Archive for the ‘Pest Questions’ Category

Apr 7, 2012 – No Unwanted House Guests

QUESTION:

What would be things to know when you’re planning a vacation to not bring bed bugs back home with you? Should you pack your clothes in a plastic bag inside your suitcase? And, how do you protect laptops and alarm clocks from being infested?

ANSWER:

Great question, and one that is now on my mind every time I stay at a hotel or motel, and which should be on the minds of every pest control person out there. The best protection, of course, is to be absolutely certain the room you stay in does not have bed bugs in the first place, and that means doing an inspection before you settle in. I probably should be more aggressive with my own inspection, but at least take a close look at the most obvious places – mattress and box springs – for any telltale signs of these bugs. I have talked with PMP’s who tell me they nearly tear the room apart, checking along carpet edges, inside night stands, behind anything on the walls, etc., and they do this before they bring their luggage or family into the room. When I attended a major convention last year one speaker on bed bugs asked the audience of maybe 100 people how many had inspected their room, and all 100 technicians said they had. He then asked how many FOUND bed bugs, and 3 hands went up!! So, of course always take a good flashlight with you. 

Let’s face it. Bed bugs are now found in so many places that we cannot possibly ensure we are avoiding them all the time. You cannot inspect the overhead luggage compartment on the plane, or all the seats in the theater, or the dressing room at a nice clothing store. But, we can inspect hotel rooms. One thing to do is to keep your luggage where it will not be reached by the bugs, and since they have difficulty climbing smooth metal surfaces you should place luggage only on the small luggage racks in most hotel rooms. One PMP says he takes out the ironing board and sets it up and keeps their luggage only on that, ensuring that nothing touches the walls behind the luggage. Don’t leave the suitcase on the spare bed or the floor. Likewise, when you take your shoes off at night place them on the stands, dirty clothing can go into a plastic bag, and before you leave the hotel to go home place this plastic bag inside a second one and seal it. There also are now all kinds of devices for preventing the bugs from getting into your suitcase, including tightly sealed zip-up plastic bags that you can encase your luggage in while at the hotel. 
When you get home do as I did, and undress out in the garage or some other room away from the living quarters. Place ALL clothing, including shoes, in sealed plastic bags to deal with later. Put your luggage in a sealed plastic bag. In fact, put everything in a sealed plastic bag. You then can dump clothing and other items that need to be washed directly into the washing machine, other items like backpacks directly into the dryer for a hot cycle, and in general anything that can go through either a hot wash and/or hot dryer can be done. Heat is a bed bug’s enemy. 
Electronic items obviously should not be heated up very much, so thank goodness for Nuvan ProStrips. These vapona strips can be placed into the bag with anything that cannot be heated, and left for 1 to 2 weeks to ensure any bed bug eggs that may be on those items are killed. So, which is it, 1 week or 2 weeks? The product label says 1 week and the experts say 2, but the key may be the temperature inside the bag. If you can get the temperature up to 80 degrees the vapona will act much more quickly on bed bug eggs. I know that I myself cannot live without my laptop for more than a couple of days, so the faster the better. You also could keep it inside a sealed, clear plastic bag while not using it for the next couple of weeks just to see what wanders out of it…….. hopefully nothing. 
Back at that hotel you also could place the alarm clock over on that ironing board and not leave the computer sitting on the desk all night. Use one of the dedicated sealed bags for your suitcase and put the computer inside it for the night. The key, I suppose, is to do everything you can to avoid picking up these hitchhikers in the room, and then assume that you did anyhow and take the steps at home to isolate everything you had in the room and treat it to kill any bugs or their eggs that may have managed to come home with you. 

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Pest QuestionsApril 09, 2012

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Apr 8, 2012 – Issues With Glue

QUESTION:

I am a manager of a pest control company and we service a large popular chain of banks throughout southern California. They just sent me a letter telling me “Effective
immediately, the use of gluetraps will no longer be permitted for rodent control at all facilities.” I also found out that they do not want us using glueboards for insect control. We use a lot of glue boards, odorless insecticide, IPM, and exclusion. A supervisor would like an explanation from an industry expert about using glue boards in banks and is this a green and safe approach?

