Archive for April, 2012

Time to get your pets insect protection – Winfield Daily Courier Online

Time to get your pets insect protection
Winfield Daily Courier Online
Early the next morning, after getting back into my car, there were several of the most annoying insects we Kansans deal with during warm weather: the dreaded mosquito. I quickly shooed them off the dashboard and windows and quickly rolled up my windows …

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Pests in the NewsApril 01, 2012

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Crane Flies invading Texoma

SHERMAN, TX – Warm temperatures and heavy rains in the area have led to an invasion of pests acrorss texoma. And although they're harmless, these giant flies are definitely annoying. KXII talked to a local exterminator about why we're seeing so many Crane Flies so early in the spring and what's the best weapon to use against these pests.

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Pests in the NewsApril 01, 2012

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Mar 30, 2012 – Fleas Without Homes

QUESTION:

Recently I treated a vacant apartment building which had a heavy cat flea infestation. I verified that no animals are nesting nor sneaking into the building. I treated with Precor for an IGR. All units are being (I hope) vacuumed every other day to eliminate food
sources for larvae and to stimulate adult fleas to leave the pupal stage. How much time should I allow before the next visit? Temperatures around here are in the 60’s with humidity around 70%.

ANSWER:

It sounds like you impressed upon the management of these apartments the need for and benefit of that constant vacuuming, and hopefully they really are doing it. There is that small percentage of fleas that will remain in what is called the “pre-adult” stage in the pupa until something physically stimulates them to emerge. This might be physical contact by someone stepping on the pupa or heavy vibration such as from the vacuum, but this “stimulus” would indicate to the flea inside the pupa that FOOD is present, and it will now instantly emerge as the adult flea and seek out that potential host. According to one expert on fleas, in a talk he gave years ago, the fully formed pre-adult flea can emerge from the pupa within 2 seconds and in 1 second more make its first jump onto a host. This phenomenon of waiting and then instantly emerging is clearly a survival mechanism for this species. 

On the other hand, those pre-adult fleas could just hang out there for up to 6 months before either emerging or dying, so vacuuming the empty apartments is a must. Most fleas will just emerge from their pupa spontaneously when temperatures and humidity are proper, and a temperature of 60 degrees is probably not as perfect as one at 70 to 80 degrees, but it should allow most of the fleas to emerge. 
Methoprene in Precor is a very stable material, and you should get at least 6 months of residual effect from an application. According to the manufacturer vacuuming is not going to pull it out of the carpet fibers and even shampooing is not likely to remove it all, but hot steaming and heavy shampooing could eliminate much of the active ingredient. If nothing is going on to remove the methoprene you may not really need to re-apply it, at least not for several months, and presumably those apartments will be getting rented and occupied before then. You don’t indicate whether or not you are using an adulticide, but this might be a good idea to kill any adult fleas that emerge. Presumably fleas that are going to appear due to the vacuuming will do so almost immediately, so following up the vacuuming with a mist of pyrethrum over the carpet could be all that is needed. If you are using an adulticide residual material then you might expect it to be gone within the following 3 weeks or so. 
This might be a good place to monitor rather than spray continually. There are flea traps that actually may draw the adult fleas with heat or carbon dioxide or other stimuli, or at the least place glue traps around the rooms to see if any adult fleas are still active there. We would want to keep the insecticide applications to as few as are really needed, so determining whether or not fleas are still present is a good idea. Whoever does the vacuuming could ensure the glue traps are in place and if they want to save you a trip out there they could also inspect the traps for fleas the day or two after vacuuming. If adult fleas continue to be present then you could treat the infested units with an adulticide, and once dry have it vacuumed once again. 

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Pest QuestionsApril 01, 2012

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