Bedbugs+Suspend+Kicker=success

Pest control professionals are scrambling for any ounce of control when dealing with the ever growing bedbug epidemic. One combination that has been easing on down the road has been a product called suspend and kicker. Mix them together and what have you got? Decent reviews...at least so far. The time it takes to get the population to start dying off is lessened when you combine the two. Bayer is the manufacturer of both of these products and both products are labeled for bedbugs and for treating the areas of the mattress where bedbugs hide like the tufts and buttons. I have said many times that bedbug jobs should be left to the professionals and I still hold true to this conviction, but at least you can be more informed as to what is working out there.

Ground Bees

There are several kinds of bees that dig and nest in the ground. Some like Cicada Killers dig out a single hole, leaving what looks to be a mound of dirt or sand, and kills a cicada and buries the cicada and the bees egg in the hole. Cicada killers are very large looking bees, but they generally won't bother humans unless provoked. Some ways to control them would be to keep your lawn thick and well maintained to prevent the Cicada killers from finding adequate areas to nest or in some cases a chemical treatment will be necessary. Professionals often times will dust the holes or do a power spray. This treatment will need to be followed up on the follow year.
Another ground bee is known as the digger wasp. These wasps can appear to be hovering over the lawn and can appear in great numbers at times. They are not an aggressive wasp generally and the control is similar to the cicada killer, and that is to dust the holes or apply a broad range pesticide.
The ground nesting bees to watch out for are bumble bees and yellow jackets that will nest in abandoned rodent borrows or other holes in the ground. These bees are very aggressive and will attack and cause harm. Before mowing your lawn be sure to survey the lawn to make sure there is no bee activity coming or going from the ground. This is often the way humans are attacked. The above picture shows what a yellow jacket nest under ground can look like. These nests should be handled by professionals. They will most times dust the entrance hole using a dust stick to keep a distance and treat the holes this way. Do not use gasoline to try to kill them yourself. This is dangerous and will contaminate the ground.

Bedbugs-Gianaris Bill Passes!

The bill that state Assemblyman Gianaris proposed to help battle bedbugs with knowledge and communication has passed unopposed on May 8, 2007! It required the Schools in Queens to notify parents of any outbreaks of bedbugs in schools which would allow other parents to keep their eyes open for any potential bugs that may be brought back home inadvertently. It would also offer parents prevention techniques and treatment options to help in the battle. This is a fantastic idea that the nation should adopt. Without education and communication, the bedbug problem that is already out of control will continue to flourish.

Mice and furniture

I had an interesting question asking if mice could live in a mattress. The short answer is yes. To be more specific, mice can nest in sofas, mattresses, chairs, anything that is soft and provides a protected nest. I remember one specific time when I was on the road I had a customer who was having a bad mouse problem. I was catching them in the traps and I was able to pinpoint the area they were coming from to a wall where the sofa was. I found no holes so I decided to inspect the sofa and sure enough when I lifted up the cushions they had collected lots of nesting material and were nestles in the corner of the sofa under the cushions. It doesn't matter if there is a lot of activity like getting up and down from a sofa because the mice get used to this movement and it stops scaring them. So to answer the question, yes it is possible for a mouse or mice to live in your furniture and it should be on the list of areas to inspect when preforming a rodent control program.

Gypsy Moth

There has been alot of buzz lately about the extremely hated gypsy moth as of late. These buggers were actually brought to the United States back in the late Eighteen Hundreds in an attempt to boost the silkworm industry but unfortunately they escaped into the wild and we have been suffering the results ever since. The best was to control these pests would be to use an integrated approach targeting the several stages of development to gain the best control. Gypsy moth traps and lots of them work well. Really the best and fastest route is to spray the tree with a labelled insecticide. These situations call for a professional with a power spray rig and the appropriate licenses.

Mosquito Repellent

What kind of devises work as mosquito repellents and what is good mosquito control? Some things that don't work at all would be things like "bug zappers" that electrocute bugs. Most times these machines wind up killing more beneficial insects other than mosquitoes and they will attract more mosquitoes to your yard. Citronella candles don't really work that well especially out in the open like on a deck or in the yard. You need several to have even a slight affect. They work better in semi enclosed areas like a sun room or screened in porch. Now for some effective control. There are machines out there now that emit carbon dioxide which attracts mosquitoes and then sucks them in with a vacuum. Some of the brand names are Mega Catch or Mosquito Magnet. These are pricey but effective. Another method is the old fashioned fogging that professionals do. They also sell mosquito dunks to applied to areas of large free standing water like big puddles where mosquitoes will breed. These products prevent reproduction. These are some of the methods to consider this summer as you prepare for that outdoor barbecue or picnic.

