Pests can be seen as falling into two major categories.
The first is of those that are referred to as indoors pests.
The second is of those that are referred to as outdoors pests.
The pests in question, by the way, are all organisms that cause harm in some way.
With the human being as the subject, we see some of the pests being those that directly injure him (think of the likes of lice) as well as those that injure the human being's interests, and thus inflict harm on him or her indirectly.
In the latter case, we are looking at the likes of ticks, which injure the human being's livestock, compromising its productivity, and thus messing with the human being's interests.
We are also looking at the likes of rodents, which mess up with the human being's belongings by, for instance, maliciously gnawing on them.
Simply put, a pest is an undesirable organism.
And being an undesirable organism, it has to be gotten rid of, which is what pest control is all about.
When we are looking at outdoors-pest-control, we tend to have two strategies that we can deploy: the mechanical strategy and the chemical strategy.
Our focus for this discussion is on chemical control for outdoors pests, where we are interested in exploring the pros and cons of it.
Starting with the pros, we see the use of chemicals for outdoor-pest-control being one of the most effective ways of getting rid of such pests.
Simply put, these chemicals tend to be designed to wipe out the pests in question- as long as the right type of chemical is used for the right type of pest.
You may never get to know how much of a 'pro' this is, until you come to learn of the effectiveness questions that tend to arise with regard to some of the other outdoor pest control strategies.
Further still, we see the use of chemicals for outdoor-pest control being a rather cost-effective approach to pest control.
The chemicals employed for the purpose may not be very cheap, but they tend to bring about lasting solutions to the specific pest problems, hence the cost-effectiveness associated with them.
Chemical outdoor pest control tends to be easier - less labor intensive and less time consuming as compared to attempts at mechanical control for outdoor pests.
These too, are rather important considerations.
But there is also a downside to chemical outdoor pest control.
For one, as alluded to during the exploration of the pros, the chemicals used in outdoor pest control tend to be quite costly.
The approach may be cost-effective in the long run, but the initial investment that has to be made in it is considerable.
Then there are the environmental considerations.
Most of these chemicals employed in outdoor pest control tend to be quite unfriendly to the environment, and that is an important thing to think about.
The chemicals used in this approach to outdoor pest control also tend to lack selectivity in their working approach, meaning that in their attempt to kill off pests, they also end up killing useful organisms.