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Jan 6, 2012 - Big, Bulky, and Bed Bugs

Termite & Pest Control — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 08:00:00 GMT

QUESTION:

I am concerned about how to effectively treat a couch for bed bugs. That piece of furniture is so massive and hard to get to. How to do it and what best to use? Also, any good, cheap heat treatments available to the little pest control firm?

ANSWER:

It is amazing to many folks in the General Public that bed bugs are simply not confined to "beds", and their eyes pop open pretty wide when we tell them that bed bugs now are found routinely on airplanes, in schools, in theaters, buses, delivery trucks, and just about anyplace that humans go and spend time. The potential for bed bugs to be in clothing in the infested home and then transported to a clothing store changing room exists, and must be accepted. Within an infested home bed bugs are going to hide close to anyplace they can find that blood meal, and they are also not restricted to feeding only at night. There is evidence that daylight feeding also occurs routinely.

So, chairs, couches, recliners, etc. all are potentially infested and must be dealt with in some way. The couple of bed bug eggs that may be glued within the workings of that recliner represent a continuing infestation if they are not killed in some manner. Obviously, spraying every nook and cranny within a complicated recliner becomes a problem, as does opening up all those possible cavities within a large couch. Top this off with our current dilemma that insecticides are still not the ultimate answer to bed bug control, and you may hesitate to treat all the surfaces with a toxin anyhow. Heat, fortunately, is a very effective enemy of bed bugs, and a temperature of only 115 degrees, held for just 1 hour, should be lethal to all stages of the bugs. Get that temperature increasingly higher and the exposure time drops quickly. According to some previous studies a clothes dryer at 175 degrees takes just 5 minutes to kill bugs and eggs, and our experts now even tell us that running things through a hot wash first is not needed if the dryer can be used.

At the recent NPMA Conference there were no less than 25 vendors showing products or solutions for bed bugs, many of these offering heat treatments. More and more companies are setting up their bed bug management with localized or whole room/structure heating. The advantages are many, including eliminating the use of toxins and, if done properly, completing the eradication quickly. Some of the top companies still do use dusts and certain other insecticides along with the heat treatment to be doubly sure the work is done effectively, but heat is an excellent option.

You need two things - a sealed container that will hold the temperature at the effective level for the effective period of time, and a heat source. These are becoming more and more available. Some companies even use portable chambers that are modified (sealed) so that larger items like furniture can be placed in them, the doors closed and sealed, and the heat injected for the prescribed length of time. I hate to name brand names, but one image I have seen shows one of the "Pods" used for this.

One of the speakers at this recent NPMA Conference offered her results using a home-made "heat box", and the results were very positive. Essentially the box was made from plywood and uses a simple propane heater for the heat source. She suggested that you can Google "heat box Phil Koehler" to find the instructions online for building this device yourself, along with step by step instructions on using it. I just tried this and found an excellent PowerPoint presentation by Dr. Koehler (et. al.) from Univ. of Florida that would be extremely helpful to you in providing the options and instructions for this.

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Termite & Pest Control — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 08:00:00 GMT

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Jan 5, 2012 - Changing A Pesticide

Termite & Pest Control — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 08:00:00 GMT

QUESTION:

Is the physical modification of pesticides by a commercial applicator legal in any state in the U.S.? For example, if Niban Granular Insect Bait were purchased and then modified into smaller granules by a physical blending/sifting process, would that be legal? If nothing like that is prohibited by the label is it something that can be done in Florida? Is the label only appropriate for the form that the pesticide is sold in? I imagine there MIGHT be some variance in the recommended application rate, but then again I think it is rated per pound, not by volume. I know this is an odd question and believe I know the answer, but appreciate your insight and appreciate having you to ask!

ANSWER:

Well, let's see how deeply I can get myself into trouble on this one. First, of course, if you were planning to RE-sell any pesticide you could not alter its form first. You could not blend it with other materials nor change the form it originally came in, as this would make you somewhat of a manufacturer yourself, and of course that would not be legal. If you do resell pesticides they must be resold in the form and original container that you yourself bought them in, unless you are licensed to make those kinds of changes.

But, if you are only talking about making some changes prior to your use of a product, then I will offer two answers. The first would be to ask your own local regulatory agency for their guidance on this, as they would be the ones who would impose any action against you if it turns out to be illegal. The second answer is that "the Label is the Law" for a pesticide product right up to the moment that it is applied, and it would not matter what other things you add to a product or what changes you might make to it prior to use, you always have to follow the Label. If you mix several different products together, which is perfectly legal as long as any one of the Labels does not prohibit this mixing, you would have to follow the most stringent of the precautions and statements that exists on any of those labels. In other words, if one of the products was prohibited for use in a food area, the mixture of that product with others for application makes the whole stew illegal for use in a food area.

You would be correct in saying that the Label for dry products like granules and dusts will state that product's use as a certain weight per surface area - e.g. 1 lb of granules per 1000 sq. ft., etc. So, even if you ground those granules down to a finer texture you still would have to follow the Label on the amount used over that area. I think we would have to be realistic when it comes to changing the physical form that you purchase it in, and for a couple of reasons. First, the manufacturer has gone to a lot of trouble to come up with that product in the form you find in the package, and making granules smaller, for example, might actually be detrimental when it comes to effectiveness. Second, if we stick with this scenario of modifying granules to a smaller size, you could create some environmental hazard such as increased dust or drift when it is applied.

I will reveal a story about this from many years ago, and this I believe was with respect to some of the early insect granular baits. A complaint was that the granules were too large for some small ant species, such as Argentine or Odorous House ants, to easily pick up and carry away. Some vendor reps suggested putting those granules in a coffee grinder and pulverizing them to a smaller size. I somehow doubt that Costco would like us doing this in their public coffee grinders, and even worse this would be terribly illegal to put a pesticide in ANY container or device intended for human food. So, I don't know how you would be able to modify granules to a smaller size and still be legal.

