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Daily Mail

Insects can be scared to death by the mere presence of a predator Daily Mail Insects may not have the biggest brains in the animal world, but that doesn't mean they don't feel fear. In fact, in a study by Canadian biologists dragonflies were found to be so sensitive to their surroundings that the mere presence … Study: Insects can be scared to deathUPI.com all 9 news articles »

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QUESTION:

I have a client who, along with his wife and child, have been feeling they were being bitten, causing severe itching for about a week now. They have no visible signs of bites and the itching is not localized to any particular portion of their bodies. On inspection of the apartment I found no fleas or bed bugs. They have recently started using the heat so I wondered about this. I’m leaning toward scabies mites or an over-sensitive client. What else could cause this? Any ideas would be appreciated.

ANSWER:

Well, if I use my handy fingers I can list the possibilities here. First, there could be nothing present that is related to bugs that could “bite” them or cause some other skin annoyance, and this might well be their imagination (also known as Delusory Parasitosis). Second, there could be some small arthopod such as mites that could be either biting them or causing skin sensitization. Third, there could be some non-arthropod cause to all of this, such as an allergic response to something in the home. However, your role in this needs to remain confined to #2, and your license for pest management permits you only to identify the presence (or lack of presence) of some arthropod pest that you then can deal with as needed. While Scabies is a skin condition caused by mites, YOU have nothing to do with either verifying the presence of scabies or even treating the home in any way if a doctor has properly identified scabies. (Unfortunately I personally believe doctors too often mis-diagnose scabies on people).

You should continue to place monitoring traps throughout the home to capture any arthropods that could possibly be present – rat or bird mites, springtails, psocids, fleas, dust mites, etc. – and have those monitors inspected under high magnification by someone who can properly identify any arthropods captured. You might be surprised and find that there are some tiny mites capable of biting wandering in the home. You might find other non-biting mites or insects that could simply be causing allergic responses, perhaps on one person and the others start “feeling” the crawling and prickling too. However, try to avoid becoming a psychologist by suggesting that it may be their imagination, and definitely don’t tell them they are crazy. If your best efforts at capturing any kind of arthropod that might be causing skin problems fails to turn up anything you could suggest to them they hire an industrial hygienist to sample the air. Certainly a change in the environment around them, such as suddenly beginning to use heaters again, could discharge materials into the air that might cause skin sensitivities.

The process is to begin with the easiest solutions and work through the list, and the easiest and probably least expensive for them is for you to rule out (or confirm) the presence of any kinds of “bugs”. Perhaps it is only allergic responses due to the presence of dust mites, lady bugs, or other insects and arthropods that are within the home, and now that the home is more closed and confined with cold weather these allergens could be causing the problems. However, you should not assume there might be bugs and just go ahead and “spray something” and hope for the best. Instead, avoid applying any kinds of pesticides if you have not confirmed a reason to do so.

The mind can do amazing things. Since all family members seem to be experiencing the same sensations it would suggest that something is present that is affecting them all. But, it’s not unusual for one person in a home or an office to feel that something is biting them or crawling on them and pretty soon everyone else is itching and scratching too, purely because they think something must be there. On the other hand, maybe they all are exposed to some new household product or cosmetic or soap, and are feeling the effects of it. So, stick with your role, which is pest management and the identification of any pests that are truly there. If there are none suggest other options for sampling the home environment or visiting a dermatologist to see if non-arthropod causes can be found.

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QUESTION:

I have a log home that has some sort of reinfesting beetle. The exit holes are 1/16th inch in diameter and round, and appear for the most part on the exterior in various places on all sides of the home. This problem has gone on for several years. The house has a stain finish on the outside and a urethane finish on the inside. It seems that with both sides of the wood having a finish the beetles would emerge but not reinfest becuase of the finish on the wood. Am I wrong in thinking this? If I need to use a product such as Bora-Care to prevent reinfestaion, according to the label the wood needs to have no finish on it. What do you think I can do for this customer?

ANSWER:

There may not be an easy answer to this one. First, surface coverings such as paint, varnish, or stain could be “deterrents” to wood infesting insects, but they are not perfect barriers. This is particularly true of some of the small beetles that reinfest structural wood, as the female deposits her eggs either by inserting her ovipositor into tiny cracks and gaps in the wood or by crawling down into old exit holes. In either case that surface covering is bypassed. Your description of the size of these holes suggests it could be one of the “false” powderpost beetles such as deathwatch or furniture beetle in the family Anobiidae, or even perhaps a small species in the Bostrichidae. Since the holes continue to appear now, years after the home was constructed, it should rule out something that was built in with the construction, so we could assume this is a potential re-infesting species.

I happened to have the opportunity just now to speak directly with an excellent representative of Nisus, and asked him about the use of BoraCare over even just a stain. He said that a stain alone is a barrier to the borate penetration, so either stain or clear finish prevents the use of the borate. What would have to be done to use BoraCare, which probably is the best product for getting penetration deeply into the wood, is to sand the wood on the outside down to bare wood. Then the BoraCare can be applied and by label directions a new finish applied over it at the appropriate time.

As far as I know, the only other treatment that would provide penetration into the wood deeply enough to kill larvae on the inside would be a fumigation using Vikane, and the cost to the homeowner can be quite high for this. Another consideration with fumigation is that it leaves ZERO protection for the future, so if there is a presence of these beetles in this area it would be possible that they could begin a new problem even if all the current infestation is eliminated. That is the benefit of using borates – they last for many years to prevent future problems.

It may be possible to use other insecticides that are labeled for these kinds of wood infesting beetles, but they would be surface applications only, and would affect only the adult insects as they exit the wood, or perhaps as the females attempt to oviposit back on the wood. Since these would be synthetic active ingredients it could mean multiple applications over the season that the adult beetles are active, and for several years to ensure you affect any emerging later. This might be one of those awful decisions that paying the price to do it right the first time (sand, BoraCare, reapply the finish) would be the better thing in the long run.

