One of
Dayton's    TOP
Pest Control Specialists Contact Us

4012 N. Main Street
Dayton, OH 45405

QUESTION:

We are heat-treating a home that’s on a concrete slab, and our concern is the baseboard and carpet edge. We can get everything in the unit up to temp except the floor. We thought we would treat the baseboard and carpet edge with a wet chemical before we heat treat. Should we use a knockdown like Exciter or Phantom mixed with gentrol? After we heat treat the unit for 4 hrs we want to dust the baseboard and outlets with Drione dust. Your insight on this would be greatly appreciated.

ANSWER:

Although you don’t actually mention it I assume you are treating for bed bugs, and this has been an expressed concern with the use of heat – can you get the temperature high enough in all areas of the structure to kill the bed bugs? Not only spaces next to the slab may stay cool enough for the bugs to survive, but they also may find cool places within wall voids or the crawl space, if there is one. In this case there appears only to be a slab. Because bed bugs can run so quickly, the moment things begin to get uncomfortable for them they will move to seek a better location, and if the wall voids do manage to remain cool they could survive. Are you tenting the entire structure? This would help eliminate that concern.

I finally read a good article from a trade magazine (2009) on the use of dusts for bed bugs, and the authors achieved surprisingly good results with 2 of the dust products they used – Tempo Dust and Drione Dust. They got 100% kill of the bed bugs in these tests within 24 (Tempo) and 72 (Drione) hours, and suggested that the use of dusts in voids and other appropriate locations was probably an excellent option. DeltaDust also was excellent, but required much longer to kill resistant strains of the bugs. One of those locations would be along edges of carpets and behind baseboards, as well as within wall voids or voids within furniture.

So, perhaps rather than spray a liquid solution in all those locations prior to your heat treatment, and then repeat the process with a dust application, the dust could be used effectively as the first application. There should be nothing wrong with doing it as you suggest, but if the dust alone can give you 100% kill then treating it first with liquid might be duplicating your effort. Dusts last much longer than liquid applications, and the Drione in particular will last for many, many months, as well as offering insignificant toxic concern to occupants of this home. You may achieve a faster kill using the liquids first, particularly if you do add that chaser of pyrethrum, and perhaps this will ensure that fewer live bed bugs have the opportunity to move away from this area when life begins to get uncomfortable for them. Ultimately your results could be the same whether you apply both applications or only dust as the initial one.

One thought on dusting is important, and that is that dusts can easily be over-used. One consultant to our industry many years ago stated that if you can see the dust on the surface after you’ve applied it, it was too much dust. All that is needed is a very, very light layer on the surface to be effective, and the study I read did mention how “barely visible” deposits of the dust were still sufficient to kill the insects as they crawled over the treated surface and got the dust on their underside. This helps you to recognize that heavy dusting is not needed, and this reduces the chances of creating a visible mess in the home.

View past Ask Mr. Pest Control questions.

QUESTION:

How do control Jerusalem Crickets around
a home?

ANSWER:

Jerusalem Crickets are those huge crickets also called potato bugs or Child of the Earth, supposedly an old Spanish name for them due to their large face and eyes. Native Indians referred to them as “Old Bald Headed Man”. For years it was believed there was a single western species – Stenopelmatus fuscus – but a few years ago someone more carefully studied them with new scientific techniques and recognized there are actually several different kinds that are similar but biologically separate. They are big insects that could give a pretty good bite if they were handled carelessly, but otherwise are harmless.

These insects are nocturnal, feeding and active at night and hiding under objects on the soil or in soil tunnels they find or dig for themselves. Females also dig a nesting chamber in the soil and deposit their eggs in this chamber. They feed on many kinds of plant materials found on the soil, as well as on other insects, so in this respect they should be considered beneficial, and the amount of damage they would do to plants is normally insignificant. All of this points to the fact that, frankly, they do not need to be controlled. You rarely find more than 1 or 2 of them on any property, and aside from scaring people who turn over a board and find one staring back at them, they do no harm. They are HUGE for a bug, some growing to at least 2 inches in length with a huge shiny head and shiny abdomen with black rings around it. Since people hate bugs of any kind, the bigger kinds are hated even more, which is unfortunate and simply leads to killing things that should be left alone.