ANSWER:

This opens a few different doors for us to explore, and you mention that a supervisor wants the opinion of someone on the safety and “green” aspect of glue traps. I don’t know if this is a supervisor with your company or with your customer, but I will go with the idea that it is a supervisor of this bank chain. I believe this is an opportunity for you to meet with the folks at this bank who have made this decision and who sent you that letter. You need to determine exactly what has prompted this decision on their part so you can offer an explanation of why you use these traps and why, perhaps, they could continue to be allowed. 

Let me first say that absolutely yes, glue traps are considered to be a “green” approach to pest management. They can be placed so that they capture only the pest animals that you are monitoring for, and thus they cause no harm to other wildlife and certainly do not pollute the outdoor environment. If placed correctly they are not a hazard of any kind to people or pets and the glue is generally considered to be a “non-toxic” material. However, I suspect that this is not the issue with the bank management. I would believe, in the case of rodent trapping on glue, that it is instead a case of perceived cruelty to the animals. Ever since the first glue traps came onto our market for rodent control animal rights activists have fought a bloody war against them, claiming they are an ugly form of cruelty and that the trapped animals suffer terribly while still alive on the glue. Maybe there is some truth to this and maybe there is not, but we still absolutely MUST eliminate the rats and mice that choose to live within our structures. Humans and peridomestic rodents are not compatible. 
So, it may be that bank management has become aware of this anti-glue board campaign and has made their decision that it is accurate, and therefore they choose not to allow glue traps for rats or mice. That is their decision to make, and while I believe you have the right to present your side of the story and your reasons for continuing the use of rodent glue traps, they still have the final say. But, do discuss this with them to see what middle ground may exist, or where they may have some serious misperceptions about these traps that you can correct. The alternative, of course, is snap traps, which animal rights activists begrudgingly admit may be more “humane” simply because the kill of the trapped animal is much faster. 
The decision not to allow traps for insects is more mystifying, except for the possibility that they believe that insect traps are also likely to trap rodents. Now, when it comes to animal rights activists the sky is the limit, as we saw two years ago when President Obama swatted a fly during a televised interview, and PETA immediately called a press conference and suggested the President should instead have a catch and release policy with house flies. There are those people in our society who believe we should never kill any animal at any time, although I suspect this moral standard has wiggle room based on what pests are bothering THEM. But, if the bank management does want you to discontinue the use of insect glue traps because they perceive it to be cruelty toward bugs, hopefully they can be persuaded to understand the need to capture the insects in this non-toxic manner. In one way or another invading insects are going to be killed, and glue traps do this very effectively. 
If the issue is only the potential for insect glue traps to capture rodents then you can offer the use of smaller, enclosed insect traps where only insects would be able to get inside, and their mice can safely walk right over the top of the trap instead. 

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Pest QuestionsApril 08, 2012

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Apr 5, 2012 – Can’t We All Just Get Along?

QUESTION:

What will a health inspector do if they were to see glue boards and snap traps set up in the restaurant when they are doing their inspection? I have a customer that trashes my stations when he thinks the inspector may be showing up.

ANSWER:

This sounds like an excellent opportunity to get everyone on the same page. It may be that your real problem is with your customer and his perception that the Health Inspector will disapprove of the traps, when in reality the inspector could be perfectly fine seeing these traps in the appropriate places. We had a similar incident many years ago in California when a county health inspector continually removed aerosol dispensers that he found set up in restaurants and threw them in the trash. The pest control companies demanded and got a joint meeting with the State Health Dept, the County Agricultural Inspectors, the manufacturer of these devices, and themselves, and putting all their heads together came to the conclusion that not only were these devices perfectly legal in restaurants but that the “guidelines” for their placement were arbitrary numbers set up decades earlier with a flip of the coin. 

