What Attracts Chiggers to Your Yard?
If you are a backcountry hiking enthusiast, you may expect to come home with a few chigger bites every now and then. However, you don’t expect them when you have just been out relaxing in your yard. When you do find chigger bites after simply enjoying your yard, it is time to take action.
Pest control can easily spray a yard for chiggers, but if you want them to never come back, pest control will also advise making your yard less habitable.
So what is attracting chiggers to your yard?
As a food source, we are attractive to chiggers for the same reason we are attractive to mosquitoes. We produce carbon dioxide when we breathe, and these bugs sense us through that. However, that is not what draws them to our yards. Instead, chiggers look for moist, brushy areas to live and nest. This means areas like:
- Overgrown grass
- Leaf-covered areas
- Dense shrubbery or landscaping
- Heavily shades landscaped areas
The interesting thing about chigger infestations in a yard is that you will only usually see them in clusters. They gather around where females lay their eggs, so they may be limited to just one area even though there are multiple suitable living locations. This makes them very easy for pest control to take care of, but action against their habitat is still advised.
If you do have chiggers, eliminating shaded areas in your yard can be highly effective. They tend to avoid the sun and if there aren’t suitable places to do that, they will stop targeting your yard. However, if you can’t seem to pinpoint where chiggers like to live, you need some professional help. If you have a chigger invasion in your outdoor areas and want them gone, contact us today to see what Home Run Pest Control can do to help.