However, if a customer insists on having something done they can start by clearing things off the soil to remove harborage for the crickets. You can apply granular bait insecticides in appropriate locations outdoors, and directed applications of a pyrethroid residual insecticide should effectively kill them. It remains important to recognize that these are rarely a true problem, and applying large volumes of insecticides to kill a couple of bugs would not seem to be necessary. Some people choose to keep them as “pets” in a terrarium once they realize what they are, rather than killing them.

View past Ask Mr. Pest Control questions.

QUESTION:

If you kill wasps that belong to a nest but not the larvae, will they hatch and survive and continue living?

ANSWER:

The larvae of social wasps, like paper wasps and yellow jackets, are totally dependent on the care of the adult wasps in that colony. The adults bring them food and care for them, and without this care the larva hatching from the egg has no chance of survival. However, there comes a point at which the larva is full grown or nearly so, and if its food supply is suddenly cut off it could simply pupate and emerge later as a healthy adult wasp. So, killing all the adults may not cause the death of ALL of the larvae, and definitely may not affect those already sealed up in chambers in the pupa stage. Since a common wasp control material is the “jet” aerosol sprays that kill the insects on contact, if the larvae or pupae are not contacted as well they may survive and continue to develop.

Early on in the development of that colony all of the emerging adult wasps are going to be females, and it’s possible that some of these then can become egg-laying “queens” to continue the life of that colony. I also read an interesting article in a recent magazine that tells us that new research shows just how the wasp colony regulates the production of workers versus queens. The worker wasps will tap on the walls of the nest, called “drumming”, and this activity inhibits the storage of fat in the larvae, causing them to emerge as adult workers. Later in the season this drumming must stop, leading to the production of new queen wasps that then mate, overwinter, and start new colonies the next year.

Solitary wasps, such as mud daubers, do not care for their offspring beyond providing food for them initially, so once the nest is built, the eggs deposited in the cells along with a food supply, the adult wasp seals off the chamber and the job is complete. Killing these wasps in the adult stage then has no effect on the developing larvae. For this reason, all wasp nests should be physically removed after killing the adult insects. This ensures that you eliminate the potential for new wasps to emerge later. And, given the highly beneficial nature of solitary wasps, which nearly all feed on other insects and spiders, if the nest is in a location that is not an eyesore it might just be left alone. Having these kinds of wasps around the landscape provides more benefit than hazard.

View past Ask Mr. Pest Control questions.

QUESTION:

A customer called us about slugs/snails covering her truck. While we were out to service her home we noticed about 50 snails in the truck bed. What causes this? She asked me why they were there and I didn’t have a answer. I told her I would have info for her soon. Can you help?

ANSWER:

I really have to ask this question. Any chance this person has some neighbors who either don’t like her or are prone to playing practical jokes? Snails will travel pretty good distances to find either food or places to hide, but the bed of a truck wouldn’t be a great choice for hiding places unless it is covered with a shell that darkens the interior. Of course, that might also keep out the snails, so that isn’t my first option. They also are highly attracted to grain based products such as dog food, and we see snails and slugs getting into pet food bowls that are left outside at night if the raccoons don’t eat it all first. PMP’s have a problem with snails entering outdoor rodent stations, partly for the shelter and likely also an attraction to the bait inside. If she had spilled pet food or some other food product in the bed this could have been an attraction.

But, finding their own way into the bed of a truck just really seems suspicious to me, and if we think of the route those snails would have had to take to get into the bed it seems all the more likely that someone tossed them in. The only thing touching the ground is the tires, so we would have to picture the snails crawling up the tires and onto the drive shaft, then inward to find a way to get up onto the chassis and then back outward to the wheel wells, then up that metal and then down the outside of it and then outward and up again to finally make it into the bed. This seems terribly ambitious of a snail that could just hide in so many other more convenient places.

I don’t mean to start a neighborhood feud, but stand quietly and see if you can hear laughter coming from next door.

View past Ask Mr. Pest Control questions.

