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Pest-Proof Your Home

Time to Pest-Proof Your Home

April is “National Pest Management Month”

Pest Controllers offer tips Everyone is happy to see the cold of winter replaced by the first warm days of spring,” says Leonard Douglen, the Executive Director of the New Jersey Pest Management Association, “and this is just as true for the many insect and rodent pest species that begin to multiply in vast numbers throughout the state.” April is National Pest Management Month and with the advent of spring Douglen reminds homeowners that pest-proofing one’s home protects against “threats to health and, importantly, damage to one’s greatest investment.” “Nationwide, termites will do $5 billion dollars of damage to homes and other structures this year,” says Douglen. “Here in New Jersey, as many as three out of every five homes are likely to have active termite colonies and all are subject to a termite infestation because the warm weather triggers the huge numbers of winged termites that will establish new colonies.” “Without annual inspections, most homeowners are unaware they have an active colony of termites until it has been in place for three or four years,” says Douglen. “When they notice winged termites, usually around window sills, they call a pest management firm. An inspection of one’s home will not only identify the presence of termites, but initiate measures to eliminate them and deter future infestations.” Inspections may also find colonies of carpenter ants. Like termite infestations, Douglen says that “Carpenter ant infestations can be just as devastating to a home or other structure, but they don’t get the same amount of publicity. An entire colony of Carpenter ants can emerge from winter hibernation and enter a home in the thousands in a single day.” In the late fall and winter rodent species invade homes looking for a warm harborage, “Once inside, they will chew on wires and pose a threat of fire. Since rodents urinate and defecate wherever they go, the potential for diseases increases, particularly when they invade food storage areas.” Do-it-yourself pest control efforts usually fail. “That’s when pest management professionals get the call and that’s when their expertise and the means to trap and control mice and rats demonstrate why their training is essential to controlling and eliminating such problems.” As if rodents weren’t bad enough, many homes in New Jersey commonly suffer invasions by squirrels and bats. “Sealing cracks in the home’s foundation, storing firewood away from the home, cutting back tree limbs that provide access to the roof, and many other steps will be recommended by a professional pest management technician.” A wide variety of insect pests can over-winter in a home. Wasps and Yellow Jackets will hibernate in void areas under the roof and emerge when the weather turns warm to begin new colonies and build nests.

Bed Bug Awareness Week

The National Pest Management Association, along with New Jersey’s, is also sponsoring “Bed Bug Awareness Week”, from April 20 to April 26. “As a nation we have gone from having virtually eliminated bed bugs to now experiencing a widespread infestation. Like other pest species, a do-it-yourself effort to get rid of them usually doesn’t work.” Douglen reminds everyone that cockroaches are nature’s greatest survivors and that even a few can swiftly multiply into hundreds once the weather triggers their instinctual behavior “Mother Nature never takes a vacation and affords insect and rodents pests as well as other creatures many opportunities to reproduce in staggeringly high numbers. A home with its warmth, its ample supplies of food and water, and its wood components are magnets for pests of every description.” # # #

Gerbils and the Plague

In what may be the biggest news about pests since literally the Middle Ages, scientists are beginning to think that the rat, long blamed for the Black Death that killed off millions of Europeans, was not responsible for spreading the disease. Actually, scientists have long known that the rat was not directly responsible for spreading the Bubonic Plague. The rats were, instead, suspected to be hosts for the fleas that spread the Plague, and when rats came near homes, people, or pets they could transmit the fleas, who would then bite people and spread the devastating disease. While scientists still agree that fleas were the hosts responsible for spreading the Plague directly to humans, instead of arriving on the back of threatening, scary-looking rats, they now think these fleas arrived on the backs of cute and cuddly gerbils. That is right; the most deadly contagious disease to impact humankind in all of known history was probably spread by an animal many of us have kept as a pet. Nils Christian Stenseth, an evolutionary ecologist at the University of Oslo began to question the idea of rats as the hosts for the Plague by observing the number of rats still in Europe and contrasting it with the fact that the Plague is no longer found in European cities. The Plague is, however, still found in Asia, where it happens to be carried by gerbils. The theory is that the gerbils brought the Plague to Europe from Asia. Climate records suggest that during periods of harsh climates, there would have been mass die-offs in the gerbils’ population, prompting their parasites, including the Plague-carrying fleas, to seek other hosts, including animals and humans traveling through Asia and eventually into Europe. To read more on Gerbils Likely Pushed Plague To Europe in Middle Ages Click Here So, should you ditch your child’s pet gerbil, just to be safe? No. Pet store gerbils are far removed, both in time and place, from their Asian ancestors and do not carry the Plague. And, does that mean you should not worry if you see a rat in your home? Absolutely not. First, rats were definitely the carriers for the Plague outbreak in America in the start of the 20th century. Second, rats carry a wide variety of diseases that go far beyond the Plague. Whether your pest problem is rodents or the fleas they carry, Viking Pest Control has the solution to your pest problems.