If we think in terms of other kinds of formulations, such as a liquid pesticide, it may be legal to mix more than one product in the same application device, but it would not be legal to combine two concentrates in the same container and put them back on the storage shelf. Or, even if this turns out to be "legal" it probably ranks as a pretty bad idea. You would be starting to create a witch's brew that could get out of control. So, bottom line I suppose would be that if you needed a smaller granule for a particular pest or job the better answer would be to buy a different product that already offers that preferred particle size.

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Jan 4, 2012 - To Bite You Gotta Have Jaws

Termite & Pest Control — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 08:00:00 GMT

QUESTION:

Can house flies bite? Are there times in the life cycle when this would occur?

ANSWER:

No, The House Fly (Musca domestica) is completely unable to bite at any of its stages. The mouth of the adult fly is essentially a sponge, which the fly uses to soak up liquids that it ingests. If the tasty food the fly is sitting on is not yet in liquid form the fly will vomit on it, slop it around with that spongy mouth, and then slurp up the now liquid material. This mouth is far too weak to be able to penetrate skin in any manner. The larva of flies - maggots - also have no mechanism for biting, as their mouths are far too small and a maggot is not a blood feeder. However, let's have fun discussing this a bit.

A fly similar to The House Fly that DOES bite and ingest blood is called the Stable Fly - Stomoxys calcitrans. This nasty critter readily bites, feeding on livestock, dogs, and our ankles if we leave them available. The mouth of the stable fly is a long, sharp beak or proboscis that it plunges into the skin, and it is not necessarily as polite as many other blood feeders are that first numb that area before biting. You generally feel the sharp pain of the bite from this fly.

While The House Fly maggots are not generally the ones involved, other maggots may be found feeding on human and other animal flesh, and in fact this may be purposely induced and referred to as Maggot Therapy. Blow flies are the ones that most often seek out fresh wounds on mammals, the adults depositing eggs on the wound and the maggots then feeding on the tissues in that area. If all goes well with blow flies the maggots feed only on dead tissues and leave the live stuff alone, and while we may prefer just some band aids and an aspirin there really seems to be a benefit from letting the maggots do their thing. Eating away the dead tissue helps to cleanse that wound, and the writhing and wriggling of the maggots seems to stimulate the healing process. I suppose an open-minded individual could describe the sensation as "ticklish", but there probably are not too many of those individuals out there.

We also have plenty of other blood-feeding flies around us, the largest being horse flies, next down deer flies, and then much smaller at no-see-ums, black flies, and mosquitoes. Seems as if Nature provided plenty of them and didn't need to toss The House Fly into the mix.

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Jan 3, 2012 - Blood Exposure

Termite & Pest Control — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 08:00:00 GMT

QUESTION:

A question on blood borne pathogens and disease in engorged bed bugs. It has not been shown that bed bugs transmit disease through routine feeding, but what about when a pest control operator is exposed to the blood the bug has consumed, such as when or if engorged bugs are inadvertently "popped"? Also, is exposure to large quantities of bed bug fecal accumulations dangerous to the p.c.o.'s health?

ANSWER:

Interesting question Richard, and my answer will probably weigh heavily on my own speculation or thoughts, but we can start with the current standard opinion of our most respected researchers on bed bugs, and this is that The Common Bed Bug - Cimex lectularius - continues to NEVER be shown to be capable of vectoring any blood borne pathogens from one human to another. Now, this generally is with respect to a pathogen being ingested by a bed bug and then passed along to the next blood host in a second feeding in the same manner that fleas or mosquitoes vector diseases. There appears to be no mechanism within a bed bug for this to happen. Two years ago, when Swine Flu became a health threat and the media overwhelmed us with horror stories about it, the internet came alive with opinions, blogs, and chat rooms stating that bed bugs could spread swine flu. This simply was inaccurate and unfortunate. Gee, gotta love the internet.

But, what about fresh blood in a bed bug suddenly ending up on your skin? Let me tell a story from a vector control class I attended years ago, when the topic of mosquitoes and AIDS was addressed, since so many people firmly believe that mosquitoes could be vectors of AIDS. This too has been soundly refuted with a great many studies, but the instructors of this course suggested that (purely hypothetical, I might add) if any insect is capable of transmitting AIDS from one human to another perhaps it could be deer or horse flies. Again, I stress that this was purely hypothetical and these insects have never been shown to be vectors of this disease. But, what they were suggesting was that these flies are "messy" feeders, slashing the skin open with their scissors-like mandibles and allowing the blood to flow. If they began feeding on infected blood and were interrupted before getting a full meal perhaps.......purely "perhaps" ...... they could fly to a second human host, open the skin, and perhaps allow some of the fresh blood from the first host to enter the blood stream of that second host.

May I stress once again this was purely hypothetical. I don't want anyone saying Mr. Pest Control says horse flies spread AIDS. But, in order for this even to work it would require that the infected blood somehow find its way into the second host via an opening in the skin and into the blood vessels. Simply popping an engorged bed bug or any other insect and getting that blood on unbroken skin to be washed off immediately should pose no potential for transmission. Pathogens in the blood would not be capable of burrowing through the barrier our skin provides. So, as long as you do not eat the bed bugs or have open sores available for that blood to get into I don't believe this is an issue for pest control technicians.

With respect to exposure to the fecal material, which of course is just dried blood, this also has not been discussed at any of the many bed bug seminars I have attended. I do believe that the fecal matter of any living organism should be considered "filth", and filth has a potential to have undesirable things growing on it, so I personally would protect myself from exposure to it and recommend that the feces be removed and the surface sanitized. Just as with rodent and bird droppings, it is less the dropping itself and more the pathogenic bacteria, viruses, and fungi that grown on this material that we do not want to inhale or ingest. Blood probably provides a great growth medium for pathogenic micro-organisms. Therefore it would be good policy to wear an appropriate respiratory device and gloves when working around these materials. It's also possible that the greater concern could be an allergic reaction due to foreign proteins in the fecal material, and our immune systems generally are not fond of foreign proteins that get into our bodies.

