Have you ever been called out to a famous persons home to treat for pest control? What a thrill it would be knowing your heading out on a call to treat some ants at a famous persons home. Once inside you might find yourself looking around to see how this person lived and marvel at all the photographs of this celebrity with other famous people. You might even sneak a picture with your camera phone and in your mind you’re dreaming up a hundred different ways you could nonchalantly ask for their autograph or God forbid-get a picture- But no, you resolve to be professional and treat that place from top to bottom and kill every moving thing that has 6 legs or more. After all you put on your best pair of Dickies service pants and even broke out that new cap, you know the one without all the spider web silk all entangled on it.

With your freshly washed truck you pull up to the huge ornate gate and push the oversized red button and a stately mans voice comes over the speaker; “Good day to you sire, whom do you wish to see?” As you choke back a gulp you force out the stuttering words; ” My name is Jerry with The Bug Doctor Termite and Pest Control, I have an appoint with………….”

Well maybe you’d handle it a little better than that but it really is the high light of any day and it’s something that you can always brag about years from now. Shoot, if the story grows like the ones people tell about rat sizes- 10 years from now your story will include you and your celebrity customer hanging out at the beach, texting in between movie sets and joint family vacations. Ok, so me and Travolta never went on vacation and the fact that he hasn’t called me yet doesn’t mean that I’m not on his list. He’ll need me one day and he only lives 10 miles away so I’ve saved my best hat just for the occasion.

So, which celebrity would you most like to treat for pest control? You can choose one from the list in our poll or you can type in one that isn’t there. I realize part of having celebrity customers is to NOT run around blabbing to everybody all about it but if you do have one (or did) share what you can in the comment section. That would be fun to hear about.

This tech tip comes via e-mail from oldtimer and has to do with cleaning out clogged B&G spray tips without damaging the brass.

Have you ever been spraying along and all of the sudden out of the blue your nice straight pin stream becomes two jets going in two forked directions? Or just as quickly a fine mist is spurting but drops of liquid collect at the tip and begin dripping all over the place? It happens a lot and every tech will experience many times if he hangs around long enough.

A quick fix has always been to gently tap the spray head on something solid and hopefully this dislodges the debris long enough for you to finish the job. Then once back at your truck you remove the tip and rinse it or bang it upside down on the tail gate until the obstruction comes out. If that doesn’t work you try things like a tooth pick or paper clip and poke and scrape but the holes in the spray head are so tiny and at times all you manage to do is lodge the debris in deeper. The metal these wands are made of is very soft brass and with enough tapping or scraping you actually ruin the tip or disfigure the hole so even with the clog removed your spray pattern may be forever altered.

The tip sent in by oldtimer is to use a twist tie from a loaf of bread or other plastic bag that gets sealed with one. It’s just a tiny wire covered in plastic and although the metal is soft it is small enough to fit even through the fine pin stream hole of your B&G tip. You need to remove the plastic from the twist tie by scraping it with a knife like you would an electrical wire. The nice thing about using a twist tie is that when done you simply tie/twist it around your B&G holster ring and it’ll always be there ready for you to use. If it breaks simply scrape some more plastic away and you’re ready to go again.

I have this problem mainly with my back pack and you can see by the pics that I’ve succumbed to some over tapping and you can even see my old paperclip that I have hanging on my sprayer that I used to use. So when I got oldtimers tip the other day I decided to try it the next time I clogged up. Today was that day. Sure enough the wire was small enough and I dislodged the debris and was off to the races once again. Thanks oldtimer, that’s a great tip that I will use from now on.

For the pros who read my musings I’m sure you all have many more tips just like this. I think we’d all benefit to hear them and if you don’t want to write out an article on it just pass it along to me & I’ll type it up. If you’re so inclined I invite you to put in a link to your site or even your business sites address or contact info. (you don’t have to) It’s a great way to advertise and get a valuable back link at the same time. The simple ones are the best but I’m up for some chemistry 101 if you got something along those lines too.

