Integrated Pest Management (IPM)

To establish a monitoring strategy for buildings and their collections is very important. Traps can be used to determine what kind of pests are already on-site, where they are and the size of their population. Mark plans of the building with trap locations, and establish reporting structures.

Sticky board, light and box traps are ready-to-use solutions and can be used by non-licensed personnel. These are available for crawling and flying insects. Some are available with food or pheromones that are insect specific – these traps are useful if monitoring or trapping a known insect problem. Such traps would not be used for initial surveys.

When using traps it is important to respect placement guidelines. Traps should be checked in a weekly rythm and the catch needs to be identified and removed, as full traps are not attractive. Increases in activity or changes in species should be noted and followed up to identify the cause and allow remedial action.