QUESTION:

Last year I had a disagreement with the lawn care company providing service at my home. During the course of the season the company used Merit for grub control. Within days following the treatment there were significant numbers of pavement ants in the lawn and ornamental gardens. I understand that the material was applied for grubs, and in fact does not have a registration for ants. However, regardless of the fact that Merit is a systemic, it has to have a certain amount of contact/residual activity. I realize that it may not be the material of choice for ant control, but face it.. it is a pesticide! I find it difficult to believe that Merit has no contact ability, and that ants exposed to it will continue life as usual. What would be your take on this? Additionally what would you recommend as a granular application to ornamental gardens for the control of ants?


ANSWER:

Hi Kenneth. I would agree with you that imidacloprid, the active ingredient in Merit, would very easily kill ants as well. In fact, this active ingredient is in an increasing number of other products, including our MasterLine I-Maxx Pro, which is labeled for ant control. It definitely has a contact action on ANY arthropod pest, and since it is non-repellent it should be an excellent choice for ant management. Just because a trade named insecticide does not list all those other insect pests on its Label does not mean, therefore, that it cannot kill those other insects. This is a message we need to keep in mind as we apply pesticides. Most of them are very broad spectrum, and just as easily kill beneficial insects as they do the pest insects we meant to eliminate, and it is important to be certain that we apply the materials in a directed manner so that only the intended pest is affected.

If this lawn care technician was making the argument that the product he was using was capable of killing ONLY those insects named on its Label then it shows a lack of understanding of pesticides, and some training would seem to be called for on the part of their company. Lawn care businesses are increasingly under scrutiny from regulatory agencies for their uses of both pesticides and fertilizers, and runoff from lawns that ends up in nearby waterways is a serious concern. It is my opinion that landscape companies that use pesticides only incidentally to their major business of mowing and other maintenance may pay less attention to pesticide training than do pest control businesses who use pesticides daily. I have spoken with some local landscape maintenance people in my own area who have reinforced this opinion, as they have told me that their company offers no pesticide training, and since they were wearing clothing quite inappropriate for pesticide applications it seemed accurate.

Granular formulations have a few advantages over sprays. When applied to dense foliage or ground covers the granules can sift down through the dry foliage to get to the soil below, where they stand a much better chance of contacting insect pests. This may be accurate for covers of rock or bark as well. Granules often last longer, as they tend to release the active ingredient more slowly, extending the length of time the a.i. may be available to the pests. However, there are some drawbacks as well, and one of these is calibration. We need to ensure we actually know how much product we are applying to a given square footage of soil, as the product labels mandate this. We also need to stay within the label allowances for where the product can be applied, such as a stated distance out from the foundation. I also have heard complaints of “spotting” on the paint of cars where granules landed during a careless application, and my question to that person was how on Earth did the granules end up on the roof of the car?? Different products have different densities, so proper measurement is needed, they have differing tendencies for dust, and different sizes of particles, so using the proper setting on the spreader is needed.

One of the longest lasting active ingredients in a granular formulation may be bifenthrin, and this a.i. also may have a reduced repellent nature for a pyrethroid, so this could be a good choice for ant control.

View past Ask Mr. Pest Control questions.

QUESTION:

I have a possible assassin bug issue. Do you have any treatment recommendations? Thank you for any help you can provide.

ANSWER:

It is important to verify that you do, indeed, have assassin bugs, and also which kind are present. There are many different species of these insects in the family Reduviidae, but only a very few are blood feeders. The vast majority are beneficial predators that feed on other insects. They may bite a person if they are handled carelessly, but only in self defense, and not to feed on blood. Principally the blood feeders in the U.S. are in the genus Triatoma, and in Latin America species in this genus are referred to as Kissing Bugs, and some kinds live inside homes, feed on sleeping humans, and transmit the awful Chagas Disease. It’s hard to believe that a disease that at any one moment infects 11 million humans and kills about 20,000 people each year is nearly unknown to the vast majority of people in the U.S. However, CDC estimates that as many as 300,000 people now living in the U.S. may be infected with it due to travels in Latin America. We have the vectors and we have the pathogen, and all they have to do is get together to start the problem here.

