General Pest Control

The Downers Grove area is a wonderful place to live. If you’re looking for a true urban living experience in the United States, Chicago is the place to be. With every great city, there’s something lurking in the shadows that make residents shudder at their sight, indoor pests. It’s an upsetting scenario: a cockroach, mouse or rat darting from under their couch and scurrying across the room never to be seen again, and leaving you to wonder “where did it go”? While rats and cockroaches are the most common pests in Downers Grove and the surrounding area. Number three and four on the list may surprise you. 

Cockroaches: There are few things worse than discovering your home has been taken over by cockroaches. They’re hideous, undesirable pests and a significant threat to human health. They consume our food while contaminating the indoor environment. Cockroaches spread more diseases than any other pest and are known for transferring their diseases to humans. They produce bacteria that causes food poisoning in humans through contamination of food, utensils and food preparation surfaces. As if this wasn’t distressing enough, they pose an even greater health risk. As baby cockroaches grow they shed their skin. Fragments of their exoskeleton and feces serve as contaminants which get into the lungs causing allergic and asthmatic reactions. All they require to survive is food, shelter, and water, and all are easily accessible in most households. Females lay 48 eggs at a time, which turn into adult cockroaches and the cycle repeats itself. They can cause serious damage to the structure of your home from the inside out and should be exterminated immediately to reduce the health and damage risks. These pests are known to survive most over-the-counter pesticides, and they are incredibly difficult to get rid of without professional pest control. Call us at Frontline Pest Control before a few roaches turn into a few million.

Rats: Something about the rat just makes our skin crawl and odds are you’re not too keen on the idea of rats sharing your living space. According to a report by the Apartment search service RentHop, Chicago is the “Rat Capital” of the world. In fact, a whopping 50,963 complaints of rats by Chicago residents put the city far ahead of other popular cities like New York City, Washington D.C and Boston. 

The most common rat breed found in the area is the Brown Rat. Brown Rats are more dominant in defending their territory, which makes them harder to get rid of when they infest your home and can actually be hazardous to disturb. Similar to the cockroach, Brown Rats carry numerous diseases and parasites. In fact, rats are known to carry diseases that are potentially deadly to humans, like Listeria, Rat-Bite Fever, Hantavirus, and Salmonellosis. Rats also play a role in triggering dangerous allergies. In fact, A recent study detected rat and mouse urine in levels that could trigger severe allergies in 35% of Chicago homes. Along with allergies, mouse droppings are known to cause asthma in both children and adults. 

The health risks alone are enough to keep you up at night if rats make their way inside your home. Equally dangerous, rats can take a significant toll on the structure of your home. They chew through wallboards, insulation, cardboard and all types of wood. The most serious danger rats carry is their love for electrical wiring. They are fond of chewing on electrical wires, exposing them, and placing your home at risk for a fire. The quicker you get rats back outside where they belong, the faster you restore the safety of both your health and home and possibly your sanity. 

Ants. The ant is the third most common pest in the Downers Grove area. One of the reasons they are such a problem is because their small sizes make it easy for them to get inside your home and make it their home. While one or two ants aren't generally a problem, once they identify your home as a good food source, you’ll have an entire colony of ants taking over your home. Ants are not just a nuisance, they can contaminate your food and cause damage to areas within your home where they construct their nests. While only one ant is laying eggs, it is thousands of eggs in one day and the newly hatched ants mature rapidly. The quicker you wipe out the colony, the better. 

Spiders: When outdoors, spiders are beneficial insects because they eat many bugs that are also pests, and help reduce an overpopulation of those bugs. They can help keep certain bugs from coming inside your home, but if they choose to come inside themselves, you'll have a real problem on your hands. Two very dangerous and sometimes deadly spider species live in Chicago and can pose a threat to you and your family: The Black Widow and the Brown Recluse. 

The Black Widow is a black spider with a red hourglass marking on its back, and a red or orange hourglass shape on its underside. While not generally aggressive, they will bite when they feel trapped. When bitten by a Black Widow, the bite will cause immediate and intense pain. Swelling and redness appear almost instantly, followed by abdominal cramping, dizziness, sweating, and chest pain. The bite can also cause paralysis of the legs, tremors, and affect the entire nervous system. 

The Brown Recluse is a unique looking spider, six eyes arranged in pairs of three on either side of their head. They possess the longest legs of all spider species, and generally have a violin shaped marking on the back of a solid brown body. Like the Black Widow, they are not aggressive but will bite if they feel trapped. The symptoms of their bite are delayed, but within a few hours redness, swelling, and burning pain occur. The area where the bite is located will develop dark purple or blue circles. Other symptoms common to their bite include body aches, headache, nausea and rash. Medical attention is needed immediately if bitten by either of these dangerous spider species. 

It’s clear that while pests are known to be a nuisance and often creepy to look at, the problem runs considerably deeper than that, severely impacting the safety of your health and home. When dealing with these pests, call Frontline Pest Control to eliminate them the correct way the first time. We also set up home protection plans to ensure that once your pests are gone, they won’t be coming back. Contact us today and you can finally sleep soundly knowing there's nothing with four or eight legs silently lurking under your bed.