come spring.
Rodents
California is such a massive state, there’s still plenty of unincorporated fields and undeveloped land throughout. And who makes their home in those kind of places? Rodents. Mice and rats will happily hide out in grassy fields, acres of soil or even trees and bushes. So wherever you are in this great state, there’s probably a large wild rodent population nearby.
Ants/Cockroaches
Remember all that undeveloped land we talked about? Well, ants and cockroaches can utilize it to build nests and multiply as well. And since there’s so much agriculture in the area, there’s plenty of attractive food sources for ants and roaches to gravitate toward.
Bed bugs
For some reason, bed bugs are pretty common in California’s Central Valley. First it was Sacramento that was facing a bed bug epidemic, and more recently we saw major bed bug activity in Stockton. Bed bugs are usually passed via personal belongings in high-traffic areas, but that doesn’t seem to explain why we’ve got more of them in the Valley. Either way, watch your stuff in public and inspect secondhand items before you bring them inside your house.
