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Pest Control Specialists Contact Us

4012 N. Main Street
Dayton, OH 45405

QUESTION:

I have read in the “Training and Reference Guide for Pest Control” by Corky Mizer that Resmethrin is classified with other pesticides as either a known carcinogen or causes reproductive problems. I have been using Mosquito Beater fogging liquid with Resmethrin for two seasons. I have a gallon of this product remaining to be used starting next week. Should I give it to the Pesticide Control Board to get rid of it or just simply finish using the product? I plan to use only Black flag which contains pyrethrins with synergists since I am concerned about the health effects on myself and clients. What is your take on the matter?

ANSWER:

This has been an extremely contentious issue in California since 1986, when voters in that state managed to pass Proposition 65, called the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986, and which now requires that all “known or SUSPECTED” carcinogens be listed and the list made available to the people of the state. Further, any person or business who releases any of these chemicals into the general environment must warn those who may be exposed, and violations of the law then permit people to SUE the one who released the material. Naturally the government of California exempted itself from this law. The author you mention owns and operates a highly respectable business in California, and therefore is quite familiar with Prop 65, and thus his mention of this product and that list.

To understand the reality of this, which we call the Prop 65 List, you must recognize that many other “chemicals” are on this list. These include beer, wine, and distilled spirits, aspirin, bracken fern, caffeic acid (in coffee), cocaine, diesel and gasoline engine exhaust, tobacco smoke, estrogen and testosterone, leather and wood dust, and a tremendous number of naturally occurring chemicals found in plants. Yes, resmethrin and many other pesticide active ingredients are on there because in a laboratory setting where massive doses were administered to lab rats or mice they managed to cause cell malformations that were then interpreted as “potentially” leading to cancer. Every grocery store in the state has a warning sign in the window at the entry doors warning shoppers that they may be exposed to carcinogens somewhere in the store.

As a VERY prominent expert on cancer and its causes has told us, you can cause problems in cells of living organisms with ANY chemical if you expose that organism to enough of the substance, and that man-made chemicals are outweighed at least 1000 times by naturally occurring substances in this area. Question – will your normal use of resmethrin in accordance with its Label cause cancer or any other health problem in humans? Answer – highly, highly unlikely. I suggest you continue to use the resmethrin you own and if it serves your purposes better than pyrethrum does you should not change products. My take on this matter, to be very honest, is that this is a highly political issue that was passed into law by scaring voters with poor science and misinformation, and that your chances of developing cancer from properly used pesticides is about equal to the risk from drinking your morning coffee and then driving to work in traffic with your arm out the window (sunshine, after all, does cause cancer).

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QUESTION:

I have recently become certified in vertebrate management. I am looking for places in my local area where I can release the animals that I trap. What other options are available if I am unable to find locations to release these animals?

ANSWER:

I attended a seminar on wildlife trapping a couple of years ago, presented by someone with many years of extensive experience in this area. He had some thoughts that may not be popular with everyone, because quite often the best answer to dealing with the trapped animal may be euthanasia – a politically correct way of saying killing it. When you trap a pest animal alive because it was causing a problem in an urban area, taking it somewhere else and releasing it may just transfer that problem to other people. For this reason wildlife agencies often have very strong restrictions on this release of any wildlife outside of its normal habitat, which means where you captured it. Their guidelines often require you to release the trapped animal “on site”, so if you caught some tree squirrels in an attic your obligation would be to take them outside that structure and let them go, relying on Exclusion work to prevent them from re-entering.

The expert at this seminar works very closely with his local animal control agency, and probably for a fee he can drop off animals he has captured and they will dispose of them in the most humane manner. As much sympathy and love we may feel for squirrels, raccoons, and other urban wildlife we also recognize the potential they have for serious structural damage and even public health issues. We may enjoy them in the proper settting but should never be required to live in the same structure with them. So, my suggestion is that you begin by consulting with several local agencies – Animal Control, Wildlife, and your Dept. of Agriculture. All of these folks can offer their thoughts on what you legally may or may not be able to do, and staying legal is very important. You run the risk of incurring the wrath of local animal rights groups if they do not like what you are doing, so knowing that it is all done above board and legally will back you up.