Make sure to join my facebook group pestcemetery.com where we share a lot of insight and rub it in to people who spell funny;) I’m excited that a lot of homeowners ask questions on the ask the bug doctor page but it can also be for a tech who has a question. Nothing is displayed or posted there unless you give me permission so feel free to ask me anything you like. While I’m plugging things, why not sign up for my news letter as well? It’s just to the right of any article and only takes a minute to sign up. I don’t spam anybody but I do put out a periodic letter based on current bug trends or relevant articles. The news letter is designed to be phone friendly and as such is always short and to the point.

Hey Thanks old timer for the tip, you can always count on the pros to help you to ‘keep shooting straight’.

Have you ever seen what you thought was a really weird roach that had something sticking out the back of it that looked like a small briefcase? Well what you most likely saw was what an entomologist would call an ootheca but round here we just call it an egg. How strange that the roach actually carries that thing around. Actually she doesn’t so much carry it as it is still attached and the precious cargo inside can still get nutrients and critical moisture from the mother. This attachment also allows for the ultimate protection rather than just leaving it somewhere that a hungry bird or insect predator could get it. True some roaches do drop their eggs or ‘cement’ them to a wall or other surface and still others have no egg at all. The babies develop inside the uterus and feed off the yolk and other junk inside the mom.Yummy.

Now when I say egg, what I really mean is a casing that sometimes many eggs are contained inside-remember I’m a simple man. The german roach carries her egg till the babies hatch and at times you can have 50 cute little babies come out of one egg case. The larger roaches such as american or oriental won’t have so many kids, only 15 or so if all goes well and both of these roaches are those who drop their eggs.

Other than the principle of fight or flight (flight being the operative word) or dropping the ootheca in a somewhat protected spot roaches won’t necessarily defend the brood. Madagascar hissing roaches have been observed to cover their young as protection and german roach females seeking seclusion close to hatching time and the babies tending to stay away from adult males so they don’t become a meal but once out most baby roaches are on their own.

Depending on the species gestation period a female will produce many offspring in her lifetime. If conditions are right the american roach female can produce somewhere around 800. The oriental is not so prolific and does only about 150 or less. The queen of all roaches, the german cockroach out does them all in terms of offspring and descendants even though she may produce less actual oothecas. If you were to do the math and all conditions were favorable and say only 1/2 of the babies in a german roach egg case were female. You would end up with 15,000 german roaches (approximately) in her lifetime of 6 to 9 months and the numbers would become astronomical from then on.

So the next time you see an odd looking roach running across your counter with a suitcase, grab some clean towells and some warm water. You got some babies to deliver.

In the southeast we have had a record low temperatures in what seems like the longest winter I can remember. I think old Punxsutawney Phil better be careful because he didn’t make a whole lot of friends this year. Still it seems that springtime is finally on the way and with it hundreds of trillions of insects will soon be draining the antifreeze from their bodies and stretching out all those stiff joints that haven’t moved all winter. Ladybugs will begin to stir and wonder how they ended up on your window sill and earwigs will begin to dig themselves out of their soil encapsulation ready to begin anew. Spiders spin new webs in hopes of catching the hordes of fresh flies that will multiply by the minute and the termite can freely explore the soil not hindered by the frost line that slowed down his progress these last 5 months. The annual invasion of mother earth and our homes will soon be in full swing and with the also record snow and rain this year it just may be a bumper crop.

The process has already begun in Florida as swarms of termites have pest companies hopping and home owners worried. The palmetto roach is considered by some the unofficial bird of the sunshine state and they are more abundant than I’ve seen in a few years. Of course the cold weather gave rise to the rodents across the nation moving into homes and businesses if for no other reason than just a warm place to lay their heads and they just might like living in your home by now and not leave so 2010 is setting up to be the year of the pest.

Wise pest professionals have been preparing for this day for quite some time. They know the time is now to put down a thorough exterior barrier using dusts in the voids and making sure the thresh holds of your doors offer no easy entry. They are taking advantage of the lack of vegetation (killed off by the cold) and using the new vantage point to treat areas that may not be so easy to get to when the shrubbery grows back. Fresh baits for roaches, earwigs ants and more will be placed in all their favorite places awaiting their short arrival. Don’t be surprised if they ask you to repair some screens or clean the gutters so as not to give the advancing pest armies any undue advantage.

