Pest Control in Versailles, IN

Park-edge lots, ticks and stinging insects

Versailles State Park surrounds the town's western side with hardwood forest, hiking and a 230-acre lake. That is wonderful for weekend visitors and challenging for homeowners, because every yard backing onto the trees is a short hop from tick habitat, yellowjacket nests and old stumps full of carpenter ants. Ticks ride dogs, kids and firewood into the house.

Ground-nesting yellowjackets are the summer headache. Their nests are underground, invisible until a mower or a weed trimmer disturbs them, and by August a colony can hold thousands of workers. We treat them at the entrance with dust or a targeted product, typically when the colony is calmest in the evening.

Inside town, the older housing near the courthouse and Laughery Creek runs to small frame homes and brick buildings on block or stone foundations. Those are the places we find mice in kitchens each fall, subterranean termites at damp sills, and the occasional brown recluse in a cardboard-filled basement.

The fall switch matters as well. Once nights cool, mice, boxelder bugs and Asian lady beetles gather on south-facing siding near the woods and push inside. Screened attic vents, door sweeps and caulk at utility lines are the low-cost fixes, and a late-September exterior treatment adds a barrier behind them.

The square, the creek and the park gate

Versailles sits on US-50, the same road we take from Hayden, which brings us in past Holton and Osgood and straight to the courthouse square. The state park entrance is minutes from there, and the lake and creek bottoms shape most of the nearby lot patterns. Confederate raiders under John Hunt Morgan passed through the county seat in July 1863, and the historic square still anchors downtown.

Park proximity changes what we recommend. We look at tree limbs touching roofs, firewood stacked against siding, and mulch beds piled against foundations, since each of those is a bridge for ants, termites and ticks. For homeowners, a spring and midsummer treatment of the yard perimeter covers most of the season. Businesses on the square usually want a quarterly rodent and roach check.

Park traffic brings summer visitors, and campers sometimes leave firewood or coolers that attract mice and wasps. Homeowners who rent out a cabin or spare room to park guests should check bedding and mattress seams after any stay, since bed bugs travel in luggage and have nothing to do with cleanliness.

Versailles is lake country, and the calls show it. Standing water in low spots along Laughery Creek and the park trails breeds mosquitoes, so we treat resting areas in shrubs and under decks. Lone star ticks and American dog ticks climb onto people from May, and a barrier treatment of the yard edge cuts down the number reaching a play set. Each fall, around the Pumpkin Show crowds, restaurants and shops near the square see more mice, so exterior sealing and monitoring go in before the cold nights, not after.