Peskies Pest Control Birmingham Alabama Podcast

Think fire ants are the worst thing hiding in your backyard? Think again. In this episode of the Peskies Pest Control Podcast, Travis introduces a stealthy new invader that's rapidly expanding across the Southeast: the Asian Needle Ant. Unlike common yard pests, these tiny, orange-legged insects don't build massive mounds—instead, they lurk quietly in mulch beds and woodpiles, packing a sting described as ‘liquid fire’ that can pose a serious medical threat. Tune in to learn how to spot their bizarre behavior, avoid their painful sting, and protect your yard from this aggressive ecosystem hijacker. Podcast Transcript:Travis: Hey everyone, welcome back to the Peskies Pest Control podcast. I'm Travis, your host. You know, we talk a lot on this show about ants, we talk a lot about termites, uh, little crawling insects like that, and we talk about how they're nuisances. Uh, you know, the ones that come along and ruin your outdoor gatherings in your backyard, um, or fire ants that, you know, leave itchy bumps on you and your kids’ ankles, you know, when you inadvertently walk through the grass and they, you know, you come into contact with them.But today we're going to discuss another pest that's been making some headlines this spring. You know, so we're halfway through May at this point, uh, and if you've been keeping up with the news, there's kind of a bit of a new insect in town. And that is the Asian needle ant.Now, I say new, although this ant has been around the United States for quite a while, um, but the “new” refers to the fact that they are currently exploding and invading across the Southeast. Uh, you know, a lot of experts refer to them as a medical pest, and there's a very good reason for that. If you're a gardener, uh, someone who enjoys hiking, uh, if you like to move a little bit of mulch in your backyard, then you need to know who these guys are before you reach into the wrong pile of leaves or dirt.So, you know, you may be asking, “Well, I've never heard of the Asian needle ant. What am I looking for exactly?” So, they're tiny, maybe even about a fifth of an inch long, if that kind of gives you an idea of just how small these Asian needle ants are. Now, as far as color goes, they're dark, they are kind of shiny and glossy, and almost black for most of their body.But there's a dead giveaway that you need to look for when you see these ants, and that is that they have a distinctive orangish-brown color to their legs and their jaws. So, almost a full black body, but their legs and their jaws are orange to orangish-brown. And honestly, you might not even see them coming because, unlike fire ants, they don’t build these huge nests in the middle of your lawn. They're a lot more stealthy. They do love moist and shaded areas. A lot of times you'll find them under, you know, rotting wood or logs, even maybe under your stones or pavers in your yard, or way down deep in a mulch bed. You know, they don't march in long straight lines like a lot of ants do when they make invasions on your house in your kitchen or, you know, in your bathroom. They are more likely to be loners and forage um, on their own, or solo.And you know, in fact, if an Asian needle ant actually finds a great food source, it doesn't leave a scent trail to attract other ants. But it actually goes back and picks up another ant and carries the ant to the food with them. Uh, so they're not communicating with those chemical trails that a lot of other ants leave. So, if you see what looks like an ant with two heads moving across a log or across a mulch bed, then you might actually be spotting this tandem carrying um, that these ants do, which is kind of classic needle ant activity.One more weird way to identify them is um, if you put them into a glass jar, a lot of ants can climb right up the side of a jar, but an Asian needle ant cannot climb any smooth surfaces. So, if it attempts to climb and it's sliding down to the bottom of the jar like it's maybe on a layer of slick ice, you've probably found an Asian needle ant.Now, let's talk a little bit about why they are referred to as medical pests. So, the sting has been described as liquid fire, uh, or as if someone is driving a hot needle into your skin. But here's the real danger: the ants are shy. They're not really aggressive like fire ants that, you know, come and swarm you the second that you step on a mound. So, most stings happen a lot of times when you accidentally trap one, you know, maybe you're wearing gardening gloves, one of them gets inside, or you lean against a tree where they're nesting. So, for most of us, it's just an intense localized pain. Uh, it can actually hurt for sometimes hours.But for about 1% to 2% of the population, it's actually a lot worse than that. So, these ants have an incredibly high rate of causing anaphylaxis. Uh, and if you don't know what that is, it's a life-threatening allergic reaction um, for people who may be hypersensitive to this interaction with the Asian needle ant. And so there's uh, people are reporting that, you know, those who have been stung by them, and they've lost consciousness within a minute of being stung. So, if you're already allergic to things like bees or wasps, then you probably have a much higher risk of this reaction.So, if you get stung, you feel dizzy, have trouble breathing, you end up having a reaction all over your body with hives—don't wait, don't put it off. I would say immediately call emergency services, dial 911. Uh, this is not just some sort of, you know, “rub some dirt on it” kind of situation where it's just going to go away like a lot of times people experience with fire ants. You just want to be extremely careful.And it's not just a threat to us; it's also a threat to our environment in general. So, uh, University of Georgia's actually done some research and show that in areas where these ants move in, native ants actually disappear. So, uh, they've actually done some studies where it looks like about 60% of the native ant population drops in the area where the Asian needle ants move in. And I know you think, “Well, I mean, ants are ants, who cares, right?” So, ants are what we can refer to as forest janitors. They turn the soil, um, they spread seeds for wildflowers. The Asian needle ant doesn't do anything like that at all. They come in, they dominate, they take over. Uh, they even move into termite galleries um, and force termites out, uh, which sounds like a win for your house, but it completely disrupts the ecosystem of the woods wherever they move in.So, you may be asking yourself, “Well, what do we do to combat this ant? What do we do to help fix this problem?” So, here's a couple of things: so clean up debris around your yard. You want to get rid of old wood piles, you want uh, get rid of old thinning layers of leaf litter. You want to watch for excessive moisture as well. So, if you got a leaky outdoor faucet, you may want to get that fixed and stop those leaks because these ants love and crave a damp environment. You know, when you're out and about, wear protective um, ensembles. You know, thick gloves, closed-toe shoes while you're working in the garden or moving landscape timbers, um, just protect yourself from the possibility of that interaction.And then also baiting can help too, um, and this is probably more from a pest control standpoint, although some people do, you know, attempt to do some pest control on their own. Um, but you know, a lot of times in the pest control world with ant baits, we have either sugar-based baits or protein-based baits. So, with these Asian needle ants, standard sugar-based baits a lot of times don't work because they prefer protein. So, if you're seeing them, you might need to call a professional who's got a professional-grade protein bait of some sort to get the job done with them as well.So, bottom line: the Asian needle ant’s not going anywhere, unfortunately, just like a lot of invasive species that come from other countries. Um, they get here, they take up residence, and they're here to stay. And as our climate warms up, they're only going to move further north. So, it's not about living in fear, it's about being aware of what's going on. So, when you're out and about outside, look for those ants with the orange, orangish-brown legs. Watch out for damp spots or, you know, old wood piles, mulch beds, things like that. And if you're hypersensitive to insect stings, definitely keep an EpiPen handy if you've had one prescribed by your doctor. Uh, if you have a high risk of having an anaphylactic reaction, it's definitely a good idea to keep that with you.Um, so thanks for tuning in. Uh, if you think you've found a colony in your yard, feel free to reach out to us. And probably not a bad idea to locate and reach out to your local agriculture extensions office—most areas have them. And let them know that you've found them—they're definitely keeping record and track of where these invasive ants are spreading to next.So, again, I'm Travis with Peskies Pest Control. Stay safe, stay pest-free, we'll see you next time. The post Worse Than Fire Ants? Meet the Asian Needle Ant appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

Welcome back to another episode of the Peskies Pest Control Podcast, your go-to guide for keeping your Alabama home safe and bug-free! In this episode, host Travis McGowin dives deep into a phenomenon every Alabamian knows all too well: the dreaded spring termite swarm. Picture a beautiful afternoon right after a rainstorm, only you look at your windowsill and see a shimmering cloud of vibrating insects. Before you slip into total “termite panic,” Travis breaks down the biology of these winged invaders, how to tell them apart from ordinary flying ants, and the critical “red light” warning signs that mean it’s time to put down the over-the-counter bug spray and grab the vacuum. Tune in to learn exactly what to do whether you find these pests inside or outside your home! Visit our Youtube Channel! Podcast Transcript:So, I want to give you a scenario. So, let’s just say that it’s a pretty spring afternoon. Storms rolled in, but the rain has just stopped. Sun’s peeking out through the clouds. And you look over to your windowsill to get a glimpse of how beautiful the day actually is becoming. Only to see a cloud of vibrating, shimmering insects on your windowsill inside your home. So, if you’ve lived in Alabama for more than a year, you probably know the feeling of what we will call termite panic. So today, we’re going to talk about the spring swarm. Why is it happening? Is your house currently being eaten, and most importantly, what do you do if you find this phenomenon on the inside versus the outside of your home?So first off, let’s talk a little bit about termite biology. These aren’t just any termites. These are termite alates. So, think of them as royalty in the termite world. So, they’ve got one mission. The termite colony itself is like a crowded city. So, once it gets a little too full, the colony produces these winged reproductive termites. Their only job, their only reason for existing, is to fly out, find a partner from a different city or colony, and establish a new colony. So, they’re waiting for that perfect weather window, which is usually, you know, a nice, warm, high-humidity spring day, and really after a rain is is uh definitely ideal for them. So, the ground is soft, it makes it new—or excuse me, makes it easier for a new queen to go in and burrow and start to establish that colony. However, they’re terrible flyers. Um they do flutter around for a few minutes, often carried and pushed around by the wind if they’re outside. But if they’re inside your house, they flutter around for a few minutes, they’ll shed their wing—their wings, and then attempt to go to work. So, if you see piles of, you know, translucent termite wings on your porch or on your windowsill, then that means that their nuptial flight is over and they’re trying to start the work of what it is they’re really trying to do.Now, before you call an exterminator uh in, you know, just a complete and sheer panic, let’s talk about it and make sure that you aren’t looking at flying ants. So, ants do swarm at the same times, look almost identical when you glance at them, but there are a couple of key and important differences that you need to know about to make sure that you identify whether or not it is a termite or an ant.So, termites have thick, straight bodies. Ants have a pinched waist kind of resembling an hourglass. So, if the body’s approximately the same size from head to toe, or from front to back, I should say, it’s probably a termite. However, ants have that pinched hourglass waist.The next thing you can look at to identify them is their antennae. So, termites’ antennae, um they’re straight and look almost like they have a bunch of little tiny beads that build their antennae up. If you look at ants, they have elbowed or bent antennae.And then, another unmistakable sign that can help you identify termites versus ants is the wings. That’s probably one of the easiest ways to tell what it is you’re dealing with. So, termites have four wings that are all equal length in size. Ants, on the other hand, have four wings. However, the front wings are a lot longer than the back ones, so you’ll have two long wings and two shorter wings. Uh so, if the other methods, the the body and the antennae are a little bit too difficult for you to identify, the wings are definitely almost always a dead giveaway.So, let’s get into what now if you discover this phenomenon, and that depends entirely on where exactly you found this going on.So, in the first scenario, which would be more ideal maybe, they’re outside. If you see them swarming from a stump in your yard, a fence post, a dead tree, something like that, do not panic. This is a natural part of the ecosystem in the woods around your property. It means that somewhere nearby, you have a mature termite colony and can kind of give you like a yellow light warning. If you picture a traffic light, you know, red means stop, yellow means caution, green means go, this is probably like a yellow light warning. You need to check your foundation for mud tubes, um check the interior and exterior of your house for signs of termites. But mud tubes are kind of like, you know, a line of dried dirt that’s about the size of a pencil, and it goes up the side of the foundation or brick or concrete of your house. You want to make sure you don’t have any of those. Um because that can signify that termites are either already trying to invade your house or have already invaded your house.So, the second scenario to this would be that you find this phenomenon inside your home. So, if you happen to see these winged alate termites coming out of a baseboard, from around a light fixture, a crack in the drywall, around a window frame, the reality is is that this is a red light. This is a big stop sign. You need to stop, take heed uh because termites are swarming inside your home, and that almost always means that they are coming from within your walls, and they’re trying to get outside to go towards light. So, what I would do in this—in this scenario, if this is you, get you a vacuum and vacuum them up. And there’s going to be a lot of them, so just be prepared. Save a couple in a jar or somewhere where, you know, they’re not going to get away, and call Peskies Pest Control. Don’t wait. Call Peskies Pest Control.And then, the third part of this, and this is the big one: do not spray them with anything over the counter. No bug sprays. Um, you know, we don’t want to spray them. That spray, whatever you use that’s over the counter, will not reach the colony, will not kill the colony, and it can actually cause them to shut off where they’ve been accessing for the time being and just move to a different part of the house. So, we definitely don’t want that. So, yes, vacuum up these pests. Vacuum them up, save some for your pest control professional, and then do not spray anything on them. You’re going to make life a lot more difficult in getting rid of these termites if you do spray them with something.So, the bottom line: termite swarmers are just nature’s way of saying, “I’m here, I want to colonize.” If they’re outside, definitely be vigilant. Uh just the other day, I was at a customer’s property doing their termite renewal, checking their baiting system, and while I was around the outside of the house, there were termite swarmers flying everywhere. But, the customer can rest easy knowing that their house is protected. Termites cause billions of dollars in damage every single year. However, like most anything, if they’re caught early enough, they are manageable, the damage can be minimal. So, stay dry. You don’t want to have any moisture—high moisture content or anything that’s going to attract these termites. Keep an eye around your house, especially this time of year, and definitely get your house protected. Uh call Peskies Pest Control. We can come out, we can do a top-to-bottom, thorough inspection to make sure that you don’t already have a termite issue, and then subsequently prevent a termite issue from ever occurring. So, again, I’m Travis with Peskies Pest Control. Thanks, and we’ll see you next time. The post The Alabama Spring Guide to Termite Swarms appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

Welcome back to the Peskies Pest Control Podcast, where we look beyond the common household nuisance to discuss the serious health risks associated with local wildlife. In this episode, Travis dives into the recent headlines surrounding the MV Hondius cruise ship outbreak to explore the realities of Hantavirus—a severe respiratory disease with a staggering 40% mortality rate. While the news may be focused on the Atlantic, the danger actually begins on land with the rodents that enter our homes and workplaces. Join us as we discuss how professional exclusion and monitoring are your family’s best defense against these invisible pathogens. Podcast Transcript:Host: Hey everyone and welcome back to another episode of the Peskies Pest Control Podcast. So today we don’t necessarily want to discuss the nuisance side of pests, but we want to talk a little bit about the dangerous side of pests. So anyone who has been on social media, watched the news lately, you probably seen headlines referring to the MV Hondius. If you’re not familiar with that, it is a cruise ship that was out in the Atlantic Ocean and is dealing with a now deadly outbreak of what is known as Hantavirus. So three people have died, there's quite a few more being monitored around the world. CDC says they’re on high alert and it just sounds like something out of a horror movie, right? Or a suspense movie of some sort. You got a Hantavirus outbreak out in the middle of the ocean, but the truth is this is not a cruise ship problem, this is not an ocean problem. This is a rodent problem. Very often it starts on land, even in some of the places where you live and you work.What is Hantavirus?Host: So you may ask yourself, what exactly is Hantavirus? In short, it is a severe respiratory disease. So, you know, we have different strains of Hantavirus, but you know, the scary part is is that it has a mortality rate of nearly 40%. So compare that to the flu or even COVID-19 and you realize, you know, how potentially serious this can be. So, you know, you may be wondering how do you get Hantavirus? Well, you don’t get bitten by a mouse or a rat to get sick from this virus. It’s actually a lot easier than that and you don’t even have to contact a live rodent to get it. But the virus is carried by rodents, some mice, some rats, and they usually shed or disperse the virus when they urinate or when they defecate or even from their saliva. So you can get it from urine, their droppings, their spit. And when their droppings dry out and you sweep them up or you vacuum them or you clean them up, especially in large rodent infestations, the virus almost becomes aerosolized, you know, floating around in the air and then you breathe it in and you are at risk for Hantavirus in that moment or at that time.The MV Hondius ConnectionHost: So realistically, you know, how did this happen on a cruise ship? Well, the outbreak, you know, we can speculate all we want to but it likely started before the passengers were even on the boat. You know, there are reports that the first victims may have been exposed while birdwatching or visiting remote areas in Argentina. But two things to note here. The virus has quite a long incubation period, so somewhere in the upwards of 8 weeks. So you might not even really know that you’re sick until way after you’ve already been exposed. And you could see where somebody maybe got on the cruise ship having already been exposed to this virus. And it only takes one small interaction with an infested area, you know, to set this off. So on the ship, because it was a certain specific strain, it began to spread through close contact between the guests on the ship. And this is why we say, you know, that pest control isn’t just about property itself. Yeah, we love protecting your property from insects and from rodents and wildlife, but the big picture of pest control really is about public health.Bringing it Home – Why Pest Control MattersHost: So I know what you’re thinking now, it’s like, well, I’m not on a cruise ship in the Atlantic, or I’m not going to get on a cruise ship in the Atlantic. But here’s the unfortunate reality: every time that a rodent, a mouse or a rat enters your crawlspace, your attic, your kitchen pantry, they are bringing what is on the outside and bringing it in. So they’re not just looking for your food, they’re leaving behind a biological footprint that can in the long run affect you, your pets, your children. In Peskies, we don’t just kill bugs. You know, we create barriers between you and your family and your pets and we create the barriers between that group and these types of groups, the insects, the rodents, the wildlife, that sort of thing. So for rodents specifically, exclusion is extremely important and when I say exclusion, I mean sealing off the entry points so that they cannot get in in the first place. And then on top of that, sanitization is extremely important. If you find droppings, it may not be the best idea to sweep them up. It might be a better idea to call a professional who knows how to disinfect, who has the appropriate personal protective equipment or PPE to deal with that type of issue just to protect you and your family from aerosolizing those those types of diseases. And then of course after exclusion and sanitization, monitoring is important. Rodents didn’t advance as long and as far as they have without being experts at hiding. So professional monitoring and inspection finds them before it becomes this massive huge infestation which can then in turn become a massive and huge health risk for you and your family.Closing & Call to ActionHost: So, you know, from our point of view and definitely the world’s point of view, the news, you know, coming from that cruise ship, the MV Hondius, is definitely a tragedy. But I do think that it is a broader wake-up call. You know, we share our world with different insects, with rodents, with wildlife, but our living spaces we shouldn’t have to share in terms of the air with these pathogens that they, you know, spread. So do not wait until you see a mouse running across your floor because chances are they’ve been there for a lot longer than you have actually realized or then that you have actually seen. If you hadn’t had an inspection, if you don’t have general pest control on a regular basis, give us a call at Peskies Pest Control. Let’s make sure that your home stays a sanctuary for yourself and your family and not a habitat for rodents, wildlife and pests. So stay safe, stay pest-free, and we’ll see you next time here on the Peskies Pest Control Podcast. The post Hantavirus: What You Need to Know! appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

As summer temperatures hit a sunny 72°F, outdoor enthusiasts are hitting the trails to hike and bike. However, this beautiful weather also brings the rise of a dangerous parasitic creature: the Asian longhorned tick. In this episode of the Peskies Pest Control Podcast, Michael Wienecke discusses how these self-sufficient pests can breed without a mate and explores the best ways to protect your yard and family from the pathogens they carry. Podcast Transcript:Michael Wienecke:“Hey, so it is summertime and everyone is out there running these trails, biking, hiking, enjoying this great weather we’re having right now, 72 and sunny. I myself am enjoying it, especially in my backyard. But with this beautiful weather also comes a parasitic creature and today we’re going to be talking about ticks.I don’t like ticks, I don’t think anybody likes ticks. They embed in your skin and they can cause all kinds of diseases. We’ve got this new tick that is just sweeping the nation throughout the United States and it’s the Asian longhorned tick. So I kind of wanted to just bring some attention to that. I personally have not seen any in the field or any of that, but I just wanted to talk about it and it is really just kind of predicted to be a wave over this entire country.So they’re bad, they cause disease. Biggest thing, you know, we’ve got Lyme disease in this country, Rocky Mountain spotted fever. They are pathogens or they can transfer pathogens back and forth from each other. That’s how they get them. So when they bite an animal, they will bite that animal with a disease, they’ll absorb that disease and then they can transfer it from animal to animal to animal. And unfortunately there are quite a few ticks in the United States that can already transfer that disease from human to animal and back and forth. So ticks are just all around pretty bad.Another thing about the Asian longhorned tick is that it can breed without a mate. So it’s able to lay eggs without having to mate. That’s kind of scary because it can—it’s self-sufficient.Let’s talk about some ways that you can help prevent ticks in your area. So just, you know, keeping your yard nice and trimmed, keeping a really manicured, you know, all the bushes need to be cut down, just kind of out of the way because that’s what those little guys do is they just hang out on the edge of those bushes and branches or whatever it may be and as you brush up against it, those guys are latching onto you and it’s very hard to even feel them crawling on you and then all of a sudden, you know, you’re figuring it out maybe the next day and you got a tick that’s already embedded in you and you have to remove that little guy. So that’s no fun.So let’s talk about just some ways to prevent this tick over, you know, walking through these trails. Wear long sleeves, long pants, socks. If you want to spray a little bug spray on you, especially in the woods, definitely going to be helpful. Just try to keep yourself as covered up as possible and that’s going to prevent them mostly. And then of course just stay on the trails or stay away from the brush line and you should be okay.So again just picking up debris, stuff around the house, cutting the grass, keeping it short, keeping, you know, the bushes away from the house, manicured and then just watching where you play. You know, if that doesn’t work, we treat for ticks so we’re going to treat the underside of the bushes kind of where those guys are hiding, where they’re along there and that’s going to prevent those guys from being able to multiply and continue to create tick after tick.They are really good multipliers, thousands of ticks at a time. So if you’ve ever seen those deer hunting videos where they’re just crawling up the hunter’s legs, they can get really bad real quick. So again, if you need any help, give us a call (205) 470-8161. Thanks, have a great day.” The post Tick Talk: Prevention, Protection, and Professional Treatment appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