If it is assassin bugs and they are only predatory kinds then you may as well leave them alone. Trying to control the solitary flying insects would be difficult to do. There is that slight potential for being bitten, and some people may react pretty violently to the bite and any saliva injected by the bug, so it isn’t necessarily inconsequential. But, keeping flying bugs from flying is tough to do. There also is a species called the Masked Hunter, which is also a predatory species, but it may establish itself inside homes if there are enough bugs to feed on, so good pest management indoors helps keep the bugs from being there too. Since these bugs may feed on bed bugs as just one part of their diet, there have been some unbelievable recommendations from anti-pesticide folks to use assassin bugs inside homes as a bio-control for bed bugs.

If it is the blood feeders they often are associated with the nests of wild animals, such as pack rats and wood rats, where they live in close association with these potential blood host animals. In the summer their populations may increase and hunger may drive the bugs to seek other hosts, bringing them to humans. They may be attracted to lights at night, drawing them to homes. Exclusion to prevent their entry is extremely important, as it is for so many other bugs, so this should be at least part of the focus of control.

If these are blood feeders, and they are living inside the home, they will hide within crevices during the daytime and feed at night. Treating the crevices and gaps within the infested rooms as you might for bed bug control, using a residual insecticide, would kill the assassin bugs. There certainly should not be very many of them, so even using pyrethrum to knock them down and out of hiding might be effective. Outdoor lights can be turned off or changed to yellow bulbs, or moved away from doorways, to reduce the attraction of the bugs to the home. Since kissing bugs often just crawl to the sleeping person, or drop from the ceiling onto the bed, the use of glue traps around the room might be helpful. The customer also might consider buying mosquito netting and sleeping within it until this problem is resolved. Beds can be moved away from the walls and pitfall traps placed under bed posts to reduce the chances of the bugs to crawl onto the bed.

Pesticides outdoors play very little role, other than to treat directly into rodent nests. This includes ground squirrels as well as wood rats, and these host animals should be eliminated from the property.

View past Ask Mr. Pest Control questions.

QUESTION:

I am constantly asked every season about bees. I usually have the answer but this one stumps me. A customer who lives out in the country is allergic to bee stings and wants to know what she can do to keep bee’s from stock tanks ,hot tub, and swimming pool. The info I get leaves no doubt that the bees are drinking. I was thinking traps, but I’m not a beekeeper and not many are interested in removal anymore. I heard Pinesol and apple cider vinegar mixed and sprayed on surfaces will discourage them, or vasoline on the lips of water dishes will discourage them. Are there any answers?

ANSWER:

I don’t think there are any good answers, unfortunately. I spoke recently with a very knowledgeable bee expert and asked about repellents for bees, and her answer is that none really exists, at least not one that you could treat a general area with to keep bees from flying into it. And, since you cannot stop flying things from flying this makes the problem all the more difficult. The bees and wasps are drawn to an area for several reasons – food, water, or nesting sites – and if there is anyway to reduce or eliminate any of these it will reduce the numbers of the insects that come in. Obviously the water issue is not going to be fixable – the pool exists, stock water tanks exist, etc., and while they may be able to reduce puddles and muddy areas they are not going to eliminate access to these other water resources.

Beekeepers generally are only interested in removing bee swarms, not dealing with rogue foraging bees. If they can take a whole mass in a swarm or remove a colony nesting in an undesirable site, then it’s possible to get their interest. But dealing with foraging bees is another matter and not one they can do much about. There are swarm traps for honeybees, but these really are designed to capture swarms – those bees that are migrating together while looking for new nesting sites after splitting off from their parent colony. These traps just are not designed to capture occasional honeybees. Yellowjackets can be dealt with by trapping or baiting, but other kinds of wasps will show no interest in artificial things such as bait or traps.

I have read too on the internet about a number of folk-remedies and repellents for bees around swimming pools, and whether or not any of them actually works is hard to say. I haven’t read of any unbiased testing done by some entity you and I could trust, such as universities, and since these folks generally say repellents do not exist then that is probably the correct answer. And, for YOU to apply any of these products would be illegal, since repellents are considered to be “pesticides”, and your use would have to be with properly registered products.

