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Five Common Pest Control Myths, Debunked By A Pro · PEST PROSpectives

• 0:08
  Richard Piet: Welcome back to Pest Prospectives.
• 0:10
  Richard Piet: I'm Richard Piet.
• 0:12
  Richard Piet: Yep, it's a little bit of a play on words, prospectives, because we're talking about the pest pros of Michigan and what they know, what they bring to the table to help you deal with the pests that might be in your home, in your business, wherever that might be.
• 0:28
  Richard Piet: Amber Byars is back with us.
• 0:30
  Richard Piet: She oversees field operations at the Pest Pros of Michigan.
• 0:33
  Richard Piet: She's an ace as well.
• 0:35
  Richard Piet: So talk about knowledge.
• 0:37
  Richard Piet: Boy, we're always asking you questions, aren't we?
• 0:40
  Amber Byars: That's right.
• 0:41
  Richard Piet: It's true.
• 0:42
  Richard Piet: And today we're going to talk about five myths of pest control that are out there that tend to come up that people tend to buy into that really aren't true.
• 0:56
  Richard Piet: All right.
• 0:57
  Richard Piet: This is a big one.
• 0:58
  Richard Piet: First on the list, Amber.
• 1:00
  Richard Piet: Spray it and it's done.
• 1:02
  Richard Piet: Right?
• 1:02
  Richard Piet: There's a perspective that, a perspective, not a prospective, that all you gotta do is come out and spray and it's over.
• 1:10
  Richard Piet: Not always true, right?
• 1:12
  Amber Byars: No, I think this is probably one of my favorites because it's so common.
• 1:17
  Amber Byars: That's the first question people usually ask is what do you have to spray this?
• 1:21
  Amber Byars: What can you spray to get rid of this?
• 1:24
  Amber Byars: Like, and the biggest misconception about sprays, treatments, are that you do it and that's it.
• 1:31
  Amber Byars: You just come and we wave a magic wand with this treatment, and boom, everything's gone.
• 1:37
  Amber Byars: And that is so far from the truth for multiple reasons.
• 1:40
  Amber Byars: One is pests have life cycles.
• 1:43
  Amber Byars: In these life cycles, depending on what species we're dealing with, there's going to either be, you know, an egg, a larva, a pupa before an adult, or there's going to be an egg, a nymphal stage, which is like gradually getting bigger into an adult.
• 1:58
  Amber Byars: So when we're thinking about these life cycles and a treatment, most of our treatments that we do will only affect certain stages of that life cycle, mainly adults.
• 2:11
  Amber Byars: So adulticides are typically what we use to spray.
• 2:16
  Amber Byars: And so we really need to focus on the entire life cycle in order to be successful.
• 2:22
  Amber Byars: And what that means is there are other methods that play into this that we have to utilize in order to be successful.
• 2:31
  Richard Piet: Wow.
• 2:31
  Richard Piet: That makes a whole lot of sense.
• 2:32
  Richard Piet: Think about that.
• 2:33
  Richard Piet: If the common approach is to provide a treatment that affects adults, but not the young or the larval stage, you've got a whole new crew on the way.
• 2:45
  Richard Piet: And that has not been affected.
• 2:47
  Richard Piet: That's huge.
• 2:49
  Amber Byars: Yeah, it is huge.
• 2:50
  Amber Byars: It will just result in disappointment.
• 2:53
  Amber Byars: It will result in an unreasonable expectation that, you know, we're going to come in with this treatment and cure everything without knowing for the without the client knowing that just give it a couple of weeks or months and you're going to have this issue right back.
• 3:07
  Amber Byars: Another thing that with the sprays are a misconception with rodents is that there's a spray that we can use to repel them.
• 3:16
  Amber Byars: And most of the time, it's either going to be lethal trapping or a rodenicide application.
• 3:24
  Amber Byars: And so, no, there's no spray for mice.
• 3:27
  Amber Byars: I wish there was.
• 3:28
  Amber Byars: That would make things so much easier, but there's not.
• 3:31
  Richard Piet: All right.
• 3:31
  Richard Piet: So there's more to it than just spraying.
• 3:34
  Richard Piet: There's the point.
• 3:35
  Richard Piet: Here's the next one.
• 3:37
  Richard Piet: I've only seen one bug or one fill-in-blank, whatever that might be.
• 3:43
  Richard Piet: That means there's more, right?
• 3:44
  Richard Piet: There's not just one.