Welcome to another episode of the Peskies Pest Control Podcast! In today’s episode, Michael Wienecke and Travis McGowin peel back the mask on one of nature’s most clever “bandits”: the raccoon. While these “trash pandas” might look cute from a distance, the duo discusses the gritty reality of dealing with them, from their human-like dexterity used to tear into roofs to the serious health risks like rabies and roundworm. Whether they are falling into living rooms or turning your attic into a “two-for-one” special with a side of fleas, you’ll learn why you definitely don’t want these vicious critters as roommates. Like us on Facebook! Podcast Transcript:Michael: So Travis, when’s the last time you were in your attic?Travis: Uh, a couple weeks ago actually. I was, uh, running some wiring for a new Wi-Fi internet system at my house.Michael: Okay, well I can guarantee that most of humanity is not running Wi-Fi throughout their attic in their – on their spare time. Uh, is that what you did?Travis: Oh, I’ll tell you, I will tell you that if most of humanity experienced Wi-Fi like I have at my house, they would.Michael: I mean we got mics dropping, you know, internet going down, you know, I – we gotta have somebody that – that knows what he’s doing. Anyway, we’re getting way off topic. Uh, well for the people that are not in their attic right now, what is – uh, what are we seeing a lot of, you know, things that are crawling around in attics right now? Besides squirrels – I mean we just did a podcast on squirrels, but what’s the other – uh, bandit that – uh, is getting in the house?Travis: I mean definitely the appropriate question should always be like, what’s living in your attic?Michael: Or in your crawl space.Travis: Or in your crawl space. That is – uh, definitely an area of concern with this particular – uh, nuisance wildlife, but – uh, you know, I’ll just go and say it, raccoons. I mean raccoons are something that you – I don’t know why that was funny.Michael: ‘Cause we drew it out so long before talking about it.Travis: Yeah, we did. It was like, kept everyone in suspense clearly.Michael: I hope the suspense was suspenseful.Travis: Uh, so they probably want to hear more about my Wi-Fi at my house, but anyway.Michael: But no, the raccoons are definitely something that you don’t want living in your home.Travis: Uh, it was funny, I was – this has been – uh, probably like two years ago or so, but I was sitting on the floor in the living room one evening, it was after 7:00, 7:30 in the evening, – uh, playing with my kids and my phone vibrated and there was a voicemail on our business line. And it was a lady in Montgomery who – uh, she – uh, had left a message saying that she needed desperate help because there was a raccoon in her living room at that very moment.Michael: Did it fall through the floor?Travis: Uh, I don’t really know the logistics of how the raccoon got into the living room. Uh, you ever see that commercial where the lady’s like calling to her cat in the yard but she doesn’t have her glasses on or whatever and she like lets the raccoon in? I don’t know if it was a situation like that.Michael: Anyway, so I looked at my wife and I’m like, you know, it’s after dark but I’m gonna call this lady back. So I did call her back, she had somebody on the way – uh, and I followed up with her the next morning and they actually did in fact somehow catch the raccoon. Uh, I don’t know what exactly method, you know, what method they used or anything like that. But – uh, not something that you want to tangle with. Michael, why don’t you elaborate on why raccoons might not be as cute and cuddly as people think?Michael: Uh, well they have – they’re just vicious. I mean they look so – they look like a little baby cat from really far away and they’re puffy and, you know, I – I kind of – I’m gonna refer back to that – uh, I believe it was in another country but the lady that went and took pictures of the – the wild cat that was in the mountains in the snow. She got mauled pretty bad. So something that looks cute and cuddly – uh, with fangs and – and claws and all that – uh, can do some major damage. So just stay away from ’em, especially if you’re seeing ’em in the daytime.Travis: Yeah, you know, I have had one try to eat me through a cage before after trapping it.Michael: I’ve had a lot try to eat me through the cage.Travis: It did – it did not look cute and cuddly as it was like snarling at me trying to tear me up through the cage.Michael: So – uh, I was sold right then on the belief that they’re not as cute and cuddly as everybody thinks they are.Travis: But aside from their looks, you know, one of the biggest problems with them is rabies. Uh, I like what you said a second ago about, you know, not toying with ’em if you see ’em in the daytime. Uh, that’s a kind of – definitely a telltale sign, you know, raccoons coming around humans is a telltale sign.Michael: Well there’s a couple situations in the daytime, you know, if – if you’ve got the neighbor feeding the raccoon constantly and it’s good food then that could bring ’em out in the daytime. Uh, we see some of that. And then the other one would be either, you know, just maybe some – some reason it got uprooted from wherever it was. But typically the daytime is not – is not the best time to see a nocturnal animal.Travis: I very rarely ever see them in the daytime.Michael: Uh, I’ve had some strange encounters with raccoons now that I think about it. But – uh, there was one morning we had got up, it was still kind of dark outside, we were letting our dogs out, we were getting the kids up, getting them ready for school. And I just remember hearing the dogs outside just going completely nuts. I’m talking about like, you knew something was going on. It wasn’t like a barking at the neighbor or something like that. So – uh, I went outside to see what was going on and our dog at the time was, I’m talking about losing his mind about a raccoon walking through the yard. And that raccoon did not show me any regard, didn’t even act like it knew I was there, didn’t act like it knew the dog was there. Uh, you know my dog was just several, you know, a few inches, a foot away maybe barking and growling and just, you know, acting crazy. And the raccoon did not even attempt to defend itself or anything. So I – I honestly thought that something maybe like rabies or something was going on with that raccoon. He – he was not concerned about our existence.Michael: Well and he probably would have won that fight against you or – uh, your dog.Travis: Absolutely he would have.Michael: My – that dog was very much all bark, no bite. So – uh, I don’t see him winning a – a scuffle with a raccoon.Travis: But it was – it was very alarming that morning that the raccoon just did not try to get away, didn’t run, didn’t fight back, didn’t do anything, just kind of slowly just was, you know, meandering through there and – and – uh, you know that was kind of a – a weird encounter. So definitely could have been rabies.Michael: They all have rabies Travis. Every single raccoon has rabies – I mean really that’s the way I just treat it. Like don’t let ’em scratch you, don’t let ’em bite you, no harm no foul and then – uh, you’re good to go. So – uh, let’s talk about just like squirrels, you know – uh, the main ways that they get into your attic, into your living space, – uh, you know all that kind of stuff. What – what are some ways they get in?Travis: Well first of all access is very, very, very important. Uh, or should I say not giving them access. It brings up – uh, one of the customers that I trapped a raccoon for – uh, that was in Montgomery a couple of years ago. So – uh, we – we knew that there was noises in the attic, they weren’t sure what they were. So I went up in the attic. When I saw the droppings of a raccoon, I immediately got out of the attic. Uh, because I’m not going to be in an enclosed space with a raccoon. It’s very likely that he was probably there at the time – uh, during the day anyway. So – uh, you know, I – I did my inspection and they had a couple of trees here and there that were close to the house that I kind of suspected that the raccoon was going up and down the trunk of the tree and getting over on the roof line.Michael: Uh, and so, you know, that’s – that’s a big one. Obviously raccoons – uh, are very smart.Travis: Physically they’re very, you know for their size they’re strong. Uh, they’ve got great dexterity with their hands. Uh, basically almost human-like dexterity with their hands. And so, you know, they – they – they can sniff out if there’s a gap that they can exploit or something that they can tear into, they can sniff it out. And access, taking away that access is one huge – uh, advantage that you have as a homeowner in making sure that you don’t end up with one in your attic or your crawl space.Michael: Well and I like how you said too, I mean with the – with the dexterity of the human-like appendages, you know, they can tear shingles right out. Uh, we’ve seen holes in roofs, we’ve seen – uh, you had one – I think you had a really good picture of one that tore off a – a vent on a roof and was getting in through the vent.Travis: That was the house that I was just referencing. Uh, yeah there was – uh, you know some people refer to them like mushroom vents or whatever but there was a – an attic vent on top of the roof.Michael: And – uh, I did not 100% know that that was the access point up until we actually trapped him inside of the attic. So we live trapped him in the attic and then I removed him and then really got to wondering okay, well where did he come in at?Travis: And that was where I got back in the attic looking and found a stud that was helping support, you know, the structure of the roof and it had claw marks just tearing it up up and down.Michael: And right above that stud was that vent with the – the screen torn out of it.Travis: Mhm. Well and – uh, probably the bat screen?Michael: Uh, yeah just general wildlife screen and – and there’s actually a good picture of that on our website if anybody wants to go – uh, and look at Pesky’s Pest Control dot com under our wildlife page for raccoon and you’ll see there’s a – a side-by-side photo showing the inside view and the outside view and from the outside you would have never known at all.Travis: So it was pretty – pretty neat find there.Michael: But yeah they’re man, if they find a – if they find a gap, crack, crevice they can exploit they’ll do it.Travis: Well and they have all night too because I mean they’re sitting there while we’re sleeping and they’re – they’re up and spright and ready to go.Michael: So they have all night to work on that, you know, corner of your roof line or the gable vent or – or – you know – uh, a gap between where the – uh, soffit and the fascia meet. You know, what – whatever it could be they have all night and multiple nights to work on it.Travis: Right. Uh, yeah they – they’ve got nothing but time. I mean their – their existence is one of, you know, food, water, shelter just like most anything, any insect, any wildlife that we deal with those are their three priorities.Michael: Uh, and they would prefer to live in your attic. Uh, it was actually kind of crazy on that one. So there was one corner of the attic close to the eaves of the house where – uh, I don’t know if that was its, you know, latrine bathroom area, whatever it was that the raccoon had going on.Travis: But directly below that area in the attic in the living space of the house, the customer’s dog had started to – if it had access to that bedroom it would go into that towards that wall which was right below that and start to scratch and destroy the sheetrock. Like the – the dog was scratching and gnawing and trying to get at the sheetrock because it could smell it above it in the attic.Michael: Wow was it a chimney void that it was getting into or how was it getting in the house?Travis: No that was – that was the one that was just getting on the vent – uh, in – you know, getting on the roof using the tree and limbs to get over and going in but there was something that raccoon was using that corner of the attic for and the dog could smell it – uh, and did not like it clearly.Michael: Well the other great thing about getting raccoons and I mean this in a sarcastic way is it’s a two-for-one ’cause a lot of times when you get raccoons in an attic you also get what? Fleas.Travis: Oh and not just – I mean there’s so many other wildlife – uh, issues that you can have that they – you know, that bring fleas – I mean rats, – uh, possums carry fleas – I mean there’s – there’s so many. Uh, but yeah I mean that’s like a buy one get one free kind of deal that you didn’t ask for, you know.Michael: Oh that happened last year, a raccoon died in someone’s attic and – and it – it brought they had a flea infestation throughout their whole house we had to take care of as well as get the raccoon out of the – out of the attic space. Let’s talk about the damage that they do inside, you know, with the – the – the pooping and the peeing. They’re just nasty creatures.Travis: I mean they’re – they’re going through – uh, I – you know, before we were talking about this podcast I think you said trash panda which is, you know, a great – great – uh, term for a – a raccoon because that’s what they do.Michael: It’s purely affectionate. It’s a purely affectionate term because I love ’em so much.Travis: Well that’s what they do, they get in the trash cans and so let’s talk about that for a minute, you know, make sure that you’re cleaning up around the house. If you’re having a barbecue that weekend make sure you’re not leaving it out, over especially this time of year because they are itching to get into inside your home. So make sure that you’re kind of picking up around not leaving anything that’s going to be a good food source for them to get around that property. But again the – the droppings, you know, they – they poop a lot and it can be – it can be pretty nasty.Michael: Well the droppings themselves – uh, can have a parasite. Uh, if you look it up it’s, you know, raccoon roundworm. Uh, they – they have a parasite and, you know, if – if you were to inhale it – uh, the eggs or inhale the parasite you can get severe neurological damage. So – uh, if you’re going to have to deal with those droppings you might want to wear a respirator. Just my two cents.Travis: Look if you’re going into a – an enclosed area, crawl space, attic, – uh, an – an old barn, put a respirator on. I mean you only got one set of lungs and that’s what I tell everyone that starts at Pesky’s Pest Control, you got one set of lungs so let’s – let’s keep ’em the way that they’re supposed to be.Michael: Well and you know, one last thing about raccoons, I mean, you know, they’re – like you said they’re nasty. They do damage property but think about the other damage that they’re doing in your attic despite their – their waste.Travis: I mean there is – there is certainly risk of chewing electrical wiring, – uh, you know doing that sort of thing, damaging your HVAC ductwork, – uh, messing up your insulation. Uh, I mean there’s just there’s a whole plethora of – of problems they can cause up there.Michael: Yeah. Hey actually really cool while we’re doing this podcast, I am actually just got a text, we’re heading to a customer’s house to set a raccoon trap to catch a raccoon getting in someone’s chimney.Travis: Very good. Well – uh, we’ll – we’ll take it – uh, we’ll take it from there and – uh, we hope you catch him.Michael: Oh we will catch him. The post Attic Invaders: How Raccoons Exploit Your Home appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

In this episode of the Peskies Pest Control Podcast, Travis McGowin and Michael Wienecke dive deep into the world of carpenter ants, the “other” wood-destroying insect that can cause significant, often undetected damage to a home. The team discusses how these pests differ from termites, highlighting their tendency to gnaw on wood for nesting rather than food. Through engaging stories—including a “detective” case in Prattville involving sawdust in a bathroom and a cautionary tale about a tree collapsing due to structural compromise—they explain the signs of an infestation and the importance of home maintenance. You'll also learn about the fascinating, “mutualistic” relationship between ants and aphids, and why Michael insists that the textbooks might be wrong about when these insects are most active. Like us on Facebook! Podcast Transcript:Introduction and Initial ReactionsTravis McGowin: How would you feel if you discovered that there was an insect essentially chewing on your house, other than termites?Michael Wienecke: I would be devastated and upset.Travis McGowin: Devastated and upset, those are your big emotions.Michael Wienecke: Distraught.Travis McGowin: Oh, distraught. Is there a difference between being distraught and devastated and upset?Michael Wienecke: Unnerved.Travis McGowin: We're just going to pull out every descriptive word we can think of now.Michael Wienecke: No, but seriously, I mean, one of the biggest investments that I have, yes, I would be very upset and I would call Pesky’s Pest Control and be like, “Hey, get rid of this problem for me, whatever it is, whatever's munching on my home.”Travis McGowin: You're not biased at all to the company, are you?Michael Wienecke: No, not at all. Just saying, call a reputable company and let them come and evaluate.Identifying Carpenter AntsTravis McGowin: Well, so what I'm getting at here is a very specific insect, and the one I am currently referring to is the carpenter ant.Michael Wienecke: Yes, we have been seeing a ton of carpenter ants. I have a lot in my driveway right now, just crawling all around.Travis McGowin: You know, the interesting thing is that carpenter ants can go unnoticed for so long due to a couple of reasons. Obviously, they are gnawing on wood, and most of the time wood is going to be in a not-so-visible place inside your house—inside the walls, inside the attic, the framing, the studs, that sort of thing. So, they can go undetected for so long until the damage is so significant and the population is so large. But what are some signs that you might actually be dealing with carpenter ants?Signs of InfestationMichael Wienecke: Well, I was going to say, unless it's a brick home, but you kept going, so…Travis McGowin: I stole your thunder, I'm sorry.Michael Wienecke: You stole my thunder. What are some signs? Well, the first sign would be carpenter ants, that would be the first sign. The second sign would be things getting kicked out of the baseboards or even little holes, sawdust, dead little insects, decapitated bodies, legs, antennae.Travis McGowin: Sounds like very violent little creatures.Michael Wienecke: Hey, they are clean little creatures, I will say that. They keep it smooth and they don't want anything messing up their home.Travis McGowin: You know, the very interesting thing too, and I'm going to touch on what you said a second ago about obviously seeing carpenter ants, however, there's one little fact that a lot of people don't know or don't realize as to why they might actually not physically see the carpenter ant itself. Can you guess why?Michael Wienecke: Is it because they are nocturnal?Travis McGowin: Absolutely.Michael Wienecke: Well, excuse me, hold on, they're not nocturnal, that's not the right thing to say. They feed in the nighttime, which is at night.Travis McGowin: Nocturnal is a very good…Michael Wienecke: Well, that's not fair because I've got them in the daytime… I don't know what's the word.Travis McGowin: I mean, yeah, you'll see an occasional carpenter ant out foraging around and doing things in the daytime, but the vast majority of them are going to be running around at night. That's where a lot of times if you have looked and you've got some sort of damage obviously from an insect that destroys wood and you feel like it's not a termite, then the time to really go out and scout is actually after dark.Michael Wienecke: I disagree with you 100% and I disagree with the book 100%. I think the best time to go out is early morning and late afternoon. I don't think you need to go out that late. I'm just saying, that's the one thing where I'm like, “The book’s got it wrong.”Travis McGowin: Questioning everything, Travis.Case Study: Prattville HomeTravis McGowin: Well, I will say that I have seen it both ways, actually. So, I had a customer over in the Prattville area that was obviously having some sort of carpenter ant issue they knew about, in between their first and second floor behind the sheetrock. It was kind of interesting, the bulk of the area where the issue was was tied to the ceiling above the master bathroom that was located on the first floor. And so, they actually would have bits of sawdust and, like you said, the insect parts, dead insect parts, fall from the vent fan that was located above the toilet and land on the toilet seat. So, they would like clean their toilet and then a little while later there would be like sawdust and everything else falling from the ceiling and getting on the toilet seat.Michael Wienecke: So, how, just curious, did they clean up all that after…? Did you do a treatment? How did that go?Travis McGowin: Yeah, absolutely. So, I inspected the house first and foremost to ensure that it was in fact carpenter ants that we were dealing with. And I did find a select few very large black ants that were scattered throughout little areas of the house on the first and second floor, kind of localized to that corner of the house where that bathroom was. So, I did, of course, believe we were dealing with carpenter ants.Travis McGowin: And then it became detective work. So, a lot of times you can have a carpenter ant nest inside of a house—it's not out of the realm of possibility—but I wasn't finding that type or amount of activity that led me to believe that they were taking up residence in a wall or in the ceiling or something like that. So, I started looking around the outside of the house, got to that outside brick veneer area that was kind of adjacent to that master bathroom, and started kind of stopping and looking around on the ground during the daytime. So, this proves a little bit of your theory that the books are wrong.Michael Wienecke: I'm telling you, it's only one thing.Travis McGowin: I'm ignoring you. Anyway, so I did find one or two carpenter ants running around on the ground, and then at that point, I started investigating the trees that were immediately to that side of the house. And I actually took a really cool video of it, but I found a tree that towards the bottom of the trunk of the tree had a giant hole in it. And I believe I just kind of like messed with the tree, kind of like kicked at it a little bit, caused some vibration, that sort of thing. And out of nowhere comes just this massive amount of carpenter ants coming out of this hole and I was like, “Oh, well, looks like I found the nest.” So, of course, obviously treated the nest, treated the house, customer has had zero problems with carpenter ants since that day.Nesting Habits and MoistureMichael Wienecke: Well, that is great because that's what we want to do, right? We want 100% satisfaction. So, let's talk about—I love how you said the nest and luckily it wasn't in their house, but they can also do satellite nests. So, you can have a nest in your house and then a nest outside in the tree. So, in large infestations, which typically take what, three to five years to get fully invested… Another thing too is they don't just nest in trees, they'll nest in the ground. In that particular home, was there any—why were they going to the bathroom? Was there any moisture issues there, any rot?Travis McGowin: Not that I saw. So, let me rephrase a little bit about the structure or the design of the house. So, the house actually did have a basement area underneath it. I did not personally see any moisture issues going on. Doesn't mean that they weren't there, just during my inspection I didn't see any obvious signs of, like you said, rotted or damaged wood, any idea that there could be a leak in the roof or something like that. I mean, they again, could have been there, but I didn't see any obvious signs or anything like that during the inspection.Risks and DamageMichael Wienecke: Gotcha. Well, let's talk about them other than, you know, a pest that destroys your home. You know, other than that, they really don't… They have the ability to bite, but they don't—they're typically not very aggressive in all the ants that we deal with. But they do have the ability to bite. So, biggest thing is just, I wouldn't get into a nest. I wouldn't mess with like a bunch of them at one time, you might have a problem, but one or two is completely fine.Travis McGowin: I think more so than the potential threat, like you said, of them retaliating against you, I really think that the frustration from these ants certainly comes more from their economic impact from just structural damage or physical damage of a house or of a property. You know, I would even think that in like, for example, in the case of that house that we were just discussing, if you had carpenter ants that were say, nesting in a tree, destroying a tree, well, I mean over time, you know, I would think that there's the potential that that tree could be structurally compromised if it's close to your structure, a storm comes through, is it going to weaken the trunk of that tree, is it more susceptible to fall on your house? I mean, I think that there's some more ongoing, extensive issues with them other than just them damaging your house directly.Michael Wienecke: 100%. Well, I mean, it goes into kind of what we talked about too, just the house maintenance. I feel like we talk about that with every issue. It's like just, you know, clean your house up, you know, fix your house, just, you know, get all the rotten wood, which I've got some that I gotta take care of this year too. So…Termites vs. Carpenter AntsTravis McGowin: Well, wood-destroying insects can—speaking of damaging trees—we had some termites eating in the roots of a tree in my front yard at one point. Got rid of the termites, obviously the tree was still dead. We left the house one morning, left the house, came back that evening, and there was a tree, that specific tree was laying in my front yard. It fell over. There was no storm, there was no rough winds or anything like that. The tree was just like, “I'm done,” and it just fell over in the front yard. Thankfully missing our house and obviously just leaving a mess in the front yard that we had to saw up and get rid of. But yeah, that structural damage for whatever length of time from the termites obviously weakened that tree and, you know, that could have been very serious, happening in the middle of the night and landed on our house or something like that from a life-safety standpoint, but it also could have been serious structural damage for our home.Michael Wienecke: Or your car, or you, or you know, something like that. So they definitely can cause damage. I think the biggest thing, though, is don't be alarmed when you see them in your house. How many major infestations have you seen from carpenter ants?Travis McGowin: Not many. You know, obviously not near as much carpenter ant activity in a house as say, an Argentine ant or something like that. I've definitely not seen where carpenter ants have been quite as big of an issue as some other breeds that we deal with.Michael Wienecke: Well, they don't want your home. I mean, they want something that's just nasty, rotten, something that they can really, you know, thrive off of.Foraging and AphidsTravis McGowin: Well, and they also, you know, from a food standpoint, they most of the time will actually eat honeydew, which is produced by an insect called an aphid. And a lot of times it's kind of like this mutual relationship between the carpenter ants and the aphids, where the carpenter ants will cause the aphids to, you know, excrete honeydew, which is like a sugary liquid that they'll feed the colony with. And the ants recognize the aphids as a food source, so they'll actually kind of protect the aphids from predators or whatever other predators prey on aphids. And then they'll even carry, you know, some food items that the aphids like to them to ensure that the aphids still, you know, stay alive and are able to produce honeydew. So it's kind of interesting how they'll have this mutual relationship to survive and thrive. And typically, you're not going to have an aphid infestation in your home; it's going to be up in a tree or wherever they're residing. So, yeah, the infestations in a home are a lot less, from what I've seen, not quite as common.Michael Wienecke: More aphid, more problem.Travis McGowin: Is that the saying?Michael Wienecke: I mean, typically with ants, yes. The more aphids you have, the more problems you will have. The post Identifying and Managing Carpenter Ant Infestations appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