Sadly, some homeowners will put off the bug man when he calls for this early season service. With some snow still on the ground and somewhat sloppy conditions they’ll want to wait until it warms up and see if they even have a problem to tend to. For these people their is no need to get pest control before they have a problem and indeed some may even say that it is in the interest of being earth friendly that they just don’t want pest control products sprayed when their is no problem to solve. Instead they will wait and perhaps tolerate the first earwig they see and maybe the 3rd roach but alas when the hairiest wolf spider is staring at the housewife in the shower she’ll almost break an ankle getting to that phone.

By then her plan of green living will have back fired because what could have been accomplished with small amounts of reasonably placed pest control products will need to be replaced with clean-out tactics to give her the fast results she now wants. Playing catch up with an insect colony can be maddening and by now they can be in so many hard to reach places. Don’t get me wrong, pest control can be a challenge even under the best of circumstances but it would seem logical and in everybody’s best interest to treat early this season whether on their own or with a professional service. While I’m not one to go along with every bit of conventional wisdom that comes down the pike, it does seem to me that this year has all the makings of being the perfect storm for pests. A whole bunch of experts are saying the same thing and even state officials are telling people to brace themselves for what could be a major swing in insect activity. So if you are a do it yourself pest control person or you decide to call a pro, why not do it early just in case 2010 is, the year of the pest.

I have many articles and videos linked above that should be able to help you in treatments but also to understand just how and why this could be a banner year. I hope it helps.

I didn’t think anyone had such as warped mind as mine but here is the proof. In fact I think even warpier! (new word alert) While I only think of strange things and possibilities these nuts actually put them to the test. Oh what I wouldn’t do for a nice little lab and an unlimited budget?

Have you ever wondered what would happen to a roach that was exposed to radiation or a nuclear bomb? Well, wonder no more because this video contains the answer. Actually at the end there is quite the surprise of which bug really would survive the best should the big one drop. I’ll give you a hint, it’s not the roach!

Enjoy;

Pest control in a commercial kitchen is not for the baseboard jockey’s of the world. I was reminded of this by a recent comment on Facebook to my video, Chalk Talk Treating the Commercial Kitchen; ‘Getting into the equipment.’ It reminded me that at one time that is exactly how I did pest control even in commercial accounts. It was how I was taught and I’ll venture to say it is how many technicians are still advised to apply control barriers in this type of account even today.

Now I’m not here to disparage you if you use a B&G as a primary tool. It is still king of the application equipment world and I use one every single day. In a kitchen however there is just no way that this or any ONE tool can be your primary weapon especially when dealing with german roaches. The same can be said for the where to treat in a commercial kitchen. To often we service our kitchen accounts around the edges, under the shelves, stocks rooms and the office and call it complete. In reality we haven’t even done a fraction of the service needed when we approach it this way. What we have passed up and left untreated is a whole other world that roaches thrive in, breed in optimum conditions and live almost completely protected lives in. What have we left?

When we think of equipment I’m sure we envision refrigerator motors, stoves and big items like these but the average kitchen is filled with all kinds of different things that help them run the operation both big and small. Roaches take advantage of these things often because they offer warmth, shelter, food or water. Shoot some times you can find them in a place that gives them nothing or just one good aspect of this yet they pack it with a small army. The reason is they have all they need within walking distance every night so they don’t have to be so choosy on a place to nest.

I could run down the list but I’m sure I would leave out more than I include. Becoming a great commercial tech takes time and experience and usually a lot of trial and error. Some of the best lessons you’ll learn that stay with you forever are the ones that come at great expense. You’re not likely to pass up a small stainless steel meat scale if you’ve ever lost an account because an angry chef found a nest inside his while he was weighing out some prime rib. Lessons learned like this or on the days when you accidentally find a hoard of roaches in a wooden knife holding block are the most profound. It serves to ‘connect some dots’ in your mind and soon it just becomes routine to check those areas and set up your treatment long before it can become an issue.