I suggest you arrange a meeting with the County Health Department, a supervisor preferably, and your customer to determine what the middle ground is. Your customer may be surprised to learn that not only does the health department approve of monitoring traps, they may ENCOURAGE them. Having physical traps in place in a food establishment, to me, shows a concern for good pest management by that restaurant owner. The knowledgeable health inspector will certainly know the value and uses of these traps. The best situation to work toward is for everyone to be happy and to work together, and if for some reason the health inspector DOES have concerns regarding traps he can express them, you can offer your reasons for using them, and hopefully a workable compromise will come out of it. 
What you should strive for, of course, is to place these kinds of traps where customers of this restaurant will not see them or step on them. Even though a patron at a restaurant may, in the back of his mind, hope that the restaurant is addressing the subject of pest management, no one wants to try to enjoy an omelette while a trapped mouse squirms on the glueboard next to his feet. Good judgment needs to be used in the placement of traps, but they definitely should be used and are an effective part of insect and rodent control. 

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Pest QuestionsApril 07, 2012

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Apr 6, 2012 – Rats In Landscape

QUESTION:

I have been asked by the city to bait rodent burrows between a sidewalk and lawns. This would be for active burrows in a specific 10-15 foot section that is about 15-20 ft from houses. They would like us to eliminate the activity and then they would fill in the area with either new topsoil or extend the sidewalk. Please help me out with any advice you have to offer.

ANSWER:

My mind likes to work in the area of long term control, and what I am seeing here is that even if you manage to kill all of the rats (I assume this is rats?) currently burrowing in this area the city’s plans for covering it over with new soil would not do anything to stop more rats from entering the area and creating new burrows. If these current rats found this area to their liking then others will too, assuming that this area is providing the food, water, and harborage resources they are looking for. In a sense, the only reason there are not more rats there at this time is because of limited resources, which in turn limit the numbers of rodents that can make a living in a specific area. 

With this in mind, are any other steps being taken to reduce the rodent problem in the general area? Has an inspection been done to determine what food resources these rats are finding and perhaps reducing those resources? Has anyone taken that close look at surrounding areas to determine where these rats are coming from originally, and perhaps expanding the fight to these areas as well? It just would seem futile to spend the time and money and use of rodent bait to kill some rats in a very small location, only to have it repopulated rather quickly. And, of course, if that happened the city might look at you as having NOT done your job properly. 
Given where the burrows are located you at least would be within the legal Label allowances to do this burrow baiting, but do carefully read the Label of the product you plan to use to be certain you use it accordingly. Any time you bait rodents outdoors, especially putting bait into burrows, you run the risk of bait ending up on the surface. Rats might just push it out. People may pose the question of secondary poisoning, particularly if dead or dying rodents are discovered exposed outside the burrows, and you would need to be able to answer these questions to their satisfaction. 
I don’t see anything wrong with the need to eliminate rats burrowing this close to homes and human activity, but hopefully you can expand the program so that any contributing conditions are corrected and the source of these rodents is addressed further out from this small area. 

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Pest QuestionsApril 06, 2012

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Apr 3, 2012 – Bugs Ask, Where’s The Beef?

QUESTION:

What can you tell me about insects and mites that infest cured meats? What are
the best control measures?
Thank you.

ANSWER:

The best control method for these kinds of pests, without a doubt, is going to be proper storage of the cured meats. We certainly are not going to spray the meat to either kill the insects or mites or to prevent arthropod pests from getting on it, so keeping them off in the first place is the fix. If the meat is being cured in a smoker then getting insects into it during the curing process is unlikely, and once cured the meat can be properly stored to keep out all pests. If the meat is being cured using salt to remove the water it may be kept in some exposed setting where the humidity and temperature are controlled, but pests like flies, beetles, and mites can enter and infest the meat. The room or chamber used for this style of curing should be cleansed of any pests to begin with, if any are present, using only pyrethrum to fog to area, as this will leave no residual to worry about. The room also needs to be kept sealed to keep out any pests. 