In this episode of the Peskies Pest Control Podcast, Michael Wienecke and Travis McGowin dive into the seasonal “explosion” of squirrel activity and the havoc these bold climbers wreak on local homes. From chewing through electrical wiring—which can lead to dangerous structure fires—to tearing into gable vents and rooflines, the team discusses the serious risks and requirements involved in a professional eviction. You will learn how simple landscaping mistakes like untrimmed crepe myrtles provide a “bridge” for rodents and the tactical logistics required to successfully trap and seal out these persistent unwanted guests. Podcast Transcript:Squirrels in the AtticMichael Wienecke: All right, so who wants something crawling around in their attic?Travis McGowin: I know personally I hate crawling around in my attic, so I don’t know why anything would want to live up there in the first place. But far be it from me to tell wildlife that they can’t go in my attic, right?Michael Wienecke: So we have seen just an influx of, uh, things in attics here recently and they’ve just been squirrels and I, uh, I mean it’s, it’s just been an explosion.Travis McGowin: Yeah, ’tis the season. Um, and, and I feel like it’s like this every single spring realistically right there into that transition from winter to spring, it’s like they’re just on the prowl looking for someone’s house to get into.Michael Wienecke: Or houses.Travis McGowin: Or houses, that’s right. That’s right.Michael Wienecke: Well, and what are they doing up there? Why are they tearing into gable vents and roofs and, and all, all kinds of places on people’s homes right now?Travis McGowin: I mean, they’re looking for a place to start a family.Michael Wienecke: They’re looking to move in rent free, huh?Travis McGowin: Absolutely. Absolutely. They’re looking for a place to go and, uh, and nest and, and reproduce and, you know, take over the world one, one litter of squirrels at a time.Michael Wienecke: I’ll tell you one thing that is crazy to me about squirrels all the squirrel jobs that we do, they are very bold. They’re just, they’ll just hang out with you in the attic while you’re looking for ’em or watching ’em. I mean we’ve got plenty of videos on that, but they just kind of hang out and some of ’em will run away but a lot of ’em are just bold and they’ll just watch you.Travis McGowin: I think sometimes they think that they can’t be seen. Like they’re camouflaged.Michael Wienecke: I always thought because they thought they owned the home. They’re like hey this is I’ve been here six months this is I’ve, you know, um, what do they call it squatter’s rights.Travis McGowin: So, in order for us to effectively remove squirrels from someone’s attic do we need to go get an eviction notice from from some, you know, county entity?Michael Wienecke: We do actually Travis it is, uh, it is the state license, the, the trapping license that we, that we have to get, uh, for the state. So yes, we do have to, we do have to do that.Travis McGowin: Right.Damage and Issues Caused by SquirrelsMichael Wienecke: Well, let’s talk about some of the damage that they do though. I mean, we have seen, I mean, we just did a really good video on one chewing right in the front of someone’s house and, and getting through the wood. Uh, I’ve seen a lot of chimney damage in the past, um, just a lot, a lot of damage on wires. I mean, it’s, it’s just something that you just don’t have to deal with. And it’s always where you can’t reach it and it’s always next to the power lines.Travis McGowin: Um, you know, I think the perfect, more appropriate place to start in terms of damage and issues that the squirrels cause is really to kind of go and lead off with access. So, uh, first of all squirrels are really good climbers.Michael Wienecke: Really, really good climbers.Travis McGowin: Absolutely. They can climb textured surfaces like Spiderman. I mean realistically if your house has any kind of veneer made out of brick on it, um, even some types of siding, especially, you know, wood siding, rough cut wood, stuff like that, I mean they can climb like no body’s business. They have no trouble, um, going back and forth. And if you, you know, are fortunate enough to have some sort of surface on the outside of your house that is not textured that they can’t climb, then, you know, the next thing is they’ll climb a tree that is close to the eaves or close to the roof of the structure and they’ll just jump back and forth if they need to or if, you know, if that’s touching the roof or the eaves then they’ll just climb right, you know, back and forth and then, you know, of course we also see ’em running up and down power lines, uh, cable lines, um, more specifically cable lines to a house and I mean so there’s just so so many routes that they can get and take for their house, you or for to get into your house I should say.Michael Wienecke: Oh definitely. I mean, I think a lot of people just deal with squirrels year to year like oh well they’re back or oh they’re, you know, stirring around again this time of year or before just because they think that there’s no way to get rid of them.Travis McGowin: Oh, but there is. You know, there certainly is. Um, but you know the problem too is not only is it the access but if a squirrel doesn’t have, you know, the ideal entry point figured out, they’ll just make one.Michael Wienecke: 100%. Well, I mean that goes, you know, to maintenance on the home making sure that, you know, I think we’ve talked about what is it a pound of, uh, a pound of cure gives an inch of pressure, pa-, prevention?Travis McGowin: Oh no. It’s an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Oh gosh. I’m going to get on a shirt so I can remember.Building Construction and DeteriorationTravis McGowin: But, you know, if they climb up the, the house or come across on a line or or, you know, enter the space of the house with a tree and you know there’s a small gap, I mean rodents constantly gnaw, they constantly chew on things. So if the, if the hole itself is not quite big enough, um, they’ll just make it larger. You know, they have no problem doing that. So whether it’s the hole near an eave or, you know, a vent, um, they’ll just, you know, make their own access sometimes if the access isn’t already there.Michael Wienecke: Well let’s talk about building construction too. I mean, you know, you’ve got unfortunately skip corners, um, I don’t know when code was to put drip edge. I, I thought it was around 2000 but, uh, I, I see a lot of 2000 homes that do not have drip edge. So I mean you just see a lot of things that were missed. I mean we, we did some homes over here in Chelsea, uh, over here off Inverness and Hoover and Birmingham, you know, it’s just missing flashing and they’re just slipping right on those cracks and crevices, uh, during the, uh, you know, uh, between the roofline to the flashing.Travis McGowin: Uh, well, and you know those houses too, some of them may not have necessarily started out with an issue in the area where the drip line, or excuse me, the drip edge was supposed to be installed. But what we see a lot of times is that over the course of the life of the house, you have the decking underneath the shingles starts to, whether it’s absorbing moisture, whether it’s, uh, you know, reacting to just constant heat from the sunlight, whatever it is it may be a little mixture of both. But it’ll start to bow up and what was a tiny gap that maybe wasn’t a rodent entry point, all of a sudden down the road becomes a rodent entry point because that wood starts to warp and, you know, and change its shape.Michael Wienecke: Well it happens all the time. I mean like we talk about with wildlife squirrel work, raccoon work, bat work, whatever it can be it’s it’s creating that puzzle piece that that’s no longer there.Hazards of Squirrels in AtticsTravis McGowin: Right. And so once they damage the exterior of your home to get in and they get into the attic, now what? What becomes the problem then? So now we’ve we’ve not only got a rodent that’s made entry into the home but what can they do in the attic that’s so detrimental to a house?Michael Wienecke: Uh, well a couple things. I mean they’re going to urinate in that house, they’re going to pee in the house, um, they’re going to gather insulation. We’ve seen it to where they’ve, you know, been scratching so hard that they’ve gone through the ceiling. Um, seen a few inside of a home, that’s pretty rare, so, uh, take that, take that for what it, what it’s worth. Um, but I have seen it. Uh, and then they’re going to start chewing on wires, you know, all the stuff that can cause house fires and then they’re going to cause the, the contamination that you’re having to breathe.Travis McGowin: Right. And you know fun fact for for individuals that may, that may not know this, but years ago and I hope this is not still a practice now, but years ago the sheathing inside of electrical wiring that would, when they were creating the Romex or creating the wiring for the houses, that sheathing lubricant to get the sheathing to go over the wires was essentially vegetable oil based or similar to vegetable oil based. So not only, you know, does does the wiring pose an ideal thing for the rodents to chew on to the wildlife to chew on, but now it tastes good. So now it’s like oh well let’s give ’em something to eat in the attic that’s going to, you know, potentially cause a structure fire.Case Study and Preventive MaintenanceMichael Wienecke: Well let’s talk about some do’s and don’ts. Yes, I would agree on that structure fire because we have seen some major, uh, chewing on the wires. I mean, I, I had a home out in Southlake and they were going to town right there. It’s always where the wires like bending at a little 90 degree right there in that bend. They just start chewing the mess out of it. So we actually had to get I believe an electrician up there to we got rid of the squirrels for ’em and, uh, first terra cotta roof I had ever done which was intimidating. Um, got the squirrel out anyway, um, they had a electrician come out and get all the wiring done but it it could have been a a big deal had he left it exposed.Travis McGowin: Right. I mean it’s, it’s just like you said from a waste standpoint from an animal waste standpoint to just, um, you know, a hazardous standpoint from the damage that they cause which can lead to structure fires or other issues like that. It’s just something that you don’t want in your attic. And and obviously one’s bad enough, but I mean as you’ve seen over the last week or two, I mean there’s cases where there can be a lot more than one in an in an attic.Michael Wienecke: I would rather have rats.Travis McGowin: Than squirrels?Michael Wienecke: I’d rather have rats. Definitely. I mean not not inside my like for me to have to do it inside my home or have to deal with I would rather deal with rats ’cause squirrels always go up high it’s just they’re just an inconvenience. Anyway let’s talk about some things that homeowners need to know like do’s and don’ts, um, you know size of the trap. Pretty important thing to talk about because I have I have gone on some pretty, uh, larger infestations and pretty hard to control problems where the customer’s just using way too small of a trap.Travis McGowin: Well you know we see that a lot in in any of our wildlife or rodent work that we do. Take take mice and rats for an example. If you’re trying to trap a rat with a mouse trap the rat’s not going to get caught they’re going to take the bait and they may, you know, set the trap off and there’s you’re never going to catch anything. And the story’s the same with with using a rat trap to try to catch a mouse. Um, you you have too large of a trap, there again, they’ll set it off, they won’t get caught, they’ll take your bait. And and I think that that holds true to a lot of different wildlife. An improper sized trap causes a problem, um, you there’s just too much room for error there. And then not only an improper sized trap but even maybe say a live trap that’s not stabilized. What what issue does that have?Proper Trapping and Tree MaintenanceMichael Wienecke: Right. And we talked about that in that video. You know squirrels aren’t just going to jump on something or any any animal really is not going to jump on something that’s kind of shaky, um, it’s going to feel it out and and squirrels are very cautious. They’re kind of like deer stop, look, stop, look, stop, look. I mean I couldn’t imagine the stress that is under one of those little guys just walking around in the in the daytime.Travis McGowin: Just existing.Michael Wienecke: Yes. Just existing. So they are, you know, that enjoy it but again they just they just wreak havoc in in homes and, uh, cause a lot issues. So let’s talk about some other things, um, you know, cutting the branches away from the home to where those guys have not not stopping them completely from getting on the roof but, uh, kind of giving them a little bit to think about. You know a a four foot jump to a ten foot jump is is a little bit more to think about, you know, in in size or in size.Travis McGowin: Yeah and I mean they’ll they will jump a long ways to get where it is they want to go. I don’t know if you’ve ever sat in the woods and just, you know, watched squirrels jump from tree limb to tree limb, but there’s some very gutsy moves going on there sometimes, um, you know you’re really intrigued by the fact that they were able to launch themselves through the tree to grab another limb in a different tree through the air and, um, but that rings true for your house if if your limbs are overhanging or if they’re touching, uh, the roof of the house the squirrels have no problem, no fear in using that as a bridge or a crosswalk to get to your home. They’re they’re going to do it. They’re going to use it and they’re not going to be fearful of it at all.Home Maintenance and Tree PlacementMichael Wienecke: Well and not to say that, you know, you need to go out and cut all these tree branches away I mean it’s definitely a good rule of thumb but again like that video we showed with the the chimney going up, I mean they’re still getting on the roof so the best course of action is going to be to seal up that home. Um, Travis has got the pound of, you know, pound of proof for for a lot of action. So I mean just getting making sure that you’ve got those entry points, you know, in that wintertime or even before summer looking around your house, you know, we’re all doing, uh, yard work looking around your house hey do I have rotten spots here, do I have this here. A lot of preventative maintenance, uh, goes a long way.Travis McGowin: Well one I see very frequently, uh, is crepe myrtles. Man, oh yes. People love ’em, they plant ’em right next to the house and then they do not manicure them properly and these things end up growing way up past the roofline and then a lot of times, um, they’ll be touching the eave and man we had someone with a significant significant rat infestation. It was a duplex and they literally had rats climbing up the trees that had just grown up against the side of the house and into the eaves and tore a hole in the eaves and man rats were going in and out between the two units at the duplex we caught over 50 rats. So squirrels are no different. They’re going to be opportunists. They’re going to climb those trees and if you’ve got a tree that has done some, you know, some damage by growing into the side of a structure, uh, they’re going to I mean they just made it easy for ’em, you know, you gave ’em access, uh, a way to climb up and you gave ’em access into into the roof immediately.Michael Wienecke: What do you think the price of a crepe myrtle to buy and and plant is?Travis McGowin: I have never priced one. The only thing that I have ever done is destroy one. Um, when we moved into the house we are in now there was one in the front yard, um, near the house and we cut it down. Um, so I have no earthly idea so enlighten me.Michael Wienecke: Well I just say that ’cause I had a customer one time she said that those crepe mort- crepe myrtles probably cost her more in the squirrel damage and squirrel activity shed than ever putting them in next right, you know, planting them next to her house.Travis McGowin: Oh absolutely. So I’m assuming what your customer was really kind of hinting at is that they weren’t worth owning were they?Michael Wienecke: I personally I mean they’re beautiful trees don’t get me wrong and my wife loves ’em but just don’t put ’em next to your house. Like we had one way in my old house we have one way in the backyard. It was beautiful it bloomed like purple or red I think something like that and she loved it but nothing nothing touching the house. 37 feet away.Travis McGowin: Uh, well that would be ideal but, you know, unfortunately most of the time that’s not possible. But realistically we like to say, you know, trim those branches back trim those trees back at least six or more feet away. That six foot mark is going to start to become a stretch for a squirrel. I’m not going to say that they wouldn’t try it, um, but no overhanging limbs over the roof of the house and, uh, try to get those things trimmed back away from eaves and the roofline at least six preferably preferably more. I would say eight to 10 feet would be even more ideal.Michael Wienecke: Look 10 feet, a 10 foot fall I think that squirrel would hit the roof and probably forget what he was trying trying to do after that, you know, it’s it’s a bit of a drop.Travis McGowin: I would. I would. But then again, you know, if you ever watch a squirrel try to cross the road and they, you know, they get out in the middle and then they hit panic mode they can’t decide if they want to go forwards or backwards, you know, I would question a 10 foot drop or a 10 foot jump but I don’t think they would. I don’t know it just, you know, it just depends on the level of craziness I guess from the squirrel.Michael Wienecke: Well it’s kind of like jumping off that rock at the lake, right? It’s like once you you’ve committed so you you have no other choice but go you know they just spread their arms and their they fly.Travis McGowin: Gravity takes its course.Lessons Learned in Squirrel RemovalMichael Wienecke: Exactly. Exactly. Um, let’s see what’s another what’s another thing that customers need to, you know, if they’re going to try to tackle this themselves what’s some other failures, um, over the years that we’ve kind of figured out. Wrong bait, um, bait is an important one, um, the style of bait, you know, if it if something’s not working you want to try something else. Don’t just stick to the same thing.Travis McGowin: Right, um, you know wrong trap size or style, wrong wrong bait, um, you know and don’t underestimate the intelligence of some of these animals. They didn’t survive and grow into vast numbers of populations like they have become, you know, by being stupid. So, um, so you know don’t don’t discount their intelligence in terms of, you know, you think oh I’m just going to go set this trap right here and they’re just going to wander into it. No, um, ideally ideally you want to put those traps in a known runway, um, where where the rodent is known to go where the wildlife’s known to go. Obviously, you know, if you had a Connibear trap or something like that you you could have multiple accesses into your house. I mean if you put it over an access or a hole where the rodent is not using that access well you’re not going to catch nothing. So, you know, you’ve got to put it where they’re going to be where they’re going to run, um, and don’t underestimate the fact that they may avoid it for a while. Case in point I had a live trap in an attic back in Montgomery a while back, this been a couple years ago and it took multiple days to catch the little guy. And eventually I did but it took multiple days and multiple adjustments before we were successful in in catching that gray squirrel.Michael Wienecke: Yeah it can take a lot of time. Um, another thing too I’ll say is that not like you said I’m glad you said that about the traps. So not just putting one trap up there sometimes you may need two traps sometimes you may need three traps. Um, another thing is that for the people that do not want to do it themselves how many traps do we have that for squirrels? How many different? How many diff- different traps?Travis McGowin: I I don’t I don’t even know.Michael Wienecke: We have one-way door traps, we have one door traps, we have two-door traps.Travis McGowin: I even have some that have openings on both sides.Michael Wienecke: Yeah, I was going to say then we have the runway door traps so we’re very ill- we’re very well equipped to deal with different situations inside the home or outside the home.Travis McGowin: Right, right, yeah there’s there’s all kinds, pick your poison I guess but, uh, there again sometimes you have to back up and punt, sometimes you have to try things, if something doesn’t work and you have to, you know, try a different style, try a different placement. Um, you know even sometimes you if you were to even put a game camera up there and watch what’s going on even sometimes you may come extremely close to catching one and there again we talked about trap stability and they get halfway into the trap and something’s not stable and then they just back out and leave and then they don’t want to touch it again and that’s, you know, it’s frustrating and it comes along with it so trial and error sometimes and learning to pivot and swap into something different is is kind of the norm with some of these, you know, wildlife jobs that we go on. The post Eviction Notice: The Logistics of Squirrel Trapping appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

In this episode of the Peskies Pest Control Podcast, hosts Michael Wienecke and Travis McGowin dive into the gritty details of what they call the “nastiest, grossest ant in Alabama”—the Argentine ant. The duo explores the unique biological traits of these invasive pests, such as their monomorphic size and their tendency to form massive supercolonies that can span thousands of miles. Beyond just being a nuisance, the hosts highlight the genuine health risks these ants pose as they travel from damp areas like sewage and stagnant water directly into home pantries, potentially spreading diseases like E. coli, salmonella and dysentery. From the “musty odor” they emit when squished to practical “ounce of prevention” tips for sealing up your home, this episode provides a comprehensive guide to identifying and controlling one of the most prolific pests in the South. Watch this on YouTube! Podcast Transcript:Michael Wienecke 0:00Hey. So here on the Peskies Pest Control Podcast, we are going to talk about the nastiest, grossest ant in Alabama, and that is the Argentine ant. It is. It's gross. It crawls over sewage and poop and gets in people's food sometimes, and it just causes dysentery,Travis McGowin 0:18among many other things. I'm sure there's probably some E coli, salmonella and all that in there too.Michael Wienecke 0:26Look, dysentery is just it reminds me of, like, Oregon Trail. Remember that game Oregon Trail? It's like, what'd you die from dysentery?Travis McGowin 0:34I think everybody died from dysentery on that game, if I'm not mistaken. It's a very common theme, apparently. But anyway, no, the Argentine ant definitely, definitely, a very prolific ant in terms of size, colony size and whatnot that, you know, originally came around from Argentina and basically South America, very large area of South America, and was very likely introduced, you know, because of world trade shipping and trade routes and that sort of thing, like most of our very invasive pests are introduced to other countries.Michael Wienecke 1:09It's crazy to me how most rats, bugs, you know, other animals, have gone over from shipping. I mean, shipping has just transported so many different species of animals from one continent to another, absolutely.Travis McGowin 1:26I mean, when you consider, you know, pests in general, and the problems that they've caused throughout history, and then, you know, we all want to be interconnected and trade and and all these things. But, I mean, it does come with its consequences. You know, it's, it is one caveat to being a more, I guess, unified world in that sense, nature, nature. So, you know, tell us a little bit about some of the physical characteristics of the Argentine ant.Michael Wienecke 1:59So really, it's brown, light brown, kind of blackish colored. You know, really, biggest thing is you're going to find them around the the outside of your structure, your house, leave debris, large stacks of wood. We always kind of joke about Argentine ants, because they are just they wreak havoc once you find a nest. I mean, they just come in Super colonies and just come out of the woodwork.Travis McGowin 2:27RIght, and then when you squish them, they stink,Michael Wienecke 2:30Yes, the musty odor, yes. They do a bit when you when you stink them, or when you squish them, they do stink, yes.Travis McGowin 2:35And unlike some, you know, some ant colonies out there can be what we we call polymorphic, but Argentine ants are monomorphic, so typically they are all one size in when you look at them.Michael Wienecke 2:51Well, and that sounds really boring, but we're trying to do an inspection, knowing if they're poly or mono is very important, because that gives that leads us to what type of ant we have, whether a carpenter ant, Argentine ant, fire ant, Pharaoh ant, you know, kind of going over all the ants.Travis McGowin 3:10Right, and you know, Argentine ants are known to have very large colony sizes, so, and when you consider that approximately 90% of the colony are workers. I mean, they get things done, and they get it done in a hurry. So, you know, from the time that they're an egg to the time that they're an adult is roughly around 100 days, give or take, depending upon, obviously, the colony and weather and all that sort of thing. But by spring, they've got this very large build up of colonies, or excuse me, colony members, you know, and so, I mean, there's, there's even a documented case over in Europe of a colony Spain, one colony ultimately spanning 3700 miles.Michael Wienecke 3:56That is a long way. I believe it was, what Italy to what does it say Spain?Travis McGowin 4:03I don't remember exactly, but it was, it was a very, very long way for one ant colony to have spread.Michael Wienecke 4:11Yeah, that's wild. They Well, I mean, in a super colony over winter, or colonize over winters to survive, and then in the summertime, they just, they explode.Travis McGowin 4:19Right, absolutely. So, you know, when they're out and about foraging around, they do prefer sugars, especially like honeydew or sweets. They you know, ants are funny. Most all types of ants can kind of transition and switch their foraging behaviors over based upon, you know, the time of year that it is. So they may go from sweets to proteins and back and forth or what have you, but the primary diet of these ants is something sweet, and when they run out of honeydew, what do they come for?Michael Wienecke 4:53Well, honeydew, honeydew and aphids, they're coming for any kind of sweet, sticky liquid or sugary, you know. A sweet what do we all eat in the summertime and, you know, all that, so, cookies, cakes, all that kind of stuff.Travis McGowin 5:05Yeah, so they're coming for your sweets. Yes, yeah, yes. And you know, they like moisture as well. So, you know that's the problem with them, though. You know they're looking for these moist, damp areas. Well, what areas are moist and damp? You're talking about areas with sewage, stagnant water, areas those types of things. And like we said at the beginning, you're talking about the high potential that these insects can cause you and your family to be sick, because everything they touch with their legs, that they crawl across, and then they come and they invade and infest your pantry or wherever it is, inside your house and your your surfaces, your countertops, things like that. Everything that they've touched before they got to that point is fair game to be placed down on everything that you have.Michael Wienecke 5:55Well, what's the amount of sewage that you let in your food? What's the what's the percentage that you're okay with.Travis McGowin 6:01I would hope my percentage is, can you get a negative percentage? You know, but no, 0% 0% is what I want,Michael Wienecke 6:12Yeah and again, like I said, they're nasty. They just blow up in the summer or the springtime. And we're seeing a lot of calls right now on these ants, and they are a booger to control, because just like Travis said, we've got 10% queens, we've got 90% workers. Well, 10% doesn't seem like a lot, but in a colony, 10% is a lot, so we have to kill those queens, to kill that colony.Travis McGowin 6:36Well, you know, and that their their activity, their influx of activity, you know, comes and goes. A lot of it depends on what's going on around the outside in their world, whether it's extremely wet or extremely dry. That can push these ants to, you know, increase their activity. One of the big things though, that homeowners can do to help themselves, you know, obviously, there's pesticides and different things that you can use, but sealing off access points is great. These ants like to run up and down. Utility lines, service entries, plumbing, things that go inside the wall of your house, you know, HVAC lines, those sorts of things. Sealing up those things. You know, anyone who's listened to us for any length of time, has heard me say this multiple times, like, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, right? Just doing those little things,Michael Wienecke 7:27I think I'm gonna get you a t shirt with that on there.Travis McGowin 7:30And get it on the wall behind me.Michael Wienecke 7:32Brodie asked me that the other day and I was like, I don't know, a pound of cure.Travis McGowin 7:37You totally. You butchered it, didn't you? You butchered my saying,Michael Wienecke 7:41I It's not mine, it's not mine. All to you.Travis McGowin 7:43Yeah, but, but anyway, helping yourself out just a little bit like that, a lot of times, will solve some of your problems. Now, granted, they are ants, and they can kind of fit into any small gap they want to. And I'm convinced that if all ants pulled their resources together, they could take over the world. But along the way, they could, they could, they're very strong. But, yeah, an ounce of prevention is totally worth a pound of cure in some of these situations.Michael Wienecke 8:09Well, and sealing up your house is great too, but I know we've talked about too is, is the the environmental factors around the home, major water sources that are going to draw these guys in? I mean, even sealing up a home, just like Travis said, you know, your home has to breathe, so you can't seal every inch of it, or it would just mold and fall apart. So getting rid of the firewood, like I talked about the you know, everybody's kind of cleaning up their yard right now, raking all that old pine straw out, which is no fun, and it makes it more expensive, but it's kind of important on a pest control level, because you're getting all that nasty gunk out of that those beds right next to your house, and you're kind of starting over fresh and giving it a fresh environment. So just things of that nature can, can stop ants, you know, in their tracks, or having a nesting site.Travis McGowin 8:57Yeah, and they are notorious for nesting in things like potted plants.Michael Wienecke 9:01Oh yeah, and eight inches deep, I mean, rocks, potted plants along the driveways. And, you know, they're, they're really not so much of a stinging, or, you know, biting nuisance. They're just, they're just a lot of them.Travis McGowin 9:15Yeah, they're large colonies, very invasive. And just Can, can make you and your family sick. So definitely not this with dysentery because we're on the Oregon Trail, but definitely not something that you want running around your property. The post Super Colonies and Sewage: The Alabama Argentine Ant appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