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Jan 2, 2012 - Sensitive Settings

Termite & Pest Control — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 08:00:00 GMT

QUESTION:

Silverfish in a hospital setting. What's the best control for them?

ANSWER:

Silverfish can be a real challenge, particularly in a very large building such as a hospital, and particularly given the sensitive nature of hospitals. These fast moving insects can cover a lot of ground between the voids they hide in and the places where they are seen foraging for food. Hopefully you can attack them in a very localized area if they are only being seen in a few rooms. Silverfish and firebrats feed on a wide variety of materials that includes dry grain-based human foods, dead insects, starchy materials such as the glue in book bindings or behind wallpaper, and even certain kinds of papers. On the exterior they often are found within piles of firewood or lumber, under items on the ground or concrete, and within debris such as piles of old cardboard boxes. On the interior they often will be noticed when some items are lifted from floors or tables and the hidden silverfish runs out from under. They are nocturnal, so they are usually seen only when disturbed in the daytime. They also commonly get trapped in sinks and bathtubs because they fell in, perhaps drawn to water, and could not get a grip on the slick porcelain to climb back out.

The goal is to attack them at their source, but easier said than done. You can discourage their presence beginning on the outside, which presumably is where they originated, by removing all unnecessary clutter that brings them close to a building. For a hospital this is a challenge, but a walk around the exterior still might reveal a lot of things that encourage their presence next to the building. This particularly is the case at loading docks and back areas that customers do not normally see. On the inside you can recommend storing all boxes off the floor and on metal racks if possible, and if at all possible eliminate corrugated cardboard boxes. Silverfish commonly reside within voids such as wall voids and attics and drop ceilings, and with the permission of the hospital management you could treat these areas with a fog, using a product labeled for this application method in hospitals. On PestWeb you can view a list of ALL products labeled specifically for hospitals. Go into Product Documents, select "Products By Approved Site" / Structures / Commercial Structures / Hospitals. Similarly you can view a list of all products labeled for silverfish by selecting the tab "Products by Target Pest".

Given the sensitive nature of hospitals you need to show discretion on how you apply insecticides, and absolutely must ensure they are contained within whatever space you apply them to. Fogging may be tough to manage in this manner, other than fogging with wall voids using a void injector machine. If you can interview the people who work in the area where these insects are being seen you might get a handle on the likely voids the bugs are hiding in. For wall voids you might consider the use of an inorganic dust such as silica gel or diatomaceous earth. They can be injected with a duster that creates some turbulence to move the dust around in the void, and these products last for many years to kill insects by desiccation.

Silverfish also will accept some granular bait products, and I have seen good results using them in a hospital setting. Some of these include Dekko Silverfish Packs that are pre-loaded bait packets that could be placed in drop ceilings or attics. Another excellent product is Niban Granular bait, as well as some of the Intice granular baits from Rockwell. The granular baits can also be applied directly into wall voids using a small granule applicator such as the Centrobulb. You might also consider a careful application of a liquid spray, concentrating on likely travel locations of the insects, such as junctions of floor to ceiling or wall corners and wall to ceiling junctions. A microencapsulated product that is properly labeled for hospitals would probably offer the longest residual and perhaps be most easily acquired by the passing insect that crawls over the treated surface.

Insect glue traps also can be placed strategically to monitor the results and to determine where you may want to direct your treatments. These can be placed where they will not bother people working there, and you might even enlist some of the employees to check these for you and pass along whether or not they find any silverfish in them.

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Jan 1, 2012 - Ozone and Bed Bugs

Termite & Pest Control — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 08:00:00 GMT

QUESTION:

Does ozone kill bed bugs, and if so who makes an ozone generator that will do the job?

ANSWER:

At the last NPMA Conference there appeared to be a single vendor showing his ozone generating system for bed bug control, and I spent awhile listening to his talk about how it is used. Interestingly he also sells electric foggers and liquid pyrethrum for treating after the ozone application is completed to, in his words, "kill any bed bugs that are still alive". This alone gave me less confidence in his approach with ozone. I also do not believe that fogging the air in an infested room is going to have much effect on bed bugs that are secluded within mattresses, furniture, or equipment and walls, so that also seemed to be a sign of uncertainty about his knowledge of bed bugs.

There were a great many presentations and talks on bed bugs by our respected university researchers, and not a single session even mentioned ozone as a practical approach. However, I did ask one of the most involved researchers directly, while speaking with him, and when I mentioned ozone he just sort of rolled his eyes as a sign that he himself did not have much faith in this method. Perhaps this is because it is a very new idea that simply has not yet been independently tested, and perhaps ozone truly does kill bed bugs effectively, but until our university researchers study and embrace it I tend to be skeptical.

In a recent post on Bed Bug Central, which offers very up to date information on bed bug control, Cooper Pest Solutions stated that they have found current ozone treatments to be ineffective as a treatment of structures such as homes or apartments. The theory behind the use of ozone is that it seems to effectively kill many other kinds of living things, such as bacteria or even foul odors, and therefore it should also kill any insects. This may eventually turn out to be an effective technique, but for now the people I rely on for good information are not optimistic about the current technology.

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Dec 31, 2011 - Do You Hear A Ticking?

Termite & Pest Control — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 08:00:00 GMT

QUESTION:

I am in Arizona and found a few ticks on my two dogs. One was gray and fat and the other three were clustered together and were small with a brown/blackish color. My other dog had a cluster of something (either a scab or maybe eggs) by its ear with red skin irritation. My question is can ticks lay eggs somewhere on the dog's body too? I know they can lay them in the house, but I want to be sure. This is a new problem. My dogs have never had ticks and I want to get a good jump on them early in the game. I'm about to spray inside and out. Do you have any suggestions for treatment /eradication of dog ticks. Thank you in advance.

