Every August an Austin household picks up several new daily habits at once. Backpacks land on the kitchen table and lunchboxes come home half-eaten. Cleats and damp towels go into the garage, and the back door starts opening twice a day on a schedule instead of at random. None of that creates a pest problem by itself, though it does move food and moisture into rooms that were quiet in June.

The back-to-school framing is a calendar hook, and worth naming as one. What actually drives the change is attic temperature in August, followed by rain after a dry stretch in September. Cold fronts later in the fall then add rodent pressure.

Quick answer: The back-to-school date matters less than the calendar suggests. August brings scorpions down from hot attics and the year's biggest cricket flights, and cooler nights later in the fall make a wall void more attractive than the woodpile. The new school routine adds food and damp fabric indoors. Seal gaps down to 1/4 inch and cut back the porch lighting.

The attic is where the August problem usually starts. Texas A&M AgriLife Extension's scorpion publication notes that during periods of hot weather, scorpions may move into living areas to escape the high temperatures in attics [1]. An adult striped bark scorpion runs about 2 1/2 inches long [1]. Texas A&M AgriLife Extension also states that stings from Texas scorpions produce only moderate reactions in most people, that an ice pack applied to the affected area will relieve some pain, and that immediate medical attention is necessary if swelling or pain persists or breathing difficulties occur [1].

Why August is a real turning point in Central Texas

Three things happen outdoors between August and November, in a rough order: crickets, then cockroaches, then rodents.

Crickets are the most visible. AgriLife's guidance on fall crickets says numbers peak in August and September when a summer drought is broken by rainfall and cooler weather [2]. A porch carpeted in crickets after the first real rain is that pattern on schedule.

Cockroaches follow, and the driver is water. AgriLife's cockroach publication notes that the larger American and smokybrown cockroaches live mostly outdoors but may move indoors in search of food or water, and often enter through poorly sealed doors, roof soffits, or floor drains [3]. Late summer dries out the mulch beds, and the coolest damp place on the property becomes your kitchen.

Rodent pressure arrives last, and no fixed date attaches to it. The reasoning here is about temperature inside the wall voids: once overnight lows start dropping, a wall cavity holds heat better than a woodpile does, and that is when rodents begin testing the building. Exclusion is also the slowest of the three jobs, which is the argument for starting it in September.

What changes inside the house the week school starts

The indoor change is narrow: food starts landing in new places on a schedule.

This matters most for German cockroaches. AgriLife reports that the German cockroach spends about 75 percent of its life in narrow cracks and crevices, from 1/32 to 3/16 inch wide, and favors those cracks in warm locations near water and food [3]. The seam where your countertop meets the backsplash and the hole cut in the back of the sink cabinet both sit inside that 1/32 to 3/16 inch range, which is what makes them habitat. AgriLife calls good cleanup and sanitation essential to effective cockroach control, and notes that cockroaches can infest homes when brought in with groceries or boxes [3]. In a school-year household, the sports bag does what the grocery box does.

• Clean under the toaster and along the seam between counter and stove weekly. That is where lunch-packing debris collects.
• Empty and wipe lunchboxes the evening they come home.
• Give the sports bag a hard floor in the garage rather than carpet, and hang damp towels.
• Fix the water: a dripping fixture under the kitchen sink is worth more to a cockroach than any crumb.

Exclusion work, and the measurements that decide it

Integrated pest management puts the decision about when to act ahead of the work itself. The US EPA's IPM principles describe a four-tier approach: set action thresholds, monitor and identify pests, prevent pest access, then evaluate and select a control method [4]. EPA defines an action threshold as a point at which pest populations or environmental conditions indicate that pest control action must be taken [4]. For a homeowner, that is the amount of evidence you decide in advance is worth a response.

Rodent exclusion comes with published numbers. Texas A&M's School IPM action plan for rodents states that access points as small as 1/4 inch in diameter matter for mice, and that a rat can enter through a 1/2-inch gap [5]. The bar for acting is low: one rat or mouse, or evidence such as fresh droppings, justifies setting traps and improving sanitation, along with rodent-proofing the building [5]. Mice typically travel 30 feet or less from nesting sites, so a search near the droppings usually finds the nest [5].

Scorpions and crickets are a building envelope problem. AgriLife's scorpion guidance names four repairs [1]:

• weather-stripping around loose-fitting doors and windows
• screens kept tight in the frame
• weep holes in brick or stone veneer plugged with steel wool or copper mesh
• sealant around roof eaves and pipes

The cricket guidance adds door sweeps of nylon bristles or rubber seals, and names door thresholds, soffits, and garage doors as entry points worth sealing [2].

Carry a tape measure on the perimeter walk and hold it against anything at the ground line that looks like a gap, because a gap that looks trivial from standing height can still measure wider than 1/4 inch. Start with the garage door corner seals and the air conditioning line set penetration.

The porch light and the lawn

AgriLife states that outdoor lighting is the most important single cause of severe cricket infestations around homes [2]. Reduce outdoor lights early in the evening, or switch to low-pressure sodium vapor lamps or yellow incandescent bug lights, which draw fewer crickets than standard incandescent or halogen lights [2].

Late summer in the yard also means fall armyworms, which look worse than they are. AgriLife's armyworm alert reported them in home lawns in late July to early August, with damage that often appears to occur overnight [6]. Because armyworms feed on the leaves and not on the critical roots and stolons, a little irrigation or a rain should restore lawns to their original condition within a week or two [6]. That makes armyworms a lawn problem, so none of the sealing work above applies to them.