We humans really have upset the apple cart with respect to Nature. When we create housing developments where only natural areas existed before we change the dynamics of that whole area. Predators generally are eliminated (no one wants coyotes or mountain lions in their yard) but the prey (squirrels, snakes, skunks, opossum) continue to live just fine, and now their populations may swell out of control. If we transfer these animals to some other area, even thinking it is a “natural” place for them to live, their sudden appearance can throw off the balance that may exist in that area too. Regardless of what vocal animals rights groups may try to tell us, “catch and release” is not always the best answer. However, there are plenty of times that it may be, so finding out for your region how you can do this legally and with minimal impact on the release-area is important to know ahead of time.

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QUESTION:

I have discovered upon using a B&G Electric Duster (M2250) with Delta Dust during attic dusting that it is very, very hard to not get some amount of DeltaDust on the B&G machine or on me, particularly after the machine has been used and needs to be removed from the attic (in many situations, from a ladder). I have considered some sort of PPE smock or raincoat for those moments in an effort to avoid the dropping dust. I don’t usually retrieve the duster until waiting a bit after it’s been unpowered. I think the product and idea of attic dusting is wonderful for some attic situations, but do you have any tips for dusting attics? How often do you recommend the duster be on with a product like Delta Dust to really effectively lay enough dust in the attic? I have been told it is not as popular of a method as it used to be and I have been using it situationally for Carpenter Ants and Little Black Carpenter Ants.

ANSWER:

Delta Dust is labeled for use in attics, but I am a little concerned about the use of it in what I will refer to as an overall application with this kind of power duster. The label is just a little vague and open to interpretation on this, but it states that you can dust in attics using a hand or “power” duster, but then suggests a duster similar to the Actisol DPA, which as a unit that would enable you to dust carefully into voids and crevices rather than a general dusting of the entire space. Further on in the Label it states that the dust should be applied in a manner that “avoids deposits on exposed surfaces or introduced into the air”. This further strengthens my belief that this particular dust should not be generally applied so that it ends up on the attic surfaces in general. You may want to consider switching to a different kind of dust, such as an inorganic material like Drione or MotherEarth dust. These offer an extremely low toxicity to people as well as lasting for a VERY long time – they simply do not decompose, being mineral in origin.

The other concern with dusting generally throughout the attic is the perception that people will have who later go into the attic and who may end up with dust on their hands or clothing. When they find out it is a “pesticide” they may feel a strong concern for possible health problems, real or not. The use of one of the inorganic materials may be more acceptable to them, and these should also give good pest management. Again, the Label is difficult to pin down on whether or not DeltaDust can even legally be applied in this manner because the Label also tells you to apply about 0.5 lbs per 1000 square feet, a clear indication that it CAN be applied over general surfaces but seemingly contradicting the earlier Label information.

Whichever route you choose to take you definitely should keep the dust from spilling on yourself or your clothing or any surfaces below the attic opening. To prevent this you might consider placing the duster in a plastic bag before bringing it down, and keeping it in that bag in your vehicle so dust does not fall off and contaminate your storage lockers in the vehicle. Of course, wearing gloves, safety glasses, and long sleeves while handling any pesticide is important too.

The Label calls for that rate of application – 0.5 lbs/1000 sq ft – but this would be REALLY hard to calculate for an attic, because you would have to take into consideration all that surface area on the exposed beams, rafters, etc. where the dust could settle. You probably could make some basic calculation based on the square footage of the attic floor area, and then double or triple it to take into account all the other surface areas that would be contacted by the dust. Ultimately you want to apply the dust so the BAREST of layers ends up on the surfaces. Best you do not even see the dust layer it is so light, because a thick layer of dust becomes physically repelling to insects that may choose to avoid it. Within the product specs for the 2250 duster there should be some indication of the output volume of dust – “X” ounces of dust blown out for each interval of time it is on. Heavy dusts like DeltaDust may come out at a different rate than light dusts such as Drione, so this may require you to calibrate your own machine for the dust you use by using a specific weight of dust in the duster, turning it on until the dust is all expelled and seeing how long that took. You then know how long it takes to eject, let’s say, 1 lb of dust, and by knowing this you can then leave the duster on for whatever length of time is needed to eject the amount of dust needed for the attic you are treating.