Removing flowers that are highly attractive to bees may help a bit, reducing muddy areas will help, and not wearing bright colors outdoors may help. Yellow in particular may be most attractive to bees and wasps. Avoiding fragrances like perfume may also help while outdoors, and insect repellents might even be of some use. Otherwise, leaving the bees alone and not aggravating them is the key to avoiding stings while they are only foraging. Of course, if nests are found on the property they can be eliminated, and honeybees are not afforded any legal protections from being killed when necessary.

View past Ask Mr. Pest Control questions.

QUESTION:

I have a customer who feels something “biting”, but describes it as a burning sensation, and trapping produces nothing. The doctors cannot find a cause and there are no BITE marks. Who can you refer the customer to for help. We will not spray the property because there is no visible sign of an insect population.

ANSWER:

First of all, bless your heart for being on the right track here. Far too often I receive these kinds of scenarios where the technician has already fogged the place and sprayed several times, but still the customer complains that the “biting” continues. This is the wrong path to take, and can only get that technician into deep doo-doo. Even if there truly is a biting pest present, without knowing exactly what it is you would not be able to go about a control effort in the most effective way. Generally spraying pesticides around is not likely to get to the source of many possible pest problems. You might continue to try the monitoring and trapping program until you are reasonably certain no arthropod pest is present in this home that could account for the sensations this person is experiencing, and hopefully your negative results will also convince the customer that bugs are not the cause.

This is the tough part – convincing the customer, who may already have his mind set that bugs are the cause, and YOU simply cannot see them or capture them. Another issue here is that even if this person showed you marks on their skin that they claim came from bites of some bug, there really is no way either you or the doctors could look at them and definitively say that they are bug bites, much less determine what KIND of bug is causing them based just on the bite marks. There are dozens of other possible causes of skin conditions – bumps, rashes, necrotic sores – that are not related to arthropods, and any of these might be occurring. Unfortunately for the customer, but fortunately for you, YOU are not in the position to try to determine what is causing the sensations other than for arthropods, and a dermatologist is probably the best next resource for this person to consult with.

Just why people focus on “a bite” as the reason they are feeling these things is hard to say. Maybe a friend or co-worker planted the suggestion, or the internet – you know, that vast library of factoids and misinformation – could have been the resource consulted. Even doctors appear inclined to take a stab at it when they are stumped by suggesting that maybe there are rat mites or spiders or fleas in the home, and no one questions a medical expert. There is ample evidence that people who use cocaine and meth will experience the sensation of bugs crawling on their skin or burrowing into them, but please don’t tell this person that is must be a crack head. That won’t get you any points.

Suggest the dermatologist, and if you feel there is a reason to do so, continue the monitoring program with glue traps. Make sure you examine the glue under good magnification, because some biting mites can be pretty small, and might be overlooked without magnification. And, please do avoid any applications of any pesticides if you have not confirmed a reason to use them. Some PMP’s will tell me how they sprayed just plain old water (the customer thought they were spraying insecticide) and the biting sensations went away. I personally think this is probably either illegal or unethical to do, as we are not supposed to be psychologists either.

View past Ask Mr. Pest Control questions.

QUESTION:

I need to identify a worm in my customer’s kitchen. I’m sorry I dont have a pic. These are on the ceiling, and then over time turn into some kind of moth. They are clear to light brown or tan with a red head. I have run into these once before, but it has been a long time. I can’t remember where I looked them up, so I hope you can help. I do remember they either came in with or they are attracted to cake mix, flour, cornmeal, etc. Thanks so much for your help!

ANSWER:

I will go out on a limb and offer a suggestion, but I still throw out that caution that making a firm ID from a description is always risky. I’d hate for you to take an incorrect ID from me and run with it, perhaps heading the wrong direction in a control effort.