One of the flies that does infest exposed meat in storage is called the Skipper Fly in the family Piophilidae, also called many other names such as ham skipper, bacon fly, bacon skipper, cheese fly, etc. The small, shiny black adult flies deposit eggs on the meat and the maggots feed on the meat. The name “skipper” is given due to the maggot’s remarkable ability to somehow leap into the air when disturbed, as much as 6 inches according to some resources. The maggots also manage to survive being eaten when people eat the infested meat, and if they remain in the intestines for very long they may attempt to burrow through the intestinal walls, causing a variety of uncomfortable to serious health problems. 
Beetles that feed on cured meats include the Larder Beetle (a kind of Dermestid) and a couple of beetles in the family Cleridae called the Red-legged and Red-shouldered Ham Beetles. The adult beetles may feed on the cured meats but the larvae do the most damage, feeding either on the surface or just below it. If these larvae are found in cured meat they can be removed by trimming off the surface of the meat and then properly storing it to prevent new invasions. Eating these insects would not cause health problems other than the paranoia of knowing you just ate a bug. But……. meat is meat. 
Several kinds of mites also feed on cured meats, including grain, cheese, and mold mites, all of which look very similar. They are almost microscopic, creamy white to pinkish in color, with short legs and long hairs sticking out here and there all over their body. You would need good magnification to be able to see them clearly and to properly ID them. The female mite can deposit up to 800 eggs on the surface of the meat, and the feeding is restricted to the surface, so if a person were inclined to do so he could wipe all the mites off the meat and still eat it. Or, a light coating of vegetable oil will kill all the mites and eggs on the meat. The infestation from these tiny mites can get so massive that it looks like a coat of dust is on the surface of the meat and the dust is moving around. 
So, control is to cure the meat in a manner and a setting where the pests are not present and cannot enter, and then to store the meat properly to exclude all pests in the future. 

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Pest QuestionsApril 05, 2012

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Apr 4, 2012 – Mosquitoes At The Five-Star

QUESTION:

There is a hotel with a serious mosquito problem (biting the guests). The hotel management does not want to fog because of liability with the hotel being occupied. Instead, they are asking Pest Control Operators to eliminate this problem without fogging. Is this
possible?


ANSWER:

This can be very difficult in the tropics where you are located, and the hotel management needs to understand the limitations of what you can do. Some species of mosquitoes may fly pretty good distances from where they bred as larvae to where they feed on blood, and you are not going to be able to control all of these outlying breeding sites. You probably can make an impact on the overall number of adult mosquitoes present on this property, but not eliminate them all, and the customer needs to understand this. 

Even if you were allowed to “fog” the site it would have to be done repeatedly and often if you expected to keep the mosquitoes down to a very low level. Since your mosquito problems are not nearly as seasonal as they are in more temperate climates your problem would be around all year long. The ideal approach would be to prevent the adult mosquitoes in the first place, which means attacking the problem at its source – those sites where there is standing water that the larvae are developing in. Many of these sites could well be right on the property of the hotel, and these you can go after in some manner. A careful inspection of the property may reveal many aquatic sources, such as tree holes that can be filled or drilled to drain them, low areas with standing water that can be filled or drained, planters and other artificial containers that retain water that can be drained, removed, drilled, etc. Rain gutters are notorious for clogging with debris and filling with water, and these need to be inspected and maintained. Nearby dump areas may have containers, old tires, etc., etc., and an inspection of these kinds of areas would be useful. 
Wherever you find standing water in the form of ponds, slow-flowing streams, lakes, etc. you may be able to treat using a larvicide, such as one of the bacteria formulations (Teknar, BTI Briquets) or the IGR (Altosid). These products are considered to be quite environmentally friendly as they are specific to the arthropod larvae in the water, primarily mosquitoes that live in the water zone where the active ingredients will be. Some of them can provide 30 days or more of control of mosquito larvae, killing them before they become the biting adults. Different formulations are available depending on the size of that aquatic environment. Treating the larval habitats is going to be your best way to prevent the adult mosquitoes at this hotel site if you are able to do so. 
Another option may be barrier treatments using residual insecticides, but this also depends on whether or not the management allows you to “spray” around the area with guests nearby. Barrier treatments rely on applying the residual contact insecticide to the resting sites of the adult mosquitoes, killing them as they spend time on that surface. This may be in trees or shrubbery or under the eaves of roof lines, within out buildings, under decks, etc. This can be a very effective supplement to the larval control, but it will only last for a few weeks at best, and would need to be redone as well. 
So, I suggest you discuss these options with the customer, and make the point that if they expect a 100% reduction in the adult mosquitoes it is not realistic. Nothing is going to accomplish that. What you can do is to greatly reduce the numbers of adult mosquitoes and at least reduce the problems and complaints. 

