Archive for March, 2012

Summer pests invade East Texas earlier, this year – KTRE

Summer pests invade East Texas earlier, this year
KTRE
By Alexis Spears – bio | email "The bugs are really starting to move," said Donnie Carroll, owner of Caroll Pest Control. A mild winter and an early spring have pests already coming out of hiding this year. This means it's time for exterminators, …

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Pests in the NewsMarch 29, 2012

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Early spring produces early pest season – Republican Eagle

Early spring produces early pest season
Republican Eagle
While many people are enjoying the unusually warm temperatures, many pests are enjoying them as well. While many people are enjoying the unusually warm temperatures, many pests are enjoying them as well. “Since we've basically had spring since February …

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Pests in the NewsMarch 29, 2012

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Mar 29, 2012 – If It’s Not One Thing It’s Another

QUESTION:

As a technician I service a lot of restaurants. My question is where in a restaurant can I spray with my B&G? my boss wants me to spray just about everywhere, but I refuse to spray in food prep and cooking areas, and I tend to use crack and crevice treatments and glue boards in those areas. I do spray the dining area. I would hate to contaminate the food with overspray. Also, are we allowed to set snap traps in those areas or only glue boards for rodents?

ANSWER:

I will preface my response by saying that regardless of what you CAN legally use in your accounts you are really obligated to do what your manager tells you to do, short of breaking any laws or good ethical standards. We all may have slightly different ways of doing things and each of them may be equally effective and within the label directions. So, I am not going to focus on what you “should” be using in restaurants, but only on what the law permits. 

First on the rodent traps. Yes, definitely you are permitted to use snap traps and any other kinds of traps in all areas of restaurants. Your considerations should be these. In dining areas you absolutely do not want patrons of the restaurant seeing a trap or even worse a trap with a rodent in it. When we eat in a restaurant we prefer to divorce ourselves from the idea that our chosen restaurant could possibly have a rodent problem, so keeping all traps out of sight and mind to the patrons is important. In the kitchen and other “Food Areas” of the restaurant the traps should be set so they cannot be contacted by anyone and will not be covered with food, hit with wash water, or otherwise contaminated or interfered with. Snap traps are considered a more humane trap than glue traps, and with either kind of trap the rodents captured should be disposed of quickly. 
A “Food Area” is defined as any place where food is prepared, processed, served, or stored. The dining areas are a “food area” when food is present, but a non-food area when no patrons are there and no food is on the tables. It is important to carefully read each Label of each product you use to determine what that particular product legally allows you to do in a food area, or even in a non-food area for that matter. Most residual products allow no more than a “spot” application in a food area, and may even be restricted to a crack and crevice application. Frankly, if it is roaches that you are concerned with a C&C application is going to be more effective anyhow, as this puts the active ingredient directly into where the roaches spend 80% of their time. Spraying generally over open surfaces is a waste of material, and coincidentally increases the chances of that spray contacting people or food. 
So, the Label tells you “where” you can spray in that restaurant and “how” you are allowed to make that application. There are very few places in a restaurant that you are prohibited from treating in any manner, but it is the method of application that is important. Treating in food preparation and cooking areas is perfectly acceptable if you determine that those are the locations where the roaches are to be found. Just as important in the long-term management of this problem in that restaurant , however, would be EXCLUSION. If this is a regular account that you visit every month or two months, and on each visit you re-apply your material into the same cracks and crevices, why not take just a moment longer on one trip, fill in that crevice with the appropriate caulking, and never have to treat it again? Roaches cannot hide where they cannot squeeze in. It really should be our Hippocratic Oath to use as little toxin as possible and still achieve the best roach control we can, and eliminating harborage is a big step in that direction. 
You do seem to distinguish between “spraying” and “crack and crevice”, so it appears that you are currently treating within the food areas, and that C&C application should be fine and effective. Even in the dining area you would be better off, for roach control, to do C&C applications rather than spraying along baseboards and other open surfaces. It is simple math that it takes contact TIME between the roach and the active ingredient in order to get sufficient a.i. into the roach to kill it, and a quick run across your band sprays is not likely to get that contact time. Applying insecticides onto exposed surfaces is also putting that a.i. where it is much more likely to degrade rapidly. 

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Pest QuestionsMarch 29, 2012

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Mosquitoes, ticks, fungi, other out early

Not much more than a year after Bob Jacksy was shoveling snow, the Metroparks of the Toledo Area naturalist started shooing mosquitoes instead. That first mid-March encounter is only one of several instances of what a mild winter is bringing on …

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Pests in the NewsMarch 28, 2012

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Mims: Crane flies could signal end of drought

Have you recently noticed flying that resemble giant mosquitoes? These are crane flies, and their presence is a good indicator that drought conditions have ended, at least for now. The photograph at right shows a crane fly perched on our garage door.