ANSWER:

I never say never when it comes to bugs, but it would seem to be highly unusual for the female tick to remain on the dog to deposit her eggs. I looked at a lot of references and scanned the internet and did not come up with any reliable sources that mentioned this possibility. Typically the female engorges during her final stage as the adult, drops off the host animal, and finds some other sheltered place to dump her mass of up to several thousand eggs. The fat gray one you saw was the engorged female and the others could have been males that may have clustered around the female looking for the opportunity to mate. They also could have been nymphs that all just found a good spot to feed, and sometimes ticks do cluster in certain places.

Pyrethroids should be effective against ticks, but the problem is getting the active ingredient into the possible places where the female has deposited those eggs. Certainly the best course of action is to inspect pets regularly and remove and kill the ticks immediately when found, crushing them thoroughly or cutting them in half. Their leathery bodies just don't want to die easily. This will prevent the full development of that female which then can wander into some hidden place where you may not find her during the application. She may go behind baseboards or some other obvious place, or she may crawl up into furniture, draperies, clothing, or any other hidden place where an insecticide treatment would not typically be done. This could leave those thousands of eggs available to hatch and the new (hungry) nymphs not exposed to any insecticide material. The eggs may not even hatch for a couple of months, possibly long after any active ingredient you applied has degraded and is ineffective anyhow. Prevention by early detection definitely is the best protocol.

But, if you do feel the need to treat it may need to be repeated a few times to ensure some residual material is still there when those new "seed" ticks, called the larvae, come out of hiding. Using a microencapsulated formulation could extend the residual considerably as well as place those thousands of microscopic capsules where the wandering ticks can gather them up on their bodies as they move about. Thoroughness will be the key for placing active ingredient anywhere the female may end up. It might be useful to place a lot of insect glue traps along the edges of walls to, and inspect these daily when you feel tick activity may begin.

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Dec 30, 2011 - Color Me Green For Good

Termite & Pest Control — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 08:00:00 GMT

QUESTION:

Do you know if there is an established or emerging color coding standard in the pest control industry that communicates to the applicator what type of chemical is in the tank? I once worked for a large pest control company in California and about 10 years ago they started slowly changing all their Insecticide/Termiticide rigs over to having a blue hose. I purchased a "Non-repellent" 1 gallon hand pump sprayer by B&G Equipment company which was colored with blue. And there are other examples I have seen relating to non-selective herbicides, pre-emergent herbicides & repellent insecticides. Thanks for all you do Mr. Pest Control. I LOVE UNIVAR!

ANSWER:

Well Jacob, it's likely to look like we've planted some fans out there, but thank you very much for the compliment. I have to say that I "love" Univar as well, and that is why I have been with this same company for 35 years. I appreciate the ethics and organization of my employer and the various people I have worked for.

I am confident that there currently is no industry-wide standard for colors that represent anything with respect to the pesticides. Some manufacturers are getting on the "green" bandwagon by producing equipment or labeling that is predominantly green in color, to emphasize that their product fits well in a green pest management program. This may very well catch on, but at this time is appears to be only a limited and private effort in marketing. The use of certain colors of hoses or tanks or other application equipment also seems to be only a personal choice by any company. Some manufacturers are offering these varieties of colors - black, white, brown, green rodent stations for example, or various colors of Actisol injectors. B&G offers several colors of hoses to distinguish their "acid" sprayer from their standard sprayer from their "non-repellent" sprayer, and the buyer can use them for these various purposes if he pleases.

So, at this time it appears to be no more than some individual efforts by certain manufacturers or private companies to designate the uses of their equipment when keeping things separated is necessary. The only color-coding I know of that standardizes chemical properties is with respect to codes on placards required on storage facilities where chemicals are kept. Fire departments rely on these colors and letter codes to determine immediately, upon arrival at a facility that may be on fire or have some other emergency, that chemicals are there and that certain safety equipment is needed prior to entry. These codes indicate things such as respiratory hazard, explosion hazard, fire hazard, etc.

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Dec 29, 2011 - Schools and Pesticides

Termite & Pest Control — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 08:00:00 GMT

QUESTION:

I was told that there are certain laws to follow when it comes to treating a school that is public or receives govenment assistance or payment. Yet, if it's Private then just follow the guidelines on the label because it's different from a public or government assisted school's laws. Does this make sense? I just turned down a good job that came up because I wasn't sure if the laws for public versus government assisted schools were different than for private schools. Are they? Thanks for your answer and advice.

ANSWER:

This is a very important question, but a single answer is not going to be appropriate for all states, and it is important for you to investigate the exact regulations in place in your state. You can begin on PestWeb by going into our "Business Tools" tab and selecting "IPM In Schools". You the can select your state and find links to the specific regulations and forms for your state. Florida, where you are, is very active through the Univ. of Florida in producing many tools and forms on this subject, and they do have regulations pertaining to pesticide use in schools, as does nearly every other state.

In general the purpose behind regulating / restricting pesticide use in schools is to reduce the exposure young children have to toxic substances. It is believed that their developing brains and other organs are more susceptible to exposure to toxins, and yet this must be balanced with the need to prevent their exposure to public health pests as well. Thus, nearly all states mandate that each school have a written IPM program in place so that a total reliance on pesticides is avoided. I think this is a good idea. Ultimately the states are not going to distinguish between public versus private schools, and in many states already include private schools or private day care facilities in their School Pesticide Use regulations. Obviously if these laws are in place to protect children it should not matter if that child does not attend a public school, but I suspect that initially it is easier to regulate government institutions. If we carry this to the obvious extreme, do these regulations have the right to impose themselves on home-schooled children and the private homes where they are being taught?

So, I will dance around this issue a little bit but invite you to go to the links provided on PestWeb and dig into your own state's regulations. This actually is a fabulous opportunity for our industry to step up and show its professionalism. In many cases it removes the ability for the janitorial staff at a school to buy pesticides at the local hardware store and spray them themselves. It invites LICENSED applicators in to help schools handle this delicate situation. Your time is money, and IPM can take more time but in the long run be more effective with minimized use of pesticides, and you have the opportunity to increase revenue at these accounts.