You’ll only find these and hundreds of other areas by getting curious, opening up panels or drawers and sticking your head in places you wouldn’t normally think of to go. Now I’m a tech too and I realize you can’t do this all in one service, it would take to much time and you’ve got to get on the road. But if you’ll just do a bit of exploration with each service into these areas you’ll soon find that you can put barriers down that may last longer because these spots are somewhat protected. Also if you start getting complaints in a nook of the kitchen you can easily check out these remote areas because you’ve already mapped these spots out, know how to get into them and can make quick effective treatments that will impress your client and go along way to keeping the account happy.

I am doing a video series just on commercial kitchens and have my latest one posted here. In the first video “Treating the dishwasher area” you can find a lot of information that will translate nicely to every area of the commercial kitchen. I plan on following up with 3 more that should give you almost all the ammo you need to keep a commercial kitchen pest free. None will have all the information in and of itself just so I can keep them short but I will try to link them back and forth to each other to make it easier to put all this information together. You can also check out my video pod cast area on the top right section of this page and simply scroll through the different ones I have done.

As a job, I think pest control has got to be one of the fun-nest and most exciting, beats making sandwiches for me anyways. But the times it can be most frustrating is when we have complaints or are not getting results. Sometimes this is due to things like sanitation or deliveries which is something we can’t always do to much about. It may also be a lack of training but that can be corrected and once you start finding those well hidden pest fortresses and actually start making a positive difference in an account you’ll find that your excitement, level of pride and feelings of professionalism will go way up. It all starts with you and your willingness to get to the heart of the matter and one great place to look is in the commercial kitchen equipment.

Today was a typical day for me as a bug man, it started out as they all do with an early morning stop. I drove 38 miles to take care of some imaginary spiders and I had a great debate in my head whether or not to show the lady the small spider I found in her doggies pet bowl. In the end I decided not to because I didn’t want to wreck her already fragile confidence in my treatment while at the same time adding fuel to her already burning arachnid phobia. From there it was another 15 miles to inspect a bank repo in the middle of the National Forest for termites and besides the wood rot from the leaky roof I stopped to marvel at a huge tree that was only being held from crashing into the home by a wire. I sometimes wonder how people live and maybe this blog thing I do has a never ending source of subjects because each day comes with a lot of problem solving but probably twice as many unanswered questions.
(click on pictures to enlarge and see a portion of my typical day)

On the way back into town I stopped by a house with noises from the floor and it turned out to be a rat living in the stove. He had stored a years worth of acorns in the bottom drawer and brought up quite a bit of insulation from the sub flooring but what upset the housewife the most was that he had eaten some of her artwork in the next room. Now I don’t mind crawling under homes and buildings but the thought of having a rat jump out at me isn’t thrilling. Today was a good day however and my furry little friend was nowhere to be found. With Picasso safe for the time being I was off to another animal in the wall call.

We knew this one was dead already and it was my pleasant task to find it. As with smells so often you can only narrow it down to a section of a wall and unless the customer is willing to have some drywall removed to get to the carcass there’s not a lot you can do. She wasn’t. After an hour of checking both attics in this million dollar home I had narrowed it down to exactly the spot I told her in the first 30 seconds of my visit. Still unwilling for the drywall to be cut I was able to convince her to at least allow me to drill a small hole in the closet wall and spray about a 1/2 a can of lysol into the void. I’m not sure this will work for long so instead of patching the drill hole I used a wadded up ‘dryer sheet’ for added smell masking to plug the hole so she could remove it and spray more Lysol later if she doesn’t change her mind about the extraction. Since she was a regular customer I walked away without a check and now my day was going to be a little later than I had planned.

My next stop was another repo and this empty home definitely had a story it was desperately trying to tell the world. I can only imagine that these people (and so many others I see) were sitting at the table when the knock on the door came and it was the sheriff with an immediate eviction notice. With no time to gather belongings it’s not unusual for me to see the table set and food on the plates, toys, computers and personal items everywhere as if the people just disappeared in the middle of a week nights dinner. While I feel saddened for most there are some where it is obvious that they invited this situation on themselves. For these people bugs were something I’m sure they battled for quite some time. 1/2 empty cans of Raid were everywhere and chemically burned bugs lie in every corner of the home. I’m sure I’ll be back once I deliver my report and the estimate for the pest control service needed but by then the cleaners will have been out to eliminate every trace of the sad history.