Mosquitoes

My two boys just came in from the deck and were eaten alive by mosquitoes! Welts all over them. It got me thinking about the nasty insect and I thought I'd write a post about how to try to keep them from multiplying. You've probably heard this a hundred times before, but it is important. You must go around your house and look for free standing water. It can be a puddle in a bird bath or as small as water in a toy that is laying on the ground. They don't need much. With all the rain that has been falling around the country it is important to try to keep the population down by emptying this water whenever you see it. Flower pots, smoking "butt" cans, tires, and other kinds of outside furniture can gather water. Rain spouts that are clogged up are also a big culprit. You have to have an eagle eye when searching out these posts but when you do you will be glad you did.

Pest Control Products and Pests They Control

So what's a good arsenal to have in your corner?
Termites: Advance TBS, Termidor, Premise, and Firstline.
Ants: Maxforce Ant Bait, Advance Ant Granules, Advance Dual Choice.
Roaches: Dupont Roach Bait, MAxforce FC Select, Victor Roach Pheromones.
Waterbugs: Niban
Bees: Delta Dust, Drione Dust, Apicide.
Mice: Contrac Meal, Contrac Blox

Just a few products to ponder.

Honey Bees Die

Will this become an epidemic? Some think so with speculation that the American food supply is at risk. Will we be reduced to the diet of prisoners, just having bread and water available? Hopefully it won't come to this point, but some are saying that the worst case scenario can result is such a drastic diet. Honey bees pollinate 90 percent of the flowering crops in the United States. Crops like Apples, Nuts, Asparagus, peaches, and blueberries, just to name a few are among the bees favorites. The bees also pollinate plants like alfalfa...and who eats this yummy meal you ask...why cattle of course. If the cattle can't eat then the bees are also affecting the beef supply. It can become a vicious domino effect if the honey bee problem is not resolved soon. This phenomenon is being called the Colony Collapse Disorder and it's not just contained in the United States. Other countries including Brazil and parts of Europe are also reporting this dilemma. Hopefully in time we will find out what is causing these bees to die and correct the problem before we start paying more for an apple than we are paying for a gallon of gas!

Fleas

Fleas are the most annoying insects to have in the home but one of the easiest to get rid of if you are willing to do the work. First off you must clean everything up off the floor and all the stuff from under the bed and off the floor of closets. You get the point. Next thing to do is vacuum like there is no tomorrow. Every inch of your home will need to be vacuumed. Be sure to throw away the vacuum bag as soon as you are done vacuuming. Next thing to do is get a product that has an insect growth regulator in it as well as an adulticide to kill all stages of the flea. Fleas develop in stages and it is important to break this life cycle. If you have a cat you may want to consider getting foggers with an Insect growth regulator in it to get the area up high that cats often frequent like high cabinets. If you have a dog you can get away with just a carpet spray. Be sure to have the cat or dog treated or dipped and try to use a product like front line for a few months. If you treat thoroughly and follow the labels on the products you should do a good job of eliminating the fleas. Some products pest control operators use are Ultracide, Precor, Precor Plus foggers, and Nylar. Do it yourself pest control places have products to use and you local Home Depot or Petsmart will have products to consider also.

Start your DYI pest control project now!

It's that time of year again when the ants and bees are gathering their armies for a full force invasion into your home! So how do you prepare yourself? First off is the outside inspection. Any holes or gaps that would allow any kind of bug enter the home will need to be sealed. Cable TV wires are often not sealed tightly with gaps around where the wire enters the house. Air conditioner cables are another area to look at. Any kind of pipe or wire that enters the home can be a possible highway for bugs and need to be sealed tight. Also stand in your garage and if you see light shining in under the garage door then the door is not shutting flush to the ground. Needs to be resealed. Next thing to do is cut back any tree limbs that are hanging over the roof and hanging onto the roof. This will help stop carpenter ants from entering your home. Trim back bushes and shrubs from the home and clean up and leafs that have gathers up against the house as this is a fantastic place from bugs to breed in and then enter the home. There are several do it yourself websites out there that offer pest control product s for sale. Gluetraps are great monitoring tools to see what is going on in the home and they are non toxic. You can also get any baits and other products to help control all kinds of insects. A good outside granule treatment will often times help keep alot of your outside pests at bay. Products like Talstar EZ or Demand G are excellent. Granule baits are also very effective. Maxforce has a great granule bait. Another good bait is Niban or Advance.