A direct answer to your question of whether private schools are viewed as outside of regulations pertaining to public schools is that old expression - it all depends - and it depends on your state. For example, in California where very specific laws on school pesticide use are in effect the current law specifically exempts private school facilities, but I have no doubt that this issue is still rolling around in the minds of our politicians.

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Jan 24, 2011 - Dust Mites Everywhere

Termite & Pest Control — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 08:00:00 GMT

QUESTION:

I have a customer who wants to know if she has dust mites. How does one verify whether there are dust mites present or not?

ANSWER:

Unlike paper mites, dust mites actually do exist, and often could be present in a home in extremely large numbers. However, there have been a lot of internet sites in the past few years that attempt to sell products to homeowners for dust mite control, and I have a strong suspicion that the statistics these sites throw out there are wildly exaggerated (such as half the weight of your pillow or mattress could be dust mites and their body parts). Many of the items they are selling also are likely to be a lot less effective than advertised, so buyer beware with dust mites.

These are microscopic mites, and verification of their presence would need to be done with a decent microscope or good dissecting scope - something that would magnify probably 80X or higher, allowing you to see with clarity that it is a mite and to see some distinguishing features of it. If present the mites could literally be anywhere in a home, and as common as they are they likely are present in nearly all homes at some level of a population. They rely heavily on high humidity, so regions that are very low in humidity, such as my region in the Central Valley of California, are going to have very, very few dust mite problems. Controlling humidity inside a home is one step in a program for reducing the levels of these mites.

They feed on the tiny flakes of dry skin that slough off of our bodies on a constant basis. This is called dander, and supposedly dander composes a high percentage of the household "dust" that we see building up under furniture or on tops of things. I have read that in the proper light you can see dust floating in the air, and that even this could be dander. So, dust mites have a continual and adequate supply of food. They do not bite or parasitize us in any way, but they are well known as a major cause of allergies in humans. Their fecal material contains a protein that can really set off sensitive people, causing anything from itchy eyes to serious attacks of asthma and difficulty in breathing. It is estimated that up to 1/3 of people have legitimate allergies to dust mites.

You would need to gather some of the dust that you find around in a home and examine it under high magnification to verify the presence of the mites, and if they are present you should have no trouble finding some in your sample. You might place some insect glue traps throughout the home and inspect the glue under that magnification after about a week, looking especially around the edges of the glue where the wandering mites may have gotten stuck. These tiny mites easily become airborne too, and are carried with slight breezes in the home, so they could be on any part of the glue. They are short legged, as opposed to the long legged rat and bird mites, and their body is fairly hairless, compared with cheese and mold mites. They are a creamy bluish color, and on a shiny dark surface you could even see them moving around as light specks.

Control will never eliminate dust mites - there are just too many to get rid of them all. But, unless someone is really suffering from allergic reactions there is no major need to eradicate them. Humidity control, dust removal with a vacuum equipped with a HEPA filter, damp wiping surfaces to remove dust, and the use of a dehumidifier with a HEPA filter can all work together to reduce the mites and the conditions they need. Since beds can often have large numbers of the mites, due to plenty of dry skin and warmth and humidity from sleeping persons, frequently laundering sheets and pillow cases can reduce the mites and the dander they look for. Pesticides would be of very little use in dust mite control.

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Termite & Pest Control — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 08:00:00 GMT

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Jan 21, 2011 - Let's Keep It Clean

Termite & Pest Control — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 08:00:00 GMT

QUESTION:

Just a quick question on keeping your tanks, hoses, and pumps clean from product buildup and not smelling. How often should you do a clean out of the system, and what clean out agent do you recommend? Also, how do you dispose of the clean out agent after uses? I have also heard you can use liquid dish soap as a cleaning agent as well. Is this true?

ANSWER:

There are, as you indicate, several good reasons for cleaning out your equipment on a regular basis. One of these is simply appearance and image. Filthy equipment is going to be visible to customers, and their perception of the company that does not keep a tidy truck with clean equipment likely will be much lower than that for technicians who obviously take pride in their property. That filthy hand tank could also transfer unwanted stains onto floors in a home, or the filthy spray hose could leave smudge marks on corners as it is dragged around a yard and home's exterior. Back in the days of smelly pesticides you also could tell quite easily when the spray truck was nearby, because the oily residues and buildup on the tank, hoses, and storage lockers was very, very noticeable. Fortunately nearly all of the products today are nearly odorless and without the oils and solvents, so that helps a bit.

You should clean a tank when using it for different products that might not be compatible for some reason, or where residues from one product could be harmful to things when a different product is used next. For example, some herbicides could be active at extremely low concentrations, and using a sprayer for weed control and then switching to an insecticide and spraying plants or lawns might result in damage to the plantings from the lefover herbicide. I occasionally get the question about using a repellent insecticide and then following it with a non-repellent in the same tank, and whether this would continue to leave some repellency to that next tankful of material. While this is not impossible, I believe that the tiny amount of spray mixture left in a properly emptied tank would be so diluted in the next tankful that it should have little repellent effect.

We do use wettable powders and microencapsulated and other dry formulations that are mixed with water for application, and these materials end up as "suspensions" of the particles in the water. This promotes the chances that over time those particles will build up on filter screens or inside hoses and spray wands, eventually diminishing the proper flow of liquids through those areas. These need to be cleaned very regularly, and filters in particular probably should be cleaned thoroughly at least once a week. Over the years I have seen amazing examples of neglect - B&G spray tubes so clogged with crud that there was room only for the cable to slide back and forth, and not for any appreciable liquid to actually flow through. I have seen syphon tubes where the bottom 2 or 3 inches were corroded completely away from sitting constantly in spray liquid, or the tube just filled up with buildup over time and lack of cleaning. You do realize there is a filter in the handle of the B&G spray wand, and this easily gets plugged with material. Regular cleaning and replacement of parts as needed will improve everything, including allowing that equipment to perform as you expect it to.

