Secretive Night Time Pests - Have You Seen Them?

Ever notice when you are back at home from work, and while engaging in fun activities with your family, you see a running cockroach across your floor or gliding from a cabinet or shelves? Was it a coincidence that they are always present at night?

Are cockroaches only active at night?

Cockroaches are inactive in the daytime and only source for their food meal at night as nocturnal pests. Besides spending most of their day time resting, they especially like dark and warm places and tend to avoid light. Cracks and crevices are their common hideout due to the dark tight spaces that makes them feel secure and comfortable, without getting noticed. This is also one common nesting and breeding spot, so be sure to remove them to avoid reproduction to adult cockroaches.

Cockroach is only but one of the many secretive night time pests you find in Singapore. Read here for a full checklist on how to deal with a cockroach infestation.

Danger: Labeled as the filthy pests, besides causing food contamination or poisoning incidents, cockroaches are also connected with respiratory diseases such as Asthma!

Alert: If you are seeing cockroaches in the day time, it might mean your home is having some serious cockroach infestation. Do seek a proper cockroach control treatment as soon as possible.

Why can't I see bed bugs in the day?

Hang on, everyone is in this similar situation before... You suspected your home has been infested with bed bugs. You see some signs of bed bug infestation such as the blood spots/stains on your bedsheets or curtain drapes. But somehow you can’t seem to find the crawling bugs especially wanting to point them out to a pest controller in the day. As a result, we may risk delaying to resolve the infestation early, and end up with a bigger problem! Can’t see these bugs doesn’t mean your home is bug-free!

Bed bugs are also nocturnal and prefer dark environments; they typically come out at night to get their blood meal by biting on your exposed skin while you are asleep. This also explains why you notice a line or group of red itchy bumps the next morning. Of course, another obvious reason is because these tiny bugs that are just the size of an apple seed, unless we are trained to identify typical hiding spots, we may miss out finding them especially at tiny cracks and crevices or along edges or corners that tends to be a blind spot.

Danger: If infestation gets out of control, these tiny bugs could actually cause some health dangers. Read here to find out more.

Alert: Bed bugs are excellent in hitchhiking, and may easily transfer and spread to other parts of your room or home easily and quickly. If you see presence of red blood spots or thin pale skin sheds on your bed, chances are your home has been infested with bugs and require removal of infested home furniture, a thorough cleaning and proper bed bug treatment. This is because, an egg requires around 6 to 10 days to hatch and mature into full adult in 5 to 7 weeks.

Note: This is also the reason why proper bed bug treatments will require an internal of 3 treatments to cover over 2-month period.

Do rats only hunt for food at night?

Rats - another common nocturnal pest that we all hate, and are always the culprit for restaurants closures or regulatory penalties. Active at night for their food hunt, these pests go scott-free in the day time and is especially challenging to find them in the day time, unless we take notice of their “evidence” left behind. Droppings, scratch or smear marks, and holes or burrows are some infestation signs we can rely on.

Danger: Rats are very smart, agile and able to hide at spaces that is beyond our visibility or squeeze in gaps that is beyond our reach. This made inspection and detection a lot more challenging.

Alert: It is possible to spot a live running rat in the day time, and for sure you are caught in that situation in an open space, strolling in the mall or the garden? It is possible to spot a nocturnal pest in the day time, for reasons including sourcing for their food, their nests or burrows have been disturbed or the place has a serious infestation problem.

How to heighten detection and inspection among nocturnal pests?

There are a few ways to ensure accurate and adequate pest detection in a home. Firstly, you can look out for unusual signs of pest infestation such as presence of droppings, urine stains, shed skins, discarded wings and even distinctive and musty smell. Secondly, you can engage in professional pest control services to use technology and digitalised innovations to detect pests’ presence accurately. Thirdly, find their nesting and breeding sites and their root source that hides well at quiet and undisturbed spaces. Finally, observe if there are sudden pest bites found on your body that could represent a pest infestation within the premise.

Read also: Thirsty Pests and Leaky Pipes

Spotting pests in the daytime could mean heavy infestation

No doubt, that these pests surface at night for food, but this does not mean they will not appear in the daytime. This happens when there is a heavy pest infestation in your home or premise where an over population of pest occurs. This also means, there is a competition in food supplies and they had to find food more diligently including in the day. In addition, because of exclusions and proofing, pests tend to find scarcity of food supplies. Hence, they will behave out of the norm for survival means, by appearing other parts of the day for food hunt and even biting of humans such as cockroaches along the fingers (or fingernails) and mouth area of individuals.

You may also like: 3 Common Guilty Pest Acts

Seek professional help on your pest issues

Find out why these pests can escape from us and what actions can we take to minimize their activities or a potential pest infestation. Connect with us online today to find out more.

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