Carpenter Bees

What are some of the products to use in their control?

Dusts are the product of choice when treating carpenter bee galleries. You will need a ladder and some courage. The carpenter bees will no doubt dive bomb your. IF you are on a high ladder treating eaves or roof top areas then use extreme caution. The dusts you can use are drione dust or tempo. Delta dust is also very good because it repels moisture. Treat every hole you can find. Perma Dust or Tri Die are canned dust and in aerosol form and easier to use in these situations. Even after spending the afternoon thoroughly treating every possible hole they are using it still might not get all of them and it won't deter new ones from starting a hole right next to the old ones. At least you will get some relief. They are a tough insect to control. Good Luck.

Big Bees

There are alot of big bees flying around out there and people are confusing them with Bumble Bees. They are most likely Carpenter Bees. These bees are large and fly in a sometimes zig zag, crazy pattern and will often times dive bomb you as you get close to the area they are flying in. What happens is the female carpenter bee will be "drilling" out her gallery to nest in a place her egg in and the male protects the hole by flying aggressively around the area. The males lack stingers and won't sting, although they will act like they can by trying to scare you away. They often nest in wood eves of the house or wood fences. Really anything wood that is bare and outside can be used to nest in. You can notice "drippings" coming from the holes these bees drill and this is an indication of where to treat. You want to treat each gallery with a dust and seal the hole over with caulk. Pest control operators might powder spray the entire area. This will give good coverage and usually will control the bees for a while. After the effects of the pesticide has worn off other carpenter bees can re-infest the holes or start new ones. Sometimes painting bare wood with a heavy paint will deter them from drilling holes, but it doesn't always work. Even if you paint and treat it is not unusual for the bees to still be around as your neighbors may have them as well and they will still be evident. This job might be best suited for a pest control company and the jobs are usually expensive because of the time it takes to treat each area thoroughly.

Cluster Flies

Another phone call I got was from a friend complaining about large, slow flies. These sound to me to be cluster flies. They look like house flies except they are slightly bigger and a slow flyer. Many times you can swat easily as with a regular house fly it is not as easy to get them. Cluster flies will start to head to a house in August and hang out around the cracks and crevices of door frames or window frames and will over winter in a home. Many times they emerge on warm days in the winter or come spring time. If there are alot of them I usually recommend vacuuming them up with a hose vacuum. You can spray, but that is messy and unnecessary as these flys are slow and can usually be caught or killing with mechanical means.

Waterbugs

I had a friend call over the weekend about a cluster of waterbugs he found up in the joists of his home. He essentially found a pocket or a nest of the Oriental Roach and he was wondering how he should proceed. Usually with a waterbug problem I recommend a inside perimeter spray and baiting with Niban or some other kind of Baygon type bait. This time I told him to just get a good premixed spray from Home depot and spray the heck out of them. Half the job was done in finding the pocket of them, now killing the bulk of them will eliminate the problem. As always I told him to use caution and to warn the wife that there might be some strays that got away and retreated from the "waterbug killings". Anytime you can find the source or nest it is a good day.

