Many pests may be hiding around your home during winter in North Mississippi.
While it might seem quieter outside as temperatures drop—fewer insects flying around—that doesn't mean they're gone.
Some pests hibernate or disappear, but others tolerate cold weather and will seek warmth inside your home to hide, nest, or establish their populations.
These common winter pests in Tupelo, Oxford, and New Albany, MS are quick to see your house as their ideal bed-and-breakfast if they manage to get inside.
Let’s talk about these more prevalent household pests in North MS and how winter pest control can help eliminate them and prevent future infestations.
Like humans, bugs and rodents look for warmth and shelter during colder months. They seek safety and comfort—something we all understand.
Consider your home: it offers essential amenities that these pests find vital—warmth, water, shelter, and food.
While you might assume our milder winters prevent pests from entering, temperature fluctuations from 60-degree days to 50-degree days can actually prompt pests to move and seek new shelter as they search for warmer spots.
Your home, after all, looks very welcoming. They’re mainly seeking good hiding places from outside changes.
For example, rodents can detect weather shifts before humans and easily squeeze through small gaps. They favor clutter, so if you’re a hoarder, that provides them with perfect nesting spots.
In North Mississippi, pests also prefer easy access to food. Leaving bags of food open, pet food, birdseed, crumbs, or spills on your floors makes it simple for them to eat. That’s like offering a free meal!
This is especially tempting if you have a damp basement — moisture makes it easier for pests to survive.
Additionally, storing firewood within 20 feet of your house, or having overgrown trees and shrubs near windows and siding, can attract pests closer. Cracks around basement entries, foundations, window wells, insulation, and siding can serve as entry points, allowing pests to gain access.
Now that you know what brings bugs in, let’s talk about the household pests in Tupelo, Oxford & New Albany, MS that you’re most likely to see when you have a pest infestation.
Rodents seek shelter, water, and food—resources your house provides in excess. A mouse can pass through any hole measuring a quarter inch or more. Therefore, it’s important to seal or fix all holes and cracks that allow these pests easy access to your home, garage, or shed.
If you have a mouse problem, setting snap traps in garage corners, enclosed attic spaces, and behind appliances can help. Place traps at right angles to the walls, with the bait nearest the wall. You can also use glue traps in similar locations to trap mice.
Pest control services can inspect for mice, remove any nests or messes, and set up bait stations that must be correctly positioned to be effective. Exterminators use tamper-proof, pet-safe bait stations to ensure your home's safety. They also install them carefully and regularly check to make sure they remain intact.
In Tupelo, Oxford & New Albany, MS, there are three main species of cockroaches: the American cockroach, the oriental cockroach, and the German cockroach.
Cockroaches are drawn to food, water, humidity, warmth, and secure breeding sites. They tend to be attracted to dirty dishes, exposed garbage, crumbs on the floor, pet food, and leftover food in containers.
Store-bought baits and traps are usually ineffective.
The winter pest control strategies used by a professional company will depend on your home and the specific issues. It begins with an inspection, during which the exterminator checks your kitchen, bathroom, closets, basement, and attic.
This assessment helps determine the severity of the infestation and guides the treatment plan. A minor infestation may be resolved in a week or two, whereas a more extensive one could take a month or longer.
Once the primary interior infestation is under control, your pest control pro will return quarterly to apply exterior perimeter treatments to keep cockroaches out.
Ants are usually drawn to sugars, crumbs, and uncovered food.
For example, leaving food out in non-sealed containers can attract them. Once an ant discovers food, it signals its worker friends, indicating a rich source. This can lead to swarms entering your home to feed the colony.
Lawn & Pest Solutions recommends starting with bait to manage this common winter pest. The bait contains a protein or sugar lure that ants mistake for food, which they carry back to their colonies.
This helps spread the insecticide to the queen and knocks out any larger ant infestations, as well as the source of your main ant problem.
If necessary, the next step is to deploy an insecticide, but baits can usually help us avoid it.
Then, exterior barrier treatments can help keep ants out because the product has a scent or taste that ants don’t like. They immediately go in another direction as they near your home and come in contact with the barrier treatment.
The wolf spider is a common pest in Mississippi and may come inside as temperatures drop. Others you might encounter at home include yellow house spiders, cobweb spiders, and jumping spiders.
Yellow house spiders are quick crawlers with quarter-inch yellow-green bodies. Cobweb spiders are small and build webs to catch insects. Jumping spiders are hairy, black, and often found on ceilings, moving in short, quick jumps.
All of these spiders like to move indoors when it becomes cooler outside. Spiders come inside through webs they create right outside your entrances near lights.
A pest control expert will inspect your home to identify how spiders are entering. They will then seal doorways and windows by filling in holes or gaps with caulk to prevent further entry, ensuring spiders stay out.
Termites can be active in your home year-round, but they are known to swarm in April as temperatures warm and rainfall increases. This common pest loves moist environments.
Termites swarm when they search for mates and establish a new colony. Colonies typically don’t swarm until they’ve become established, which can take about three years.
Termites move through narrow mud tubes, about one-eighth inch thick, which protect them as they travel between their underground colonies and your home, in search of wood to consume. These mud tubes usually run along foundation walls or support beams.
At Lawn & Pest Solutions, we employ the Sentricon System for treatment. As Certified Sentricon Specialists, instead of using large amounts of termiticide around your house, we install stations with termite bait and regularly monitor them for termite activity.
Pests are no joke once they enter your home.
As you enter the cooler months and look around your home for signs of pests, you may want to contact a professional pest control company in North Mississippi.
Give Lawn & Pest Solutions a call. We can conduct a general pest inspection to identify common entry points, alert you to problem areas, and devise a plan for any infestations we find. Then, we can do a perimeter pest control treatment that acts as a barrier to keep bugs out.
Noticing any pests in your home? Want to learn more about our pest control services in Tupelo, Oxford or New Albany, MS? Get started today with a free quote. We’ll review your options together so you can make a great choice. Then you can sit back and enjoy your home -- without the unwanted visitors.