Welcome to another episode of the Peskies Pest Control Podcast, where we dive into the “full force” emergence of Alabama's most annoying insects as the weather warms up. In this episode, Michael Wienecke and Travis McGowin discuss everything from the “prehistoric” look of moisture-loving earwigs to the high-altitude difficulty of treating wasp nests in home eaves. Whether you are dealing with a “nightmare” yellow jacket infestation in your walls or looking for a 100% guarantee to keep fire ants out of your yard for an entire year, we have the professional solutions for whatever “ails” your home this summer. Watch this on YouTube! Podcast Transcript:Michael Wienecke: All right, so what are some summertime pests that you have seen that have just been—or coming up summertime pests?Travis McGowin: I mean, the summertime gets everything moving. Everything from roaches, crickets, silverfish, earwigs—I mean, a lot of things that we just haven’t seen throughout the fall and winter months or hadn’t had any issues with. It’s now like they’re all coming out in full force again. I mean, not even to mention, you know, mosquitoes—we’re already seeing those, and it’s only halfway through March yet, so.Michael Wienecke: I’m just glad that the Asian lady beetles are starting to kind of—kind of go away.Travis McGowin: Are they? Are they, though?Michael Wienecke: Well, you know, there’s a lot of videos out there about—about them, so I don’t know if they’re going away, but it—at my house, they’re going away.Travis McGowin: I still have a couple lingering here and there. A lot of them have died, personally, here in my office. I’ve got a couple still crawling around on the ceilings, it looks like, but I have a very large amount on the floor that are dead. So, but they’re getting annoying, still.Michael Wienecke: You know what my favorite pest to treat in the summertime is?Travis McGowin: You have a favorite pest. What’s that?Michael Wienecke: Favorite pest.Travis McGowin: What’s that?Michael Wienecke: Earwigs.Travis McGowin: Why earwigs?Michael Wienecke: Because earwigs are a moisture problem, and most people—it’s kind of crazy because like, we look in our forums and stuff off Facebook and all that, and people post earwigs all the time and they don’t know what they are because they’re—they look prehistoric, you know.Travis McGowin: Well, you know where they get their name from, though, right?Michael Wienecke: Oh yeah, yeah.Travis McGowin: Yeah, so for those listening that may not know where an earwig gets its name from, it was thought years and years ago that the earwigs would burrow into people’s ears to lay their eggs. And so there was this—this unfounded fear, which is—don’t get me wrong, any type of insect has the potential to crawl in your ear. I mean, you do enough research online, you can see where people have roaches—Michael Wienecke: Ugh, roaches, yeah.Travis McGowin: —spiders and stuff.Michael Wienecke: That was like my biggest fear when I found that out. Of like a roach just flying into your ear and like you having to go to the hospital and get it removed. I’d just be like, oh, that’s disgusting.Travis McGowin: Right, right. And from what I understand, having something crawling around inside your ear canal is not comfortable by any means. But any—any roach or earwig or whatever insect that’s small enough can go into your ear canal if it gets the opportunity to. But like I said, the—the idea was that that was where they went and laid their eggs, and they would hatch inside your ear canal, which is just not true. But, I guess the name stuck.Michael Wienecke: Well, I just think they’re cool. I mean, you know, they’ve got those little pin—pinchers on the back, and they actually do work. I mean, if you put your finger in, they can pinch you. It doesn’t hurt, but it’s just—they’re just cool little creatures, and when they get in people’s houses that—that typically don’t see them, it’s—it’s just something new to them.Travis McGowin: Well, and rarely—the—the pinchers themselves are not typically used as a defense mechanism for them. They’re actually used to hold their whatever food they have—um, to consume, is more what they’re used for, actually.Michael Wienecke: Yeah, which is really cool. So, like I said, it kind of looks like a prehistoric scorpion to me.Travis McGowin: Well, we have those too. We have scorpions too here in Alabama.Michael Wienecke: We do not see a lot of scorpions, but we do, you know, every now and then we’ll get a house, especially one that’s had a lot of—um, you know, like unearthed—like they’re doing some kind of landscaping or something like that, we’ll typically see some invasions of scorpions inside homes. What’s your least favorite pest to treat?Travis McGowin: Uh, clarify the question a little bit more for me. So when you say least favorite, are you talking about least favorite in terms of potential difficulty or least favorite in terms of process?Michael Wienecke: Difficulty.Travis McGowin: I think my least favorite—and—and this is—this is probably strictly just based upon the fact that reaching them can be difficult—and because they fly, but probably one of the most annoying ones to treat is wasps.Michael Wienecke: Oh, a wasp. Okay.Travis McGowin: Yeah, I was going to say wasps, because—and I’ll give you an example. Went to a customer’s house last week that has a single-story house, but there’s some very high eaves—especially above the house in the attic space, there’s just some very high eaves. And you can’t reach it with a traditional pole to knock a web or—not—not a web, but to knock a nest down. Spray has difficulty getting up that high. But, you know, the wasps being that they fly, being that they can get into really small gaps and crevices around the eaves of the house or doors and windows and they’ll inevitably end up in somebody’s house and they’re freaking out because they’ve got this wasp in their house. But there’s—there’s not a lot necessarily, you know, prevention-wise other than sealing things up. I mean, even—even applying a liquid pesticide’s only going to do so much for a wasp.Michael Wienecke: Well, hold on now, Travis. Now we—we’ve been up on a three-story home, and we’ve sealed out a chimney to keep these wasps from getting in a house. So you can do preventive maintenance. Um, you want to screen things that they can get into—main area’s going to be a chimney, but again, it’s going to be very high up, especially if it’s a—a—a tall home.Travis McGowin: Right, from a—from a just a general pest control—um, perspective on that, I think that they’re probably one of the more annoying. And—and, you know, obviously they can come at you and sting you—so, you know, there’s that dangerous aspect of it, if you will, especially if you have—you know, an allergy or a hypersensitivity to a wasp sting. But, there again, they can fly, they can go wherever they want to—um, and when they’re out foraging throughout the day and doing their activities throughout the day, you know, they—they can be kind of a nuisance, and—and like I said, unfortunately from a pesticide perspective, there’s only so much that you can do because they fly.Michael Wienecke: Well, I—I like how you said, you know, so high, you know, our duster pole if we can’t reach it to remove it, but we do also have the—the attachment that goes on the pole with the, you know, where we can either dust—what is it called, a Gotcha Duster?Travis McGowin: Yeah.Michael Wienecke: Yeah, the Gotcha Duster—um, you can get an aerosol on there or something, so I have used that to take care of some very, very high wasp nests in gutters and such.Travis McGowin: Right, right.Michael Wienecke: But I would agree with you on difficulty, that would be—that would be one that’s not really—that’s kind of hard to treat because like you said they fly, but also the difficulty level of finding them.Travis McGowin: Well, and there’s the—the preventive aspect. So let’s—let’s really talk about that. So from a pest control perspective, what we do when we come out for these quarterly services or we come out for these monthly services is an attempt to not only treat what it is that the customer may or may not be having a problem with, but it is also to prevent things from coming in or things from happening so that there is no, you know, pest inside or there’s no infestation that builds up. You know, and there’s a lot of pests that we can target preventatively. I mean, if you look at a house that has shrubbery, flower beds, mulch beds, those kinds of things where it’s conducive place where roaches and crickets and silverfish and earwigs want to live, but we can liquid treat and we can put out bait granules and that sort of thing, there’s a lot of preventive measures that can be taken. But something like a wasp, I mean, if they fly over and land on your house, I mean, you know, halfway up the side of your house, I mean, you know, there’s really no preventive for that.Michael Wienecke: No, not at all. Um, perfect example in Chelsea, Alabama—um, had a customer that had every year in the summertime right around this time they get—they get wasps in their house. Um, they signed on with us, they haven’t had it for the last two years, but did an inspection, found out where they were getting in, and they had an issue where the—the roof was a little raised up and they were just right in there able to get into that—that attic space, and then of course they were in the house. So dusted that area, got that treated, and they have not had a problem since. So that’s—that’s good.Travis McGowin: Right. Yeah, and flying insects, man, that—that unfortunately is—is going to be one of the ones that do pose more of a challenge. I do know that I have heard from some customers that previous companies they may or may not have had, you know, at one point, there’s some companies out there that don’t even try to fool with or cover wasps.Michael Wienecke: That’s what I was going to say. Yeah, yellow jackets, wasps—any stinging insect, I mean, they won’t touch it.Travis McGowin: Right. And so, you know, we’re one of the—we’re one of the few, of course. I’m always a big proponent of communicating with the customer, setting realistic expectations, um, trying to provide a solution for the customer where they understand, you know, this is what you should or should not expect. And that’s one of those things—wasps, you know, we can—we can do some hopefully preventive things or pesticide-type things, but ultimately they fly and they go where they want to go.Michael Wienecke: Speaking of flying insects, I—I did learn something. If—if there’s a yellow jacket nest in a wall, do not remove the tape over the hole in the wall, because they—they will come out in droves.Travis McGowin: Who put the tape there?Michael Wienecke: The customer.Travis McGowin: Oh, well, smart on—smart on them.Michael Wienecke: Well, I went to remove the tape and—and the little bitty, you know, they had eaten out the hole back of the wall. So when I removed the tape, it just disintegrated and thousands and thousands of yellow jackets. So we had to do some—some shoving pillows under doors and all that and keep them—keep them contained.Travis McGowin: Well, let me—let me just say, I have had some yellow jacket experiences that I mean would—would probably be out of the realm of like nightmares, if you will. Several years ago had a customer that called me and—and they were actually a customer but they were also a family friend, so I had my cell phone number and they called me and they said, “Hey, we’ve got a yellow jacket issue inside of our house.” And I’m like, “You sure it’s yellow jackets?” They’re like, “Absolutely. It’s yellow jackets.” I said, “Okay,” and this was on a Sunday, so I said, “What time are y’all going to be around tomorrow? I’ll come by the house tomorrow, we’ll take a look at it.” And they’re like, “No, you don’t understand. We’ve got hundreds—Michael Wienecke: Emergency!Travis McGowin: —hundreds of yellow jackets inside of the living space of the house.” And I said, “All right, I’ll be there in a little bit.” So loaded up, went over there. This was prior to my possession of a bee suit, by the way.Michael Wienecke: Oh, wow.Travis McGowin: Probably not—probably not the safest ordeal that I’ve ever been involved in. You know, I spent 11 years as a fireman and this was probably more dangerous than half the stuff I did as a fireman. So I went up into the attic, okay, and if you do some research you can find that—that some yellow jacket colonies can have, you know, kind of what they term is like a super nest—massive nest, multiple queens, just ever-expanding, ever-growing nest. So we—first of all, on the outside of the house, in one of the corners of the eaves was just this massive built-up paper, you know, chewed-up paper nest like they build, almost looked like hornets for a minute but it wasn’t. And it actually expanded and extended through the eave up into the attic space. And so at the time I wish I would have got more pictures of it. I do have some pictures somewhere. But I got up into the attic and tried to treat, and I did only get stung one time in the attic.Michael Wienecke: I’m impressed, because I’ve been stung with a bee suit on, so that’s very impressive.Travis McGowin: I know. Knowing what I know now, that was not a good idea. So but I got stung one time, went back down, did some treatment—and then actually ended up having to come back a day or two later because they were still some alive and eventually got it annihilated. But I do have pictures of this too somewhere, but the—the yellow jackets when they build up enough into the attic they actually chewed through the sheetrock. And that’s where they—there was a corner of like a ceiling and the wall in the kitchen—or dining room, and they actually chewed through and made their way into the house while the customer was gone, and then when they came home that’s when they found all these yellow jackets.Michael Wienecke: Yep, that was in Mountain Brook. Same—same deal, they had chewed all the sheetrock out and like I said it just disintegrated. So well, I think we found our topic—I mean, we can talk about wasps, you know, coming up summertime and that’s what’s about to be just buzzing around everywhere. So they’re pollinators, that’s one thing I think we’ve talked a lot—lot about, and—and you have to understand that they—they are going to be flying around this summer. They’re going to do what nature intended, just like honeybees, they are pollinators—um, as well as pests. So they’re here, and they’re here to stay.Travis McGowin: Right. Um, you know, big thing to remember about yellow jackets too—more so than wasps. Now I—I will say wasps will build nest in shrubbery—um, a lot of times people only kind of mentally think wasps build under eaves, porches—um, inside of solid objects, but no, they will actually build nests in—up inside of shrubbery. I’ve—I’ve been treating houses and actually accidentally bumped a bush and had, you know, 18 of them come out at one time on me, so that is a possibility. But big thing about the yellow jackets is when you’re mowing your grass, when you’re doing any yard work—flower beds, shrubberies—keep in mind that a large majority of these nests are inside a hole, you know, through a hole into the ground where there’s this chamber underground that they’ve dug out and built. Um, and there can be—I mean, just population-wise, depending upon the size of the nest, I mean there could be hundreds in there.Michael Wienecke: Oh, I’ve—I’ve dug hole—I’ve dug nests out that were, you know, bigger than basketballs.Travis McGowin: Right, and they’re—they’re just nonstop. Um, but you know, if—if one of them stings you, they release an alarm pheromone. And that pheromone can trigger you to have many, many more stings—um, and also kind of trigger a pursuit of you by the other yellow jackets. So, you know, as you’re getting back out into the yard as we unfortunately have seen that warmer weather appears to be here to stay, much to my disappointment—Michael Wienecke: Eighty degrees is—is weird for right now.Travis McGowin: —it—it is, it is. I shouldn’t be sweating watching baseball on the bleachers, but here—there we are. Um, but as you’re out there doing these things, you know, just be mindful and cautious—um, and be careful, because you know yellow jackets in—in a high enough volume could potentially really hurt you or even kill you, maybe.Michael Wienecke: Oh, yeah, yeah. No, I—I think, you know, I always tell anyone that if they are allergic, they need to carry an EpiPen—um, it’s kind of a must. Um, it’s—it’s just not, you know, as us being firemen, you know, anaphylaxis is not—is not a good thing.Travis McGowin: Absolutely not. Um, and you know, for your kids to be getting out in the yard and playing and all that—I mean, I’ve—I’ve even had a time where I was at a customer’s property treating for ants. I was treating the house for ants, and I was standing in the yard next to the house, and I don’t know why I happened to glance down but I did, and I—my boots were standing basically almost on top of the entrance of a yellow jacket’s nest.Michael Wienecke: Landmine!Travis McGowin: Yeah, right. The customer was standing on the front porch which was probably four or five yards away from where I was standing talking to him, and I was the one standing on the mouth of the nest, and I did not get stung a single time and he got stung several times. So I got lucky on that one, he did not get as lucky on that one either and then ended up having to, you know, treat yellow jackets that day too instead of just nests. But it’s just that simple, it can happen that fast and you just don’t even see them.Michael Wienecke: One hundred percent. Well, and something to understand too is, you know, around this time of year, start spring summer, we’re going to start seeing them just foraging too. So just because you see them in your yard kind of buzzing around low—low to the—does not mean that you have a nest inside, you know, around your yard. They could just be out trying to get a food source, looking for water—I mean, there’s tons of different things that they could be doing. So that’s something—don’t—don’t just kind of freak out if you see them buzzing around your house because that might not necessarily mean that you just have an infestation in your yard or around your house or anything like that.Travis McGowin: Well, and speaking of other things that cause people aggravation, how about fire ants?Michael Wienecke: Oh, man, that was—so that was mine, Travis, is ants. Um, every type of ant. Except for carpenter ants. I really like to get rid—carpenter ants don’t bother me so much. But fire ants, Argentine ants—um—Travis McGowin: Pharaoh.Michael Wienecke: Pharaoh ants, yeah, those would be the big three really. The fire ants, you know—um, I—last year my son fell in a fire ant bed, so they—I’ve got a special—um, you know, I just—I want to get rid of all of them, so.Travis McGowin: Well, I—I—I can kind of agree with you on the carpenter ant ordeal. I feel like that’s about the chase, almost.Michael Wienecke: I like carpenter ants. I think they’re very cool.Travis McGowin: Well, it’s—and it’s like a hunt.Michael Wienecke: Yeah, yeah.Travis McGowin: You know, I’ve had multiple carpenter ant customers where they were seeing them in the house, they looked, couldn’t find a nest, and then of course go do a little digging around the outside of the house and find this, you know, damaged tree not far from, you know, the house that’s—you essentially go kick the tree and out come the carpenter ants, you know. Um, so it is—is more of an investigation. But the fire ants—um, obviously from an aesthetics point of view, they’re—they’re making big mounds in your yard—unsightly, you’re hitting them with a lawnmower, you’re stepping on them as you walk—so there’s that. But, you know, from a—a danger perspective, I mean especially if you have young children—Michael Wienecke: Yep.Travis McGowin: —you know, if they were to accidentally step in it and not realize it and just stand in it or God forbid sit on it accidentally, which I have heard of happening—Michael Wienecke: Nightmare.Travis McGowin: —yeah, you—you could talk about some serious allergic reaction—and obviously the pain aspect of it. I mean, I don’t like getting hit by an ant by one, you know, in the yard mowing grass or something like that. So I can’t imagine, you know, having 20, 30, 40—40 of them on you at one time—um, you know, I could see where that would be very painful.Michael Wienecke: Well, how satisfying, though, is it to run over them with a lawnmower? Because I did it—I did it over the weekend and I—I did too and it was—it’s just—it’s sat—it’s a satisfying, you know, just that cloud of dust and all those ants just—going—Travis McGowin: Such a sick—Michael Wienecke: —going into oblivion.Travis McGowin: —such a sick individual. Well, you know the good thing is, though, is if you are—if you are dealing with a fire ant issue, there is hope.Michael Wienecke: There is hope. Um, honestly the only way to get rid of fire ants is treatment. And—and I don’t even recommend, you know, just treating one—one nest. I mean, we have that—that full guarantee 100 percent—um, gone for a year—you know, I use it on my yard, you’ve used it on your yard—we love it.Travis McGowin: Oh, it absolutely works like a charm. And I promise you here over the next month or so, um, it will be reapplied to my yard, because I—I noticed last spring I was out my yard, I think we were doing yard work and I just happened to notice that there’s these mounds piling up everywhere. I’m like, “I don’t typically worry too much about my yard—at least in the past I haven’t—but no sooner did I notice that I literally went and got my spreader, hit my yard with the product, and haven’t seen an ant mound in my yard since because the product stays here for a year.”Michael Wienecke: You just got to protect—you got to protect that little girl, man. I mean, you know.Travis McGowin: Oh, right, right. But the product stays here for a year. Yeah, yeah. And when we say that, it legitimately stays here for a year. I have not seen an ant mound in my yard in almost a year. It’s amazing.Michael Wienecke: It is amazing. I mean, it—it—it works, it works great.Travis McGowin: Right. And as simple as—as, you know, a pest because it’s a restricted-use product, but as simple as a pest control company coming out, spreading it, making sure it gets watered in whether that’s by the company, by the homeowner if they’ve got sprinkler system, whether it’s going to rain here in a little while and get a good little rain to come in and water it in, but somehow water it in—and then no ants for a year. No fire ants for a year.Michael Wienecke: And then of course you go the warranty—I mean, we always back everything we do, so the warranty is—is so important. If—if by any chance they do come back, we come back as well.Travis McGowin: Right. So I guess to sum up this whole conversation, we—we know that the pests are coming. The weather is warming up, they’re going to be out and about. They’re going to be seeking for, you know, places to get into your home—um, whether it’s ants, roaches, silverfish, earwigs, crickets, whatever ails you—um, whether it’s wasps in your yard, yellow jackets in your yard, soon to be termites coming out and about for people discovering they have termites, unfortunately.Michael Wienecke: That’s a fun hunt.Travis McGowin: It is. But whatever ails you, we pretty much have a solution for you.Michael Wienecke: We sure do. The post The Heat is On: Managing Alabama's Summer Pests appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