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Pest QuestionsApril 04, 2012

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Apr 1, 2012 – Take Away The Food Resources??

QUESTION:

I have an old dog food plant that has several holes and openings and we are helping with the exclusion methods to get rid of the rodent problem that they have had for a number of years. We do fumigate the plant and the mice count is down for 1-2 months and then it spikes back up. I am planning on trying the Detex Blox with Lumitrack to see how it will work for me. Do you have any tips as to how to start up the program with this? Maybe start at 1 corner of the building and over a period of a month check the entire building? What are your thoughts on this product and a strategy to get rid of the mice at this plant?



ANSWER:

I will admit that I cringed at the words “old” and “dog food plant” in your question Randy. Pet food plants that I have visited are not necessarily maintained at the same standards of manufacturing plants for human foods. Spillage is higher, profit margins may be less so less money is spent on building maintenance, etc. And, if it’s an older building the image in my mind is one that could be pretty porous on the outside, with plenty of openings to allow mice to enter. I think though, that in the long run the exclusion will always have to be the long term goal. Every opening on the exterior that you are able to close permanently means less opportunities for the mice to enter easily, and if you limit the number of entry points you can then focus more attention on these for capturing mice either outside or inside. If all the attention focuses on the inside and the kill of the mice after they enter, it could be akin to holding back the ocean. Those killed just mean more can come on in and find resources. 

You are highly unlikely to limit their foods indoors, so this could be one stumbling block using any kind of rodent bait. Getting them interested in the bait so they eat it may be difficult. The tasty, high protein nature of dry pet foods makes them great foods for rodents. Perhaps using a liquid rodenticide on the interior could get more attention than other kinds of baits. The point behind the Detex Blox with Biomarker is that the poop of rodents that have eaten this non-toxic bait will fluoresce under UV light, so in theory you can more quickly move around the interior with a portable UV light and spot the glowing pellets. This can help direct you to where the activity is current and even perhaps point out a path back to where the rodents may be harboring. It certainly is worth a try, and again the possible downfall would be all that competing food. 
Since you already are making the effort at exclusion I would continue the focus on this. Since this is clearly a well established population of mice living in and around this building they are accustomed to coming and going as needed. Each little change you make puts the mice a bit more under stress, and when they are stressed they move about more and may encounter the control materials you put in place. Along with the Detex I think I would use a LOT of traps, perhaps within stations so they stay clean. Glue traps in particular could get a layer of dust on them in a plant like this. The results of the trapping could also indicate where the mice may be coming from. 

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Pest QuestionsApril 03, 2012

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Apr 2, 2012 – Japanese Beetles Forever

QUESTION:

What is the best chemical to control Japanese beetles?

ANSWER:

I spoke with one of our long time sales representatives in the upper Northeast, and one thing is a fact here. Once these beetles settle in they are there to stay, and the Japanese Beetle is never going to be eradicated from the U.S. It was accidentally introduced into the U.S. about 100 years ago and found the Northeast states to its liking. It also has been found now and then in California, Texas, and a few other more western states, but successfully eradicated. As far as I know it is not currently an issue in Arizona, where you are, so hopefully you don’t believe you are dealing with Japanese Beetles there at this time. If you really believe you have them you absolutely need to confirm it and report it to the AZ Dept. of Agriculture. 