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Pests in the NewsMarch 28, 2012

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The war on foreign-invader bugs

But both are forces of destruction, only with different targets. The interception of is serious business, and it takes place daily in Charleston, mostly because of the ships from across the globe that call on the port. Flying and …

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Pests in the NewsMarch 28, 2012

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BBC staff smell a rat … and call in pest control – Evening Standard


Telegraph.co.uk

BBC staff smell a rat … and call in pest control
Evening Standard
The BBC has called in pest control after claims that staff spotted several rats at the Radio 4 office at Television Centre in White City. The building is home to the Today programme, The World At One and PM. Workers claim it has been neglected while …
BBC's Television Centre 'invested with rats'Telegraph.co.uk
BBC Television Centre hit by rat infestationDigital Spy UK
BBC Television Centre facing rat infestationThe Drum

all 8 news articles »

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Pests in the NewsMarch 28, 2012

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Mar 26, 2012 – Coming From The Neighbors

QUESTION:

We have a commercial building that has an ongoing Fungus Gnat problem. The employees are telling me that they cannot take it much longer. There is a recycling center directly across the street and we are very confident it is the source of the problem. We find the live gnats in all the rooftop air conditioning unit filters everytime we look. No moisture visible around the A/C’s. The A/C company does keep those disks in the drip pans. We have checked the entire 150,000 sq. ft. facility for moisture related problems repeatedly and find none. There are no potted plants in the facility. The customer has about had it. Any suggestions for us?

ANSWER:

I probably don’t have any good ones. Fly control relies heavily on source reduction. You cannot stop flying things from flying, although fungus gnats are not strong fliers and shouldn’t go far from where they are breeding. This time of year there could be plenty of outdoor sources for them as we come out of a wet period. It is tempting to blame the recycling operation, and my experiences with these facilities is that they rarely are anything but pretty messy. But, is there a chance that you could speak with the management of that recycling center and be allowed to look around there as well? If your customer is getting so many fungus gnats from the recycling operation that they are in agony, then there should be plenty of fungus gnats at the recycling center for you to pin down that place as the source. If you are allowed access, and it would take some real diplomacy on your part to sweet talk them into it, you may be able to find some likely breeding resources for the gnats that could be fixed. 

However, I have not started to hold my breath on that one. So, we’ll move on to dealing with these gnats at your customer’s facility. I know that it does not take many fungus gnats up your nose to be an intolerable problem, and these tiny flies can be pretty determined and annoying. It even seems as though they are drawn to breath, and make the effort to fly into your face. So, is this ongoing fungus gnat problem one where there are thousands of the flies in the building or just that onesy twosy gnat that finally picks the last nerve? For occasional gnats it could well be a few that live in the mulch outdoors and make it in when doors are opened. For thousands then obviously some hefty breeding source is nearby. 
If you are resigned to dealing with the adult gnats then your options are really limited. I am not a great fan of pesticide applications for gnat control. You can kill all the adult gnats with a fogging of pyrethrum, but this is only a stop-gap measure designed to give relief while you find and correct the breeding source. Surface applications of residual insecticides may kill some adult flies but again it is going to be very temporary if successful at all. You could consider placing UV light traps throughout this building, and these are going to catch fungus gnats. You don’t indicate what kind of commercial building this is – office, manufacturing, distribution – or if the employees being bothered are sitting at desks or working in a warehouse. This could definitely affect what options will work. 
There really are no traps designed specifically for fungus gnats, and no baits or other attractants to draw them to a point. The UV light traps will be helpful. You might even consider placing plenty of large yellow sticky traps around the office area, and inspect them in a week to see how successful they were at drawing and capturing gnats. Yellow has traditionally been the color believed to be most attractive to flying insects, although Pest West is coming out with their BLUE Fly Baiter that the believe is more effective at attracting and capturing house flies, phorid flies, and some other flies. 
I would not abandon the hunt for the source, nor dismiss the possibility of inspecting the recycling center and hopefully making some fixes there that could reduce the breeding potential, if that turns out to be the actual source. 

View past Ask Mr. Pest Control questions.

Pest QuestionsMarch 28, 2012

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What could be lurking under your child’s desk?

Read more: Local, Education, Community, Environment, Outdoors, News, Spiders, Brown Recluse, Recluse, Poisonous, Poisonous Spiders, Traps, , Western Community Unit School District, Spiders Found at School, Storage Room, Pesticides, Spraying …

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Pests in the NewsMarch 27, 2012

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IU student bitten by rabid bat in dorm room

The Herald-Times reports his roommate and a worker who transported the bat also are receiving the 14-day regimen of shots. IU spokesman Mark Land says the student was bitten on a hand Wednesday and shook the bat off in a hallway. The bat was …

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Pests in the NewsMarch 27, 2012

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