In this Peskies Pest Control Podcast episode, hosts Michael Wienecke and Travis McGowin assist a Georgia homeowner, Laura, with a persistent Asian Lady Beetle infestation. We explain that these “occasional invaders” swarm southern-facing walls in autumn to overwinter, often returning to the same structures due to lingering pheromone trails. To address the problem, we recommend an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) strategy that combines structural exclusion—sealing cracks and poor door seals—with the application of insecticidal dusts in wall voids and fast-acting liquids on high-activity exterior surfaces. While Laura was previously told that vacuuming was the only solution, the Peskies team asserts that a professional protocol can achieve a 90% to 95% reduction in the beetle population. Watch this YouTube Video! Podcast Transcript:Michael Wienecke: All right, so here today on the Peskies Pest Control Podcast, we have got a guest—Laura from Georgia. She put a form out on our online fill-out form and said her issue, what she was having an issue with. No one in Georgia could take care of it. Saw a YouTube video that Travis and I had made, and so she came, she wants to come on the podcast and just talk about this issue, which is Asian Lady Beetles. So here she is.Travis McGowin: All right. Welcome, Laura.Laura K: Thank you! Nice to be here.Travis McGowin: So Laura, we understand that you’ve got a pretty extreme—I was about to say German cockroaches! We were talking about those earlier—but Asian Lady Beetles. I mean, who knew? Now is this your first run-in with them that you've ever really had?Laura K: Yes. I’ve never had them—you think they’re ladybugs until you have hundreds or thousands of them and they bite, and you know that's not a ladybug.Michael Wienecke: Did you have any reaction to the bite?Laura K: No, just hurts. And they're not aggressive; they just bite if they get stuck, like under a sleeve or something, but it's still not good.Travis McGowin: Now have you been in Georgia your entire life or…?Laura K: No, I grew up in Virginia… in rural Virginia, so I’m used to bugs and rural areas. And then lived in New Jersey for 10 years, and then we got cold and it was expensive, and we moved to Georgia in 2004. So we’ve been in Georgia since then.Travis McGowin: That's pretty impressive though that you've lived several different places and still up to this point haven’t really had any kind of run-ins with these things. And it feels like—Michael, see if you agree—but I do feel like now over the last probably four or five years, they’ve actually seemed to be getting worse. That's just from my take on how many I've treated and seen. Would you agree with that?Michael Wienecke: 100%. Me and my wife went to Georgia, I do not know exactly where, but it was very similar to your pictures of your home—beautiful home by the way, up in the mountains and all that—but we were bombarded by them. My wife, obviously, it's not something that… they controlled them a lot better than what was outside than what was inside the condo/cabin where we were at. So I think they were doing something. But yes, like Travis said, we’ve had such hot winters. It’s just been extremely hot winters and we normally see a much larger pest infestation or we start seeing a lot more aggregation of pests inside homes in the summer.Travis McGowin: So these Asian Lady Beetles, they fall under a category in our world of trying to overwinter in a warm place. They’re one of a couple—you’ve got Asian Lady Beetles, you’ve got the Brown Marmorated Stink Bugs…Laura K: Stink bugs are all there too, yeah.Travis McGowin: Right, absolutely. So they come into September, October, they start to look for a place to overwinter and ride out the potentially colder weather, which in Alabama we've had like three days of cold weather and the rest has been miserably warm or humid. And I'm sure North Georgia might be better, but Georgia itself is probably not too far off base of what we've been seeing.Laura K: No, it's been a mild winter, yeah.Travis McGowin: Yeah, they creep in and they just try to take over. They're just looking for a place to hang out and they come in droves.Laura K: They do. They fly, yeah.Michael Wienecke: Well, they're called occasional invaders for this reason, that they come in right around that time and then they drop off at a certain time, and then the next year they come right back.Travis McGowin: Right, so, but from what we’ll discuss and from what you’ve experienced, I feel like come next season for these pests, you’ll probably be a lot more well-equipped to deal with them, especially having some understanding about what it is you’re dealing with.Laura K: I hope so. I've got… that’s why I wanted to talk to you guys about it, but also just to come up with a plan for the next six months to start the prevention because I know they’ll come back. I think they’re trying to get out of the house from what I’ve read. And so they get trapped inside now and they die everywhere. And so they are, I guess, trying to get out, but then they’re going to come back in the fall and swarm again. And they swarmed like… you had to walk like you’re swatting them to get up to the house. It was terrible. And I don't think the previous homeowners did anything. I think they were very much more laid back than we are.Travis McGowin: Well, and as with most any pest, on the very basic level, the first thing we always like to take a look at is how are they getting in and what can you do about that? Before any type of chemical application, before any type of pesticide or what have you. I don't know if you're familiar with the term “Integrated Pest Management” or IPM, but in your research you may have seen it or heard it. So IPM is really, really big on cutting the access points off for whatever it is you’re having a problem with even before using anything to basically harm them or kill them or whatever it is. So, judging by what we saw from some of the pictures that you sent us for your house there… you’ve probably got a decent amount of access points around.Laura K: Oh yeah, for sure, yeah. And we’ve tried to seal up windows and doors as best we can, but I think our next step is going to be to hire a painter to just come and caulk the entire house. Like everywhere—outside, inside, if you guys think that would help. But just all those little cracks and crevices because it's an older home and it's got a lot in it.Michael Wienecke: Well, and that's what I wanted to pull up the pictures and talk about too, because there are a few areas, and I’m really hoping because I’ve bet a lot on this in myself, but where these little guys are hanging out mostly in your house. So, right-hand side right there on the deck ledge, is that where you're getting most of the activity?Laura K: Yes, around those doors and that window on the right. Both of the two windows on the right side, but really the one on the right side mostly—right is… they're everywhere. That corner. That lighter colored wood right there.Michael Wienecke: Yes, that shingles, uh-huh.Travis McGowin: Now which direction—can you advise us which direction that part of the house faces?Laura K: That is… it faces south.Travis McGowin: Okay, so being that it’s a southern-facing direction, of course sun rises in the east and then sets towards the west, it's probably, I would dare say, probably receives the most amount of sunlight more so than the rest of the house. Obviously more so than the opposite side.Laura K: Yes, it's been a mild winter.Michael Wienecke: So tell me what your other pest control companies have done to try to get rid of this problem for you as far as treatment?Laura K: They have come out and just sprayed. They sprayed the eaves, the windows, around the doors… they were just out last week.Travis McGowin: So when did they start doing that?Laura K: We’ve only owned the home since November. So they came shortly after when we moved in with the ladybugs and were needing help. So they came probably late November and sprayed, and then I called them and said come back and they did and it didn’t, you know…Travis McGowin: So that—that's the kicker right there, and I'm glad you—I'm not glad you're dealing with this, but I'm glad you said November because it probably hit the nail on the head of what I was thinking in my mind, which is: so they start to migrate in in that September-October range. So by the point that you guys purchased the house, they were already there. Now I'm not going to say you didn't end up with more like you said, they've swarmed and you're swatting at them and all that, but if you don't catch it from a chemical application standpoint on the exterior of the house before they get there, then they're already inside.Michael Wienecke: It is much more difficult to deal with them once they’re already, like he said, established. Because they’re going to put off that pheromone and they’re going to just start kind of coming in there in droves.Travis McGowin: Right. So this is kind of the point in question that we're talking about, that second floor. How are the door seals around that bottom?Laura K: They’re really bad. The doors need to be replaced, we just can’t afford to do it yet. But both doors are in pretty rough shape. I mean, you can see daylight through one of them—like through the crack in the middle.Travis McGowin: And they probably get baked by the sun a lot. The black trim attracts them, I think, because it's warm through there.Michael Wienecke: My other one was the inside—it's beautiful, but you don't have an attic space. So I would imagine that there's some pretty good cracks and crevices between the tongue and groove where they may be getting in through that.Laura K: They are definitely. And in this corner where the fan to the right is… yeah, that corner, there's tons of them. All over there, all through there. And we tried caulking on our own some of those cracks and crevices and it just got to be too much. So… yeah, I think it needs to be done anyway, it'll look better.Travis McGowin: But let me ask you this. So, I know you had—let’s see if I can find the picture that’s in my mind. All right, so I'm going to show two. So first of all you got this one. Yeah, this was a big one. Right. So I'm going to look at this and then transitioning to this picture. That's why I took that for y’all. Right. So this void space that goes up above the living space of the house right there, how open is that past what we can see?Laura K: I mean, there's definitely places for bugs to get in there. We actually got a Starlink and when we had to kind of put it through this… a different area but same idea, put it through the space between the—that we’re looking at, those empty gaps between the boards there… there were like, you know, layers of them in there.Travis McGowin: The Asian Lady Beetles? Yeah, uh-huh. And so think about this too. So if you've got them in large layers or in large groups inside of those void spaces, something similar to this, and there is any type of gaps, cracks, crevices that look into the living space… so think about what happens at night when daylight disappears but the lights come on in the house. Now the only light that these bugs can see is inside your house and what's typically attractive to insects? Right. So, you know, you've got that kind of working against you too. So would you say that in those little void spaces between the boards right there, that any of that sits directly above that tongue and groove that we were looking at right here and that there could be some direct access through those gaps from there?Laura K: There could be, yeah, for sure.Travis McGowin: That's what we were kind of speculating when we first looked at the pictures was that that could also be an issue too. So our speculations have kind of actually been kind of spot on from what we've already been kind of discussing while looking at them. So, but I know that ultimately you're searching for how to make this more tolerable obviously for the upcoming season. So, we kind of hit point number one: that initial exterior application—or for starters, exclusion. Being able to prevent them from entering in the first place is always your best medicine, so to speak, for the problem. And then of course we already talked about the chemical application side being at an appropriate time to catch them before they start migrating to the warm surfaces on the outside of your house.Travis McGowin: Now, if you find yourself in the point where you were behind the eight ball on that and they're already here, Michael, what are some things that we can recommend to her? What are some things that a company might be able to do to help her to help the here and now, now that they're already here?Michael Wienecke: So I mean honestly, the one thing… the spraying, everything that they're doing is fine, but the one thing that I'm seeing they're missing is dust. I mean, you've got dust between the cracks and crevices of—if you want to pull those pictures back up I can kind of talk about that. Which one are you wanting? All of them. All of them.Michael Wienecke: So, to go to the extreme, there are tools that we have that we can put a duster and dust the gable vents, we can dust around the roofline. We've had situations in the past where a customer's had a hole in their roof and they've had Asian Lady Beetles and we're having to combat with water getting in a home, and the dust really does a really good job. So I'd dust around those cracks and crevices where that beam's coming out on that other picture, Travis. That one right there. So where the beam is coming out of the house itself, I'd wonder if you could get some dust behind that, behind those light fixtures if there's any way that we could pull that off, dust that, and get a good bit of dust behind all these areas that these beetles and other pests—roaches and other things—are going to congregate.Travis McGowin: And when he says dust, what we're referring to is an insecticidal dust. Very, very fine powder, doesn’t absorb moisture. Once it goes into a void space like an attic or a wall void or wherever, it is there for a really, really long time.Michael Wienecke: Well, our breakdown of products—and I believe I told you over the phone—is that, you know, the sunlight is going to be the biggest breakdown of our products. UV light is going to break that product down faster than moisture, rainwater, any of that. UV light. So being in that attic space or that dark environment, it's like Travis just said, it's going to be there for a long time.Travis McGowin: So, some other things too right here that I'm just while I'm pointing this out: so, you know, you've got the light fixtures on either side of the double doors, looks like you've maybe got an outlet right there on the lower right wall there. So those are some other places too, if they're not caulked around very well, that you could dust behind those as well because these insects will go ahead and go past these fixtures where they come out and work their way down into the wall voids and hang out in the wall voids too.Laura K: Does the dust have something that attracts them to it or do they just happen upon it?Michael Wienecke: It’s a contact poison. So there’s no attraction to it.Travis McGowin: No, there's no attraction, yep. Basically, the way this works is that it's puffed into wherever it's going to be applied to and then it floats and settles on whatever surfaces are in there. So if it's in a wall void, it's going to float and settle on the sides and down into the bottom of the wall void or whatever insulation's there. And so basically these insects, whether it's Asian Lady Beetles, whether it's roaches, they're going to track through that product and then a lot of insects groom themselves. So when they track through it and they walk through it, they groom themselves and it gets all over their body—or they may just walk through it and it scrapes their body across it, and then their body will absorb it and then that's what eventually kills the insect, yep.Michael Wienecke: It starts to kind of dry them out too. I mean, if the exoskeleton gets damaged, like Travis just said, they’ll start to not retain water as well and all that kind of stuff.Travis McGowin: Right. So definitely I'm glad you were talking about the door seals needing to be remedied.Laura K: We thought about even just putting plastic over them. A lot of people do that in the wintertime.Michael Wienecke: Well, my question too is how much insulation is that between that cedar board and that brick? Because that's on the other side of the wood, correct?Laura K: I guess, we have no idea. Probably not much. I think the previous owner did like a foam… because there’s other parts in the room that we could see that were unfinished and it was like a spray foam, hard, you know, it hardened. I think that was insulation he had in there.Michael Wienecke: Okay. All right, and so let's move on. Can you kind of give us a descriptor of what where this might be? Is this still up on the second floor?Laura K: Yes, all the living space is on the second floor. And this is in a bedroom. If you’re looking at that picture of the outside of the house and the deck was all the way in the right, this is the window counting from right to left, it’s the third window—right before you get to the smaller window there to the far left. And that's a bedroom. And then yeah, and so it got better when we sealed up the window with some—I don’t know what you call it, like sealant caulk—but the stuff you buy in a roll. But they were in there… we were up there last weekend and they were coming in or trying to get out or whatever they're doing, there was a lot more because it was warm last week.Travis McGowin: Right. Okay. And then now I'm assuming this is also off the deck, so off the second floor? So this is a kitchen area?Laura K: East. And there's not too many that come in there. There's a couple, but not terribly bad. And this is still in that same area as that last picture then? Yep, and that's in the kitchen area too and same thing. We get a couple in there but not like we do in the other room.Travis McGowin: All right, so certainly dust applications are great, especially for void space. You can’t just go dust everything in the house, that’s frowned upon for sure. But chemical application around gaps, cracks, crevices, eaves, doors, windows and all that on the outside, dust in void spaces. But then, of course, obviously like in your situation, you still run into that little problem is that they were there already invading before you guys got there in November.Travis McGowin: So one other thing that I like to point out too is that unfortunately, yeah, we do run into those problems to where the insect is already there and it’s like, okay, well what do we do now? They’re going to have to vacuum them up when they die, but we want to expedite their funeral process, so to speak. Because we know they're going to find their—they're going to try to find their way to a light source, which is usually going to be a window or door. Liquids and aerosols around those areas where they're trying to congregate are great.Travis McGowin: One of the liquids that we use, I promise you after I apply it, if there's active Asian Lady Beetles in those areas, I promise you within a minute or two they're starting to drop and they're starting to die. And so if you're going to be stuck with them, at least having to clean them up or vacuuming them up, you might as well do it when they're dead. They're not flying and crawling everywhere. And that usually works out really well in starting to knock down the population because that's where they're going to go.Laura K: Where and how do they reproduce? Are they laying eggs in the walls or are they like out in the woods?Travis McGowin: So I would say that I have never personally seen them like babies in a house at all, ever.Michael Wienecke: It’s going to be coming out of the woodland of the trees. I think their breeding cycle is all completely done before this invasion ever starts. Because I've never seen any type of larva or anything like that. They've always been those the same size, that red to off-red orangeish color.Michael Wienecke: This is not something that, like mosquitoes or something, where you can cut off the life cycle—it’s an every 21-day life cycle, every 30-day life cycle, something of that nature—it's a seasonal issue. So that's why they call it an occasional invader, because it's something that we just don't see. And if we had a proper winter—1993 here in Birmingham for us or something—then we might not have near as a problem like we talked about here at this time of the year.Laura K: Was going to ask would mosquito fogging help prior to, but I guess not, yeah.Michael Wienecke: No. And the protocol really, I mean, it's fairly simple. You're going to come in, we're going to treat around all the windows interior and exterior, we're going to dust in the cracks and crevices and the voids, we're going to treat around the outside perimeter, we're going to make sure to do a really nice spot treatment on that sunny side of the house that we kind of talked about before. I have done three or four this month for the same issue that you've had, kind of the same “oh, nobody can get rid of them,” and the first treatment we've got a 90% reduction. The second treatment I haven't had a callback yet, so I would hope it's a 95% reduction because that's what we're aiming for.Laura K: That’s awesome.Michael Wienecke: Well, we're already looking at opening a branch and going over there and all that, you know, we're ready to go.Laura K: I have told everybody I've run into—because this is a new part of town for us up in Jasper—and I met with the tax assessor about something with our property and I'm like, “Hey, okay now we did that, can we talk about these Asian Lady Beetles?” I'm asking everyone who comes over—the propane guy—like, “What do you do?” And the solution, I'm like, the person who figures this out is going to be very wealthy.Michael Wienecke: Well, we talk about on the podcast information that's to help you as the customer and just to be able to help anybody that wants to do it themselves or anything like that. And we're just honored that you would reach out from Georgia over and even about an Asian Lady Beetle. We didn't even understand that this was really that big of a—I mean, we get it every year where people call about it, but more and more people are telling us this year like companies are saying there's nothing they can do about it. And we're getting that in Birmingham too, they're just giving up. I think it comes down to a liability standpoint, honestly. I think that it comes down to a time and a liability standpoint. Most companies won’t cover yellow jackets because of the liability and the time. I built this company on customer service and customer satisfaction.Laura K: Exactly. There's no way in down in Atlanta in some of those old historic homes where they have old money, there's no way they would put up with it. I don't know where they pull people in from, but they don't settle for this stuff.Michael Wienecke: Well, I'd love to talk to your company that's doing it currently and just if they need any help—I don't mean this in a bad way—but any direction on what maybe they could use that they don't know about. Because again, Georgia and Alabama, we have different rules that we have to follow.Laura K: Okay. I'll ask them about it. I'm not sure I'm going to keep them, so give me a quarter.Travis McGowin: If we ever end up in that area though, we will be more than happy to service your home there.Michael Wienecke: That is the first thing I told Travis when I saw your—I was like, “We gotta find a way to get up there and treat this house.”Laura K: Everybody would be… I just met a new neighbor the other day and I asked her of course, “Do you have this problem?” “Oh, they’re terrible, the whole street has them.” And everybody's been told the same thing: vacuum them up, don’t step on them, they release pheromones, they attract more. I'm like, there's so many, how do I not step on them?Travis McGowin: And I'm glad you said that too, because the fact that this can be a yearly problem… pheromones are definitely—you're talking about something that can raise a beacon and say, “Hey, we got a great place, this is a great hotel for us to accommodate during the winter.”Laura K: Which that's one of my other thoughts was: is there any research or anything out there about attracting them away from property? Instead of just the prevention, it'd be a great plan as if you could find a way to lure them somewhere else through pheromones even. I don’t know, I’m daydreaming about this.Michael Wienecke: I would be on an EPA standpoint then where they would be what they could and couldn't put in the air. Because there's so many… I mean, there is millions and millions of dollars that goes into a product's just invention, you know, being thought of.Laura K: UGA extension office, their research and labs, I read everything at the extension office at UGA… and they said the same thing: vacuuming.Michael Wienecke: Wow, that's interesting.Travis McGowin: Well, again Laura, like I said, we greatly appreciate you taking your time and discussing those photos. It was kind of neat to take those assumptions and make them a reality.Michael Wienecke: Yeah, we had fun.Laura K: Glad I could help. Well, I'll send you our… you know, we’re in Georgia, I was my kids are at UGA, so I’ll send you our… I’ll be sure to pass your names along.Michael Wienecke: How about that?Laura K: You guys have a great day, take care. Bye Laura.Travis McGowin: Hey listen, if you guys watching this podcast, if anybody is having an issue with Asian Lady Bugs just like Laura is, I hope that some of the information that Michael and I shared and discussed with Laura, I hope it helps you. And of course if you’re in our coverage area here in Central Alabama or Northern part of Alabama, North Central Alabama, give us a call. I'll go ahead really quick and put our information up: if you're in the Birmingham area, give us a call (205) 470-8161; and then if you are in the Montgomery area, (334) 595-9055. We would love to talk to you just like we talked with Laura. You'll be 100% happy or you won't pay a penny and we're going to do our very best to get to the bottom of your problem and keep you bug-free. The post Listener Deep Dive: Reviewing Laura's Infestation (Part 2) appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