Cleaning the outside should be on an as-needed basis, but frequently enough so that no buildup of stains or powdery residue is visible. Some people probably have a higher tolerance for filth than do others, so a good policy would be to have weekly inspections of each vehicle done by someone other than the driver. Maybe hand out a $10 bill to the route tech whose vehicle is the cleanest that week. Univar sells several brands of cleaning products designed just for this, as well as for running through the tanks and hoses and sprayers. One is Neutralize (Becker), which comes in both dry and liquid forms, another is Nokomis 3 (Mar-Len) which is liquid, and a third is called Tank Cleaner (Cleary). All seem labeled similarly. The product is diluted in the tank with the labeled volume of water, the pumps are turned on and the material is circulated throughout the system by spraying it back into the tank. This also allows you to carefully spray the interior of the tank to remove any pesticide residues clinging to it, and to get them into the cleaning solution. The Nokomis label may be the most broad of these three, with directions also on using it for cleaning of the vehicle bed and storage lockers as well as outside surfaces of spray equipment.

Now, just what to do with this cleaning solution once you are satisfied the job is done is a good question, and I always direct people to their local County regulatory agents for advice. The product labels may say one thing, but regulatory people may have their own thoughts in their jurisdictions, so do speak with them. Most often the cleaner labels tell us to dump the rinsate out onto a "non-crop" area, meaning some bare dirt place. I don't particularly like this advice. Another idea is to spray it out onto a surface where you could legally have applied whatever pesticide was in the tank. This is a good reason for keeping the volume of that rinsate to a minimum. The Nokomis label states it can be left in the tank and just used with the next tankful of water for your next application, as long as whatever pesticide was removed from the surfaces is okay to do in this manner. But, we have to treat it as a solution with pesticide in it, and dispose of it legally and responsibly.

As far as dish soap, I think you should avoid this for interior tank cleaning. This is a good way to create massive amounts of foam that are difficult to deal with. For some things dish soap could be okay, say for washing the outside of a hand tank or spray wands. But, getting it inside is begging for foam. A cleaning agent based on ammonia may be better, and of course always wear gloves and eye protection when washing equipment with pesticide residues. There are some cleaners that claim to "neutralize" the actual pesticide active ingredients, insinuating that the molecules are degraded to non-pesticides. I have talked with knowledgeable people who say this just ain't so, but that these cleaners are simply removing pesticides that tend to cling to surfaces.

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Jan 20, 2011 - Works Good, Lasts Awhile

Termite & Pest Control — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 08:00:00 GMT

QUESTION:

What is the residual of Tempo SC and Suspend SC insecticides?

ANSWER:

Like the weather forecasters, it pays to talk in really vague ways when trying to pin down just how long an insecticide active ingredient will last. There are just a lot of variables that can affect that active ingredient, and different chemical families may behave in different ways. For example, the old organophosphates and carbamates (diazinon, dursban, malathion, etc.) were highly susceptible to degradation due to the pH of the water used to dilute them, or the pH of the surface they were applied to. They also were very susceptible to rapid breakdown when exposed to UV light or when retained in just water. The same chlorpyrifos that might last 15 years in the soil under a house for termites could disappear within a few days or weeks when applied outside for ants or fleas. A lot of active ingredients of pesticides latch onto organic material, so soils rich in organic matter might tie up the active ingredient so that little of it is available to the passing bug or to weeds.

Synthetic pyrethroids, however, are much less subject to degradation from these environmental effects, but they still degrade fairly quickly. This is our two-headed dragon, and the loss of persistent insecticides was demanded by those opposed to our use of them due to fears that the active ingredient that hangs around too long can also be more likely to travel off site, and this fear does have some justification. Because pyrethroids can possibly be very toxic to aquatic invertebrates at very low levels, you now are seeing states implementing regulations regarding the use of these materials wherever they may get into surface waters. Another consideration in all of this is that "residual", for our purposes, really refers to how long it lasts and still is effective in some manner for pest management. The molecule could be detected on a surface long after enough of it has degraded so that it no longer kills the roaches or fleas or other bugs. Since chemicals degrade by a "half-life" - a bit at a time - they do not just suddenly blink out of existence.

So, with this long winded preamble, what is the answer to your question? At a seminar one time, where a few of our respected university consultants and researchers were present, the comment was made that it would be surprising to find any of the pyrethroids, used outdoors, to give more than 2 weeks of residual effectiveness. This obviously is open for argument, and there are ways to lengthen that residual by different formulations. For example, placing the active ingredient within a granular material could protect it from the elements, allowing it to escape more slowly, and for this reason one vendor states their granular pyrethroid gives up to 3 months of effectiveness. The a.i. could be contained within microscopic porous capsules - microencapsulated formulations - protecting the a.i. from water and other elements and extending the residual. You could apply the material indoors or within protected crevices around the exterior where water and sunlight do not affect it directly, adding to its longevity.

Certain surfaces - porous, wood, concrete, alkaline, shiny - can all have their effect too, on how long the a.i. lasts or how available it is to the passing bug, so we keep that in mind and use a formulation best suited for that surface. In this area too is the fact that spraying insecticides onto greasy surfaces, such as in many kitchens, is going to seriously harm the effectiveness. Grease just ties up active ingredients so they are no longer available. Sanitation and cleaning thus have another reason for helping us in pest management.

I myself also believe that where the repellency of pyrethoids works to our advantage there may be a repellent effect long after the killing effect is gone, such as the ability to keep spiders off surfaces that were treated many weeks earlier. But, if we keep our experts' thoughts in mind, we probably should not plan on having these active ingredients (and Tempo and Suspend are both pyrethroids) lasting more than 3 weeks or so. I know darned well I am going to raise the hairs on the backs of the necks of some manufacturer representatives with this answer, but we'll still toss it out there and see what jumps on it.