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QUESTION:

I have mosquitoes that are getting into a bakery. There is a little swamp on one side of the building. I am wondering if these pests are attracted to light, and I would like to place a couple of fly lights and do a ULD monthly or something like that. Please advise.


ANSWER:

Let’s do a little math on mosquitoes first, and the most important number is that it takes only about 1 week for mosquito eggs to become adult mosquitoes, give or take a few days depending on the species and temperatures. While the monthly fogging would give immediate relief from biting adult mosquitoes in that area it will lose its effect quickly and new adult mosquitoes would quickly repopulate the area. This may be appropriate if this bakery is having some outdoor function where you need to knock down the mosquito numbers temporarily, but fogging is not a good overall control.
Adult mosquitoes are drawn to UV light, but not strongly, so UV lights are only partially effective in attracting and capturing them. Plus, many mosquitoes are day or dusk fliers when natural light outdoors will diminish the effectiveness of the UV light. Mosquito traps generally employ both UV and carbon dioxide, as the CO2 is a much stronger attraction for these blood feeders. Even then the traps are best seen as monitors rather than as a control device. However, each step you take does capture and kill adult mosquitoes, dropping their overall numbers. If you do use UV light traps it might be best to have them installed away from the building so you do not attract night flying bugs TO this structure.

Another chemical option is what is referred to as a “barrier” treatment, and this involves the use of residual insecticides such as pyrethroids, applied with a sprayer capable of treating the trees and shrubbery in the area, as well as other adult mosquito resting spots such as under the eaves or any other structures where they can find shaded shelter. Some studies were done that concluded that several weeks of good relief from biting mosquitoes could be gained by treating in this manner. It may be important to capture some of the mosquitoes and have them identified, at least to genus level. The different kinds of mosquitoes choose different places to rest, and if you have a tree inhabiting mosquito such as some of the Culex, and fail to treat up into the upper foliage of the trees, you could miss the adult mosquitoes altogether. Other kinds may prefer lower shrubbery or other ground level places to rest.

However, if you have any control at all over that adjacent swamp this is where your focus should be. It is likely that this habitat is a major breeding area for the mosquitoes, and the best mosquito control involves “source reduction” – killing the mosquitoes in their larva stage rather than waiting for them to become biting adults and then swatting them at this problem stage. There are several excellent larvacides available that can be used in aquatic habitats to kill mosquito larvae but cause no harm to other animals that use that water. These can be easily applied by hand or with equipment, depending on the area of water to cover, and some may last 30 to 90 days once applied. They include IGR’s such as Altosid or bacteria such as Mosquito Dunks or BTI Briquets, and also surface oils such as MasterLine Kontrol Larvacide. Of course, if this little swamp is not an environmentally sensitive aquatic site, but just an area of captured rainwater, perhaps it could be drained permanently and the problem resolved forever.

So, for immediate relief the fogging is good but provides no residual. Barrier treatments provide several weeks of relief but need to be reapplied during adult mosquito season. UV and CO2 traps will help reduce numbers but are best for monitoring. Larval control by treating the breeding sites is the best technique if you are permitted to treat that aquatic habitat.

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QUESTION:

I do a lot of commercial hotels that have flies around the beach area and food areas as well. I am using masterline bifenthrin 7.9 to spray ground areas and shrubbery. We use fly bait boxes with golden malrin in food areas, gold sticks inside, vector uv traps on walls. Other than zappers outside what else can you suggest? areas are cleaned as well and we spray two times a week all over. Any ideas please? There is no standing fresh water around either.

ANSWER:

Fly management is a huge challenge, particularly when the problem is outdoors. If all you are dealing with is interior problems you can rely heavily on exclusion, UV traps placed liberally inside, perhaps pyrethrum misting devices over doorways, as well as good sanitation indoors to eliminate all chances of fly breeding inside. But, outside you are facing flies that are attracted to the area because of all the wonderful food smells that come from these food courts and restaurants, and in your area in the Caribbean there likely is a lot of outdoor dining. The demand from your customer likely is to provide 100% elimination of adult flies, which of course is impossible, but nonetheless you need to try for that goal. To come anywhere close to it you need to throw every possible weapon at the flies.