My last stop of the day is a termite job and I dawn my already dirty crawl suit and head under the home where I will spend the next hour or so. The job was done probably 25 years ago as evidenced by the drill marks in the block foundation. Holes back then were made with a chisel and hammer & for a minute I felt bad for the tech who did the work but it just meant I could keep my hammer drill in the truck so my sympathy was quickly replaced with relief. While this job was unremarkable for the most part I did find a can of pepper deep inside the dark abyss and I can only imagine the story of how this happened. The can is probably as old as the original termite work and could it be that the tech back then brought his lunch up under the house with him? It gets a bit lonely under a house and I tend to let my imagination run but still I would love to know about this one.

I had decided to write a post about my day and capture as much as I could with pictures since getting my new Blackberry phone. I normally have a camera anyway but the phone is so much easier to carry and the pictures are actually very good. Besides I can upload my days occurrences on Facebook and Twitter in real time and have fun pestering my friends from around the world. I could have picked yesterday, Monday or 2 weeks ago and although the events would be different it would still just be a typical day for me or anyone who has chosen to be a pest control professional. Our job allows us to see so many interesting things and puts us constantly in the middle of a puzzle that people depend on us to solve. We go from million dollar mansions to shacks out in the sticks yet the expectations never change. To our customers, their stop is the most important one and they want nothing more than 100% of effort and results. It’s the same for the great techs of the industry as well but in reality it’s just all part of another ordinary and typical day.

Raise your hand if you ever smacked the top of your TV to try and get the picture to come in clearer. C’mon, you in the back, get your hand up! I have to admit I’ve done it too and the crazy thing is that it has worked a time or two but after awhile when the whack on the Sony just doesn’t cut it you have to call in a professional. Now, what would you do if the man showed up and came inside with his big shiny tool box, stood by the set and just smacked it a good one? You’d say he’s crazy right?-Shoot you could have done that and in fact that’s what you’ve been doing all along and you would hope that a pro would come in and do something different to get the results you wanted. Now how bout pest control? Have you been spraying or should I say nuking the place and you’re now ready for a professional treatment? Well don’t be surprised if the person comes in and does their treatment differently then what you have done.

I only bring this up because I have many customers who even though they have hired me want a good old whack just like they used to do it but somehow think my chemicals in the same old place they put them will do any better. It must be that at one point they bombed for fleas and boy that did the trick. (for awhile) So for me to come in and not fog the place, why that just doesn’t seem right. Or why don’t I spray up on the ceiling for spiders?, that kept them away for ever. Hey just spray all the dishes, I’ll wash them before I use them, it sure killed a lot of them when I did it.

It has been said that doing the same thing over and expecting different results is the definition of insanity and I sometimes believe people border on this condition when it comes to pest control. Still I am constantly told what works and where to spray and why what I’m doing isn’t going to be effective. Not by everybody mind you but enough people to at least make me wonder why they called me out in the first place. Of course I am diplomatic and I can be politely stubborn as I continue to treat the way I’ve been trained and most times I can see the answer and wipe out their problem in just a few minutes. Other times I have the uphill battle of explaining the magic of time and how my treatment needs to cycle through the colony or we need to break the life cycle etc. and that doesn’t always go over so big.

People sometimes hang their hats on an old success that may have been just like the smack on their TV. They don’t know why it worked or what it fixed, they don’t even understand why it stopped delivering the good results but if they can just hit it harder or maybe down the side a little. When that fails and they have to pay for a fix they don’t mind your bright shiny tools, just make sure you do it like they did and whack those bugs

One great thing about being in pest control is the amount of freedom you have. People just seem to automatically confer trust on you and literally give you the keys to the kingdom. In our little business we do so many key accounts that some days get a little boring because there is no one to talk to. You’re free to roam through the house, poke your head in a closet and search through the cabinets all in the name of providing good pest control but I ask you; “would you do pest control service any differently at a key account if you knew there was a hidden camera somewhere that captured your every move?”

