Administrator Information
Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is an effective and environmentally sensitive approach to pest management that takes advantage of all pest management options including sanitation/cultural controls, physical/mechanical controls, biological controls, and pesticides. It considers pest control strategies that are the least hazardous or disruptive to human and environmental health and well being, cuts down liability and expense, and seeks to be a long term solution.
For any IPM program, monitoring is a logical first step to determine what pest you are dealing with, the numbers of pests, and areas of habitation. It can also help you assess damages and target where the problem is most concentrated. Observation, evidence of pest presence (feces, footprints, insect specks, etc.), detection in monitoring devices, and accurate record and map keeping of what was found in the past can accomplish this. By exercising these steps, you are already using IPM and if you follow IPM principles carefully, you will know what actions to take next.
Before deciding on a treatment, consider factors such as the location of the pest problem (outdoor or indoor; room or rooms within a structure (i.e. cafeteria, basement, bathroom, or classroom); high or low traffic areas); the extent of the problem (one mouse vs. a hundred roaches vs. one wolf spider); injury levels/tolerance to the pest, time of year (applying in the summer when staff and students are absent might be easier than displacing people in the winter); and damage caused (potential health hazards, structural damage, aesthetic injuries, etc.). After evaluating your school's needs, it will be easier to determine and adopt IPM options that work best for you.
IPM takes into consideration a variety of strategies to address the pest problem. After initial monitoring is done and other information is obtained, you can explore and implement treatment options. These include the use of non-toxic methods and pesticides. Try non-toxic strategies first to solve the problem. These include maintaining high sanitation measures by keeping food areas clean and organized, eliminating clutter, and disposing of food and garbage properly. By doing so, you deny pests food and hiding places. Excluding pests by altering sites to make them less attractive to pests is another good place to start. Caulking cracks and crevices, putting up window screens to keep pests out, and keeping pipes and sewers well maintained to reduce pest water resources are examples. Biological controls such as introducing natural enemies (i.e. ladybugs, parasitic wasps) into the pest's environment is another excellent way to manage pest species and bring them to a tolerable level. Finally, physical controls such as manually removing pests (pulling weeds, hand picking insects), vacuuming, or traps can be utilized as non-toxic controls.
If all possible non-toxic methods have been tried and are unsuccessful, employ low-toxic products such as repellents, insecticidal soaps and oils, and species-specific controls, such as insect growth regulators in bait forms. If low-toxic pesticide control methods also fail to solve the pest problem, slightly more toxic pesticides may be necessary. Even though they are higher in toxicity than the other methods mentioned, this group of pesticides are still safe when used properly. They include such chemicals as synthetic pyrethroid insecticides and most liquid herbicides. In this instance, consider hiring a professional pest control company to help you out, depending on the type and formulation of the chemical you intend to use.
This approach of using non-toxic control methods first, before considering progressively higher toxicity pesticides if the previous controls fail, is called the least-toxic approach.
For more details about how to start using IPM in your school/school district, please go to IPM for Your School.