The arsenal for fly management must include NON-chemical steps as well, so we’ll investigate IPM in a moment. There are fly traps of various kinds, fly baits of several kinds, and chemical applications of several kinds. The traps definitely capture and kill thousands of flies, but by themselves will never eliminate the overall problem. However, along with the other steps traps are one more important part, so these can be placed liberally in all areas, but keeping in mind that they are visible and often not very aesthetic to look at , so you wouldn’t necessarily want a hanging bag trap full of dead flies in the dining areas. These may be better in service entry areas or around waste cans outside. The Gold Sticks and other hanging sticky traps are the same – they help to reduce adult fly numbers and can be important tools, but placed where they are appropriate. One of the failures in fly management is the use of TOO FEW devices like these, so the customer needs to accept the difficulty in total fly control and understand that your service comes at a price that is profitable to you.

UV light traps are best used indoors where competition from sunlight is minimal. But, in outdoor dining areas they can be helpful when placed properly, which is best between 1 and 5 feet off the floor. This seems to be the best “fly flying zone”, and most likely to get the fly’s attention. However, the tendency is to put the UV traps WAAAAYYYYY up high on walls, and preferably behind some plants or partitions so people don’t see them, but then the flies won’t see them either. Use a trap that is attractive and looks more like mood lighting and the customer should have no problem with it. Also, use a LOT of UV traps to increase the chances that the flies will see them quickly and be captured before annoying too many patrons.

Fly baits are excellent, but also consider the paint-on / spray-on Maxforce baits that can be applied to surfaces where the flies are gathering. You could also use the Quikstrike fly bait strips in areas such as the service areas or waste areas where customers do not see them. Other granular fly baits in stations also are effective. Consider applying residual insecticides onto surfaces such as walls, fences, tree trunks, etc. where you see adult flies resting. These will work for a couple of weeks, and products such as wettable powders and microencapsulated formulations may work better than other kinds of concentrates.

Finally, IPM – have you done a thorough inspection (let’s call it a Sanitation Inspection) of these properties, inside and outside, to identify all those circumstances that are present that may be encouraging the fly problems. This includes dirty waste containers and waste can areas, spilled foods in dining areas, piles of vegetation that is decomposing, unnecessary wet areas, etc. Anything you can do to remove attractions that are drawing the flies will be a huge help in your other steps. Are the employees doing a good job of keeping doors closed and windows screened? Everything you can do non-chemically will be a long lasting control technique that should help reduce your reliance on all those other chemicals and traps.

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QUESTION:

I am having problems with German roaches inside Espresso coffee machines. I have used Maxforce gel but it’s too slow and I need a faster effect and action to control this problem in the machines. Can I use Advion gel or Arena bait with
Gentrol Point Source and place the Point Source and Advion gel or Arena inside the espresso
machines, or better on the outside wall
of them? What do you recomend for better and faster control results? Also, do these baits or the Gentrol have any kind of odor that the coffee could absorb and affect the taste?

ANSWER:

The Label is my Master here, and a look at the Advion Cockroach Bait Arena label finds that it is labeled for use “around” or “under or near” appliances, and it does not have instructions allowing it to be used within the appliance itself. The wording is similar on the Advion Gel label, calling for it to be applied “behind and under” appliances, and goes further to warn that it should NOT be used where the temperatures exceed 120 degrees, as this could cause it to liquefy and become ineffective (and probably run as well). In either case the MSDS for these products describes the odor as “bland” or “faint”, which suggests that a transfer of vapors from the bait to food is unlikely. But, it would appear that these baits should be used ONLY on the areas outside of the machines and not even on the machine itself.

Gentrol Point Source also has restrictive wording on its Label, allowing its use “a minimum distance of 3 feet from exposed food”, so using it in, on, or adjacent to the espresso machines would be prohibited. However, the nature of the hydroprene emitted from these discs is to move outward for several feet in all directions, redepositing onto surfaces around the disc itself. You do not need to place it any closer to the machines for the active ingredient to get to and affect the roaches.

Treating directly into food machinery is a dicey thing to do. There is just too much of a chance that insecticide will end up on the food contact surfaces themselves, particularly if you are shooting blind by injecting the material from the outside through openings to the interior of the machine. You also do not know what kinds of electronics are inside these machines today, and I will just bet that there are mother boards and electronic circuitry in them, and any pesticide landing on these sensitive devices will ruin them.