Now I’m not talking about the creepy stuff that you hear about on the news every couple years but just your normal everyday maintenance visits that people come to expect from a professional. If it’s a flea job do you still treat under the throw rugs? If you see a grain beetle do you take the time to see if you can find the obvious box of food that they are coming from? Do you do all of the home or do you breeze through the kitchen and bathrooms and hit the door in 5 minutes flat? It can be tempting to fly through these accounts and I’ll admit key accounts can be done faster just because you have no one to talk with and that certainly will make up some time on a day you’re running behind. Still, if you knew you were being watched just how different would your service be?

For me this subject doesn’t come up much although I have addressed it at staff meetings and let my people know just how I see things. In 26 years I’ve only been filmed twice but it wasn’t key accounts, just crazy people that had old termite damage and thought I was responsible and that perhaps a video camera would somehow get me to pull out my wallet. Maybe I’ll write about that sometime. That aside I can tell you that it is any homeowners right to set up a camera to verify what anybody is doing in their home. My biggest concern is that I don’t care if the home is a bank repo that’s been vacant for years, you’re still there to do a job and that takes time to do it right. It’s to easy to get into a mind set that ‘no one will know’ if I just skip the garage or just not check the attic. Now I’m not sure how often a person takes the time to set up a system but I do know that if they are one of my customers all they’ll see is a guy and his flashlight checking the corners and under the fridge, poking up under the sink and doing a normal good once over. Knowing us we’ll put fresh water in the dog dish and take the time to pet the cat. Each of my tech’s ride with me for at least two months and we do a lot of empty homes so there is no excuse if a problem were to ever arise.

I’ve never really posed this question to anyone I’ve trained because it sounds like it’s on the verge of creepiness or at the least some conspiracy oriented plot. But maybe I should, after all it’ll be me on the nightly news looking into the not so hidden camera for all of my town to see and just how will I act then?

Probably the most difficult place to do pest control in a commercial kitchen is the dishwashing area. The amount of constant moisture alone makes me wonder how it can be effective at all. It’s not unusual to have faucets drip all night long filling the sinks that are clogged with debris and then the water cascades down onto the floor. This life giving flow makes it’s way to the drains across the tiled floor so with no flooding or damage, plumbing issues are not a top priority. Also a common practice for this area is a complete nightly ‘hosing’ to wash everything away and out of sight, this includes any pest control you’ve done. Even if the drips were fixed and the hoses stopped, the H20 is in no short abundance and it makes life sweet and easy for roaches.

Besides water the food supply can be pretty ample as well with scraps that have fallen or dirty dishes left undone. The drains can hold quite a bit of food particles that didn’t wash down and build up over time. With racks of dishes and glasses usually stored in tight areas food scraps can go untouched by a broom or mop hidden behind a wheel or under a rack where tired employees may miss them. Most kitchens offer a smorgasbord of food left from the days activities and it’s only a short walk in any direction if perhaps the dishwashing area does get cleaned up pretty well.

The other main challenge is the surfaces that make up a dish washing room. Stainless steel, tile or slick vinyl paneling all mean one thing for your liquid efforts-little if any residual. Spraying on these surfaces puts gravity into motion and almost all of your liquids run down the wall and pool on the floors where roaches can easily detect the heavy concentration and avoid the area. If any does somehow manage to stick, the good that it might do is washed away with the water hose later that night or the next if you’re lucky.

It is a challenge to say the least to treat the dishwashing area but it can be done. I put together this short but informative video with tips, reminders and perhaps some things that you may not have considered when treating a commercial kitchen. This is the first of a 5 part series so make sure to check back to catch the other videos coming soon. As always I’d be happy to hear from you and some things that you find helpful in kitchen pest control. If I can work it in the video I will or don’t forget the tech tip page. A great technician is forever learning and who better to learn from than those who are on the front lines.