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Jan 19, 2011 - Shirts With Ventilation

Termite & Pest Control — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 08:00:00 GMT

QUESTION:

My customer said she is getting small holes in the front of her T-shirts. She brought one down from Virginia, and after washing it saw holes in it. Funny that they are all in and around the same spot near the stomach area. These shirts were brand new from a major store that starts with a "W". Perhaps moths?

ANSWER:

I really, really doubt that insects are going to be the problem here, since fabric pest moths and beetles feed only on wool fabrics, or possibly on cotton materials that are badly stained in some manner. It is unlikely that T-shirts from the Big W are made of wool, and cotton or cotton / synthetic blends are just not tasty to insects. I would say it is much more likely that the fabric itself had some defect in it that was then brought to light with the washing, such as a separation of the weave in that area. But, what the heck. I'm an entomologist and not a clothing inspector, so I really don't know what kinds of defects might occur in fabrics like this. Not to denigrate clothing from the Big W, but it probably is relatively inexpensive and mass produced, so possibly more open to lower quality. Personally, I am not certain I own a T-shirt myself that doesn't have holes in it, a fact my wife points out to me on a regular basis.

My dad always taught me as a boy not to touch my clothing after handling car batteries until I washed my hands. Seems the acid in car batteries was pretty good at eating holes in your clothing. What she is experiencing sounds more to me like a reaction to some chemical. Why it would be occurring in several different shirts but always in the same location on the shirts is a wonderful mystery, but she may be able to think about this and come up with some connection. Something else she wears or applies to that area may be contacting the shirts and causing this problem in that area. But, I really do not think it has anything to do with insects, and I advise NOT spraying "just to make sure" if you have not actually seen any insects that could cause problems to fabrics. The proper action, if she presses you to do something, would be to place monitoring traps around the area to capture moths or beetles or any other insects. This could be either pheromone traps for the appropriate insect pests or simply insect glue traps placed where they won't get stepped on.

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Jan 18, 2011 - Subs And Water

Termite & Pest Control — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 08:00:00 GMT

QUESTION:

We are in Arizona, and subterranean termites are my concern. One of our technicians has been asked a question on the state exam that we have not been able to answer. How much moisture is required in wood before termites eat it? They give multiple choices like 13, 17, 25%, etc. Do you have a answer on this?

ANSWER:

Well that's a darned good question, and unfortunately I don't have a darned good answer. I looked in a variety of references and for the most part struck out. But, I did come across one abstract from a study of the survival of subterranean termites in woods with varying levels of moisture, where the termites were confined to the wood and could not return to soil. In this summary it was shown that at a wood moisture content of 20-24% half of the termites survived for up to 12 days, and the rest died earlier. When the moisture content was maintained at 30% the termites managed to survive for up to 6 months, and they concluded that wood with a content less than 24% was inadequate to sustain subterranean termites, and that at least 30% moisture content was necessary to keep them alive for 6 months or longer.

Now, that may or may not answer your question, since you asked about the moisture content needed for subterranean termites to "eat" the wood, and that is very different. A normal subterranean termite colony has workers maintaining contact with the soil, and replenishing their body fluids on a constant basis. This was apparently the problem for those termites in the study above that were confined to wood of 24% or less - they lost body moisture faster than it could be replaced with the low moisture content of the wood. But, when the workers can quickly return to the soil they replenish their body fluids and thus can work on wood that may be much lower in moisture content. In addition, the workers may bring moisture up to the wood to keep it wetter than it was originally, so relatively dry wood (moisture content below 20%) could very well be susceptible to attack by the termites.

We know that drywood termites can survive in very dry wood - moisture content from 5-12%, and that decay fungi generally rely on wood that has at least 20% moisture in it. We also know that the decay fungus Meruliporia (Poria) incrassata can develop a root system that also brings water from the soil below up onto otherwise dry wood, enabling it to move its destruction into areas that were not previously wet. Dampwood termites also are now known to be able to add water to their environment to keep the wood in a very damp condition.

Hopefully you can determine the correct answer from this, and depending on just how that exam question was worded the answer might be that it takes wood moisture content of 30% for long term survival of the termites, or they could attack wood with a much lower moisture content initially, as long as they can continue to move to and from the soil.

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Jan 17, 2011 - Sucking Up The Enemy

Termite & Pest Control — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 08:00:00 GMT

QUESTION:

I have heard of using vacuums for initial German cockroach and bed bug cleanouts. Will any good HEPA vacuum work for this, or do we need to stick to models marketed to our industry? This would seem to be a very effective means of population reduction, but what the heck do we do with all the live roaches/bedbugs we now have contained inside the vacuum?

ANSWER:

This is a timely question, since just yesterday I attended an NPMA program that introduced their new "Draft" version of their Best Management Practices for bed bugs. Given the difficulty of this pest and the many ways that PMP's are going about controlling it (some with success, some not) our industry leaders feel there is a need to develop a comprehensive and consistent protocol for successfully dealing with The Common Bed Bug. Within this document they address, in addition to nearly every other aspect of bed bug control, the use of vacuums, recognizing that large numbers of the insects and many of their eggs can quickly be removed at the outset of the effort, and eliminating the need to kill them in any other way. The vacuum also will remove a lot of the bed bug clutter, such as shed exoskeletons, and make things easier to see from then on.

Their recommendation is to use a vacuum with a HEPA filter that will retain even the smallest of dust particles, thus reducing the level of bed bug contaminants that become airborne. Disease is not necessarily the concern here, but it is likely that allergens are associated with bed bugs and their parts, just as they are with roaches and rodents. In addition, the recommendation is to use a vacuum that is marketed to our professional industry for the purpose of pest control, rather than an over-the-counter vacuum that may not meet our specific needs. The vacuum should have the appropriate attachments to allow it to get into tight corners, edges, seams, and crevices, and should bed physically scraped across surfaces to remove the cemented eggs as much as possible.