A much better recommendation, and your customer is not going to want to hear it, is to have a qualified technician OPEN the machines, thoroughly clean them and remove the roaches physically (a vacuum), and then do whatever is necessary to seal off entry points after the cleaning so that roaches no longer can get into the machines. I know this sounds a lot tougher and more expensive than just “spraying something”, but it is the best course of action. Even allowing the roaches to get into these food processing devices and hoping to kill them inside is asking for problems. Not only does this allow these filthy, disgusting, pathogen-ridden vermin (was that a little harsh?……sorry) to reside where food is made, but their feces, shed exoskeletons, or dead insects can also land on electronic circuitry or into the food materials themselves and shut the whole thing down.

I suggest this cleaning and subsequent exclusion to prevent roaches from re-entering the espresso machines. You can then determine where the other potential harborage sites near these machines will be and treat them with baits or residual sprays, or just seal them up permanently to push the roaches even further away. Ultimately this will make the customer a lot happier than trying to keep the battle in the most sensitive place in the account – within the coffee machines themselves.

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QUESTION:

One of my technicians brought a bug in today that I simply cannot identify. Unfortunately it looks quite terrifying. The bug is about 3 inches long and woody in color. Mostly gray with some brown mixed in. The head and neck area are just a bit more than 1/2″ long with the head being twice the width of the neck. Eyes are on either side of the head and two very long heavy duty mandibles that are curved backward at the ends. The wings are about 2 inches long and heavily veined, each pair being about equal in length.From the bottom the bug’s head and neck area are equal to half its body length. The thorax is twice the width of the neck and the abdomen and is tapered. I thought it might be some type of Mantis but cannot find anything that looks similar.

ANSWER:

Normally I shy away from making a definite ID based on just a description, but your description is so beautifully detailed that it is clear to me that you have a male Dobsonfly, a beneficial insect in the family Corydalidae. The male has those amazingly long and curved mandibles and some references say it can inflict a painful bite while other references state the muscles controlling these mandibles are too weak to do much with respect to biting people, and the mandibles are used more for hanging onto the female during mating. But, they are really intimidating, aren’t they, along with the huge size of the adult insect. The female looks identical but has much smaller mandibles, and she definitely could give a painful pinch with them if she were handled carelessly.

The larva of the dobsonfly is equally impressive, and for the Eastern Dobsonfly – Corydalus cornutus – it may be as long as 3.5 inches, with strong mandibles of its own. We call the larva a Hellgrammite and it lives under rocks in flowing streams where it feeds on a variety of other aquatic insects that it finds, including those of black flies, so we should thank it for its effort. The larva definitely is capable of giving a painful pinch too. They are used as fish bait and may be raised in captivity and sold in fishing supply stores. The fully developed larva often leaves the water and crawls a short distance over land to find a secluded place to pupate, so they may even be discovered under objects on the soil. The adults may not feed in nature and live only a few days, but during that time they commonly come to lights at night just to scare the bejeebies out of people.

University references on these fascinating insects suggest that there is NO reason to kill them, and given the benefit the larvae provide they should be preserved and enjoyed. Just don’t plan on holding one in your bare hand unless you are prepared for the defensive bite.

View past Ask Mr. Pest Control questions.

QUESTION:

I know that DOT (disodium octaborate tetrahydrate) is extremely effective against urban pests. Why and how does it truly work?


ANSWER:

A quick seminar on borates. The original material is a mineral called Borax, and this is mined from the ground. I don’t know if it is still around, but as a kid we used soap called Boraxo, and there were TV ads for “20-Mule Team Borax”, depicting long mule trains pulling carts filled with this mined material. Borax is used for many other reasons, but it also is known to be toxic to insects, so it is refined for pest management. One misconception (bald faced lie??) that is spread on the Internet is that borates and boric acid are “non-toxic” to people, and thus are good “alternatives” to those nasty toxic pesticides. This is dangerously false, as borates and boric acid are quite toxic to humans and pets and often used at nearly pure concentration.

