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Mites are tiny relatives of spiders that live almost everywhere — in homes, on people and pets, and in plants and stored foods. Because many species are microscopic, infestations often begin quietly and go unnoticed until symptoms become obvious. Yet early detection matters: left unchecked, mites can cause persistent itching and skin rashes, trigger or…

The future of pest control for Pacific Northwest homeowners will be shaped by forces both local and global: a temperate, wet climate that favors many pest species; growing urbanization and changing land use that bring humans and wildlife into closer contact; and a warming climate that alters pest ranges and life cycles. For residents of…

Pest outbreaks—whether in row crops, orchards, forests, or stored grain—cause major economic losses, threaten food security, and disrupt ecosystems. Traditional monitoring methods (field scouting, trap inspection, and manual surveys) are labor-intensive, slow, and often reactive: farmers and land managers spot trouble only after populations have grown. That gap is where a new generation of technologies,…

Pesticide, herbicide and drug resistance is not a mystery so much as an inevitable outcome of evolutionary pressure: when a pest population—whether an insect, weed, fungus, bacterium or parasite—is repeatedly exposed to the same control measure, individuals that by chance carry genetic variations allowing them to survive will reproduce and pass those traits on. Over…

Hidden infestations are one of the most costly and frustrating problems property owners and managers face. Pests such as termites, rodents, bed bugs, and even wasp or bee colonies can lurk behind walls, inside insulation, under floors, and in roof voids for months or years before visible signs — hollowed wood, droppings, or structural damage…

Pheromone-based pest control is an approach that uses the natural chemical signals insects use to communicate — called pheromones — to manipulate pest behavior rather than to poison them. Although pheromones themselves are chemical compounds, the techniques that use them are fundamentally different from conventional insecticide spraying: they rely on tiny doses of species-specific odor…

Pest detection and control have always been central to public health, agriculture and property protection, and modern approaches increasingly combine biology with optics and electronics. Ultraviolet (UV) light — particularly long-wave UV-A (black light) and short-wave germicidal UV-C — has emerged as a versatile tool in this shift. Rather than replacing conventional chemical and mechanical…

Advances in genetics and biotechnology are creating new tools to control populations of insect, rodent, and other pest species that damage crops or transmit human and animal diseases. Traditional approaches—chemical pesticides, traps, and the sterile insect technique (in which mass-reared males are sterilized and released to reduce reproduction)—remain important, but a wave of genetic methods…

Pest resistance to common chemicals — from insecticides and herbicides to rodenticides and repellents — is a growing, practical problem with far-reaching consequences. At its simplest, resistance means that a treatment that once controlled a particular pest no longer works reliably. This phenomenon affects backyard gardeners, homeowners battling bed bugs or mosquitoes, farmers trying to…

The rise of smart home technology has reached pest control: IoT (Internet of Things) pest detection sensors are small, connected devices designed to detect signs of rodents, insects, or other pests and alert homeowners in real time. These devices can use a variety of sensing methods—motion or infrared detectors that pick up movement, image sensors…