Winter Break For Pests? Not For All of Them

By Gregory Covello, A.C.E. (Associate Certified Entomologist) Winter is normally a time when our focus on pests in the garden is at its least. The majority of the insect world is taking a break from visiting our gardens, orchards, and farms. However, not all pests take a winter vacation. The time is now that we take a look for signs of common rodents.

Winter

During the winter months most of the resources that rodents rely on dwindle. However, if you utilize winter cover crops, some of the much needed food sources for rodents still may exist throughout the winter. Inspect your grounds for trails or burrows that mice and rats may leave behind. Check for disturbances in leaf litter, soil, and vegetation. Trails will occasionally have rodent droppings present as well which will help you properly identify what rodent may be paying you a visit. Mice have pointed droppings approximately ¼ inch and rats have rounded blunt droppings approximately ¾ inch.

House Mouse (Mus musculus)

The most common winter pest is the house mouse (Mus musculus). The house mouse is a small rodent about 3-4 inches (head to tail) in length as an adult. Most commonly this type of mouse will have grey fur. The house mouse is classified as an omnivore however plant material is its primary choice diet. Any plant material can provide the house mouse with the nourishment it needs to survive the colder months. If a winter cover crop strategy is used, make sure you are inspecting your ground cover. Winter greens not only provide the house mouse with food, but a good ground cover provides the house mouse with shelter from the harsh cold environment.

Rattus Norvegicus

Another pest that growers commonly encounter in the colder months is the Rattus norvegicus. This rodent is referred to by many common names including the brown rat, Norway rat, common rat, and sewer rat. Despite the common name “brown rat”, the Rattus norvegicus can and commonly does have grey fur as well as brown fur. An adult rat is about 15-20 inches (head to tail). A brown rat is the epitome of an omnivore. There is very little that a rat will not eat. Gardeners and growers that have encountered brown rats would agree that corn is a commonly unrecognized favorite food. Unlike the smaller house mouse, the rat needs an ample water supply to survive through the rough winter months.

Integrated Pest Management Strategies

If you have identified either of these common winter pests roaming your grounds, it is time to implement (or revisit) an IPM (integrated pest management) strategy. Without a good IPM plan in place, the rodent population will be doing the majority of the blooming come the spring. Both mice and rats have quick reproductive cycles. Now is the time to manage outdoor populations of rodents as breeding often ceases during winter months. Remember, as with any IPM plan, the use of pesticides should be reserved as a last step. Start by removing harborage sights such as leaf litter and old abandoned equipment. (Spare tires, a broken down tractor, unused storage containers, etc) Search for any items that may be accumulating water and remove them. If weather permits, inspect and turn your mulch piles. Mulch may contain numerous sources of food if the pile isn’t properly managed. Monitor burrows by collapsing them or filling them with soil. If the burrows reappear within a few days, you have confirmed activity. Often landscape modification and good grounds maintenance is enough to expose mice and rats to predation. If these winter visitors still persist after implementing a cleanup strategy, trapping should be considered as the next step. As a final step, rodenticide baits and powders can be utilized. Be aware of local and state laws before applying any pesticides, or contact Viking at 1-800-618-2847 Now is the time to get an early start to the growing season this year by implementing your winter rodent IPM plan. Editor’s note: Gregory Covello, ACE is an Associate Certified Entomologist and District Manager for Viking Pest Control based out of Warren, Somerset County. He is a back yard gardener and hobbyist bee keeper. He can be reached at gcovello@vikingpest.com.

The Digger Bee

 

They're Back!! - Digger Bees

Digger Bee Viking Pest ControlThe Digger Bee has returned and is terrorizing gardeners and homeowners throughout our service area. Have you seen mounds appearing in your lawn or garden? Is there a tiny bee that moves very quickly frequenting that mysterious mound? If you answered yes, the Digger Bee has found you! Digger Bees Viking Pest ControlThis bee is a solitary bee, meaning, there is no Queen, and there is no colony. Instead, each mound is an indication of an individual nest. BUT, don’t let the fact that the digger bee is “solitary” fool you! Once a digger bee finds a suitable terrain (if you have them, they thought that your terrain was suitable) they may visit you to the tune of hundreds, if not thousands! Give us call today to eradicate your issue before the Diggers lay claim to your lawn and garden!        

Catch The Roach Coach

Our Roach Coach has launched in the Tri-State area. Take a photo and tweet it to @vikingpest on and you'll be entered to win $100!

