Before venturing into our discussion on important considerations for outdoor pest control, we have some definitions that we have to make. The first is with regard to a pest: where at the most general level, a pest turns out to be any organism that inflicts some harm. In a plant-care context, for instance, any organism that feeds on, or otherwise interferes with the plant in question would be termed as being a pest. It is worth noting, however, that not every plant that interacts with the plants would qualify to be termed as being a pest – because some of the interactions are actually beneficial.

Bees may, for instance, have interactions with plants, actually going as far as obtaining nectar from the plants. But this interaction is useful because in the process, they help the plants in pollination (reproduction), and the nectar they draw is, in any case, not much of a deprivation on the plants. The bee obviously does not have any malice in doing what it does to the plants, and cannot, therefore, be reasonably qualified to be a pest. But when you look at the effect of something like an aphid on a plant, where it goes on poring holes on the plants’ surface and threatening the plant’s very existence, you get to see why the aphid is considered a pest.

What is also worth keeping in mind is that pests don’t only exist in the plant-care framework. There are also pests (like ticks and worms) that target animals. There are even pests that target human beings, and here we are looking at the likes of lice, worms, and rodents – some of which are even vectors for various disease-causing organisms.

Broadly speaking, there are indoor and outdoor pests. Their respective names are self-explanatory: the indoor pests thrive and go on to inflict harm from indoors, whereas the outdoors pests thrive and go on to inflict harm from outdoors. All pests have to be controlled, the objective being to ideally get rid of them because, as we have seen, they are absolutely malevolent.

Various strategies are available for deployment in both outdoors and indoors pest control. But before opting for one of these strategies over the others, there are some important considerations you need to make.

In the case of outdoor pest control, your choice of a pest control strategy will, for one, be influenced by the type of pest you are looking to control. What can work in controlling rodents won’t, obviously, work in controlling ticks (which also qualify to be termed as outdoors pests) that happen to be injuring your animals in the yard.