Pest Control and Exterminator Service in Parkside, PA

Bungalow porches, knee walls and old wood

Bungalow porches sit low, with wood posts and steps close to soil. That is where subterranean termites and carpenter ants turn up, especially where gutters overflow onto the porch floor. Exposed rafter tails and fascia invite carpenter bees.

Inside, the knee-wall voids behind upstairs bedrooms are warm, dark and rarely opened. Mice, stink bugs and boxelder bugs settle there in fall, and you often hear or smell them before you see them.

Bungalow basements from that period are usually shallow, with stone or early poured walls and small wood-framed windows set at grade. Window wells fill with leaves, the wooden frames rot at the sill, and that opening becomes the easy way in for mice, camel crickets and late-summer field crickets. Where a later owner finished the basement, paneling hides the foundation, so termite tubes can climb unseen.

Mature shade trees cover most lots and drop leaves into gutters that overflow onto porch roofs and rafter ends. Branches touching the roof give squirrels and carpenter ants a route to the eaves, and deep shade under the porches keeps soil damp enough for termites even through dry weeks in August.

Ten minutes down Route 352 through Brookhaven

Route 352 through Brookhaven gets us to Parkside in about 10 minutes. Thom and his team probe the porch posts and steps, look under the porch where they can, and check knee-wall access panels inside. The inspection costs nothing, and the written quote lists what we found and what we'd treat.

Parkside's bungalow streets and Brookhaven border

Parkside is a compact borough bordered by Brookhaven and Upland, with the city of Chester to the south. Its bungalow streets are among the most intact early-1900s neighborhoods in this part of Delaware County. About 2,300 people live in the borough, and its students attend the Penn-Delco School District along with Aston and Brookhaven. Edgmont Avenue (Route 352) runs close by on its way to Chester, and the Chester Creek valley and Upland County Park lie just past the Upland line. With nearly four in five homes owner-occupied and much of the original woodwork still in place, the visits we plan for here are mostly about protecting the structure: termite and carpenter ant checks on porches, carpenter bees in rafter tails, mice and overwintering insects in knee-wall attics, and moisture pests in shallow basements.