The majority of first-time home buyers take their time to carefully inspect the physical condition of the property they’re planning to acquire. They look for defects or malfunctions in the building’s foundation, roof, plumbing, electrical and heating/cooling systems while making sure of the sound state of walls, floors, windows, and doors. But before they go ahead and seal the deal, a question inevitably pops into their head: Is there something lurking below the surface that they might have missed?   Unfortunately, the answer is often: Yes. Particularly when the home is up for sale by owner, the goal is to accentuate the property’s best features and minimize its potential flaws. And while some sellers are trustworthy and willing to disclose the information about past and present pest infestations, others are either unaware of pests’ presence in the house or are doing everything they can to hide the damage. By spotting the signs of the following common household pests before you close the deal, you can make sure the seller covers the cost and treatment of the existing infestation before handing you the keys.

  In Canada, more than half of all children ages 6 months to 5 years spend the largest part of their waking hours in early learning and child care facilities. During those hours, an important part of their time is spent on or near the ground, floor, and other areas where potentially harmful pests and pesticide residues may be present.   Because of their lower body weight, stage of development, and rapid metabolism, infants and toddlers are much more susceptible to pesticide poisoning than adults, according to The Canadian Partnership for Children’s Health and the Environment (CPCHE).   They eat, drink, and breathe more than adults do, so they not only come into closer contact with more indoor pollutants, but are also more sensitive to them (since they will get a bigger dose per body size compared to adults). Young children also explore the world by touching objects and putting their hands in their mouths, which increases the risk of exposure to pesticides and cleaning products.

  As much as you may hate going into your backyard and stepping into a pile of stinking black-and-green goose droppings, taking matters into your own hands to escape their annoying presence might even cause you problems with the law.   Last month, a 56-year-old man from Woodbury, Vermont, had his hunting, fishing, and trapping license suspended for one year after he was convicted for shooting Canadian geese on his property with a high-powered pellet rifle. The defendant, who pleaded no contest to the charge, declared that he only wanted to scare the geese away from his property and had no intention of killing them.   Similar charges await three men from North Carolina, who killed five geese at the Pine Knolls Golf Course during the closed hunting season and without having a federal or state permit to kill the geese. One of the men, who was also the owner of the golf course, told the police that they were only trying to remove the geese from the course because they were a nuisance and damaging the golf course with their highly acidic feces.

  With more than 200 raccoons per square mile, our city is rightfully called the raccoon capital of the world. Omnivorous, intelligent, curious, and highly adaptable, the masked bandits are turning out to be adept at overcoming every obstacle Torontonians put in their path.   A family of raccoons that chooses to make a property their home can move in unannounced into the attic, shed, basement, crawlspace, garage, or anywhere else on your property where they can sneak without being seen. They are aggressively territorial and attached to their neighborhoods, and if your property offers them the food and water they need, there’s little chance to ever see them leave.   And they don’t even need a lot of space to thrive. In the wild, raccoon ranges can be as much as 20 miles for males, while those living in urban environments will settle for a home range of about three square blocks.

  While the hot and dry weather conditions in many parts of Canada have been good for curbing the surge of mosquito populations, the menacing wasps and yellow jackets are on the move across the country.   Wasps love the long, scorching days and muggy evenings of summer just as much as humans do. They thrive in this weather because it ensures better breeding conditions and higher survival rates for the insects they feed on. We’ve already seen a significant rise in wasp inquiries over the past few weeks, and as temperatures continue to rise, causing an increase in the number and size of wasps’ nests, we expect the number of wasp-related problems to rise substantially.  

Should You Be Concerned?

  What most people get anxious about when it comes to stinging insects is the painful sting and bite they can inflict when feeling threatened, which is especially dangerous for those who have strong allergic reactions to their venom.