Robber flyWe are all familiar with the house fly, which feeds on decaying organic matter and is pretty much harmless to other insects. However, there are around 120,000 species of flies in the world (many are yet to be discovered) and some of them are accomplished predators. Robber flies are among these; they have extremely sharp eyesight and can fly at high speed, catching other insects in mid
Pests in the NewsAugust 02, 2011
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QUESTION:
How can I tell where a dead rodent is located in a wall?
ANSWER:
Well there’s a good question. On this note I just have to tell a story about a recent news article in our area. It seems a mouse died under a desk in an office building of a public employees’ workplace, and for some reason they actually called the local Haz Mat team out, evacuated the building and sent everyone home (except those who had to go to the hospital due to exposure to this terrible odor), and had the guys in sealed silver suits with SCBA hoods on locate the dead mouse and dispose of it. I wonder how much THAT cost the state during these fine financial times. It made the TV headlines all day long.
You may be able to narrow down the search for the offending wall void using your nose and sniffing along baseboards or into electric outlets, but this can be pretty hard to pinpoint. If there are blow flies inside the house they may be able to lead you closer to the location within the walls. But, to be absolutely certain you probably need to actually SEE the carcass, and this means using a camera or scope of some kind to view inside the wall void. These kinds of devices have been used in pest management for a very long time, but more often for termite inspections to peek inside walls or under slabs. But, fiber optic viewing devices and tiny cameras on flexible tubes are commonplace, and you should be able to find them for sale on the internet. By narrowing the search to a specific wall you could poke the camera through existing openings such as electric outlets, or create a small and hopefully inconspicuous opening yourself that could be patched easily afterward.
Eventually the carcass is going to completely dry out and at some point in time the production of foul odors will stop, but this could be a long time, and if that rodent is in a void where the air just loves to flow into the living areas the residents could detect it for awhile. If this is the case there are deodorants you can use, and one that I have received excellent feedback on is the dry deodorants that come in pouches, such as the “Odor Remover Pouch” from EarthCare. These can simply be placed in the area of the odor and according to the manufacturer they pull the air through the pouch and remove the molecules that cause the foul odors. I was skeptical of this claim, but have heard a number of very positive stories from PMP’s where it worked in exactly this manner.
If you know the void the carcass is in but cannot open it to remove the carcass you also could dribble in granules of deodorizers or fog into that void using a liquid deodorizer. So many of the deodorizers in our market today are not “masking” agents that just cover up the smell with a stronger nice fragrance, but they actually remove the odor itself.
Pest QuestionsAugust 02, 2011
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QUESTION:
I have a customer who wants to know if Cyonara, Suspend, and Transport are Green “friendly”, and if so where can I get the literature for my customer?
ANSWER:
A great place to start might be our resource on “Green Pest Management” on PestWeb, which you will find in the Business Tools tab. This document discusses the topic of Green, and emphasizes that this is a very misunderstood topic. What your customer thinks of when he thinks “green” and what you may be thinking could be on different tracks, and it is important to talk with the customer to find out what it is they are looking for. Some homeowners or business owners may think green means that you use no pesticides, or only “natural” pesticides, but this really is not how our industry views the whole topic. Bottom line is that there is no such thing as a Green Pesticide, but only that pesticides can be used in a green manner, or in a manner that is eco-friendly. Of course, anti-pesticide groups are going to take offense to my belief that ANY pesticide could be compatible with a perfect environment, but, well, what’s that old saying about “opinions”?
These 3 products all contain synthetic active ingredients. Does that make them non-green? Of course not, as they all could be used in a manner whereby you ensure they are not polluting the environment and are not harming non-targeted organisms. The active ingredients in them are used in bait products that are very specific to the intended pest. They can be applied in a very discreet manner so that no one and no animals are contacted other than the pest. You can (and should) use them as part of a specific IPM program so that all possible non-chemical techniques are also put to practice for this customer. They may help to rid the customer’s environment (his home, his business) of pests that threaten his personal health, and this creates a better environment for him and his family.
This shows why the topic of green is easily confusing, and you and the customer must work together to provide what he wants. Most homeowners probably think in terms of natural pesticides when they are thinking green, and if this is the case then no, these 3 products are not natural active ingredients. If we use Green Buildings under the LEED protocol then we would look for products on an acceptable list of pesticides, and this is provided as a link on another resource on PestWeb on LEED Certified Green Buildings, which you’ll also find under that Business Tools link.
But, the most important points here are that there is no such thing as a Green Pesticide, but only that there are green ways to go about pest management, and that some pesticides seem to fit within those methods more logically than others. However, any pesticide may be appropriate – it is all about HOW the material is used, not WHAT it is.
Pest QuestionsAugust 01, 2011
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