The least refined is the Borates, which are essentially borax, composed of sodium, boron, and oxygen. The borax can be highly refined to a crystalline material that we call Boric acid, and it also is known as orthoboric acid, another name for the same thing. The “borates” go by the names Sodium Tetraborate Pentahydrate (Boracide Powder), Sodium Tetraborate Decahydrate (Terro and Intice baits), and Disodium Octaborate Tetrahydrate (Nibor dust, Gourmet baits, BoraCare, Timbor, Borasol, etc.). These are all extremely similar but with slightly varying molecular makeup.

However, in ANY of its refined forms the boric acids and borates are stomach poisons, and they must be ingested to affect an insect. Therefore, those arthropods that do not have the ability to ingest the active ingredient are not going to be killed by boric acid dusts or borates on surfaces, and this includes blood feeders such as bed bugs and mosquitoes, or other insects that feed with a sucking mouth. The exact mechanism by which the borate actually kills the insects seems to be a little unclear, even now after many decades of use of these products for insect control. However, somehow the borate interferes with the proper digestion or metabolism of the food eaten by the insect and eventually the insect, in a sense, starves to death. It is possible that the borate affects microorganisms in the gut of the insect (bacteria and protozoa) that are responsible for helping with the digestion of the insect’s food, and in this manner interrupt proper digestion. We know that termites and roaches have these symbiotic colonies of microorganisms in their gut, and that without them they would have difficulty digesting wood and other materials they eat.

I have asked some of our most respected experts whether or not borates also have any desiccant action on insects – in other words, could the dust get onto the exoskeleton of the bug and cause it to dehydrate in the same manner that silica gel and diatomaceous earth dusts do, and the answer has been a firm “No”. Boric acid is toxic only if ingested, despite claims you find on the Internet that say otherwise.

If we apply boric acid or borates onto a surface they remain there for many, many years – perhaps forever – because we are essentially applying a mineral that simply does not change over time. The dust formulations need to stay dry in order to impinge on the passing arthropod, but formulations that we can apply to wood such as soluble powders or liquid concentrations will then be effective on any insect that consumes that treated wood, and this will remain effective for a very long time. Many of these spray-applied products, mixed with water, only rest on the surface of the wood, and cannot penetrate into the wood any further than the water will carry it, which may be only a fraction of an inch. Some formulations, such as BoraCare, may have solvents in them that enable the borate to move very deeply into the wood, and this could be a huge advantage in preventing WDO attack on that wood.

The female powderpost beetle deposits her eggs by sliding her ovipositor down into a crevice in the wood, and this may bypass a surface treatment of the borate. But, if the borate has moved deeply into the wood the larva is going to feed in that treated zone at some point, and be killed. Termites that find access to wood by bypassing soil treatments will still end up feeding on borates within the wood. Even fungi will be killed when they feed on borates, so it can be toxic to both plant and animal organisms.

View past Ask Mr. Pest Control questions.

QUESTION:

We have been spraying a home for years and the only problem they have is spiders. We have been spraying the outside with Temprid SC and the inside with Suspend. Most of the problem is outside. No lights are left on, it’s a brick home with some vinyl. We also use the cob web remover and Delta Dust in some of the places. Is there something else I can use?

ANSWER:

I will maintain that the products you are already using should work perfectly for killing spiders IF the spider and the active ingredient are coming together in the same place while the a.i. is still present at a level sufficient to kill the spiders. I am not a great fan of assuming it must be the chemical, and therefore trying other products would not necessarily be the solution. In general spiders can be a difficult problem, but part of the reason is the terrible INtolerance most homeowners have for them. Even though most spiders are more or less harmless to people, and highly beneficial to have in our landscapes, the presence of a single spider is often enough to cause the customer to call you and tell you they are “everywhere” and you need to get rid of them. A much better solution, but a tough one to sell to Arachniphobes, would be to accept a tolerance of certain kinds of spiders. I know, I know……. easy for me to say and impossible for you to accomplish. But, it truly should not be our purpose to eliminate all living creatures around homes. To attempt this results in an excessive use of insecticides.

So, I don’t think that switching to another insecticide is the answer, and perhaps you can gain a little relief by educating the customer, but if this is a lingering problem with many spiders on the structure then some other approach is needed. I don’t know what frequency you are treating this structure, but it is unlikely that any insecticide today is going to leave an effective residual on an exterior surface for much more than 3 or 4 weeks, and even that may be optimistic. If you are coming quarterly then what you applied 3 months earlier is long gone and the spiders may have had the opportunity for a couple of months to approach this structure and climb onto it without being exposed to insecticide. Does this mean you should sell them on retreating every 2 weeks? Well, I’d hate to see that extra load of toxin added to their environment, so perhaps there is some non-chemical approach to look for.