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Should Pest Control District be expanded or dissolved? KXO Radio The Board had been asked to dissolve a Citrus Pest Control District. The Imperial County Citrus Pest Control District #1 was first formed in November 1970 in the Bard/Winterhaven area. Ag Commissioner Connie Valenzuela says Citrus acreage in the area …

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Bed bug spotted at MI library WALB-TV "We didn't want to just do a total manual inspection." Instead Odie, a dog and professional bug sniffer for Orkin Pest Control, was brought in to check the building. After a full sweep of the library, no bugs were found. "He goes in, looks for odor, … Pest controllers join forces with hostel company to launch bed-bug campaignPrfire (press release) all 2 news articles »

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California Farm Bureau

Bill in Senate would enhance pest prevention California Farm Bureau To bolster the federal framework to protect domestic agriculture from invasive pests, two US senators have introduced legislation that would enhance agricultural inspections at ports of entry across the nation. …

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Tree-devouring pest hits region Albany Times Union (AP Photo/Mike Groll) A poster warning of invasive pests hangs at the entry booth at Moreau Lake State Park in Moreau, NY, on Wednesday, July 27, 2011. Loggers and campers are being snared as New York steps up efforts to stem the spread of the … and more »

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Stink bugs creeping into warm Halifax homes Gazette Virginian The following spring, as temperatures increase, overwintered insects recover from their winter inactivity to resume their normal life cycle. Many folks have called the Halifax Extension office this year concerned about the increase in 'stink bug' …

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QUESTION:

You suggested fogging a wall void to kill BMSBs in a structure. Won’t this cause a problem with dermestid beetles feeding on the carcasses, and wouldn’t that be an even bigger problem than the stink bugs?

ANSWER:

Well, now there is our dilemma, and in case any of you don’t know the reference to “the lady or the tiger” it refers to a story where a man was given 2 choices, both of them bad. This is correct what you say Brian. Anytime we kill any bugs or rodents inside a home and cannot remove all the little bodies and carcasses it is an open invitation to Mother Nature’s cleanup crew to find them and do what they are programmed to do – recycle the dead bodies. This is true also of wasp and bee nests, roaches or bed bugs inside walls, and flies and any other bugs we kill and leave behind. Carpet beetles (dermestids) WILL find them, and now these alternate pests also are in the home.

Perhaps one solution to this could be to follow up that fogging (which would give a fairly rapid kill) with an application of an inorganic dust, such as silica gel (Drione for example) or diatomaceous earth (MotherEarth D for example), leaving a coating of this material behind to intercept any dermestids that find their way in later. These active ingredients simply do not degrade, and their hazard to humans is so low that having them in the walls or other voids for years to come does not present a health risk.

Your question also points out, much to my delight, the benefit of keeping the bugs outside in the first place, and this means exclusion. The homeowner can be made aware that allowing the bugs to find their way in can lead to other problems such as the carpet beetles. Even if we do not kill them with insecticides there likely will be a great many that do not survive the winter, and these dead bugs will remain. If we can be diligent about involving the homeowner in an honest effort at sealing all possible openings on the outside where the bugs could enter, and supplement that with applications of residual products to the exterior surfaces they gather on in the fall, we can greatly minimize the number that make it inside.

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QUESTION:

Is Cy-Kick labeled for use on bed bugs on exteriors of structures? Is there anything that you might suggest that works well? Thanks for all the help.

ANSWER:

Interesting question, and since it would be really odd to find or need to treat for The Common Bed Bug (our principal human parasite species) on the exterior of a structure, I will assume you may be talking about bed bugs associated with either birds or bats. These two other species do still exist and occur in structures, and that is something we need to keep in mind when we identify the bugs found in a home. The most recent time someone showed me bed bugs to identify they did turn out to be Bat Bugs (Cimex pilosellus or C. adjunctus), and in this case this home had recently performed bat removal and exclusion, so the parasites were now wandering around. The distinctive difference, seen under high magnification, is the length of the hairs along the sides of the prothorax, which are longer than the width of the eye on bat bugs, and much shorter on The Common Bed Bug.

Bat bugs also tend to be more active during daylight hours, and if bats or swallows or other birds have been nesting or roosting on the structure they could have seeded the area with the bugs, which may be walking on the exterior surfaces. But, the Common Bed Bug just prefers to be inside and as close to food resources as possible, so treating the exterior surfaces of structures for this human parasite would be unusual. I’m not sure which species you may be dealing with in this situation, but it would be important to gather some specimens and have a positive identification made. That way if it turns out to be bed bugs more likely to be associated with birds or bats you know you need to deal with those host animals before you do anything else, since they would be the source of the problem. In fact, is there a chance that what you are seeing may not even be bed bugs at all?

Down to your basic question though. Cy-Kick is labeled for bed bugs and for use on the exterior of a structure, but with limitations. Except for applications along the foundation you can treat only as a spot or crack and crevice application, meaning you would not be allowed to treat broad surfaces of the structure outside. The specific instructions for bed bugs on this particular label speak only to indoor treatments, so if your state does not allow you to treat in any manner not specifically stated on the product label then you could not use it outdoors for bed bugs.

Another comparable product (also a microencapsulated pyrethroid) is Demand CS, and it DOES have labeling allowing broader uses to exterior surfaces. In answer to the question of what “works well” I will fall back on the current industry position that there is not yet that perfect insecticide for bed bugs, and we should not place total reliance on pesticides to eliminate them. It is going to be more successful if we incorporate the IPM steps that also include various non-chemical materials.

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