If you have ever noticed small, black nodules, around the size of a large rice grain, in the corners of your home or have caught the brief glimpse of a cockroach skittering out of sight when you turned on the lights, you probably understand that your house has a pest problem. While some of you may be content with making peace with your new, lesser life-form freeloaders, it is in your best interest to purge your rats, roaches or other pests as soon as you possibly can. Failure to eradicate your household pests can lead to a variety of health hazards, including:

Meningitis

If you have a mouse problem, you run the risk of contracting this debilitating illness. Mice are constantly trailing urine behind their pathways and contact with that urine, either directly or directly, can leave you vulnerable to ailments like this. As meningitis is an inflammation of the brain and spinal cord, the “meninges,” symptoms include acute sensitivity to light and sound, altered states, confusion, fever, headache, a stiffness of the neck, and vomiting.

Tapeworm

If you have noticed fleas in your home, you had best get them under control as soon as possible. Beyond the obvious hazards of being exposed to a blood-feeding parasite, fleas that become swallowed by a person or by an animal become at risk for tapeworm. Fleas who feed upon sources infected with tapeworm larvae pass that other parasite onto the creatures they are swallowed by, mostly children and animals. For those unfamiliar, a tapeworm is a parasitic worm that settles into the digestive tract and grows by stealing nutrients from its host. The only notable symptoms of a tapeworm infection are proglottids, worm segments, in the stool or abdominal discomfort.

Respiratory Issues

Roaches are among the most common household pests known to man and for good reason! Beyond their obvious talent for spreading pathogens, bacteria and other nastiness in swarms, roaches are problematic to breathing by merely existing. Everything that a roach leaves behind from its waste to its shed carapaces to even its corpse vaporizes into breath-impairing particulates. This is especially notable when dealing with asthmatics as roaches are far detrimental to an asthmatic’s breathing than any combination of pollen and animal dander.

While this information may have motivated you to eradicate these pests, set up preventative measures against future infestation, or maybe just expedited those efforts, some problems can be more than a single person can tackle. There’s a common expression that for every one roach you see, there are 100 hiding around; if you suspect you have an infestation whose eradication is beyond you, do not hesitate to hire a pest control agency like Allstate Pest Control. The professionals of any respectable agency are trained in the behavior and weaknesses of all manner of pests. They know the best weaponry and the best approaches for dealing with mice, rats, fleas, roaches, bed bugs and anything else that makes your skin crawl.