In this episode of the Peskies Pest Control Podcast, Michael Wienecke and Travis McGowin begin a multi-part investigation into a severe Asian Lady Beetle infestation at a listener's home in North Georgia.Through a detailed photo analysis, the team identifies critical vulnerabilities in the home's design, including its wood siding, metal roofing, and sunny exposure, which create a perfect environment for beetles to “overwinter”. The discussion highlights how specific entry points—like gaps in vaulted tongue-and-groove ceilings and unsealed double doors—allow thousands of beetles to bypass local “un-treatable” labels. This first installment focuses on why these pests are attracted to specific structures and the importance of an “ounce of prevention” before the autumn migration begins. Watch this video on YouTube! Podcast Transcript:Michael Wienecke: Hey, so here on the Peskies Pest Control Podcast, we are talking today—we had a listener from one of our YouTube videos about Asian Lady Beetles. She reached out to us. Travis, read exactly what she said. She's been having this problem for quite some time.Travis McGowin: Right, and to give people just a little backstory on that, basically, we have an area on our website that allows people to submit contact cards and ask us to basically reach out to them. And so, Laura had actually sent in a contact card through our website and this is what it said:“Hello, I know we're outside of your service area as we're in Georgia and you're in Alabama, but I watched your YouTube videos on Asian Lady Beetle infestations and it was the first thing that gave us real hope. We have a home here and can't find anyone locally willing to tackle the problem. Everyone just says that there's nothing that can be done. After seeing your approach, it seems like someone should be able to help. If you have any guidance, referrals in North Georgia, or even offer remote consulting, we'd truly appreciate it. Thanks so much for any direction you can provide. We're desperate. Thank you, Laura.”Michael Wienecke: First off, we are flattered that somebody would reach out that far and ask about some of these problems with Asian Lady Beetles. So, she sent us a ton of pictures, so we were just going to kind of go over each picture that we see and go from there.Travis McGowin: Right, so she's got the pictures that she emailed us. We've got them uploaded and we're just going to talk through kind of one by one. Maybe anybody watching—obviously, if you're listening, you won't be able to see the pictures—but you'll hear a description. If it sounds like something, maybe a condition or maybe similar to the way that your home is built, maybe it can kind of give you some insight and some guidance as to some ways that you might could help lessen the problem, prevent the problem. They do seem like they've been a lot worse this year than in the last couple years. We're still having people with issues around here, and we're almost to the end of February.Michael Wienecke: Well, it's all about the seasons, too. I mean, we've had extremely hot weather.Exterior Analysis: The “Sunny Side” AttractionTravis McGowin: Right. So, I'm going to go ahead and pull us off the screen here and we're going to look at the first picture—the outside of the house first. Obviously, a two-story house, porch, looks like there's kind of a non-enclosed carport type area there. Looks like it may even—almost looks like a fireplace right there in the middle.Michael Wienecke: Yes, right there. The little white recessed—Travis McGowin: Right, and I see obviously the chimney has two stacks on it, so it may have an indoor and an outdoor fireplace, I'm not really sure. But, you know, based upon what we're seeing, the house has wood siding. Go back to that other picture. So, let's just talk about—she's having issues with Asian Lady Beetles. With this first picture that I already looked at, I can already—I'll bet it's the front right-hand side of that house right there where the sun's shining on it.Travis McGowin: Well, yeah, that's usually point number one. The vast majority of the people that have a problem with Asian Lady Beetles end up having a problem specifically on the side of the house that receives the most sunlight. The reason for that is because these beetles are looking for a place to overwinter to stay warm throughout the colder weather, and obviously they're going to be drawn more towards a place that has sunlight because it's warmer.Michael Wienecke: Yep, the metal roof too. I mean, it's going to be hot. And also, how sealable is a metal roof?Travis McGowin: Especially with the textures and the different—I guess it's corrugated surface of it—you're going to have gaps. It's not like it's a flat piece of sheet metal. So, if there happen to be any gaps underneath that metal—a lot of times they'll go over an existing roof with metal—there's going to be gaps around the eaves. And especially with a home like this that looks like more of your log cabin style house or wood siding house, those can be a lot more prone to gaps, cracks, and crevices. Especially with wood having moisture, shrinking, contracting in and expanding because of moisture content—sometimes that can even put you at a higher risk.Identifying Entry PointsTravis McGowin: So, we're going to take a look now at another one. Here's another one—this is an interesting one. What's your first reaction here, Michael?Michael Wienecke: So, I would say that we've got a pinch point right there on the left-hand corner. And it looks like it's getting a little bit of water. And then the type of siding—what do they call that, the wooden shank siding—is not going to seal really well up against that trim piece. Being the sunny side of the house, I think that's probably going to be the sunny side of the house.Travis McGowin: I think if you look at the second-floor deck on the right side—I think you're up on that deck looking at the awning on the back side of that house.Michael Wienecke: That's what I was thinking. Rainwater alone just thinking it's kind of pouring off that deck and just running right off the side of that siding.Travis McGowin: So, here's what I see, though. If you look at the way the roofline slopes down, and then you look at the awning coming off, you've got exposed wood right there that runs towards the main part of the house through the roofline. My guess would be that it's probably not sealed up all that great—at least not from the standpoint of gaps and cracks that are large enough for an Asian Lady Beetle to get through.Michael Wienecke: Seeing that picture, I would say that's a really good harborage. And of course, if they've got a water issue going into that area and it's hot, it's going to kind of heat that up and just kind of make it a really great environment for all pests.Travis McGowin: Well, and then I've got this angle too—so you can kind of see that second-floor side again. Also keep in mind that those two sets of the double doors there—if there are gaps or cracks in the seals in the center or around the doors—if this is the sunny side of the house, that might be a reason why they could be worse in that second-floor room. And then, of course, the bigger the window, the more heat and light it's going to let in, and if you have Asian Lady Beetles inside your home, they're going to be drawn towards those specific areas.Michael Wienecke: Well, and look at the color of the house. The whole color's brown except for that one area is a really light color.Interior Analysis: Vaulted Ceilings and Tongue-and-GrooveTravis McGowin: Right. So, those are the only pictures that I have of the outside of the house, but now we're going to transition over into the inside. In my house, I do get an occasional Asian Lady Beetle—I might at most in a room see two or three at a time. I have sheetrock. But if you had ceilings like this, you might be a little more prone to seeing Asian Lady Beetles. Sheetrock goes from floor to ceiling, across the ceiling, all the edges are really well sealed, taped, mudded, painted. But if you have tongue-and-groove or some type of wooden ceiling, obviously there's gaps, cracks, and crevices.Michael Wienecke: Well, and just judging by what I'm seeing here, it's probably a pretty tight attic space.Travis McGowin: Right, it could be. That vaulted portion—I'm not exactly sure which room that's in—but that vaulted ceiling may not really have an attic space at all. And also, right there where the ceiling meets the brick—a lot of times you've got a little piece of trim or quarter-round right there, but you can still have gaps because nothing's going to really sit flush up against brick much of the time.Michael Wienecke: No, you're right about that. As well as the windows—they look like they're wooden windows. I have wooden windows at my house and out of all of the windows, I would say those are the least sealed.Travis McGowin: Right. And this is just another view of that same room.Michael Wienecke: So that's that room with the light wooding on the other side. I'll bet that that's the area that she's having the most issue.Travis McGowin: Yep. And then if we look, you see vaulted ceiling, definitely the same texture on the ceiling throughout—almost looks like tongue-and-groove or something of that nature. It's very pleasing to the eye, however there's obviously gaps and things that you could see through that. Moving on to what looks like possibly a closet—so it looks like there's almost maybe shiplap or something like that on the wall there. There again, a good bit of gaps, cracks, and crevices for them to come through and hide on.Michael Wienecke: And I can't remember how old she said the house was.Travis McGowin: Right, and it could be older; however, there looks like there's a lot of updated—I mean, recessed lights and things of that nature. Here's yet another room. There again, we've got the wood, not sheetrock, but we've got the wood on the walls. Gaps, cracks, crevices. Moisture causes wood to contract and swell depending upon the moisture content. I see it in my own house sometimes when the humidity increases here in Alabama. I have one door in our bedroom that leads to the master bathroom, and the door doesn't want to close very good because of the moisture content causing the wood in the door to swell a little bit.Michael Wienecke: Right. Well, and like we were just talking about, the wooden windows do the same thing and they're just not going to seal up properly. That room's going to heat up really well and it's going to be hard to control hot and cold compared to a large attic space.The Role of Fireplaces and Double DoorsTravis McGowin: Right. And so, moving on to the next one—this looks like it's probably in the kitchen or something like that. Same throughout—same wood on the walls. That window actually looks like it's just one whole rectangular window. What a view, though!Michael Wienecke: Absolutely beautiful.Travis McGowin: Double doors—big thing about double doors being, and I kind of mentioned this earlier, is that if you have your door seals that go down the center, if the door does not sit flush with the frame, you can have a lot of different entry points or possible access points through that.Michael Wienecke: Yeah, it can be something as simple—I went to a customer's house the other day. We had gotten rid of about 85% of his issue and went back, and his seals on his windows had just—they had cut them just a little bit too short, and just something that small those little guys can slide right on in.Travis McGowin: Right, it doesn't take a very big gap. And then this is just the same kind of a different view of what looks like the master bedroom, maybe. But there again, you got a fireplace. It looks like it runs all the way up above that TV, so it might be a true fireplace as opposed to an insert. I would assume it probably is a true fireplace if it's got a chimney like it does on the outside of the house, and they can come down those as well. You and I, Michael, have both seen an older house that we treated—the one actually in the YouTube video that Laura references—had just hundreds and hundreds of Asian Lady Beetles laying at the base of the fireplace.Can an Infestation Be Treated?Michael Wienecke: Her home was, I would say, older than this home. But just looking at the home, tell me how you feel, but do you think that this home is treatable?Travis McGowin: Absolutely. So, that's why I feel like in a sense where you get people who run a pest control company or operate a pest control company or even just work for one, and they get these questions where it's like, “Okay, can we treat this? Can we do anything with this?” I don't feel like in the pest control world that there should be many times when the answer is “no.” Because even if we couldn't go as far in treatment with Laura's house as we did with the other house that we did the YouTube video on, there's still plenty that can be done. You can always treat gaps, cracks, and crevices around the inside and outside of the house. Most every house is going to have some type of attic space. Attic spaces can be treated. Gaps, cracks, and crevices can be treated with liquids, they can be treated with dusts, aerosols. So, I really feel like you might have to set realistic expectations with the customer and say, “Hey, we can only do so much. I can't promise your problem's going to completely disappear. However, it should be better.” Or what I tell people sometimes is, “Hey, we're going to apply this treatment. I'm not certain we can stop them from coming in—a lot of times when you're seeing them, it's already too late, they've already migrated in—however, I can try to help you only clean up dead ones instead of seeing live ones everywhere.”Michael Wienecke: Well, I mean, you're trying for a 95% reduction is what we like to say because it's a flying insect, right? It can fly from house to house and they are extremely persistent.Travis McGowin: Yeah, they are. Them and the other one that goes hand-in-hand with them is stink bugs. Stink bugs will typically be occupying a house just like Asian Lady Beetles would, and there again, they're looking for a place to overwinter, they're looking for a place to stay warm during the colder temperatures.Treatment StrategiesTravis McGowin: So, you know, let's talk a little bit about specifically treating this house. If you're going to treat the house for Laura and try to help her out here, how do you think you'd start on the outside of this house, Michael?Michael Wienecke: So, first thing is we're going to get the consultation—I mean, that's going to be our most important. Speak to her about where she's seeing them the most. Like I said, we'd talked about that right-hand side of the house. We'd go inside, I'd assess if I could get in the crawlspace—it'd be great to get some dust in there. When I say treat the attic, not the whole entire attic—just around the eaves to those entry points where those pests can get in. Then on the inside, we're going to treat around the windows, cracks and crevices, getting kind of a good barrier around there. Getting an aerosol in between those cracks and crevices that's going to leave us a really good residual as well as killing those little guys on contact.Travis McGowin: Right, and they're going to typically—once they make entry into the house—they're going to typically want to go towards a window because it's obviously warmer if sunlight's coming through, there's light outside, so a lot of times they think they're going towards daylight when in fact they're just stuck behind a glass window.Michael Wienecke: Oh, 100%. Well, and then I mean, it's always good to treat obviously the highest areas where they're coming in. Those beautiful doors right there are very large entry points. Garage doors are always really good spots. Just looking at that window right there, it also looks like it's on the sunny side and it's pretty low grade, so that'd be a really good entry point for them. So again, treating around the base of the home as well.Travis McGowin: Yeah, and just going back to this—now that we've kind of looked through the photos—it's kind of obvious that there's probably not much of an attic space above that second floor that comes to that balcony right there. As you can see, if we swap over to this picture, I believe that's what we're looking at right there. At a minimum, you could at least apply some treatment to this attic space, and around the exterior, if there are gaps, cracks, crevices around the doors and windows, you certainly could treat around those. Even right there where the air conditioning unit is—you're talking about where the lines go into the house—there's a gap usually around there that's sometimes not very well sealed up. So, I think it's very dismissive for a company to say, “Hey, there's nothing we can do, you're just going to have to live with them.” I really do feel like there is some relief that could be sought here and gained here at this customer's property.Michael Wienecke: Well, and then I mean just on the exterior treatment—treating around the windows, treating around the eaves, treating around the walls, treating around the sunny side of the house. You have to follow the label—it's a spot treatment, it's a perimeter treatment. But the label doesn't say that a spot can be to the top of the house or to the bottom of the house; it's still a spot.Prevention and DangersTravis McGowin: Right, right. It reminds me a lot of one of the houses that I have down here in my neck of the woods in the Montgomery area. The customer—the wife—is actually allergic to them, and what some people may not know, the Asian Lady Beetles actually can bite. Yes, they can. I have been bitten on the back of the neck by one actually here in my office. So, I have been on the receiving end of that. But she is actually allergic and has a bit of a reaction to those. So, they live in a two-story house that has wood on it—it's a log cabin style house. And that's the problem that they've run into: the contraction and the swelling of the wood opens up gaps. It doesn't matter how much sealant you put in those gaps, eventually you're going to have to reapply it because of the nature of the wood on the outside. So, come September, October every single year, we really do a good job of treating around the outside. And we haven't been able to prevent them 100%—however, we've made life a lot more livable in their house because of the treatment that we have been able to do.Michael Wienecke: Well, and you have to look at the outside environment, the condition of the home—if it's a wooden structure, if it's a brick structure. We're seeing a lot of issues with this board-and-batten style structure—it just leaves a lot of open cracks and crevices in these newer homes that are being built.Travis McGowin: Right, and unfortunately, the homes are built so fast these days a lot of times. You hope that you've got a great builder and a great set of contractors, no corners are being cut, everything's being sealed in like it's supposed to. And even the best builder may sometimes miss something. You go into these attics that have been spray foamed, and what do you find? You still find bugs. Because even spray foam is not 100% the be-all and end-all of sealing things up. No matter how diligent you try to be to seal something out, unfortunately, if it wants to find a way in, a lot of times it will find a way in, even with spray foam trying to inhibit that.Michael Wienecke: Oh, you're not going to seal Asian Lady Beetles out. It's not going to happen. You have to do a combination of, I would say, decluttering your gutters, making sure there's not a hole in your roof. I think I had them so bad, I discovered I had a water leak in my roof. So just things of that nature. If you're having these issues and you may or may not know it, it's going to be hard to get rid of that issue even with treatment.Travis McGowin: Yeah, and not only do they invade, but they can actually leave some nasty evidence behind that they've been there. I've got a customer—fairly new house, only a couple years old—the house is white, solid white on the outside from the eaves all the way to the ground. They had a wave of these Asian Lady Beetles come in and settle primarily at the highest points of the house around the eaves, and when they were gone, they left this just nasty blackish-brownish film on the eaves of this house that the customer's going to have to have cleaned at some point. So they can make a mess, and then not only that, they can actually cause you to have Asian Lady Beetles year after year after year because, like a lot of insects, they can leave a pheromone that says, “Hey, this is a great spot, this is our new Airbnb—come on in in the fall.”Michael Wienecke: And they can cause house fires. I did see where the curly-cue light—they get in between the light from the heat and they can actually cause it to ignite.Travis McGowin: And we just thought they were just annoying! They can actually be dangerous. That's great.Michael Wienecke: Yes, yes.Final Thoughts: “An Ounce of Prevention”Travis McGowin: But like I said, to kind of summarize it all up, I can understand Laura being frustrated because no matter how many times you clean, you can vacuum all you want to, the next day it's like you never vacuumed, it's like you never cleaned. They're back. Eventually they can't escape, so they just die there in your house, and it is frustrating. I do feel like someone out there could give them some relief. If we were in Georgia, obviously we would be more than happy to go and treat this property for her and get her on the right path to having some relief, too. But I do think in this case, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” It's my catchphrase, but it's so true, especially in our pest control world. Because a house like this, or even the one in my area that has Asian Lady Beetles every year, if you know it's coming, applying a great exterior treatment when this wave of Asian Lady Beetles comes through could potentially save you a lot of headache throughout the fall and winter.Michael Wienecke: Definitely. Well, with what we're looking at, I didn't see any of that—the landscape looked good, there wasn't any overgrowth or anything like that. She is on top of a mountain.Travis McGowin: Well, but you know, just from a pesticide application type standpoint, I mean, I think you could come in there probably September-ish, give or take, as long as you weren't already seeing them, and do a good treatment—especially problem areas: gaps, cracks, crevices around doors, windows, the foundation, the eaves, that sort of thing. And probably put a good barrier out there so that when they do inevitably find their way back to the warm side of the house and land on it and crawl, it would probably take care of a good portion of them right out the gate before they ever got in.Michael Wienecke: Well, I'm just glad she reached out to us from Georgia to Birmingham, Alabama. I just thought that was really, really awesome and that's what we set out to do anyway was to help people. So, it seems like that's what we're doing, so we're excited about that.Travis McGowin: Absolutely. The post Listener Deep Dive: Reviewing Laura's Infestation (Part 1) appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

In this podcast episode, Michael Wienecke and Travis McGowin from Peskies Pest Control share a startling story about a family who purchased a home only to find a massive bed bug infestation waiting for them. The sellers had actually been living in a camper on the property to escape the bugs, a major “red flag” that was unfortunately missed during the buying process . After the homeowners were let down by a liquid spray treatment that offered no warranty, Peskies stepped in to solve the problem using high-intensity heat. By raising the home’s temperature to 160°F—effectively turning it into an oven—they were able to pull the insects out of the woodwork and eliminate them for good . The episode concludes with a reminder to “buy once, cry once” by investing in reputable inspections and choosing companies that stand behind their work with a 100% satisfaction guarantee. Read more about this in our blog post! Watch this vlog on YouTube! Podcast Transcript:Michael Wienecke 0:00 It baffles me that somebody can say they can get rid of bed bugs in one setting with a spray. So just tell me go back over that.Travis McGowin 0:14 All right, right, so we did a bed bug job yesterday. Super nice family. They bought a house. I think it’s been about eight to nine months ago. They, from what they advised to me, that has not been a full year. So they bought this house, and they kind of told me it probably should have been a bit of a red flag when they bought the house, because the previous owners of the house were not living in the house. They were living in a camper in front of the house.Michael Wienecke 0:46 You know, if there were any signs, that would have been the sign.Travis McGowin 0:52 Right, that one definitely, probably would have, would have been like a, you know, a bit of a red flag. It’s like, okay, so you have this house, as opposed to this camper. And maybe, you know, I could get that maybe, if you were doing, like, some serious remodeling or something like that, but, but evidently, they weren’t. So you have this, this house, you know, this three bedroom, one bathroom house, and then you have the people selling it, and they’re not even living in it, but they’re not renovating it, they just don’t want to be in there. So, I mean, that’s at least what I can assume. So anyway, they bought this house, and then come to find out, all of a sudden, they have bed bugs. To their knowledge, they never had them from wherever it was that they were living. So it’s very unlikely that they that they moved and brought something with them. So they move into this house, all of a sudden they have bed bugs. One of the local companies in their area where they live doesn’t touch bed bugs, but they did recommend a gentleman to come and treat them. Claimed that this gentleman is the one that they always recommend when it comes to bed bugs, and so they gave him the card. And so they call the guy. The guy comes out says, Yes, you got bed bugs. I’ll treat it for you. And apparently, from what the customer had advised us, did some sort of liquid treatment. I don’t know what the product was, or how he treated, or what he did, but I think charged them, you know, close to $1,000 and then advise them that they were not going to need a warranty, because this was going to solve the problem, and it didn’t.Michael Wienecke 2:32 I would always say, you know, talk to somebody about their warranty, their guarantee. I mean, we brought up that in the past. It’s just, it’s a really important thing, you know, it’s kind of what, what that company is going to, you know, back themselves.Travis McGowin 2:46 Right, and you’re, you’re going to want to do, and this isn’t even just with pest control. I mean, you can use this in pretty much any faucet of your life. I mean, you know, you probably wouldn’t go buy a new refrigerator if you didn’t think that for X amount of years, it was going to be warrantied for defects or, you know, I mean, there any anything you you want to know that a company that you’re hiring to do a service, or a company that makes a product that you’re wanting to buy is going to stand behind that product in the event that something doesn’t go as planned, something doesn’t work out, or something just fails.Michael Wienecke 3:25 Well, unless question to what the other company did. I mean, did they talk about washing the clothes? Do they talk about, you know, leaving everything inside the house when they were doing the treatment, you know, like with our heat, you know, we give you a full list and of instructions of how to get, you know, the house prepped and ready to go for us to have the best chance to get rid of those bed bugs for you,Travis McGowin 3:48 Right, you know, you’ll probably laugh when I say this, but, you know, it’s like we always tell our guys during training, like, Help us. Help you. Like, get the customer. You know, it’s a partnership. Yes, we are there to take care of these, these pests. We are there, whether it’s bed bugs, German roaches, general household pests, termites, whatever, whatever it is that’s ailing you, so to speak, but we’re there to take it. But it is a partnership.Michael Wienecke 4:15 What’s bugging you. Travis? What’s bugging you?Travis McGowin 4:18 The bugs, all the bugs. So it’s a partnership, though. So you know, case in point, let’s just say you got a really bad German Roach infestation, and we come in to treat but you you know, may not necessarily keep the cleanest kitchen, so instead of the roaches having to contact our product and our bait, well, maybe they’re eating what’s left on the counter or what’s left in the garbage can? Well, it’s going to take a lot longer to get rid of the problem if we can even get rid of it at all, because we’re these are some extenuating circumstances that are not helping us do our job. So in the same token as a bed bug treatment, you know, if the company comes in and says, Hey, you know, we need you to remove. Bed linens, launder them on a high heat. Laundry cycle from washing and dry. And we need you to, you know, remove items off the floor, all these things, these are all things that are going to help you get rid of this infestation. And so help that company, help you.Michael Wienecke 5:18 Well and it, you know, that’s why we chose heat, because we’re able to give that guarantee one one thing. It’s a 90 day guarantee, and that guarantee that we can get you back in your house relatively fast, I wouldn’t say, the very next day, because it’s still a baked potato by the time we’re done with it.Travis McGowin 5:37 The customer’s husband did come home as we were packing up, and it was comical, because he did have some choice things to say about how warm it was in the house. He wasn’t, you know, he wasn’t upset or mad. He knew. He knew we had already advised him. But, you know, it’s one thing to mentally play it out in your mind and go, Okay, you know, they’re going to increase the temperature of our house to X number of degrees, and it’s going to be warm and but 160 degrees in your mind, it’s not doesn’t really seem like a thing until you walk into it, and then it hits you in the face, and then it’s like, oh, wow, it really is hot. So he did. He had some entertaining things to say about it. But, you know, like I said, we had advised them of that before the treatment was ever done, that, you know, hey, when we pack our stuff up and pull our stuff out of the structure, you’re you’re going to need to wait to go in there, because it’s going to be hot.Michael Wienecke 6:39 I did come up with a good idea the other day, we could start selling this to fire departments too, because I felt like I was in a house fire.Travis McGowin 6:47 Right, I mean, you know, we pipe the heat in there through mylar duct work with our propane heater. I mean, the contents from floor to ceiling and everything in between are heating, you know, heating, and then eventually reach this point where we can finally start our timer. And I mean, it was just amazing, you know, when I, when I did the inspection a couple of days earlier. I mean, of course there were bed bugs, but when you start to put the fire to their feet, that’s when they all start to come out of the woodwork. And, I mean, you just, you would be very surprised as that how many you actually end up seeing when they all start to try to find a cooler place to go, and they can’t, I mean, it was just, you know, it’s, it’s baffling to see just how many are actually in there that you didn’t find because they’re so good at hiding.Michael Wienecke 7:40 Well, and that’s why during inspection, I mean, one to 50 of bed bugs, of that. I mean, how long does it take before we have just a full blown infestation on our hands? You’re looking at 21 days to 30 days, and you’ve got something that is almost out of control already.Travis McGowin 7:57 Right, and you know, so looking back, when the customer was purchasing the property, and they, you know, came on site to see that there was the previous owner living in a camper. Well, Michael, as you and I both know, just from being in this profession long enough and dealing with bed bugs long enough, there’s a high likelihood that one, if they were living in that camper to avoid bed bugs. They probably had bed bugs in the camper too, because if they pulled any of their belongings from that house to put them into that camper, they probably brought some bed bugs over there with them. It’s super easy to do.Michael Wienecke 8:36 Karma is a…Travis McGowin 8:39 Right, especially if they didn’t, and I’m assuming they did not disclose any of that to the to the buyers when they bought the house, you know. So it’s unfortunate. You know, it does happen. Obviously, if someone’s looking to sell property, then they’re trying to get rid of it. And you know, unfortunately, people don’t necessarily disclose all the problems, whether it’s structural or electrical or plumbing. And of course, that’s why we have, you know, some inspections. You know, you got a home inspection. Of course, you know, a pest inspection, as a lot of people call, is usually limited to termites or wood destroying organisms. But you know, I’d like to say that even, you know, even if we were called to do an inspection, a wood infestation report, or wood destroying organism inspection on that house, we would have probably went, they have bed bugs, even if everything was out of the house. I mean, there was still plenty of signs there were bed bugs around the top corners of the ceiling. Just there was, there was a pretty, pretty decent amount in there.Michael Wienecke 9:43 Well, and going back to other podcasts we’ve done about just the inspection process and all that. I mean, this is why you pay that little bit of money up front. I mean, you know to varies, but three to $600 is a is a pretty cheap price to pay to make sure that you don’t have all these issues or whatnot. You know?Travis McGowin 10:03 Well, a person’s home. Usually, I don’t know yet. I don’t know if you priced a new vehicle here lately. So this may not be true. This may not be true anymore.Michael Wienecke 10:13 $120,000Travis McGowin 10:15 But typically, most people’s most expensive investment is their home.Michael Wienecke 10:22 100%Travis McGowin 10:24 But like I said, vehicles have really shot up. So let’s you know, I don’t want to leave anything off the table there in terms of vehicles could be more expensive than a house sometimes, but that’s your most expensive investment. And so if it’s something that is my most expensive thing, I’m probably not going to cheap out on something that’s going to make sure that I’m buying a quality product, a quality property. I’m just, I’m just not, you know, I’m not going to cheap out on that. I mean, you can cheap out on ketchup, you know, instead of buying the name brand, you could buy the store brand, or mustard or ranch or something like that. But when it comes to a property, I’m probably not going to cheap out and try to find the lowest bidder on an inspection. I’m going to I’m going to try to find the most reputable company to do it, or the most reputable inspector to do it, and even if that costs me a little more money, that reputation of being able to sniff out problems or disclose problems is going to be well worth the extra money paid.Michael Wienecke 11:26 100%, I mean, a really good guy No. Larry short, he always told me, it’s a stupid tax, right? So if you, if you do something, and you try to cheapen out on doing something, eventually you’re probably going to end up paying something a little bit moreTravis McGowin 11:46 AbsolutelyMichael Wienecke 11:47 Shout out to Larry.Travis McGowin 11:48 You know it’s, it’s the the old saying, buy once, cry once, right?Michael Wienecke 11:53 Yes!Travis McGowin 11:54 You know if I’m going to shop for something, and I know that this one thing checks all the boxes, or this other thing over here checks a couple of the boxes, and I can get by with it, but it’s likely down the road I need to buy this one, and eventually I’m going to have to buy this one. So why not buy this one now and go ahead and get everything that it is that I need so that I’m not paying double the price because I was cheap in the in the beginning.Michael Wienecke 12:21 Well, in this guy that treated the house before for bed bugs, it’s he didn’t give them any kind of information on what he was doing or how he was doing. It seems to be he was nowhere to be seen after whatever he did failed. So again, it just it do some do some research on who you’re hiring.Travis McGowin 12:44 Yeah, absolutely, you know. And do some research on who you’re hiring. Do a really good interview. Get all those questions, write all those questions down, have everything that you want to know on the table if you had a bad experience previously. These were the things left undone, you know, and what is it that that next company that you’re going to hire, what is it that they’re going to do about it? Do you handle this? Like I said when I when I first inspected this house and spoke to that customer, they had some really great questions. You know, really listened and, I think took notes and jotted down everything that that I said, and then one of the top questions, and I know they asked this because the previous guy did not offer them a warranty, but that was one of the first questions they asked after I got kind of done looking at everything, was “What’s your warranty?” And I like that. I hate that it had to come to a second company coming out to get them to that point. And I wish that they could have had that experience the first go around and been bed bug free after that. But ultimately, you know, that was that was that question that said, Hey, I expect you to have a warranty, I expect you to stand beside your product and your treatment. And I have a very sneaking suspicion that if I would have said, “Oh, we don’t have a warranty”, they probably would not have allowed us to step foot on the property of a tree. And that’s a smart idea on their part.Michael Wienecke 14:15 It made me think of Tommy Boy and Callahan Auto, and he was like, “If it doesn’t have a warranty on the box, it’s not any good.”Travis McGowin 14:22 Well, but, yeah. But you know, in that context, in that movie, you know, Tommy Boy basically says, I’m glad your warranty makes your customers feel all warm and fuzzy that they’re buying a junky product with a warranty. So, but in our context, we we genuinely do our best to provide the best service to our customer, and then it’s like our motto. If you’ve seen it on our trucks, you see it on our website, I say it all the time, you’ll be 100% happy, or you won’t pay a penny. And we stand beside that. That’s that, right there is even better than saying, you know, hey, we’re going to warranty this for 90 Days, and that’s great. But hey, if you’re, if we step on the property to handle this problem, and if given an ample opportunity to handle it for some crazy reason, we can’t, what do you got to lose?Michael Wienecke 15:13 Well, I hate I had a I had a newscaster call me a couple months ago, and he was like, Hey, do y’all really, you know, guarantee your your product 100% and I was like, has it? Was like, Have you ever given anybody of their money back? And I said, we absolutely have.Travis McGowin 15:27 Yep, exactly. It’s one of those things, you know, stuff happens unfortunately, but I always like to throw that in, yes, you’ll be 100% happy, or you won’t pay a penny. But we’re going to strive to do everything in our power to make sure that you are, in fact, 100% happy. We’re not just going to do the once and done and go, Well, I’m sorry I didn’t make you happy. Here’s your money back. No, we want you to get what it was that you were searching for, if you were searching for the end of your bed bug infestation from a heat treatment, and for some reason, we were unable to deliver that on the first go around. Guess what? We’re going to try it again. That’s right, we’re going to do our best to handle the problem, because that’s what you hired us to do.Michael Wienecke 16:17 Well, and that’s, you know, some pest issues do require coming back. I mean, there are some, you know, special situations like that. So you really have to know, you know, I would say, as as well as having a warranty, also knowing that that person knows exactly what they’re doing.Travis McGowin 16:32 Absolutely, and that’s where you know, if you’ve got a company stepping on your property for one reason or another, whether it’s to get your roof repaired to, you know, get a pest control treatment to get a crawl space encapsulated. You know what, whatever it is that you’re needing done on your property, a good thorough interview of that company’s representative, a good check online of of customer reviews, you know, what? What are people in your city saying about that, that company, I mean, and if there is negative, you know, feedback, how did that company respond to it? I mean, negative feedback. You know, unfortunately, we’re all people, and sometimes that’s going to happen. But you know, how does that company respond to it? And you know, when the ball is back in their court, you know, what do they do to make it right with the customer? How do they address it? So, you know, being thorough in your in your check of that company’s background, and then being thorough in your questioning to make sure that they’re going to do everything that you want them to do, and then warranty that product is, is just important.  The post The Camper Red Flag: A Bed Bug Nightmare appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

