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Dayton's    TOP
Pest Control Specialists Contact Us

4012 N. Main Street
Dayton, OH 45405

QUESTION:

How we can provide a stink bug treatment on exterior and interior areas?

ANSWER:

I’m assuming you are referring to our newest stinkbug nemesis, the Brown Marmorated Stink Bug (BMSB), since this has become such huge news not only for homeowners and the presence of these nasty bugs inside their homes in the winter, but now increasing evidence that it is a serious agricultural pest as well. Many of the insects in the “true” bugs, the Hemipterans, are well known for entering structures in the fall in their search for a cozy place to survive the winter. Out here in California is often is False Chinch Bugs and Grass Bugs, and other places have Conifer Seed Bugs, chinch bugs, other kinds of stink bugs, and even some of the assassin bugs.

If we look at the many university fact sheets on the BMSB we consistently find the message that Exclusion is absolutely vital. Stinkbugs are fairly tough critters, and complete reliance on insecticides is not recommended. There may be some evidence of resistance to insecticides, according to one university site, and just getting the active ingredients and the stink bugs onto the same place at the same time can be difficult. For that reason, for those customers willing to make the effort and perhaps pay for your time, a thorough inspection of the exterior of a home is needed. This will reveal a great many openings that these bugs may use to get inside, including gaps around doors and windows, chimneys, flashing on roofing, gaps under the eaves, openings where pipes or cables go through exterior walls, etc. Most of these can be permanently closed with some suitable material (caulking for example) and with a diligent effort the large percentage of entry opportunities can be closed to the bugs. Anything that can be done to prevent a reliance on pesticides is really what we should strive for as an industry. A/C units propped in windows should be removed as soon as possible, as gaps always exist around these temporary setups.

Even on the interior the customer can have some role in the problem, and a vacuum cleaner is a great tool for removing the occasional stink bug. It’s unfortunate, but your customers likely believe that you have some magic in your truck that can eliminate every last stinking bug and keep them out, and that they should not have to see a single one in their home all winter long. This is not realistic, and the combined effort of exclusion, physical removal, and chemicals will be the best effort. The work should begin in the late summer to fall, when temperatures at night start getting cold. This triggers the bugs to begin searching for that over-winter site, and now is when they will begin to gather on outside walls of homes, often picking on the same home year after year. The moment this gathering begins, and the customers should help keep an eye on it, you can apply residual insecticides to the walls the bugs gather on. Applying things too soon may allow the active ingredient to degrade enough before the bugs arrive that it no longer will kill them. Apply too late and you risk having many of them already making their way inside.

Applications should be made under the eaves, under edges of siding where the bugs may already have crawled, and along and under any other edges available. The sunny side of the structure will often be the chosen one as the bugs seek the warmth. If you have an extended warm fall a second application may be necessary, but if the period between the first cold nights and the first freezing nights and frost is short one application “may” be sufficient. Formulations that leave particles on the surface may be the best choice, such as wettable powders or microencapsulated products. These particles more easily adhere to the insect as it walks over the surface, and microencapsulation protects the active ingredient to extend its residual life. Be certain to use a product that is properly labeled for this use on the exterior walls of a home.

Once the bugs find their way inside the job gets tougher. Finding exactly where they are holed up can be difficult, but if you can determine which voids they are in you can dust or fog into that void to kill them. A deep-void injector like the Patriot, Actisol, or B&G P.A.D.S. works great for fogging into hidden voids, and several residual insecticides are labeled for this use. Some of the newer active ingredients on the market may be showing good effectiveness on stink bugs, so talk with your local Univar sales reps and find out what feedback they have been getting.

View past Ask Mr. Pest Control questions.

Clubroot found in Saskatchewan Edmonton Journal In accordance with the Saskatchewan Pest Control Act, Cargill has restricted access to the location where the affected plants were found. “Upon discovering the presence of clubroot, we notified grain growers and owners of lands around the disease … and more »

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Students Poisoned by Pesticides Sprayed on Playing Field Outside of Classroom eNews Park Forest Forty-seven students from Edgewood Middle School in St. Clair Township, Ohio, reportedly fell ill after the school's hired pest control company sprayed the herbicide Momentum, which contains the toxic ingredients 2,4-D, triclopyr and clopyralid, …

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Rusty citrus fruit may be infestation of mites Tallahassee.com Citrus grown in the home landscape can be attacked by a number of insect and mite pests. Some of these pests are large enough to be spotted early in their infestation; others are so small that you can't see them without magnification. … Rusty looking citrus fruit might mean an infestation of citrus rust mitesGulf Breeze News all 4 news articles »

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CBC.ca

Bedbugs in books alarm libraries The Province Two libraries in Burnaby dealt with the pests earlier this month when the bugs were detected at its Metrotown and Cameron street branches. The locations were treated and library staff are now checking each book for the bugs as they are returned. … TAYLOR: Library reopens Tuesday after bedbugs caused closure WITH VIDEOSouthgate News Herald Bedbugs' library takeover temporaryThe Detroit News New West library closed by bed bug infestationNews1130 all 37 news articles »

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Oregon Natural Resources Report

Gypsy moth vanish. Breaks Oregon record. — New beetle threat looms Oregon Natural Resources Report “Our detection program helps keep any gypsy moth populations that might be out there from getting big enough to cause major problems to our agricultural industry and our natural resources, including our native insects.” ODA survey technicians begin … and more »

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QUESTION:

I have a client who owns a hotel in the Caribbean. She follows Buddhism and abhors the idea that I have to kill living creatures. For years I was not allowed to put out any rodent baits or traps. Due to a recent increase in rat sightings I’ve convinced her to let me use traps (glue and snap), but no baits as she feels that they will suffer too much. Is there a humane way that I can quickly kill the rodents that are still alive in the traps?