They conclude the information on vacuums with the statement only that the "bags" should then be placed within a sealed plastic bag and discarded. This suggests that the proper vacuum would not be a cannister style, where the plastic cannister is emptied and used repeatedly. Getting all of the bugs and eggs out and into a plastic bag successfully would be difficult. I admit I am not familiar with all of the HEPA style vacuums, but do know that some of the vacuums carried by Univar, such as the Atrix Omega Green Supreme IPM HEPA Vacuum are designed for insect management and have disposable bags. Planning on having the turbulence of the vacuum kill all of the bugs would probably be pretty optimistic, and the eggs likely wouldn't be harmed much at all, so keeping them contained and disposing of them in the trash bin would be better. I have heard some people suggest putting an insecticide dust within the bag or cannister, but I am not comfortable about the legality of this.

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Jan 16, 2011 - Bed Bugs - Excellent Eaten Raw

Termite & Pest Control — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 08:00:00 GMT

QUESTION:

What if any are the natural predators of bed bugs? Thank you!

ANSWER:

A fairly large number of other arthropods are known to feed on The Common Bed Bug, but none of them has ever shown the ability to reduce a population of these bugs once they are inside a structure. And, introducing another bug to someone's home in the hope that it will feed on the unwanted bugs is generally unacceptable to most people. This is especially so when we consider what some of those predators are. These include a couple of spiders, wind scorpions (solpugids), a number of species of ants including fire ants, and a couple of assassin bugs. Releasing a population of any of these predators into a bedroom is just not going to set well with the customer, and since the bugs hide so well and breed so quickly, there really aren't going to be positive results. There is even some anecdotal evidence that American roaches and House mice feed on bed bugs, but again only in low numbers if at all.

This is one more reason that bed bugs are difficult to control - we are extremely limited in IPM opportunities for them, and just letting nature take care of itself does not fit with this pest. I heard it from a reliable source that one state had a brochure available for homeowners, offering guidelines for dealing with bed bugs, and one suggestion was to "eliminate food resources". Clearly this is not going to work for bed bugs, since it is the people that are the food resource, and starving the bugs to death by leaving the home is not effective, since the bugs can survive up to 1 year without feeding. It stands to reason that with a problem such as this there is going to be a lot of misinformation available, particularly on the internet. So, you probably will have people tell you that predators and parasites would do an effective job in bed bug elimination, so why use those dangerous pesticides? We can counter this with accurate information and education.

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Jan 15, 2011 - Avitrol Says Goodbye

Termite & Pest Control — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 08:00:00 GMT

QUESTION:

I understand that Avitrol is no longer available since it has closed. I am wondering if this is still legal to use in the state of NY. I am having a bird issue in western NY and I was looking at implementing a program at the location. Can you please advise?

ANSWER:

Yes, this is true, and it was announced by Avitrol Corp. back in October 2010 that it would be voluntarily closing its doors permanently on October 31, 2010. No more product is available from the manufacturer, and suppliers likely have a dwindling supply left in our stocks. But, according to the letter from Avitrol the EPA agrees that all product already in distribution or the hands of end-users may be used according to the Label, so no one is stuck with product they cannot use. I honestly am not sure of the status that Avitrol had in New York in the first place, but if it was legal to use it there prior to the shutdown of Avitrol company, then it should still be legal to use now. You might give your local Univar office a call at 1-800-888-4897 to make sure of this, as they definitely would know the status of this product.

One alternative that is very acceptable, even to pigeon lovers, is OvoControl P, which Univar also carries for distribution. You may already be familiar with this product, but it is essentially birth control for pigeons, acting temporarily to prevent them from successfully producing viable eggs. The birds are not harmed in any way, so OvoControl has been embraced by animal rights groups as an acceptable and humane method for reducing the numbers of these public health pests. It must be fed to the birds on a regular basis to maintain the effect, and it does not cause any birds to leave an area where they are not tolerable, so finding another method for resolving the immediate need of removing the birds is necessary.

This is where physical devices come into play, and once installed the netting or wires or spike strips will continue to keep birds off of those surfaces for many years. It definitely is higher maintenance initially, and thus a higher cost to the customer, but it's sort of "pay me now or pay me later". If all that is accomplished is to scare the birds away from a site, it is inevitable that more birds will be back, possibly very quickly. Univar also carries a major lineup of bird control materials.

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Jan 14, 2011 - Different Kinds of Wood Fungi

Termite & Pest Control — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 08:00:00 GMT

QUESTION:

IS WHITE POCKET ROT A FUNGUS?

ANSWER:

White Pocket Rot is indeed caused by a fungus, but it is not a "decay" fungus, from what I learned at seminars years ago, taught by a wood products expert from the University of California. This expert told us that "Pocket Rot", which is seen as a great many evenly spaced but very small pockets or holes in wood, each hole lined with white, is a fungus that grows only while the tree is still standing. It does not continue to grow in milled lumber and is not a decay. However, sometimes there can be a really extensive amount of this pocketing inside the wood, and obviously this could cause a lessening of the strength and integrity of that wood. If it is used in a place where structural strength is a concern, wood that is heavily laced with these little white pockets would be weaker than wood without it.

There also is a decay fungus called "White Rot", different from Pocket Rot. White rot, again according to this wood expert, is only in hardwoods, not softwoods such as fir or pine. White rot grows relatively slowly, unlike the Brown Rot of softwoods that can grow extremely fast if conditions are perfect for it - wood, warmth, and water. At a seminar this expert was once put on the spot, and asked how fast wood decay could develop. In other words, how quickly could sound wood with no problems progress to decayed wood that has lost its structural usefulness. His answer was pretty interesting. He said that if the proper conditions were suddenly to occur, it could take as little as 4 months for substantial loss of integrity in that wood to occur. So, if a toilet were suddenly to develop a leak and create constant moisture on the wood below, it could be only 4 months for that wood to need replacing.

Another kind of fungus that we commonly see on structural wood is generally referred to as "blue stain", and again this is NOT a decay fungus. But, the growth of this bluish staining fungus does indicate that moisture is present on that wood, and therefore the conditions are appropriate for other more serious fungi to grow as well.

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