Pest control in Moreno Valley, CA

Moreno Valley has a semi-arid climate with many summer days over 100 degrees. Weatherspark marks the hot season June 19 to September 22, when daily highs average above 88 degrees and August averages 94, the cool season November 22 to March 19, and the wet season November 22 to April 1, with February having the most wet days. That heat drives the ant season. UC IPM notes that Argentine ants trail indoors in hot dry weather and after rain, so the trails in a Sunnymead or Rancho Belago kitchen show up in the summer heat and again after the first winter storms. Earwigs shelter in damp mulch and leaf litter, and in a city this hot the only damp mulch is the irrigated kind against the house. Western black widows fill garages, wood piles and block walls over the warm months, and brown widows take the patio furniture, fences and eaves. Mosquitoes breed in standing water, and with 100-degree days most of that water is irrigation runoff, plant saucers and clogged gutters. Roof rats keep to the palms and tall trees UC IPM describes and cross on fences and utility lines to reach attics.

Moreno Valley was three rural communities, Edgemont, Sunnymead and Moreno, until voters in all three approved incorporation and the city was formed on December 3, 1984. The name goes back to Frank E. Brown, who formed the Bear Valley Land and Water Company in 1883 and contracted to bring water to Moreno and Alessandro, and Moreno is Spanish for brown. When Redlands won the water lawsuit in 1899 the valley dried up and most people left, so the farming families who stayed grew hay, grain and grapes. March Field, built in 1918 on 640 acres mostly bought from the Hendrick Ranch, grew into a base of more than 7,000 acres, and March Air Reserve Base, next to the city, is listed as its largest employer with about 7,000 people. Sunnymead Boulevard was paved in 1936 and Edgemont began to develop in 1940, but the city really grew after Lake Perris opened in 1973, from 18,871 people in 1970 to 49,702 in 1984 and 208,634 at the 2020 census, which makes it the second-largest city in Riverside County. Box Springs Mountain stands at the northwest end of the city with the big M set into its slope in 1966 for Moreno Valley High School, now on the city seal. The county's Box Springs Mountain Reserve on that slope covers about 3,400 acres of coastal sage scrub and chaparral with mule deer, bobcats and coyotes. State Route 60, the Moreno Valley Freeway, and Interstate 215 both pass through the city, and the city maintains more than 30 parks and over 540 acres of parks and trails.

Moreno Valley's edges are open country. Lake Perris, completed in 1973 as the southern terminus of the State Water Project, sits on the city's southern border behind a two-mile earthfill dam, inside the 8,800-acre Lake Perris State Recreation Area where coastal sage scrub covers the Bernasconi Hills and the Russell Mountains. East of the lake the San Jacinto Wildlife Area adds roughly 19,000 acres, including 900 acres of restored wetlands full of waterfowl and jackrabbits. Rancho Belago, the name the city council adopted in 2007 for the eastern half of the city from Lasselle Street to Gilman Springs Road, is the newer tract housing closest to all that open ground, and the 92555 ZIP carries its name. UC IPM notes that roof rats live high in trees, palms and vines and travel along fences and utility lines into attics, and a tract backing onto scrub has fence line to spare. Western black widows settle into the garages, block walls and wood piles of those tracts, and brown widows outside around the patio furniture, play structures and eaves. Sunnymead and Edgemont, the older parts of the city that were developing from the 1930s and 1940s, have mature landscaping and decades-old wood, and drywood and subterranean termites are both present in Southern California. Argentine ants trail into kitchens across the whole city in the summer heat, and the drip irrigation and bark mulch that keep front yards alive through 100-degree days give earwigs the damp shelter UC IPM says they look for.

Calimesa is the other city on this page. It's a city of 10,026 people in the San Gorgonio Pass, between Yucaipa and Beaumont, incorporated on December 1, 1990, with Interstate 10 running through it and County Line Road marking the border with San Bernardino County. At 2,392 feet it's higher and a little cooler than Moreno Valley, but the pests are the same regional ones UC IPM describes: black widows in wood piles, garages and block walls, brown widows around patio furniture and eaves, roof rats in trees and palms, and Argentine ants trailing in with the heat. We cover Moreno Valley and Calimesa from our office at 29990 Technology Dr Ste 13 in Murrieta. Jared Brown, our owner, is 27 years into pest control, and every technician holds a State of California license. On a plan we come monthly, every other month or quarterly, the eaves and cobwebs get brushed down each visit, and pests that return between visits get a return trip at no charge. Plans start at $45 a month, each on a 12-month agreement, one-time work starts at $249, and the inspection and estimate are free. We're open Monday to Saturday 8am to 6pm at (951) 535-4220. Tell Jenni what you've been seeing and whether you're in Sunnymead, Edgemont, Moreno, Rancho Belago or Calimesa.