In today’s episode of the Peskies Pest Control Podcast, Michael and Travis discuss mosquito treatment and prevention for your Birmingham, Alabama property! Podcast Transcript: Michael Wienecke Hey. So here today on the Peskies Pest Control Podcast, we are talking about mosquitoes, I feel like spring is in the air. I woke up for the last couple of days with my nose a little snotty and sniffly, and it’s just getting hot. Travis? Travis McGowin Don’t even I’m not ready. No, I’m not I refuse to give up winter. You know, no matter how brutal it actually was at times over the last couple of weeks, I’m still holding on to hope that there’s some kind of residual that’s going to come back and, you know, actually show itself again. Because I, spring and summer are not my most favorite times of the year. Michael Wienecke I am feeling that right now. I was taking my kids to school this morning, and I just, it just feels a little humid out, a little too humid for what it what it should be. Travis McGowin For February. Yes. Michael Wienecke Yes, yes. So you said we were, I know we were talking earlier. You said you saw some mosquitoes yesterday already. Travis McGowin Right, right. I had a customer whose house I went to shortly after four o’clock yesterday afternoon. And as I was getting my products ready and my sprayers to go treat their house, yes, I had mosquitoes buzzing around my head already. And like I said, it’s only February. Michael Wienecke Well, as we’ve seen them, we’ve seen them in December. You know, I’ve been deer hunting before and seen them in a climber so, you know, right there in December, so perfect. I mean, even even in February. Let’s talk about some ways to just help customers, not get rid of them, but just stop them from from being so so bad at their property, far as you know, getting the water, you know, diverted away from their house, like all that kind of stuff. Travis McGowin Right, so, you know, for those that may or may not know, mosquitoes breed in standing, stagnant water. So they, you know, they land on top of the surface of the water surface. Tension holds them so they don’t sink, and they basically deposit their eggs onto the stagnant water. And it can be, you know, as much water as inside of a tire that’s been left there and filled up with water from rain for a while, or it can be as little water as a cap full from, you know, a soda bottle. It doesn’t take a whole lot of water for them to actually be able to reproduce and so it really takes a lot of diligence on part of the customer, a lot of effort on part of the customer to make sure that they do not have standing water sources in their yard, and you and I have both seen it before, these things can range anywhere from, like I said, tires to just trash that’s holding water. Got a lot of customers that live around the lake that cover their boats or their jet skis with tarps. Yeah, the tarps just completely hold the water, and they don’t go drain the water off after a rain, and it just collects and then leaf litter, and that leaf debris that gets in there just makes it even more attractive for them. For a stagnant source, just five gallon buckets full of rain water, rain barrels. People that have rain barrels that collect water from their gutters. Clogged gutters. That’s another big one. Leaf litter and gutters clogs it and it holds water. You know. Just think about it, if you had a gutter on the edge of your porch where you like to go and enjoy yourself and sit out in the evenings or what have you, and you’ve got standing water because it’s not draining Well, the mosquitoes are just breeding right there and then coming down and eating you alive. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Like you mentioned earlier, incomplete drainage in yards. Maybe it’s also an area that not only does it not drain, but it doesn’t get a lot of sunlight, so it never dries out. French drains in yards where you’ve got the drain in the ground, some of those don’t empty all the way, and you just, I mean, you just be creating the next breed of mosquitoes coming through your property. Michael Wienecke Well, that’s what I was going to talk about, hidden, hidden places that people wouldn’t think about. I mean, we’ve seen problem accounts, or, you know, what we’d consider a problem account, where they have a bunch of basins in their yard, all that water is going in there, and it’s hidden. You don’t see all the water that’s just caught in that basin, where it’s, you know, a slow drain and all that kind of stuff. I’ve never understood why they did that. I don’t know why it wouldn’t just be a faster drain, to keep it from getting clogged, I guess. Travis McGowin Yeah, there’s, there’s just so many places that water can be, water can stay and be held in people’s property, and a lot of them can be just overlooked. You know, we’ve got some storage buildings in my yard. I don’t go behind them very often. And and so if I were to stick a bucket back there, even a bucket flipped over that will hold water on the bottom of the bucket that’s sitting up in the air. I mean, that’s enough water to breed hundreds and hundreds of mosquitoes and to really cause a problem, and to really make control efforts a little more challenging, Michael Wienecke 100%. @ell, and I’m glad you said the control. So let’s talk about one way that we, you know, help with controlling the water that we can’t control. So we’re flipping over buckets. We’re moving over. You know, I always bird bass need to be changed out. I would say, you know, weekly, every two weeks, something like that, so it doesn’t build up a stagnant pool. But the control with that IGR is really key on the drains in the yard, such such as that matter of getting rid of that problem, because you can’t control that. Travis McGowin Right, And for those watching listening, IGR stands for “insect growth regulator”, so we use a mixture that has a couple of different active ingredient products in there. And what that IGR does is it is a long term game in terms of mosquito control. So picture, you have a technician come to your house. They treat your lawn and landscape areas with a liquid mosquito treatment that’s got that IGR in it. And so let’s say, after that treatment is dry, the technicians gone, the mosquito lands on the underside of leaves that has this IGR on it. Well, not only is that mosquito now contaminated with that IGR, which is going to take an effect on that mosquito and slowly mess with it to where it can’t breed anymore, but then it’s going to go land on a water source, and it’s going to contaminate that water source too, so that other mosquitoes that touch it could be contacting the IGR, and then those mosquito larva that are already in the water, it should mess with their development, so that they don’t even develop all the way into a biting mosquito as they go and continue to develop. So it’s a great product, and it’s a great addition to a mosquito control program. Michael Wienecke Oh yeah, I’d say its a must have, because if you’re not controlling that, that life cycle, if you’re just killing the adult mosquitoes as they buzz around and get under this shaded area, these trees and, you know, decks and all that, then you’re only taking care of one half of it, or not even less than one half. Travis McGowin Right, and we’re, you know, not only were we applying the IGR in our mixture that we’re using along with an adult aside that’s going to kill mosquitoes on contact as well, but we’re also going back to those stagnant water sources our technicians actively are looking for those stagnant water sources. And yes, you know, you know how it is that there’s some times where those sources can’t be drained or dumped, or, you know, the water be removed so that they’re no longer a breeding site, especially when you talk about areas of a yard that hold a lot of water, that don’t drain properly, or don’t dry. So we also use another product called a larvicide. So Michael, elaborate for the listeners, about a larvicide. Michael Wienecke Yeah, so a larvicide. So you’re going to go around the property, and you’re looking for any areas that you cannot control the water flow, you know, like we said, if you see a bucket, we’re going to can flip that over a bird bath, we can change that out, but something that we can’t, such as a drain in your backyard, front yard, we’re going to put that larvicide in there. It’s good for 30 days. So any breeding mosquitoes that breed in that water, those eggs will never develop into a lot of mosquitoes. Travis McGowin Right, and so all these things are things that can be done on your property. But Michael, as I’m sure you’ve seen before, I and I can give an example, I had a customer who we were trying to do mosquito control at, and it was okay, but it wasn’t as great as it could be. And what we discovered is that the neighbor directly behind that customer’s property, who we weren’t treating, we didn’t have any mosquito service at that customer’s property behind them, they had an old above ground swimming pool. Michael Wienecke It’s always a swimming pool. Travis McGowin It is with about maybe, I would say, a foot or so, maybe a little more of water in it. And the water was a beautiful shade of green, with all types of leaf litter and trash and debris in it. And so, I mean, it was just a haven for these mosquitoes to breed in. And, you know, unfortunately, we can’t control what it is the neighbors doing. Michael Wienecke That’s true. So in terms of control, you know, we like to say an 85 I like to say an 85% to 95% reduction of mosquitoes is a win, because you can still have some mosquitoes, but you’re going to get rid of the majority of the mosquitoes and be. Able to enjoy that backyard. I mean, Travis, you treat your house. I treat my house. We’ve we’ve got some pretty good standing water issues. I know I do. I know in some areas where it rains in your house, you get some little bowl issues in the yard. So I would not, not treat my yard in the summertime. Travis McGowin Right, my kids get torn up by mosquitoes, if I don’t. But you know, that is the good thing about our mosquito control program, especially when you really factor in the use of that insect growth regulator. Like you said, 85% to 95% reduction is great. That’s huge, especially when you deal with some of the amount of mosquitoes that I’ve seen before. I mean, when you walk outside, you’re there for less than a minute, and you’ve got, you know, six, eight, ten, mosquitoes buzzing around your ankles and your feet before you even, you know, can take in the outside that you just walked out to, but that IGR is really great, because obviously mosquitoes fly. They can kind of go wherever they want to, but if they contact that IGR and then, let’s just say that the neighbor across the street has one tire sitting against a storage shed in their yard that’s collecting water that’s become this breeding site that they haven’t addressed, well now There’s that potential that that mosquito could spread that IGR to that breeding site and hopefully render it less effective, or completely ineffective for mosquito breeding, and in that way, kind of extend that treatment over somewhere where obviously we can’t go physically apply something. So it really is kind of a nice additive to put, to have in there, to try to help control because, I mean, you know, no matter how much mosquito control you can do there at the end of the day, like we said, they fly, so they’re not very heavy, so the wind can blow them to, I mean, they can be pushed around and all that too. So I don’t think anybody can really ever promise a 100% reduction in mosquitoes just because of the way that they are. However, I think it’s definitely reasonable to think 85 to 95% reduction for most of the properties we deal with. Michael Wienecke I think that, yeah, I think that’s great. And something that a lot of people miss, too, is gutters. I mean, over in Birmingham, Montgomery, we’ve got a lot of trees, a lot of trees, and over the winter, you know, some people do. Some people don’t get all the gutters cleaned out, or don’t even know that they’re they’re clogged and all that stagnant water. There’s really not a product in the world that’s going to take care of that. Travis McGowin Well, you know, not to, not even going to try to be hypocritical here, because I have two areas with with gutters. Oh, me too, down spouts on my my own awnings on my house, three areas, actually, and it is one of my least favorite chores in the world to get up there and clean them. So much so that, I mean, we even, we even had a rainstorm come in one day, and the gutters were so clogged and the downspouts were so slow at draining that the water ended up actually gushing over the side of the gutter and like bowing it. And just because of the weight of the water, it was starting to bow one of the little beams that holds my top of my porch, or owning up. Excuse me, my owning up. And so, yeah, I hate it that much, and I’ve tried to become a little bit more diligent about it, but it is. It’s really something that you need to stay on top of to make sure that there’s no breeding site up there, because it’s just not immediately in your thought process, because it’s not immediately in your view Michael Wienecke Well, and you can go off and that leads to termite damage on a pest control, it can lead to carpenter ant damage. It can lead to a lot of other issues besides just mosquitoes. Travis McGowin Yeah, absolutely. So it’s like that old saying, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. You know, you can, you can get a lot done by just being diligent and eliminating those water sources from around your property, you can get a lot done, and your family will thank you. Your neighbors will thank you. Don’t, don’t be that bad neighbor that’s got 25 tires with all water in them, you know, stacked up, and you’re breeding mosquitoes like, you know, be that good neighbor that’s helping the problem, because everybody wins, everybody benefits. I mean, mosquitoes are known to carry many different viruses that cause many different health hazards for you, for your pets. I mean, Zika virus, all those things you know, your pets can get heart worms. They get them from mosquito bites. So there’s just a lot of benefits from keeping these insects away from your property. Michael Wienecke Well, and didn’t we see some some? Was it encephalitis last year? Travis McGowin Yeah, I think it was going around. I mean, you know, some of the lesser known things that people you know might not be necessarily aware of, like I said, Zika virus, yellow fever, dengue, malaria, is a big one, especially in some of your overseas countries, West Nile virus, all of these things, like you said, encephalitis, and they all come from just a mosquito bite, and it’s a strong possibility that you know they could make you your family or your animals sick. Watch this video on YouTube! Click Here! Learn more about our mosquito control! Click Here! The post Mosquitoes Are Already Back in Birmingham Alabama! appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

