Lakeland is one of my favorite places in Central Florida. Plenty of stuff to do, friendly people, and some of the last bits of affordable housing in the state. However, that doesn’t mean it’s not without its issues. Lakeland has plenty of pests, and today we’re going to talk about some of the most common Lakeland pests you can run into as a home owner. After that, we’ll touch on some prevention methods to help keep the numbers down in your home.
However, if you’re already dealing with a pest problem, the time to act is now. Either visit our website at insectfree.com and fill out the pop-up, or give us a call at 1-800-634-1313 for a free consultation today. At Earth’s Best, we’ve been serving the area for three decades. So you know you can trust us to perform with the kind of quality that keeps you in business for thirty years! Now, let’s get onto the show.
Common Lakeland Pests: Overview
The first question everyone always asks is how the bugs are so bad down here in Florida. Well, unfortunately, the reasons you love the state are just as appealing to the insects that call the south home! Florida is a beautiful state with plenty of beaches that shift into low-lying, sandy shrublands and eventually incline very slightly into low-lying forests and swamps. These are all ecosystems that house many types of bugs due to the plentiful organic matter, warm weather, and moisture and water a-plenty.
On top of that, human-adjacent pests have it easy down here in Florida. The once smaller state now boasts a population of twenty-two million and growing. Because of this, all of these common Lakeland pests have more resources for breeding, feeding, and living than they could ever need. The populations, expectedly, have begun expanding rapidly since Florida hit the thousand new residents a day mark.
And if you think about it, it makes total sense. Plenty of these people who are moving here permanently will be starting businesses and building homes. And as Florida develops the last of it’s natural areas, the bugs then disperse into human dwelling areas. And even those who don’t stay can bring in pests of their own, such as bed bugs and other parasitic hitchhikers. So now, let’s talk about some of those common Lakeland pests you can be running into when you come down south.
Ants
In central Florida, in general, ants are a big issue. However, the worst offender of all is the fire ant, so we’ll focus on them today. Fire ants are an invasive pest from South America that arrived here on a shipping vessel sometime in the last century, probably the sixties. Since then, they’ve spread rapidly through the entire southeast U.S., becoming the most dominant ant species around.
You can recognize them by their dark red coloration and black backsides. They prefer to build mounds in open, grassy areas of your lawn. They’ll usually build mounds that are over two feet in diameter and then have smaller escape tunnels branching off in different areas. Their mounds can also be built in a more typical ant hill style, sometimes reaching up a foot or two in height.
These ants get their name from their stingers. When one of them grabs a hold of you with their mouthparts and jabs that stinger into you, their alkaline venom causes a burning, acidic pain. This chemical also acts as a signal for other swarming ants to mark you as a target. In the past, small children and infants have been killed by swarming fire ants, and this species is so aggressive.
cockroaches
Up next on our list of common Lakeland pests is one of every Florida homeowner’s worst nightmares. That’s right, the not so humble cockroach. Depending on what website you get your information from, it really feels like every homeowner in the Sunshine State is going to be dealing with roaches at some point. And personally? I think it’s true. No matter how clean you are, this state is the capital of cockroaches in the U.S. You’re going to likely deal with an infestation at some point.
And there’s a good chance that the infestation isn’t the often mislabeled “palmetto bug.” Instead, Florida typically sees infestations of German cockroaches. German cockroaches are small, yellowish species that only have to mate once in their lives. After that, the female retains the male’s sperm and can have up to three hundred thousand offspring in its lifetime. So you can see how easy it is to end up with an infestation of this pest in your home.
Roaches, thankfully, aren’t parasitic or aggressive to humans. But due to their nocturnal nature and their filth-living habits, they can spread disease to humans while causing you an undue amount of stress when the lights come on and they clumsily dive for cover.
Flies
While not uniquely a Florida problem, it is uniquely bad here. And that’s the flies. Of the common Lakeland pests, there’s a good chance this is the one you run into the most in your time here. From the biting, parasitic fly species that hang around the lakes, swamps, and waterways of Florida. To the filth breeding flies that make composting and living near farms a real pain in the butt.
Biting midges, no-see-ums, bottle flies, yellow flies. There are more species in this state than you can really account for, and their infestations are no joke.
Common Lakeland Pests: Controlling pests on your Florida property
So now, let’s get into some tips for dealing with some of these groups of insects. For one, the best thing you’ll ever do to lessen the chances of an infestation inside your own home is clean. Make sure your trash can lids are covered and locked tightly so that bugs can’t squeeze through. Also, keep your food appropriately contained, and don’t leave out messes or spills to feed the insects around your home.
Another big tip that can help is to exclude the pests from your home. Check your screens on your windows and storm doors. Make sure there are no cracks in your foundations. Leave your windows shut tightly at night. These are a few things that can keep the bugs out of your home.
And finally, deal with standing water. Be it mosquitoes or biting flies, there’s just too many pest species in Lakeland to risk having any kind of standing water around your home. These pests use water to breed, so collect things like old buckets, watering tins, etc. And make sure to consistently refresh things like bird baths and water features, otherwise, they’ll become breeding grounds as well.