However, your description does fit the possibility that these are Indian Meal Moth larvae, and if you are seeing the adult moths then the ID should be very simple. The adult IMM has narrow forewings, and the inner half of the wings is light tan and the outer half a coppery red color. The larvae are wanderers once they reach maturity and are ready to pupate. They commonly leave whatever it is they are infesting and wander short to long distances to find some cozy corner or crevice in which to make their cocoon, and then pupate within it. The silk cocoon is sort of loosely woven, and you can see the orange pupa inside. You may find the larvae walking just about anywhere within an infested house, so they could be well away from whatever it is they are infesting, and finding the infested material is absolutely critical to controlling these pests, as it is with any “food” pest.

I put the word “food” in quotes, because stored products pests are pretty diverse in their food choices, and the IMM leads the way. It will feed on virtually ANY grain-based food product in the kitchen if it has or creates access to that food. This includes pet foods, baking goods, flours, crackers, spices, cereals, etc. It also commonly feeds on dried fruit and on dry flower arrangements, so the source might not even be in the kitchen. A couple of decades ago it was a fad to make shadow boxes with glass fronts, and in the many little cubby holes inside you put colored rice, beans, grains, etc. as a decorative arrangement. These things were definitely good for our business. Or, the little “granny” dolls with dried apples as heads, or baked rolls in odd shapes used as decorations, including Christmas ornaments. It’s amazing what we provide as food for insects, and by golly the insects will find it. Certainly rodent baits in attics or walls are another common source, as the anticoagulant in the bait has no effect on an insect.

So, get the positive ID on this first, and then do some reading about the pest to see what the likely food resources could be. Do NOT spray or fog anything until you have found the source, and it pays not to stop with the first one. I once found IMM in about a dozen boxes of food in a customer’s kitchen cupboards. If they desperately want to save and eat the food, rather than throwing it away, it could be placed in the oven at about 130 degree heat for an hour and all bugs will be killed. Somehow, though, I doubt they’ll go for this. Find the infested materials, place them in sealed plastic bags for disposal, vacuum the surrounding areas thoroughly, and if you still have wandering larvae or moths they can be vacuumed or a directed treatment of a residual insecticide can help intercept them. As often as not though, pesticide applications may not be necessary once you remove the infested material.

View past Ask Mr. Pest Control questions.

QUESTION:

Can a pest control operator sell flea/tick products to their customers to apply directly on pets after they performed a flea or tick control service? Products like Advantage or Frontline?

ANSWER:

The answer to this is probably going to be “yes”, but here is an example of an important question to bring up with your local regulatory agency. This could very well differ from state to state, and ensuring that you are complying with any state regulations on it in your state is very important. In California, for example, this has been asked of the state Dept. of Pesticide Regulation in the past, and the opinion here is that this constitutes sales that are “incidental” to the primary purpose of the pest control company, and it could be done without the need to acquire any pesticide Dealer license. Even companies that set up small retail displays in their offices were not selling the small containers of aerosols or RTU products as a major part of their business, so they were not considered dealers.

You can see a huge online industry right now where unlicensed and untrained people can purchase pretty much anything and everything for pest control, including those many products whose labels would seem to restrict that kind of sale. We have many products where the manufacturer has included wording on the Label that, to me, clearly indicates their desire for that product only to be sold to and used by licensed companies. However, a few years back the EPA was asked about this, and the jist of their opinion was that the EPA does not bother to regulate this kind of wording, and homeowners could happily make the purchases. I’m not sure if this is good or bad, but restrictive wording can be considered vague. There are products, though, where the wording is much more definitive, and any product whose Label states that it is a “Restricted Use Pesticide” definitely can NOT be sold to unlicensed or uncertified people. As a vendor of pesticides to the professional industries WE also choose not to sell to non-professionals, and leave that up to retail stores or others.

Now, here is a question that you probably should ask yourself, and that is about Liability. Do you, as the seller of a pesticide or any other pest control product, have any liability if the buyer screws up? In our out-of-control litigious society today the answer is “of course you do”. If a homeower buys a glueboard from you to capture rats, and they stick that glueboard to their own face, they could sue you. Even with all the warnings and instructions on proper use, anytime someone feels harmed they are going to look around and see who should pay for their suffering and embarrassment. If you sell them flea control products and they fail to read the instructions, you do have liability. You might also check with your insurance carrier on this to see if they have any strong opinion.

View past Ask Mr. Pest Control questions.