ANSWER:

Well this is an interesting one. I have no problem whatsoever with people feeling sympathy for other living creatures, but sometimes wonder if there is just a mild hypocrisy there. I myself have taken criticism for killing butterflies, and those who are angry that I do this appear to be angry because I have killed something “pretty”. Those same people don’t seem to have the same moral outrage over killing mosquitoes or ticks, so is it only pretty things that deserve to live? When a U.S.-based animal-rights group loudly criticized the President for killing a fly, advocating a catch and release policy instead, do they hold the same catch and release policy for bed bugs and head lice? It is important for people to recognize that there often are times when living things become intolerable, and begin to compete with humans for health and livelihoods, and at that point they may need to be killed.

Fortunately, your customer does seem to recognize that there is a point where these peridomestic rodents must be eliminated. To leave them in and around this hotel in any numbers could jeopardize her business and the health of her customers. As much as you can provide good exclusion on the structures at this hotel the better the situation, but there will still be someplace the rodents manage to enter. Hopefully no one in our professional industry enjoys watching any animal suffer, so we all should make the effort to kill pest animals quickly and in the most humane manner possible. Traps should be checked regularly after setting so that dead animals can be removed as quickly as possible to prevent odors, flies, and the possibility of their parasites (fleas and mites) wandering away into the structure. Animals that are captured but still alive should be dispatched quickly, so there is your question. How do you do this in some manner that other people will consider to be “humane”?

First of all, even the most active animal rights group in the U.S. will at least concede that rodents will, at times, need to be killed, and they appear to recommend the use of snap traps as the most efficient and humane method. Properly caught a rat or mouse will have its neck broken and will die instantly in a snap trap. Obviously this does not always happen. Glue traps are not favored by these groups, and in fact they campaign strongly against their use. However, we who do this for a living recognize the challenge posed by domestic rats and mice and the fact that we need to use all the tools possible to capture and remove them. To allow rats to roam freely inside a structure is to risk serious contamination of food, destruction of wires and other structural elements, and even possible attacks on people. The use of glue traps may not look pretty to some people, but it may be the more effective method in some circumstances.

So, again, how to quickly kill the rodent captured but still alive in a snap or glue trap, and to do so in a manner that pleases everyone. This may not be possible, so you should do so where other people do not have to watch. I love a good steak, but personally don’t want to watch the cow being slaughtered. Drowning is one option and is quick. The trap with rodent can be dumped into a bucket of water and held immersed. A more painless method might be to gas it with car exhaust, but this takes time and the trapped rodent continues to be caught on the trap for awhile. Clubbing it on the head could be very rapid, but clubbing a rat on a glue trap could be messy, and if you don’t hit the right spot the first time the rodent may just be stunned and not killed. You are not going to be allowed to carry anything yourself that you could inject the rodent with, so perhaps drowning would be the fastest and most successful method of killing the rodents.

View past Ask Mr. Pest Control questions.

QUESTION:

You have referenced a couple of times in your various answers of research showing that pesticides only last about 3 weeks or so. Can you provide the source of this research and where such can be found?
Thanks.

ANSWER:

I do get that question a lot, and hopefully I always have had the presence of mind to preface each response with that magical phrase – “it all depends” – because there are no cut and dry answers to the question of how long a pesticide “lasts” once applied. There are too many variables, and these variables include (but are not limited to) – the strength of the concentration applied, the surface it is applied to, the pH of the water or the surface it is applied to, the amount of sunlight or other UV light that hits the treated surface and how long this occurs each day, the moisture level of the treated surface, the level of organic matter in the soil that is treated along with the level of microorganisms in that soil, the heat the sprayed surface is exposed to, and of course the specific pesticide molecule being discussed. Some are more prone to falling apart than others, such as the rapid degradation of pyrethrum once applied. But, even pyrethrum may have an extended life if it is fogged into a dry, dark, coolish wall void as compared with an application into a sunny and warm room.

We end up only be comparing expected lives of pesticides, and one other consideration is that even long after the active ingredient has disintegrated sufficiently that it no longer kills insects, it still may be detectable in the water or soil or on a surface. We speak in terms of the “half life” of chemicals, which is that length of time required for half of the molecules to break down into other things, thus leaving half of the molecules still there until another of those time periods has passed, at which time half of THOSE remaining molecules will be gone, etc. Even though the pesticide active ingredient is still, technically, present on that surface there no longer is enough of it to efficiently kill the intended pest.