Many spiders will travel through the air, via “ballooning”, and will manage to get onto structures without having to crawl to them. These are unavoidable. But, most spiders are going to come from surrounding areas, so perhaps you can evaluate the property to see where you can eliminate harborage, not only to push spiders further away but also to eliminate many of the insects that the spiders have come for. Since you feel that exterior lighting is not the problem, it could be that at night plenty of moths of other insects still come to this home due to the INSIDE lights shining through windows, so the spiders still are making a good living on this structure. Eliminating this problem is probably impossible too – lights will be on inside, bugs will come to the windows, and spiders will recognize this food resource availability.

You could suggest creating a moat around the structure using gravel, crushed rock, or some other covering over the soil that is somewhat discouraging to wandering bugs. If shrubs are growing against the structure they need to be trimmed away, grass should be removed immediately adjacent to the foundation, and any materials stored directly against the structure should be moved away. This may not completely resolve the problem but at least helps that much more. I really think it is important for us ALWAYS to look for non-chemical solutions, as this is going to be the better long term control without the need for pesticide applications. The insecticides then supplement the other IPM steps, so I’m not on some anti-pesticide campaign.

Since the spiders seem rarely to be getting inside perhaps the occasional hunting spider found there can be sucked up with a dust-buster vacuum. Exclusion seems to be pretty good, but you still might find a few more potential entry points that could be closed. If the spiders are entering through attic vents then you could dust the attic with a desiccant dust that will last for a very long time and pose essentially no risk to people who do into it.

View past Ask Mr. Pest Control questions.

QUESTION:

Which action threshold for roach control requires fast, extensive, and sometimes costly control measures?

ANSWER:

I may not entirely understand your question Ryan, but I am assuming you are asking about what level of an infestation could be considered a serious enough problem to require extra effort. We may refer to the “threshold level” for any pest as that level of a problem that now warrants spending time eliminating the pest, rather than leaving it alone and suffering minor damage. This is okay if we are dealing with white grubs in a lawn or aphids on the roses. A low level of these pests will cause such minor damage that it would cost more to initiate a control program with pesticides than just to leave the pests alone and put up with really minor problems.

Cockroaches may be a little different, as that single cockroach in someone’s soup in a restaurant is one roach too many, and the management of the restaurant could suffer serious economic problems if that roach causes a lawsuit or their restaurant to be closed by the health department. I don’t know if this then says that the Threshold Level for cockroaches is 1 roach, but if a restaurant finds a single cockroach I think this should cause them to begin a roach control program, even if it is only an intensive inspection to determine what the level of the problem is there. To find one or two cockroaches (German) and ignore it hoping it will go away on its own would be foolish, and with their breeding potential a couple of roaches could result in dozens of roaches in a couple of weeks, or hundreds of roaches in just a few months. Just to play with numbers, but recognizing that the reality is that this could not normally happen, if a single female German cockroach carrying an egg capsule were brought into a filthy account, and all of the offspring bred at their full potential for a year and survived the whole time, the result could be something like 63 million cockroaches at the end of a year.

Because of this potential perhaps the Action Threshold for the German roach should be that single cockroach, especially knowing that if you have seen one there probably are many more hiding somewhere that are not visible, but which are sneaking out at night to forage and contaminate things. We could even say the same thing for an apartment – if you know there is one German roach there would it be good policy to ignore it, or better to jump in at that time with monitoring  and inspecting to determine if this is a loner or just the tip of the iceberg. For that matter, commercial accounts like restaurants would be foolish to not have a pest control service full time, at least monitoring and inspecting on a regular basis so that any incoming roaches could be discovered as soon as possible and eliminated before they are a full blow infestation that is now causing serious health problems or concerns.

In the apartment we know that allergies and asthma are major concerns for people living with roaches, so keeping them out completely should be the goal. The sooner you can get started eradicating the small population the sooner it will be accomplished and the smaller the health concerns the roaches could create. The bigger the population the more time that will be needed to remove them and the more materials you will have to use to do so.

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