Pest Control
Campus pest control is handled through the Water Station. We perform inspection and control treatment for all types of insects, termites, and bedbugs. We are also responsible for animal control in building interiors.
We strive to keep pests at a minimum and make campus a healthy environment for all who work and visit here, through inspection, education, exclusion, sanitation, and when necessary, the use of the least toxic chemical treatments.
The Water Station employs Integrated Pest Management (IPM) strategies in all campus housing and dormitories, and other campus buildings. IPM provides more thorough inspection and monitoring of potential pest control problems instead of relying on conventional chemical methods.
What Is Integrated Pest Management (IPM)?
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Integrated pest management, or IPM, is a process you can use to solve pest problems while minimizing risks to people and the environment. IPM can be used to manage all kinds of pests anywhere–in urban, agricultural, and wildland or natural areas.
Definition of IPM
IPM is an ecosystem-based strategy that focuses on long-term prevention of pests or their damage through a combination of techniques such as biological control, habitat manipulation, modification of cultural practices, and use of resistant varieties. Pesticides are used only after monitoring indicates they are needed according to established guidelines, and treatments are made with the goal of removing only the target organism. Pest control materials are selected and applied in a manner that minimizes risks to human health, beneficial and nontarget organisms, and the environment.
What is a pest?
Pests are organisms that damage or interfere with desirable plants in our fields and orchards, landscapes, or wildlands, or damage homes or other structures. Pests also include organisms that impact human or animal health. Pests may transmit disease or may be just a nuisance. A pest can be a plant (weed), vertebrate (bird, rodent, or other mammal), invertebrate (insect, tick, mite, or snail), nematode, pathogen (bacteria, virus, or fungus) that causes disease, or other unwanted organism that may harm water quality, animal life, or other parts of the ecosystem.
How Does IPM Work?
IPM focuses on long-term prevention of pests or their damage by managing the ecosystem
With IPM, you take actions to keep pests from becoming a problem, such as by growing a healthy crop that can withstand pest attacks, using disease-resistant plants, or caulking cracks to keep insects or rodents from entering a building.
Rather than simply eliminating the pests you see right now, using IPM means you'll look at environmental factors that affect the pest and its ability to thrive. Armed with this information, you can create conditions that are unfavorable for the pest.
In IPM, monitoring and correct pest identification help you decide whether management is needed
Monitoring means checking your field, landscape, forest, or building—or other site—to identify which pests are present, how many there are, or what damage they've caused. Correctly identifying the pest is key to knowing whether a pest is likely to become a problem and determining the best management strategy.
After monitoring and considering information about the pest, its biology, and environmental factors, you can decide whether the pest can be tolerated or whether it is a problem that warrants control. If control is needed, this information also helps you select the most effective management methods and the best time to use them.
IPM programs combine management approaches for greater effectiveness
The most effective, long-term way to manage pests is by using a combination of methods that work better together than separately. Approaches for managing pests are often grouped in the following categories.
Biological control:
Biological control is the use of natural enemies—predators, parasites, pathogens, and competitors—to control pests and their damage. Invertebrates, plant pathogens, nematodes, weeds, and vertebrates have many natural enemies.
Cultural controls:
Cultural controls are practices that reduce pest establishment, reproduction, dispersal, and survival. For example, changing irrigation practices can reduce pest problems, since too much water can increase root disease and weeds.
Mechanical and physical controls:
Mechanical and physical controls kill a pest directly, block pests out, or make the environment unsuitable for it. Traps for rodents are examples of mechanical control. Physical controls include mulches for weed management, steam sterilization of the soil for disease management, or barriers such as screens to keep birds or insects out.
Chemical control:
Chemical control is the use of pesticides. In IPM, pesticides are used only when needed and in combination with other approaches for more effective, long-term control. Pesticides are selected and applied in a way that minimizes their possible harm to people, nontarget organisms, and the environment. With IPM you'll use the most selective pesticide that will do the job and be the safest for other organisms and for air, soil, and water quality; use pesticides in bait stations rather than sprays; or spot-spray a few weeds instead of an entire area.
IPM Programs
These IPM principles and practices are combined to create IPM programs. While each situation is different, six major components are common to all IPM programs:
- Pest identification
- Monitoring and assessing pest numbers and damage
- Guidelines for when management action is needed
- Preventing pest problems
- Using a combination of biological, cultural, physical/mechanical and chemical management tools
- After action is taken, assessing the effect of pest management
Pest Control
University of Illinois uses an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) philosophy to control pests while reducing exposure to pesticides. IPM is a process for achieving long term, environmentally sound pest suppression using a wide variety of technological and management practices. Control strategies in an IPM program extend beyond the application of pesticides to include structural and procedural modifications that reduce the food, water, harborage, and access used by pests.
The three principles of IPM are:
- Prevention of pest populations
- Application of pesticides only "as needed"
- Selecting the least hazardous pesticides effective for control of targeted pests. Precision targeting of pesticides to areas not contacted or accessible to the students, faculty, or staff.
Building occupants' cooperation can greatly affect the success of the IPM plan:
- Keep all food or drink in pest proof containers (hard plastic, glass, or metal).
- Keep dorm rooms, offices, and classrooms as clean as possible.
- Monitor your living/work areas of pests. Monitoring identifies problem areas which can then be targeted for treatment.
- Please report all pest sightings using the Facilities & Services service requests.