For termiticides, if it still is done, we had the standard “ground board” tests done on several specific ground sites in the U.S. The intent was to be able to compare apples with apples so that the effective residual of each termiticide active ingredient could be determined and compared with other active ingredients. For these we heard from product manufacturers that after such-and-such a length of time the product was still effectively killing or repelling subterranean termites, and we heard numbers such as anywhere from 5 years to 20 years or longer. Those were probably the only standardized tests that have been done to determine just how long any particular pesticide molecule remained effective.

However, we do know that certain pesticide molecules are highly resistant to degradation, and these are the inorganic (mineral based) products such as diatomaceous earth, boric acid, and silica gel. We use these in dust products that last for many years, but this is because their effect on insects is much different from that of synthetic molecules and since they are mineral they simply do not break down, any more than we would expect a chunk of granite to stop being granite in a few years. Boric acid is used in baits, as it must be ingested by the bug to be toxic, and even long after the bait is no longer palatable it still would be toxic if ingested.

A few years ago at an educational conference one of our respected industry researchers spoke, and I don’t even remember what the primary topic was, but the talk got around to how long insecticides lasted for insect control. His comment was that he would be surprised (speaking about synthetic pyrethroids) if ANY of them lasted more than two weeks. Again, depending on the circumstances this could be far shorter or far longer. We can come up with formulations such as microencapsulated products where the active ingredient is protected from all those environmental hazards, and now perhaps the effective residual is a month or more. One manufacturer claims their pyrethroid granules will last for 3 months, but maybe that granule is hidden under foliage on a relatively dry soil. Put that same granule out in the sun on hot concrete and maybe it’s less than a week.

So, there really is no good source that is willing to commit to hard and fast numbers. The chlordane that may have provided 40 years of termite control under the slab of a home would probably disappear in just a few days when applied to a hot asphalt driveway. The permethrin sprayed under the eaves for spider control is going to last longer than the same material applied to alkaline soil in the sun along the base of the house.

Now, didn’t I do a great job of dancing around a direct answer?

View past Ask Mr. Pest Control questions.

QUESTION:

How can we get rid of fruit flies or gnats in a home and what chemical can I use?

ANSWER:

There are a great many insecticides labeled for use on vinegar flies and other miscellaneous small flying gnats. However, all of these chemicals need to be set aside for the moment and a few other steps taken first if the control is going to be successful. There is no doubt that any insecticide will kill any adult fly, but fogging or spraying surfaces for fly management does not get to the real problem, which is that somewhere in this home there is some unsanitary situation that is supporting these flies, and until that “contributing” condition is found and repaired you would continue to have the production of adult flies.

Fly control must begin, as does pretty much all pest management, with Identification. If you do not know exactly who your adversary is you cannot know about its biology and likely breeding habitats. “Gnats” could refer to fungus gnats, midges, phorid flies, drain flies, or vinegar flies, and each of these could have a very different breeding resource. Fungus gnats often breed in wet soils, and indoor potted plants become wonderful places for them to breed. Drain flies love the buildup of crud in sink and floor drains, and these must be discovered and cleaned, and then KEPT clean so that the breeding does not continue in the future. Vinegar flies go for anything that is fermenting, and this time of year there can be a lot of outdoor resources for them as vegetable gardens and fruit trees are abandoned and the tomatoes and apples hit the ground and begin to rot. This then could result in a lot of these flies finding their way indoors, so exterior cleanup may be important too. On the inside it could be damaged or old fruits and veggies on the counters, old soda or beer bottles with liquid still inside them, or in the case of the Dark-eyed fruit fly even more possibilities. This species and Phorid flies can breed in all the same places that either vinegar flies or drain flies will breed, so determining just what kind of fly or gnat you have is important, and then inspecting to find the breeding sources Step 2.

This really does offer an opportunity to professional pest control companies. You provide the expertise to your customers of knowing how to identify the pest, how to search for the SOURCE of that pest, and how to eliminate the problem at its source. For drain, phorid, and fungus gnats this might lead to a monthly application of drain cleaning products to every drain in the home, and for a nominal fee that is reasonable to the customer but profitable to you. Most of the drain cleaning products now are either enzyme or bacteria based, and are considered non-toxic to people and pets.
Sometimes you may look at the presence of these persistent little flies as a signal that something inside the structure has a problem. Commonly phorid flies breed by the thousands in the soil under a slab where pipes have broken, allowing gray water or sewage to flow under the slab. Fungus gnats may indicate some excessive moisture condition inside walls or under sinks. And vinegar flies are telling us that something is rotting or fermenting that should have been disposed of. Once you are able to locate the source of the problem – that place where the larvae of these flies are developing – it can be corrected and the breeding source eliminated. At that point you may find a need to lightly fog the rooms with pyrethrum to kill off lingering adult flies, but to rely on pesticides initially for fly management is likely to have disappointing results.

View past Ask Mr. Pest Control questions.

Protect Yourself From Monsters in Your Bed This Halloween PR Newswire (press release) In the 2011 "Bugs Without Borders Survey" conducted by The National Pest Management Association (NPMA) and the University of Kentucky, 99 percent of professional pest management companies based in the United States reported encountering bed bug … and more »

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