This beetle is a two-fold problem. The larvae are white grubs that can cause serious damage to turf, feeding on the roots, and the adults feed on the foliage and fruits of a great many agricultural and ornamental plants. They may feed in large accumulations of dozens of beetles on the same area of that plant, causing great damage by skeletonizing the leaves and leading to defoliation. 
There are insecticides that will successfully kill the adults or larvae, but never to the point that you can consider them to be 100% gone in those areas where they are well established. Adult beetles can be killed with contact insecticides applied to them and the foliage they are feeding on, and products like cyfluthrin, bifenthrin, and carbaryl work well to kill them. This at least limits the damage done to the plants. Larvae likewise are unlikely to be eradicated in turf, but applications of insecticides like imidacloprid do work well to reduce their numbers to a tolerable level. There also are traps for these beetles that will capture large numbers of the adults, but whether or not this actually reduces the numbers of the beetles in an area is difficult to say. 

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Pest QuestionsApril 02, 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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Mar 31, 2012 – Big Roaches

QUESTION:

I have a restaurant with Oriental and American roaches. They were bad when they called me in January when the temperatures outside were freezing. I can’t locate where they are coming from and they are on a septic system. Could that be the source and if so what is the answer to treating?

ANSWER:

These two large roach species are well known for living outdoors, within underground passages such as storm drains and sewers, and in other protected places at or below ground level. I would agree with you that finding many of them outdoors during the coldest part of the winter is unlikely, although with the warming weather this could once again be a possible source for them to replenish those inside. However, restaurants probably offer plenty of places for these large roaches to hide and live during the winter months, coming out to feed on whatever the restaurant is making available to them. I will admit that I am not an expert on how a septic system is set up, but my thought is that it should be a closed system. There should not be any open routes from the septic tank back into the building, as that would just seem to be a bit unsanitary and to allow odors to come into the building. 

I have always preached that large roaches cannot swim through the P-trap in plumbing lines, but I have been corrected on this by a couple of people who have personally watched American roaches crawl down into a drain, continue into the water in that P-trap, and either not come back out or come back out a few minutes later, seemingly healthy for the experience. They did not swim so much as they walked along the inside of the pipe, but the water definitely was not a perfect barrier. I now suggest that I cannot see a LOT of these roaches making their way up from underground systems, through the P-trap, and into the building, but live and learn I guess. 
There also are stories of American roaches living comfortably outside in the winter, right under the snow but in a location that was staying warmer than the ambient air temperature. When uncovered they scurried away quickly, showing that they could indeed be alive and active outside in the winter, and possibly entering the structure. In your case though, maybe we should consider the more obvious reason the roaches are present, and that could be harborage points inside the restaurant. Does this place have a basement? Is there any lower area of rooms or storage compartments they could live in. They may be inside walls and moving around along pipes. What kind of heating does the restaurant have, and could there be ducting within the slab or beneath the floor that the roaches move through. 
I suggest you start with two principles – monitoring and sanitation. I would assume that you already have done the sanitation inspection of this restaurant and documented all of the sanitation issues you found, and discussed these with the management. The roaches don’t require a lot of food, but they do need food, and every scrap of food left available will support them. Every area that you can get cleaned and keep clean at night will put the roaches under that much more stress to find other food resources, and this moves them around. Monitoring using plenty of glue traps will help you to determine where the roaches may be coming from. The traps can be placed in hidden places and within stations so that patrons of the restaurant do not have to see them, but these are good tools for telling you more about the population of the bugs there. 
You can also treat cracks and crevices where you believe the roaches may be hiding, using a labeled residual product. Granular baits seem to be very acceptable to the large roaches, and these can be placed within wall voids or in stations. This might also be the time to make a careful inspection of the outside of this building to identify all the possible entry points for the roaches, which presumably came in from the outside originally. These can be permanently closed to keep the roaches and other bugs outside, and it can be done in stages so it is less formidable of a task. 

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Pest QuestionsMarch 31, 2012

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