Viking Pest Control Acquires Accent Pest Services

Viking is very proud to announce the acquisition of Accent Pest Services! http://ow.ly/vOaNQ

Pest-Proof Your Home

April is “National Pest Management Month” - Pest Controllers offer tips Disseminated by The Caruba Organization Alan Caruba April is National Pest Management Month and with the advent of spring, Leonard Douglen, the Executive Director of the New Jersey Pest Management Association, reminds homeowners that pest-proof one’s home protects against “threats to health and, importantly, damage to one’s greatest investment.” “Nationwide, termites will do $5 billion dollars of damage to homes and other structures this year,” says Douglen. “Here in New Jersey, as many as three out of every five homes are likely to have active termite colonies and all are subject to a termite infestation because the warm weather triggers the huge numbers of winged termites that will establish new colonies.”

Annual Inspections

“Without annual inspections, most homeowners are unaware they have an active colony of termites until it has been in place for three or four years,” says Douglen. “When they notice winged termites, usually around window sills, they call a pest management firm. An inspection of one’s home will not only identify the presence of termites, but initiate measures to both eliminate them and deter future infestations.”

Carpenter ant infestation

Inspections may also find colonies of carpenter ants. In addition to termite infestations, Douglen says that “Carpenter ant infestations can be just as devastating to a home or other structure, but they don’t get the same amount of publicity. An entire colony of Carpenter ants can emerge from winter hibernation and enter a home in the thousands in a single day.”

Rodent Control

In the late fall and winter rodent species, looking for a warm harborage, invade homes, “Once inside, they will chew on wires and pose a threat of fire. Since rodents urinate and defecate wherever they go, the potential for diseases increases, particularly when they invade food storage areas.” Do-it-yourself pest control efforts usually fail. “That’s when pest management professionals get the call and that’s when their expertise and the means to trap and control mice and rats demonstrate why their training is essential to controlling such problems.” As if rodents weren’t bad enough, many homes in New Jersey commonly suffer invasions by squirrels and bats. “Sealing cracks in the home’s foundation, storing firewood away from the home, cutting back tree limbs that provide access to the roof, and many other steps will be recommended by a professional pest management technician.”

Wasps and Yellow Jackets

A wide variety of insect pests can over-winter in a home. Wasps and Yellow Jackets will hibernate in void areas under the roof and emerge when the weather turns warm to begin new colonies and build nests.

Cockroaches

Cockroaches are nature’s greatest survivors and even a few can swiftly multiply into hundreds once the weather triggers their instinctual behavior New Jersey is home as well to a thriving population of raccoons and opossums who think that garbage cans are open-air cafeterias. “Taking care to ensure that trash containers are tightly sealed can go far in avoiding unwelcome visitors,” says Douglen. “Mother Nature never takes a vacation and affords insect and rodents pests, as well as other creatures many opportunities to reproduce in staggeringly high numbers. A home with its warmth, its ample supplies of food and water, and its wood components are magnets for pests of every description.” Founded in 1941, the New Jersey Pest Management Association’s member firms are all licensed and certified by the Department of Environmental Protection. It maintains an Internet site at www.njpestcontrol.com with information about firms throughout the State and about various pest species.

National Young Entrepreneur Award

 

Viking Pest Control President presented with National Young Entrepreneur Award

Viking Pest Control President Ryan Bradbury was presented with the National Young Entrepreneur Award at NPMA’s (National Pest Management Association) PestWorld, this year in Phoenix, AZ. Bradbury was recognized with the second annual Young Entrepreneur Award. "The NPMA Young Entrepreneur Award is a new industry award established to recognize young entrepreneurs working in the professional pest management industry who have helped create or develop an industry, business, or have stewarded a meaningful industry concept to fruition," said presenter John Myers. "Amazingly, some of our nominees this year have done all of these things." Ryan Bradbury Copesan Board of Directors, Viking Pest ControlBradbury, who worked as an equity trader and for Schering Plough prior to joining the family business, has played in integral role in Viking’s recent growth the past 12 years. Since Bradbury came on board, the company has grown by 350 percent. Bradbury has been an active NPMA member, serving on numerous committees. He’s also been active in local charities/organizations, such as the Association of Retarded Citizens of Somerset County, and he donates blood every eight weeks for the last 9 years. Ryan is a board member of NJPMA and Quality Pro. Bradbury thanked NPMA for the recognition, which he said he shares equally with his other family members involved in the industry, dad Ed Bradbury, and brother Dan Bradbury. “It was certainly a surprise and a great honor,” said Bradbury. “I really think that there is a great generation of people in the industry right now — people in the same age-frame as me — that are doing great things, so to be chosen is really flattering.” “Most importantly, I’d like to thank my team members at Viking Pest Control who make me look better than I am. In my heart, I know those great employees make Viking the great company it has become.”      

