We all dream of a clean and shiny home, and we always try our best in keeping our homes in their best shape. So when you suddenly find an insect or some kind of a pest roaming around uninvited in your territory, it’s pretty understandable how much you’ll freak out. What’s even worse than having some intruding guests, is thinking that they reflect badly on the cleanliness of the house.

Where did they come from? How bad can they affect you? Most importantly, how can you get rid of these monsters?

You’ll rest assured in knowing there are many house pest-infestations that have nothing to do with the level of your house cleanliness. So if you’re living in California and you’re wondering about the kind of monsters you might get to face sooner or later, we’ve compiled this list for you.

11 Californian Insects That Could Invade Your Home

1. Ants

Whether they are Fire, Argentine, or Carpenter Ants, finding a whole colony making your home their workplace is a very unpleasant sight and experience. Ants are social insects that work in colonies, in which male ants only live for a few days after mating, female worker ants can live for several months, and queen ants can last decades. A whole colony can be difficult to get rid off, but a pest-control agency should take care of that.

2. Spiders

In most cases, finding a spider in your house shouldn’t raise any red flags. The venom of most spiders isn’t toxic, neither are they very common to find. The most common spider to be found in houses is the yellow sac spider, which is somewhat cytotoxic but wouldn’t cause any severe symptoms. Finding a black widow spider is even less probable, but it’s one of the few spiders whose bite is fatal.

3. Bed Bugs

Moving into one of the most common pest infestations, bed bugs come on top of the list. Bed bugs can be easily confused with other similar looking insects. They’re usually brown-black in color, but juvenile bed bugs are almost translucent. While unfed bed bugs commonly look like small apple seeds, their size varies depending on their age and feeding schedules. They’re neither venomous nor dangerous, but they’re very irritating and extremely difficult to get rid of. They come with their own list of psychological side effects, too. Whenever you find a bed-bug infestation in your house, you’ll probably have to get rid of all your furniture.

Photo by Jared Belson

4. Fleas

Fleas can also be mistaken for bed bugs. While they’re most commonly associated with dogs, it’s a little known fact that there are human fleas too. They also bite and feed on human blood, just like bed bugs, but the main difference is that they can jump.

5. Termites

These monsters can eat through wood, leaving behind significant damage to your property. As they look similar to ants, also being social workers that work in groups, it’s usually too late to figure out the infestation until damage has occurred.

6. Ticks

Dog ticks are quite well known, but there are biting ticks that could attach to humans and suck on their blood too. Bloodsucking ticks are dangerous as they can transmit a wide variety of diseases, the most serious of which is Lyme disease. They’re also dangerous because they are very good when it comes to spotting their victims and getting attached to them. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advises that prevention is always better than cure. So in case you’ve been out in an outdoor picnic, even more so if you’ve got your dog with you, you need to check for ticks underarms, behind the ears, at the back of the knee, groin area, and in the hair.

7. Roaches

Roaches come with a high factor of disgust, they do live in the sewers after all. They also transmit diseases that could lead to food poisoning, they cause unpleasant odors, and they damage paper and fabrics. They can survive under dire conditions and in extreme environments, which makes them harder to get rid of.

8. Bees and Wasps

Wasps are often confused with bees, but one key difference is their pinched waist. Both bees and wasps live in colonies in their nests, so you’ll usually only have to worry about getting stung if you disrupt their habitat. Bees feed on plants’ nectar as we know, while wasps are carnivorous and feed on other insects.

Wasps are more common to be spotted in California. The most widespread wasps are the paper wasps, the bites of which are very painful and cause allergic reactions, and yellowjackets, which are more hostile than paper wasps, and can also cause an allergic reaction by stinging.

9. Millipedes

Having around 100 feet and living for a year and up to 10 years, these insects have found their way into homes and became one of the most common house pests. They also have a thing for wood, and they have a remarkable smell that would tell you of their existence before being able to spot them.

10. Silverfish

Their favorite food being starch, they feed on starch in clothes, glue, cereal, wheat, and books. But they do so at night, when they crawl from their damp and cool hiding places. You’d know of their existence through the scales they leave behind under the damaged materials they’ve fed on.

11. Earwigs

Earwigs are some of those nuisance insects that don’t really cause you any harm. And no, they don’t crawl into your ears when you’re dead asleep at night, so you don’t have to worry about breeding their eggs in your brain. They don’t bite, but their pinch can hurt a little bit. While they’re not dangerous, their presence in your home should alert you that there might be some other kind of insect infestation going around that you’re not aware of.

Keeping Your Home Pests-Free

Finding a pest infestation in your house can be both alarming and exhausting. Lacking the knowledge in identifying the kind of insect and the proper ways of dealing with the infestation can also cost you a lot. Prevention is always better than cure, as told by the CDC, so taking all preventive measure is always the smart way to go. And in case you find yourself in the middle of an infestation, you should call a pest-control agency right away to minimize any kind of damage.

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