Bedbugs in Schools

One thing that will need to be realized with the current bed bug epidemic is the fact that bedbugs are not just going to be found in flea bag motels. Bed bugs can be picked up in 5 star hotels, public transportation, cruise ships, airplanes, movie theaters, and schools. Bedbugs are parasites and unlike roaches that scatter when you come into the room and turn on the lights, bedbugs will run toward you. Unfortunately the problem is very wide spread and one tool that is probably most important that we can all use is education. We need to educate hotel workers, apartment building staff, hospitals, and teachers about what to look for and how to react when they see signs of bedbugs, whether they be live bugs or bite marks. We need to educate the public as well. Think about how easily a problem could spread if one child brings a book bag from an infested apartment complex to school for an entire school year and how the bedbugs that have hitch hiked in that bag everyday spreads to all the other bags and classrooms. Now these students and teachers are bringing them home. The bite marks that the students are presenting with are being blamed on bites from home, when they are actually from the school. A vicious circle begins. Same with any place else. You can treat someplace with an atom bomb if you wanted to but if you kept bringing those bedbugs back into your home from another source you are just setting yourself up for failure. The bedbug epidemic is going to get worse before it gets better, there is no doubt about that, but with the proper education and helping to raise awareness about these insects with the public rather then trying to hide the facts, I think we will be able to get a better hold of the situation.

Mouse control and peanut allergies.

A sensitive subject in today's world is that of peanut allergies. Children and adults are finding that they are severely allergic to peanuts and even the faintest scent can cause a reaction. It is because of this reason that pest control companies are moving away from glue traps that used to be scented with the smell of peanut butter and the reason products like Provoke were brought to market. Peanut butter was for the longest time the bait of choice for everyone who was trying to trap mice and now people are starting to look for good alternatives. As I mentioned earlier a new product on the market is Provoke which is only available to professional pest control companies, some other methods to use as an attractant to the traps would be chocolate, cheese, bacon pieces, and cotton or string. What used to be the great part about peanut butter was you could smear a little bit to the snap trap trigger and that would be enough to trap the mouse. With these other methods you have to be sure to secure it to the trap. If you are using bacon or cheese, be sure to secure it to the trigger. Chocolate syrup is easy to apply and the cotton again would need to be secure to the trap. Often switching up your methods of luring the mouse to the trap increase your chances of catching them anyway, so it is good to experiment with these other options and as always, use cation.

Termites and wood consumption

How much wood does a termite eat?

I got an email question about the amount of wood a termite eats and how fast they can damage a house. Bad news is if you already have termite activity in the wood members of your home then you have to get it treated. Good news is that they don't go through your house like you see in a cartoon where one minute your house is there and the next minute it's gone. Termites in the northeast called subterranean termites will eat about 13 lbs of wood per average colony. Formosan will eat almost double that. So when your termite sales person comes out and slaps you with an estimate for two thousand dollars to get your home treated you don't have to feel pressured to sign on the dotted line in fear of your home falling down. Having said that you do need to understand that if the damage has been going on unchecked for years and years and there is extensive structural damage then you should act as quickly as possible to get the damage fixed and the termite infestation treated.

Termites and wood consumption

How much wood does a termite eat?

I got an email question about the amount of wood a termite eats and how fast they can damage a house. Bad news is if you already have termite activity in the wood members of your home then you have to get it treated. Good news is that they don't go through your house like you see in a cartoon where one minute your house is there and the next minute it's gone. Termites in the northeast called subterranean termites will eat about 13 lbs of wood per average colony. Formosan will eat almost double that. So when your termite sales person comes out and slaps you with an estimate for two thousand dollars to get your home treated you don't have to feel pressured to sign on the dotted line in fear of your home falling down. Having said that you do need to understand that if the damage has been going on unchecked for years and years and there is extensive structural damage then you should act as quickly as possible to get the damage fixed and the termite infestation treated.

Cloths Moth

How do you get rid of cloths moths? Inspection. If you suspect you might have cloths moths you have to wage a battle of inspection to find the source, which is the larvae and what the larvae is feeding off of. Is it your wool sweater that has been in the basement for ten years? Maybe the cotton gloves that are shoved in your chest of drawers. You need to try to pinpoint an area to start with and usually you will have a higher concentration of moths in the room where the larvae are hanging out. Look for anything natural. Even the felt pads on piano keys and behind picture frames can be a source. Horse hair brooms, clothing, rugs, carpets. There is a lot to look through. You will be looking for holes and casings. Again, this is hard for the homeowner to determine and that is why it might be a good idea to call in an expert. One the source is located then those items need to be dry cleaned to kill the larvae. Many pest control people will ask you just to dry clean everything to be sure you got them all as there is no real way to tell unless you sift through each and every piece of clothing and every inch of that clothing. Then to get rid of the adults you can fog or use moth pheromones that will catch them. The hardest part of the job will be to find the source. Happy Hunting!