Pest Control in Chowchilla, CA

Chowchilla is a Madera County city on Highway 99 ringed by almond orchards and the hulling and processing operations that handle the crop, and that agriculture sets its rodent calendar. Almonds are shaken, swept and then hulled in late summer and fall, and the stockpiled hulls, shells and harvest debris left around orchards and yards are a concentrated food source that Norway rats and house mice exploit heavily. When those piles are worked down and the orchard floor is disked, the rodents lose both food and cover at once and move toward the nearest structures — homes, garages, farm shops and the edge-of-town neighborhoods — looking for shelter and their next meal.

Norway rats, the burrowing rat of the two, dig along foundations, woodpiles and the banks of the canals and ditches that irrigate the farmland, while house mice slip through the smallest gaps into kitchens, pantries and wall voids. The irrigated ground and the orchards also feed large Argentine ant colonies that trail indoors through the hot, dry summers, and the mix of older homes near the historic downtown and newer subdivisions on the edges gives both termite-prone wood-frame houses and fresh-construction ant and spider problems. Fall, though, is the season that defines pest work here.