Head lice and bed bugs: what pest control does and does not cover

Head lice are outside the scope of structural pest control. CDC head lice guidance states that head lice mainly spread by direct contact with the hair of a person infested with lice, and that animals do not get or spread head lice [7]. Lice die within two days if they fall off a person and cannot feed [7]. The CDC says not to use fumigant sprays or fogs, which are not necessary to control head lice and can be toxic if inhaled or absorbed through the skin [7], and that extensive housecleaning is not necessary either [7]. Wash the clothing, towels, and bed linens used in the two days before treatment [7], then talk to your pharmacist or school nurse. A company offering to treat your house for lice is selling something the CDC says you do not need.

Bed bugs are a structural pest, and the school-year risk is real but modest. EPA's bed bug guidance for parents says to keep backpacks, books, and jackets in one area of the home separate from the sleeping areas, and to inspect items as they arrive from school [8]. If the school has reported bed bugs, isolate those items in a sealed plastic container, and run clothing and backpacks through a dryer at high temperature for 30 minutes [8]. EPA also states that bed bugs are not a sign of unhealthy living conditions [8], which is the sentence most parents need. Skip the fogger, because EPA's bed bug control page says the spray will not reach the cracks and crevices where bed bugs hide [9].

An August to November order of work

• Early August: change the porch bulbs [2] and check the seal on the attic hatch. Plug any open weep holes and repair window screens so they sit tight in the frame [1].
• First week of school: backpacks and sports bags get one spot away from the bedrooms [8], and the weekly clean of the counter seams starts.
• September: fit sweeps to the exterior doors and the garage [2], and begin the rodent exclusion pass, which is the slowest job on this list.
• October: walk the perimeter with a flashlight, measuring anything at or above 1/4 inch, and check the garage door corners and every utility penetration [5]. Do this before the first front arrives.
• November: monitor rather than treat, since one mouse or fresh droppings is enough to act on [5].

You are done when all four of these are true:

• no gap at the ground line measures 1/4 inch or wider
• the weep holes are screened and still draining
• the exterior doors close against their sweeps with no daylight showing
• the school bags live outside the bedrooms

What Natran does on an Austin home

Natran Green Pest Control works to the seasonal order above: envelope repairs while attic heat is still pushing scorpions down into the living space, then the exclusion pass before overnight lows fall.

An inspection measures the gap under your garage door against the quarter inch that matters for mice, and finds the weep holes nobody ever screened. Identification sets the rest, because a German cockroach in a kitchen crack and a smokybrown under a soffit are different jobs in different parts of the house.

Three numbers worth writing down

• 1/4 inch, the access point size that matters for mice [5]
• 1/2 inch, the gap a rat can enter through [5]
• narrower than 3/16 inch, the crack width a German cockroach lives in [3]

The porch light and the weekly kitchen cleanup carry as much of the result as the tape measure does, and neither one has a number attached to it.

Frequently asked questions

What do I do about the crickets already covering my porch?

Clear the ones on the ground first, since AgriLife notes that dead crickets pile up and cause odors [2]. Spraying the mass on the sidewalk does not change what brought them to the wall, which is the light, so change the bulb the same evening rather than waiting for the season to end. The sealing work is still worth doing in September: the door sweeps and thresholds you fit for crickets are the same ones that keep the cockroaches out in October.

I found a scorpion indoors in August. What should I do?

Whether one sighting crosses your action threshold is your call, but it is enough to justify the envelope check that week, and the rest of the work is outdoors. AgriLife's scorpion guidance is to remove trash, logs, boards, stones and bricks from around the structure [1], and never to bring firewood indoors unless it goes straight onto the fire [1]. Scorpions are nocturnal, hiding during the day and becoming active at night [1], so an evening walk of the perimeter with a flashlight shows you more than a daytime search of the rooms.

Can a pest control company treat head lice?

No. The CDC treats head lice as a person-to-person problem handled by the pharmacy and the laundry [7], which leaves a structural pest control company nothing to work on. The head lice section above covers the CDC's guidance in full.

My child brought home an insect from school. How do I find out whether it is a bed bug?

Catch it before it gets away, because EPA's guidance for parents is to catch the suspected bed bug in a zip top bag or contain it under clear tape for identification [8], and to contact the school nurse so the school can investigate [8]. Identification comes before any response, since what a confirmed bed bug calls for and what a look-alike calls for have nothing in common. EPA also points parents toward an inspection by a pest management professional [8], and toward asking about non-chemical methods such as heat treatment of rooms and furniture [8].

Reference sources

1. Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, "Scorpions" (E-362). https://agrilifeextension.tamu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Scorpions-1.pdf
2. Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, Insects in the City, "Cricket control in the fall" (ENT-2003). https://citybugs.tamu.edu/factsheets/household/misc-house/ent-2003/
3. Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, "Cockroach Biology and Management" (ENTO-037). https://extensionentomology.tamu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/cockroach-biology-and-management-compressed.pdf
4. US Environmental Protection Agency, "Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Principles." https://www.epa.gov/safepestcontrol/integrated-pest-management-ipm-principles
5. Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, School IPM, "IPM Action Plan for Rodents." https://schoolipm.tamu.edu/forms/pest-management-plans/ipm-action-plan-for-rodents/
6. Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, Insects in the City, "Be on the lookout for armyworms" (2021). https://citybugs.tamu.edu/2021/08/30/be-on-the-lookout-for-armyworms/
7. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "About Head Lice." https://www.cdc.gov/lice/about/head-lice.html
8. US Environmental Protection Agency, "Bed Bugs in Schools: Guidance for Parents" (EPA 730-F-16-001, 2016). https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2016-07/documents/bed-bug-guidance-for-parents.pdf
9. US Environmental Protection Agency, "Do-it-yourself Bed Bug Control." https://www.epa.gov/bedbugs/do-it-yourself-bed-bug-control