Podcast Transcript: Michael Wienecke 0:00 Hey, and thanks for listening to the Peskies Pest Control Podcast. I am Michael Wienecke, owner and operator of Peskies Pest Control, and I have Travis McGowin. How we doing Travis? Travis McGowin 0:12 I’m doing well, how are you doing? Michael Wienecke 0:14 Great man, waiting on the freezing storm to get here. Travis McGowin 0:19 You know, I all the projections early on were completely devastating, and now it’s like North Alabama. Sorry, but everybody else, you’re going to get wet. It’s going to be rainy. So we’ll see what happens this weekend. Michael Wienecke 0:34 Well, and then they’re talking about next week. Could be even worse. So we’ll see. Michael Wienecke 0:38 Yeah, good times. Michael Wienecke 0:42 Well, today we want to talk about something that hasn’t come up very often, and that’s reinfestation of bed bugs. So we had a customer, after what about eight months of doing a heat treatment, reinfested her home? Right? Travis McGowin 0:57 Exactly. So initially, the customer believed that they brought bed bugs into their home by purchasing a quilt from a thrift store, I believe is what it was. I think her daughter had gifted her a really nice, handmade quilt that somebody had donated, and she got it home, took it out of whatever packaging was there, and just immediately laid it across the bed. And that’s the only thing that she can think of that was the reason why she was dealing with bed bugs in the first place. And so, of course, we came in, we did an inspection. She had a fairly significant infestation at that time. It’s a two story house. The, you know, the lady lives by herself, so the upstairs really not even utilized. So we, we treated the first floor. And you know, for all intents and purposes, everything was was really good after treatment up until now. Michael Wienecke 1:57 So let’s talk about the initial so you said she brought a she bought, or she thought she bought a quilt, brought it in and it had one bedbug on it. How? How bad was the infestation when you inspected the first time? Travis McGowin 2:11 So I can’t confirm or deny how many bedbugs were possibly on that quilt when it was brought in. However, I can say that when we did the inspection, it was, it was fairly significant with bed bugs in cracks and crevices on the headboard and the frame of the bed, as well as on the box springs and the mattress. So, you know, it’s, it’s possible that she may have had them and not known it prior to the actual quilt itself being brought in. But you know, it’s hard to tell, especially if you, you know, haven’t paid attention to it, or hadn’t noticed it until it was too late. Michael Wienecke 2:48 Well, I mean, they’re, they’re designed to hide in the tightest crack and Travis. I mean, you’ve seen them, you know, at the gas station, between the little pump joints before. Travis McGowin 3:00 I mean, I have seen them at a gas station, inside of the little booth where the the cashier sits, you know, and rings people up for gas and for convenience store goods there inside a cracker Travis, where a lady that worked there had brought them in her purse and set her purse on the counter, and someone had complained about getting bitten by a bed bug there at the gas station, and lo and behold, there was one bed bug in a very little crevice in the countertop. So they do get around. Michael Wienecke 3:31 Well, and that’s what I kind of wanted to talk about, how hard they are to detect. I mean, you know, one or two bed bugs within not knowing that and then a month goes by, and then you start, you’re starting to multiply, get bit all that. I mean, it can turn into a pretty quick, or I would say, a slow infestation, but you’re just not realizing it while it’s happening. Travis McGowin 3:52 Right, and so, you know, bed bugs can range in size, from the eggs, which are really, really tiny, and then the multiple, you know, nymphal stages, where they grow and then they shed their skin or molt, and then they grow again all the way up into the adult stage. I mean, so they can be a varying range of sizes, I would say, anywhere from the size of a mustard seed all the way up to even maybe close to the size of, just to give people an idea, a watermelon seed. I mean, some of these female bed bugs, especially after feeding and being engorged, can be rather large. So you could see where transferring these bed bugs, you know, from one place to the next, if you came in somewhere and sat down at a restaurant where potentially someone had sat with them in their purse or on their clothing, and they fell off in the restaurant booth, and then you came in next and sat down. I mean, it might be very easy to not even notice that you had transferred these little insects in with you and then inadvertently taking them home. So it’s fairly common and easy to get a bed bug infestation. I mean, bed bugs aren’t selective on whose house they go to. They just know that they need a host, and if they can attach on to someone’s clothing or, you know, say, luggage in a hotel or Airbnb or something like that, then they’ll do it. It doesn’t matter if you live in $100,000 house or a million dollar home. They’re, you know, they don’t discriminate. Michael Wienecke 5:23 No, not at all. I mean, we’ve seen them in Mountain Brook, Hoover, Birmingham, Montgomery, Helena. Travis McGowin 5:32 Wetumpka, Prattville, Deatsville. I mean, they’re like I said, they they can be widespread. You can have the cleanest house on the block or the dirtiest house on the block. It really doesn’t matter. Now, you know, with this particular individual we came in, heat treated the first floor of the home, you know, so that included the master bedroom, the living room, the kitchen, the dining room area, all of that we actually, you know, cooked it really, really well, of course, up to the manufacturer’s recommendations for the system that we use. And then everything was perceived by the owner of the home to be fine for, you know, a very, very long time. And then what basically happened next is, you know, eight months later, we have this. She said that she had went to get a blanket and change her sheets out on the bed, and she noticed a bed bug at that time. She kind of was speculating whether the bed bugs could have been hiding in the sheets in the closet or something like that. But what I’d like for people listening to realize is that it’s not likely that that would have been, you know, the issue of reinfesting because they were hiding in the closet or something, eight months later. So, you know, of course, bed bugs, depending upon their size and how long they are in their development, bed bugs can last a decent amount of time without feeding on a human or having a blood meal. You know, for everywhere from the this sounds terrible to say, but the newborn stage and the younger nymphal stages all the way up to the adults. The younger nymphal stages aren’t going to last without a blood meal more than probably, like, two weeks, give or take. And as they grow in size, they’re they’re gonna last a little bit longer to where the adults, you know, may last. Let’s just say six weeks, eight weeks, something like that. But definitely not to the tune of seven or eight months before they feed again. I mean, most of that population would have have died off, even if they were in the closet. So, you know, we kind of ruled that out, you know. And it was frustrating because, of course, you know, we go to do the inspection, and she’s got another significant infestation of bed bugs. So, you know, it does lead us to believe that it was more of an issue of reinfestation, where, I mean, maybe they were in her chair at work, or maybe, you know, in the car. But you know, it’s anybody’s guess as to where they came back from. Michael Wienecke 8:15 Well, and that’s why we always recommend, you know, leave your purse, leave everything you can in the house that we’re heating because that’s going to give us the best chance to get rid of those bed bugs. So let’s talk a little bit about the heat treatment. You know, how it works, all that kind of stuff. Travis McGowin 8:28 Yeah so we use a propane fired heater, and that heater goes, you know, outside of the house. So, you know, we don’t ever bring propane tanks or the actual unit with the heating element inside, inside your home, but we set up where we have access to run duct work. So of course, we set the heater up connected to all of the propane tanks, and then we run big mylar duct work into the structure, whether it’s through a window or a door, and we circulate that heat into the structure, and then we run mylar duct work from a different point of the structure out back to the back barrel of that heater to recirculate that heat. It’s more efficient. It maintains heat at a better rate. We use less propane, and we heat faster that way. But basically, we run that heat in through the mylar duct works, and then we bring in large fans inside of each room that we’re treating, and we circulate that heat and think of it like an, you know, essentially creating an oven inside your home. Okay, so let’s just say it’s the holidays. It’s Thanksgiving, and you go to put a turkey in the oven. You know that heat is going to be circulating around and moving around inside that oven and cooking the, you know, that Turkey, or whatever it is you’re cooking, and it’s going to slowly absorb into the food that you’re cooking. And, you know, increase the temperature of that to, you know, whatever the set temperature or your desire to. Temperature is to cook at, and it’s very similar that heat is going to be absorbed by anything inside the room, the contents that could be couches, chairs, you know, the walls, the ceiling, the floor, anything in between. And after those items reach the appropriate temperature, that’s when, of course, we start our timer, and then we cook based upon what our equipment manufacturers recommendations are. And, you know, afterwards, by the time we pull out all of our equipment and leave, the bed bug infestation is gone. Michael Wienecke 10:33 Yep. And it takes a whole day. I mean, we’re there for almost a whole eight hours. Travis McGowin 10:40 Yeah, absolutely. And you know that’s, of course, size dependent upon the structure. If we’ve got a structure where we’re treating two floors upstairs and downstairs, or just a very massive layout in terms of, you know, the floor on the first floor, it can, it can take a significant amount of time. And then, of course, you know, what the homeowner needs to realize or remember, is that when you come back into that structure after we’re done there again, we turned your home into essentially an oven, it’s going to be relatively warm for a while as that oven cools off, no different than when you take the turkey out of the oven and turn the oven off at Thanksgiving, and that oven is going to be warm for quite a while before the heat dissipates and cools off and then reaches room temperature again. Michael Wienecke 11:27 And that’s what’s so great about the heat treatment, is that, you know, it’s just, it’s kind of like you said, warming up everything at one time, and then it’s slowly radiating heat into other things. So you’re getting an internal temperature to kill those bed bugs in every inch of that home. Travis McGowin 11:43 Well, and bed bugs are very good at hiding. I mean, they didn’t, they didn’t, you know, stick around for this many years because they were bad at hiding. So, you know, if you had, like, a metal bed frame that’s hollow, you know, hollow tubes that make the frame and that’s got gaps or cracks in it where the joints come in. You got to think that bed bugs can get down into those spaces. So that heat being absorbed into furniture and into the room itself is great because it’s going to get to those places where, say, a normal chemical treatment may not be able to reach, and it’s really the quickest, most efficient way to kill a bed bug population, from egg all the way to adult in, you know, just a few hours, as opposed to going for weeks at a time applying a liquid product, having to wait for those eggs to hatch. Because, of course, no chemical product can penetrate the egg of a bed bug or any insect for that matter. Until it hatches, those eggs are safe, usually, but heat is a whole different story. It cooks them before they ever hatch. Michael Wienecke 12:52 Nukes, the whole family. Travis McGowin 12:55 Yeah, that’s, that’s a good way to put it, you know. And it’s what’s also is amazing. It’s good that you’re heating all the surfaces and the contents in the room, because when the increase in temperature begins, and you and I, Michael, have seen it when we go on site to do these treatments, but when those increase in temperatures begin, those bed bugs that are, you know, able to move, that haven’t hatched, or that have hatched already, they start to move, looking for a place that is cooler for them to stay, so that they can survive. And as you know, when you’re heating all those contents and all those surfaces, they don’t have anywhere to go. It’s pretty wild sometimes, and sometimes you don’t even realize how significant an infestation was until you start to crank the heat up, and then they all start to move. Michael Wienecke 13:41 Out of the woodwork. Travis McGowin 13:42 Yep, I had a college, two college dorm rooms that I treated. And you know, I saw bed bugs when I did the inspection, but when I started to turn the heat up in that dorm room, or both those dorm rooms, it was mind blowing how many bedbugs were actually in this empty, vacant dorm room with, you know, two, two beds? I mean, it was just amazing. You would have never guessed there were that many, but they started coming out of the woodwork trying to find a cooler place to go, Michael Wienecke 14:12 Right. Well, and I’m glad you brought that up about chemical and heat, and that’s why we chose heat. Is because heat is just, it’s, faster, in my opinion, in our opinion, it’s more efficient. We’re not having to go back 2, 3, 4, or five times. We’re not having to worry about a reinfestate or, you know, one surviving and reinfesting the home, anything like that, Travis McGowin 14:35 Right. And you know, there’s only so much that us as a pest control provider can actually control in terms of reinfestation. So for example, if you’re going to work in a place that has a known bed bug infestation, and let’s just say you brought them back to your house, your house was treated, your house was cleared. Obviously there’s a huge potential there to reinfest and so you know, if you find yourself in that situation where it’s like, okay, I can’t live peacefully in my own home, in my own space with bed bugs, but I still have to work in a place where there’s a high potential to bring them home, then there’s really some precautionary things that you probably need to be doing when you come home from work, for example, immediately removing those clothes and laundering them every day. The less amount of personal items, such as a purse or bags or anything like that, trying not to take that stuff with you, you know, because things can crawl in there, and then, you know, hitch your ride home with you. There’s just, like I said, there’s just several different things that you might want to look at doing if there’s a high potential to bring them back with you to reinfest your home. Visit us on YouTube! Click Here! Visit us on Facebook! Click Here! Learn more about bed bug heat treatments! Click Here! The post Detecting and Defeating Bed Bug Reinfestations in Birmingham Alabama! appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

Join Michael as he interviews Dr. Beau Beard, one of the founders of The Farm! The Farm, which stands for “Functional Athletic Rehabilitation & Movement,” is a facility located in the Birmingham/Chelsea, Alabama area that specializes in chiropractic care, rehabilitation, performance training, and functional medicine! Podcast Transcript: Michael Wienecke Hey and welcome to the Peskies […] The post The Farm Local Business Spotlight appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

Podcast Transcript: Michael Wienecke 0:23 Hey, and thanks for listening to the Peskies Pest Control Podcast. I'm Michael, and we've got Travis here, and we are going to be talking about the fire stinging insect that is in your front and backyard that creates unsightly mounds and just causes lots of problems. Travis, what are […] The post Fire Ants Are Invading Birmingham, Alabama Lawns! appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

Podcast Transcript: Michael Wienecke 0:00 Steve, hey, so today on the Peskies Pest Control Podcast, we would like to talk about solving pest issues without chemical application. So we're seeing a lot of especially this month, last month, with the amount of rain we've had Travis, I think you can, with Montgomery, I think you […] The post Tips to Keep General Pests Away in Birmingham, Alabama! appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

Podcast Transcript: Michael Wienecke 0:03 Hey. So here today on the Peskies Pest Control Podcast, we're going to talk about crane flies or Skeeter eaters. What are some other names, mosquito Hawk, tarantula flyer. I've heard all kinds of names, Daddy Long daddy, long legs, all that kind of stuff. Travis McGowin 0:23 So I […] The post Crane Flies Are Not Mosquitoes in Birmingham, Alabama! appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

Podcast Transcript: Hey everybody, welcome back to the podcast. Today, I wanted to discuss something that seems to have been kind of on an increase in terms of phone calls that we've been receiving on our phone lines, messages that we've been receiving through our website from customers. So I felt like it was something […] The post Fleas Can Turn Into A Problem in Birmingham, Alabama! appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

Podcast Transcript: Travis McGowin: Thank you for joining us again for another episode of the Peskies Pest Control Podcast. Today, we have a very special topic to talk about. Wildlife, and not just any wildlife, one that causes so many problems, so much frustration, and it's just an overall nuisance to a lot of homeowners, […] The post Keeping Squirrels Out of Your Birmingham, Alabama Attic! appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

Travis McGowin Did you survive the holidays? Michael Wienecke I did. I did Travis McGowin unscathed. No issues, no, no pests, no family issues. You had a good Thanksgiving? Michael Wienecke No, a lot. You know, we wouldn't be on this podcast. We weren't talking about some kind of pest. Kind of pest issue. And […] The post Fruit Flies Are Invading Birmingham Alabama Homes! appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

Welcome to another episode of Peskies Pest Control podcast here in Birmingham Alabama with Michael and Travis. We do this podcast as a community service for Birmingham, Hoover, Vestavia Hills, Mountain Brook, Helena, Alabaster, Pelham and all other surrounding areas! Michael Wienecke So today here on the pesky pest control podcast, we are going to […] The post Keep American Cockroaches Out of Your Birmingham Alabama Home! appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

Welcome to another episode of Peskies Pest Control podcast here in Birmingham Alabama with Michael and Travis. We do this podcast as a community service for Birmingham, Hoover, Vestavia Hills, Mountain Brook, Helena, Alabaster, Pelham and all other surrounding areas! Michael Wienecke Hey, so today on the pesky pest control podcast, I'd like to focus […] The post Peskies Interviews a Customer with Severe Termite Damage in Birmingham Alabama! appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

Welcome to another episode of Peskies Pest Control podcast here in Birmingham Alabama with Michael and Travis. We do this podcast as a community service for Birmingham, Hoover, Vestavia Hills, Mountain Brook, Helena, Alabaster, Pelham and all other surrounding areas! Travis McGowin Hey, thanks for checking out our video today as we wanted to go […] The post Wood Infestation Reports in Birmingham Alabama! appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

Welcome to another episode of Peskies Pest Control podcast here in Birmingham Alabama with Michael and Travis. We do this podcast as a community service for Birmingham, Hoover, Vestavia Hills, Mountain Brook, Helena, Alabaster, Pelham and all other surrounding areas! Michael Wienecke Hey, so today on the peskiest Pest Control podcast, I have my personal […] The post Rescuer LLC Birmingham Alabama Local Business Spotlight appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

Welcome to another episode of Peskies Pest Control podcast here in Birmingham Alabama with Michael and Travis. We do this podcast as a community service for Birmingham, Hoover, Vestavia Hills, Mountain Brook, Helena, Alabaster, Pelham and all other surrounding areas! Michael Wienecke Hey, so today on the podcast, we want to talk about something we've […] The post Attics Are Winter Havens for Pests in Birmingham Alabama! appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

Welcome to another episode of Peskies Pest Control podcast here in Birmingham Alabama with Michael and Travis. We do this podcast as a community service for Birmingham, Hoover, Vestavia Hills, Mountain Brook, Helena, Alabaster, Pelham and all other surrounding areas! Michael Wienecke Hey, so today I want to talk about blowflies. blowflies are disgusting. They're […] The post Blow Flies Are Filthy Insects Trying To Get Into Your Birmingham Alabama Home! appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

Michael Wienecke Hey, so today I want to talk about powderpost beetles. And if you have ever experienced powderpost beetles, then you know exactly what they do they leave a fine frass powder on the floor, it's normally white, yellow, and that is the signs of powderpost beetles. Travis McGowin You know, a lot of […] The post Powderpost Beetles Can Infest Wood in Birmingham Alabama Homes! appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

Learn more about the Sleep Soundly Sweepstakes! Click Here! Michael Wienecke Hey, so today on the podcast we want to talk about something we're doing kind of a Christmas giveaway. It's called the sleep soundly sweepstakes. And what it is, is it's a free heat treatment to anybody that applies, wins the contest, and they […] The post Bed Bugs And The Sleep Soundly Sweepstakes in Birmingham Alabama! appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

Michael Wienecke Hey, so today on the podcast, we're gonna be talking about real estate and I've got my good friend. Chancie Rogers Hey, I'm Chancie Rogers with Chancie Rogers Realty brokered by Keller Williams Hoover. Michael Wienecke Well, Tennessee. So a couple questions for you what got you into real estate? Chancie Rogers Well, […] The post Chancie Rogers Realtor of Birmingham Alabama Local Business Spotlight appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

  Michael Wienecke Hey so today on the podcast we want to talk about dryer vent cleaning and I have my good friend Matt Parker with job town dryer vent cleaning Matt how you doing? Matt Parker Good man how are you? Michael Wienecke Doing great man doing great. So um let's dive right into […] The post Jobtown Dryer Vent Cleaning of Birmingham Alabama Local Business Spotlight appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

Michael Wienecke Hey, so today we're gonna talk about the house mouse or otherwise known as the common house mouse. We have some pretty cool video today, we're going to show you a little bit later. But I just wanted to go into detail on kind of the what to look for signs of infestation, […] The post Mice Are A Winter Pest Problem in Birmingham Alabama! appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

Travis McGowin Hey, so today we wanted to come to you and talk to you just a little bit about ants. Ants are a very interesting insect, they're very strong. I always like to tell my customers that if they were to pull their resources they can most likely and definitely take over the entire […] The post Ants Work as a Team in Birmingham Alabama! appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

Welcome to another episode of Peskies Pest Control podcast here in Birmingham Alabama with Michael and Travis. We do this podcast as a community service for Birmingham, Hoover, Vestavia Hills, Mountain Brook, Helena, Alabaster, Pelham and all other surrounding areas! Travis McGowin So thankfully, here in Alabama, the weather is getting cooler. Thankfully, this is […] The post Raccoons Are Invading Birmingham Alabama Homes! appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

Welcome to another episode of Peskies Pest Control podcast here in Birmingham Alabama with Michael and Travis. We do this podcast as a community service for Birmingham, Hoover, Vestavia Hills, Mountain Brook, Helena, Alabaster, Pelham and all other surrounding areas! Michael Wienecke Hey, so today we wanted to talk about bats, it's getting really close […] The post Bats Are Making a Mess in Birmingham Alabama Attics! appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

Welcome to another episode of Peskies Pest Control podcast here in Birmingham Alabama with Michael and Travis. We do this podcast as a community service for Birmingham, Hoover, Vestavia Hills, Mountain Brook, Helena, Alabaster, Pelham and all other surrounding areas! Michael Wienecke Hey, so today we want to talk about nuisance animals. Referring to squirrels. […] The post Squirrels Are Damaging Birmingham Alabama Homes! appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

Welcome to another episode of Peskies Pest Control podcast here in Birmingham Alabama with Michael and Travis. We do this podcast as a community service for Birmingham, Hoover, Vestavia Hills, Mountain Brook, Helena, Alabaster, Pelham and all other surrounding areas! Travis McGowin So today we want to talk to you about a pest that's going […] The post Brown Marmorated Stink Bugs Are Coming to Birmingham Alabama! appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

Welcome to another episode of Peskies Pest Control podcast here in Birmingham Alabama with Michael and Travis. We do this podcast as a community service for Birmingham, Hoover, Vestavia Hills, Mountain Brook, Helena, Alabaster, Pelham and all other surrounding areas! Michael Wienecke Hey, so today we're gonna be talking about all things crawlspace. And I've […] The post Crawlspace Medic of Birmingham Alabama Talk About Moisture Control! appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

Welcome to another episode of Peskies Pest Control podcast here in Birmingham Alabama with Michael and Travis. We do this podcast as a community service for Birmingham, Hoover, Vestavia Hills, Mountain Brook, Helena, Alabaster, Pelham and all other surrounding areas! Michael Wienecke Hey, so today I want to talk about what I would consider the […] The post Birmingham Alabama Customers Need to Pay Attention to Warranties! appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

Welcome to another episode of Peskies Pest Control podcast here in Birmingham Alabama with Michael and Travis. We do this podcast as a community service for Birmingham, Hoover, Vestavia Hills, Mountain Brook, Helena, Alabaster, Pelham and all other surrounding areas! Travis McGowin: Hey, so today we want to come and talk about a topic that […] The post Explaining Wood Infestation Reports in Birmingham, Alabama! appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

Welcome to another episode of Peskies Pest Control podcast here in Birmingham Alabama with Michael and Travis. We do this podcast as a community service for Birmingham, Hoover, Vestavia Hills, Mountain Brook, Helena, Alabaster, Pelham and all other surrounding areas! Michael Wienecke: All right, so today we want to talk about a extremely deadly virus […] The post Mosquitoes In Birmingham, Alabama Could Be Carrying Eastern Equine Encephalitis! appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

Welcome to another episode of Peskies Pest Control podcast here in Birmingham Alabama with Michael and Travis. We do this podcast as a community service for Birmingham, Hoover, Vestavia Hills, Mountain Brook, Helena, Alabaster, Pelham and all other surrounding areas! Michael Wienecke: Hey, so at Peskies Pest Control we are a full termite protection company. […] The post Homeowners May Accidentally Bring Termites Into Their Birmingham, Alabama Homes! appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

  Welcome to another episode of Peskies Pest Control podcast here in Birmingham Alabama with Michael and Travis. We do this podcast as a community service for Birmingham, Hoover, Vestavia Hills, Mountain Brook, Helena, Alabaster, Pelham and all other surrounding areas! Michael Wienecke: Hey, so today we want to talk about entry points in a […] The post Dryer Vents Are Letting Rodents Into Birmingham, Alabama Homes! appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

Welcome to another episode of Peskies Pest Control podcast here in Birmingham Alabama with Michael and Travis. We do this podcast as a community service for Birmingham, Hoover, Vestavia Hills, Mountain Brook, Helena, Alabaster, Pelham and all other surrounding areas! Michael Wienecke: So we're in pretty much the hottest part of the summer right now […] The post Silverfish Are Sneaking Around Birmingham, Alabama Houses At Night! appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

Welcome to another episode of Peskies Pest Control podcast here in Birmingham Alabama with Michael and Travis. We do this podcast as a community service for Birmingham, Hoover, Vestavia Hills, Mountain Brook, Helena, Alabaster, Pelham and all other surrounding areas! Travis McGowin: So a couple of years ago I actually had a family friend give […] The post Yellow Jackets Are Invading Homes And Yards In Birmingham Alabama! appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

Welcome to another episode of Peskies Pest Control podcast here in Birmingham Alabama with Michael and Travis. We do this podcast as a community service for Birmingham, Hoover, Vestavia Hills, Mountain Brook, Helena, Pelham and all other surrounding areas! Today, we wanted to address a question that we get quite frequently from from customers and […] The post How Often Should My Birmingham Alabama Home Be Treated For Pests? appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

Welcome to another episode of Peskies Pest Control podcast here in Birmingham Alabama with Michael and Travis. We do this podcast as a community service for Birmingham, Hoover, Vestavia Hills, Mountain Brook, Helena, Pelham and all other surrounding areas! Hey, so today we wanted to come to you and talk to you about a little […] The post Earwigs are invading homes in Birmingham, Alabama! appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

Welcome to another episode of Peskies Pest Control podcast here in Birmingham Alabama with Michael and Travis. We do this podcast as a community service for Birmingham, Hoover, Vestavia Hills, Mountain Brook, Helena, Pelham and all other surrounding areas! Travis McGowin Hey, so it is that time of the year again, where we are receiving […] The post Carpenter Bees Are Drilling Holes In Your Birmingham Home! appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

Welcome to another episode of Peskies Pest Control podcast here in Birmingham Alabama with Michael and Travis. We do this podcast as a community service for Birmingham, Hoover, Vestavia Hills, Mountain Brook, Helena, Pelham and all other surrounding areas! Michael Wienecke Hey, so today on the podcast, we want to talk about the most detrimental, […] The post Formosan Termites Plague Birmingham AL Homeowners! appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

Welcome to another episode of Peskies Pest Control podcast here in Birmingham Alabama with Michael and Travis. We do this podcast as a community service for Birmingham, Hoover, Vestavia Hills, Mountain Brook, Helena, Pelham and all other surrounding areas! Michael Wienecke Hey. So on this podcast, we always like to talk about relevant things that […] The post Are Honey Bees A Problem In Birmingham Alabama? appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

Welcome to another episode of Peskies Pest Control podcast here in Birmingham Alabama with Michael and Travis. We do this podcast as a community service for Birmingham, Hoover, Vestavia Hills, Mountain Brook, Helena, Pelham and all other surrounding areas! Michael Wienecke Hey, so here on the peskiest podcast, we like to talk about real life […] The post Birmingham Pest Control Customer Expectations appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.