What to Do About the Head Lice Plague

What to Do About the Head Lice Plague

They Bite 10 to 12 Million “As young people return to school one very common problem many will encounter is head lice,” says Leonard Douglen, the Executive Director of the New Jersey Pest Management Association. “Head lice are known to infest between ten to fifteen million people nationwide every year.”

Head lice

“While head lice are not a pest control problem,” says Douglen, “they are a health problem that involves a creature that passes easily between school children and which requires the attention of parents to eradicate because they depend on a blood meal to live and reproduce.” Children transmit lice to one another most commonly during the early fall from August to November, when they return to school. As a result, infestations are often most noticeable by December and January as their populations rapidly grow.

Egg Hatching

“Female lice can lay six or seven eggs (nits) a day,” says Douglen, “as many as fifty to a hundred in their short lifetime. Adults cannot survive, however, without a blood meal.”

Appered

The most common way children pass them along occurs when they share combs, hats, and other personal belongings. “If a child complains of an itchy head, that’s usually a sure sign that they have been exposed to lice that are biting,” said Douglen.

Eggs

“Lice can be seen with a careful inspection of a child’s head,” says Douglen, “and the eggs look like tiny yellow, tan or brown dots before they hatch. When they do hatch, their shell looks white or clear. Lice lay nits on hair shafts close to the skin’s surface where the temperature is perfect for keeping them warm until they hatch.” They resemble dandruff. He recommends using a magnifying glass and a light for better visibility.

Lifespan and Damage

Lice become adults within one to two weeks and are about the size of a sesame seed and are grayish-white or tan. “They will take a blood meal several times a day,” says Douglen, “and can live up to two days off the scalp.” The most noticeable response to an infestation is itching and scratching although some children with less sensitive skin will take several weeks before they begin to scratch the irritation.

Basic Treatment

Beyond warning children against sharing combs, hats and other items, daily washing and changing of clothes will help prevent the problem. “When children return to school, a daily inspection is recommended,” says Douglen. “And as soon as an infestation is detected, wash all clothes and bedding in hot soapy water, then put them in the dryer on high heat to exterminate the lice and eggs.”

Removal process

There are over-the-counter creams, lotions, and shampoos that contain permethrin or pyrethrins (an extract) as active ingredients to exterminate the adults and nits. Douglen recommends shampoos as an effective way to eliminate the problem, but adds that parents should purchase a special fine-toothed comb to aid the removal process. He reminds parents to soak combs in a lice-killing solution such as rubbing alcohol after each use. For children of pre-school age who may get lice from an older sibling, lice and nits should be removed by hand. Do not use a medication. “There is no need to treat furniture and toys with lice sprays because lice cannot live off a host longer than a few days,” says Douglen, “and for this reason it is not a pest control problem as in the case of bed bugs.” Lice are highly contagious and can spread quickly from person to person in group settings such as schools, childcare centers, slumber parties, sports activities, and camps. The New Jersey Pest Management Association was founded in 1941 and shares joint membership with the National Pest Management Association. It maintains a website at www.njpma.com that provides information on a variety of common insect and rodent pests, as well as member firms located throughout the State.

Christie Cockroach Wins 17th New Jersey Cockroach Derby

Event Sponsored by: New Jersey Pest Management Association Annual Clinic Brings Pest Controllers Together

New Brunswick, NJ (8/15/13) – A giant Madagascar Hissing Cockroach designated to represent Gov. Chris Christie handily sped past another designated as Barbara Buono who is contesting him in the November elections. The event was the 17th New Jersey Cockroach Derby. The race was held at noon on the Cook College Campus of Rutgers where the New Jersey Pest Management Association held its 66th annual clinic, tradeshow and clambake. “In the past two Cockroach Derby races,” said Len Douglen, the Association’s Executive Director, “the winning roaches represented John McCain and Mitt Romney respectively, so a win by the Christie cockroach may or may not reflect the outcome of the actual election in November.” In a series of trial races, the two cockroaches, both far larger than a typical German cockroach, demonstrated their speed as they sped down a six-foot-long Plexiglas “race track” as on-lookers cheered on their “candidate”. The men and women responsible for preventing and solving the many problems that pests represent, members of the New Jersey Pest Management Association, attend the annual Clinic in order to update their knowledge at a day-long series of seminars by some of the nation’s leading experts on aspects of pest control. Pest control professionals are certified annually by the State Department of Environmental Protection when they secure credits earned at events like the Clinic. “Pest control requires an extensive, science-based knowledge of a wide range of insect and rodent pests, among others,” said Douglen. “The New Jersey Association pioneered the concept of educating its members.” It was founded in 1941. The event was held in a vendors’ tent in the parking lot of Hickman Hall on the Cook College campus of Rutgers University in New Brunswick. The Clinic draws about six hundred members of the Association as well as some from out of state as well. The Association is also affiliated with the National Pest Management Association.