• 3:46
  Amber Byars: Typically.
• 3:46
  Amber Byars: Now there are some exceptions to that.
• 3:48
  Amber Byars: Like I've seen, you know, just the one-off of a rodent that got into a home.
• 3:54
  Amber Byars: We've been out to do rodent calls and because a client seen one and we find nothing.
• 3:59
  Amber Byars: We don't find entry points.
• 4:01
  Amber Byars: We don't find droppings.
• 4:03
  Amber Byars: We don't find burrow holes, nothing, which indicates that there was a stray mouse that got in by chance, wandered in.
• 4:11
  Amber Byars: And so they caught it very quickly once a door was open, whether, you know, whatever the case was.
• 4:16
  Amber Byars: Um, but most of the time, yes, there are more.
• 4:20
  Amber Byars: Um pests are certain pests are nocturnal.
• 4:24
  Amber Byars: Certain pests uh like to are are thygmotrophic, which means they like to be in tight spaces.
• 4:30
  Amber Byars: Um, so they're gonna be out of sight typically unless you know where you're looking.
• 4:34
  Amber Byars: And so um referring to specifically to cockroaches here with that, if you see one, there's most likely a lot more in areas that you just can't see.
• 4:46
  Richard Piet: Yeah.
• 4:47
  Richard Piet: Okay.
• 4:47
  Richard Piet: That makes a ton of sense too, doesn't it?
• 4:50
  Richard Piet: Uh we don't know what we don't know, which is one of my favorites slogans.
• 4:55
  Richard Piet: But uh it's true.
• 4:56
  Richard Piet: We don't.
• 4:57
  Richard Piet: And so there is more than meets the eye in some situations.
• 5:04
  Amber Byars: I like I said earlier, there's those one-off chances where there will just be one, but typically there's more, and we know where to look, you know, we know what to what to move in the home to see if we can find more evidence.
• 5:16
  Amber Byars: Uh, a lot of these animals live in like the wall void or the attic space or the still plate in the basement.
• 5:23
  Amber Byars: And who's spending their time there?
• 5:25
  Amber Byars: Nobody.
• 5:26
  Amber Byars: You know?
• 5:27
  Richard Piet: We're not in.
• 5:28
  Richard Piet: Yep.
• 5:29
  Amber Byars: Yeah.
• 5:29
  Richard Piet: I get it.
• 5:30
  Richard Piet: All right.
• 5:30
  Richard Piet: So more to the story is entirely possible.
• 5:33
  Richard Piet: Here's one I really like.
• 5:35
  Richard Piet: And and it comes from, I think, the idea that we think of pests, whether it's bugs or rodents or whatever the situation is, as being dirty, which is not entirely unaccurate.
• 5:48
  Richard Piet: Uh, however, uh, we then say, My house is clean.
• 5:53
  Richard Piet: I don't have pests.
• 5:55
  Richard Piet: You can have pests when the house is clean.
• 5:57
  Richard Piet: What do you say about that one?
• 5:59
  Amber Byars: Yeah, this was a huge passion of mine when I first got into pest control trying to to really end or minimize that stigma that pests equal dirty or pests equal low income, or you know, like, um, because that's just so far from the truth.
• 6:18
  Amber Byars: Pests do not discriminate, they will utilize an environment for what they need.
• 6:24
  Amber Byars: Two of the biggest ones that I think of are German cockroaches and bed bugs.
• 6:29
  Amber Byars: I have done bed bug treatments and German cockroach treatments in multi-million dollar homes that were spotless because the biology in these pests say that they, well, with with bed bugs, they are blood feeders.
• 6:41
  Amber Byars: So they will be human blood feeders and they will be around human wherever humans are.
• 6:47
  Amber Byars: Um, and they're hitchhikers, which means that you can get them from literally anywhere where there's humans, and whether that's a doctor's office or a movie theater.
• 6:55
  Amber Byars: So, no, that does not equate that that person or property is dirty.
• 7:00
  Amber Byars: And same with German cockroaches, they are also hitchhikers.
• 7:04
  Amber Byars: They can come in on deliveries, delivery packages, they can come from a neighbor, they can come from um somebody else that brought a bag over that happened to have a cockroach in it.
• 7:15
  Amber Byars: Now, once they're in an environment, their success rate is higher if the environment has more conducive conditions.
• 7:24
  Amber Byars: That's true.
• 7:25
  Amber Byars: So if it has with German cockroaches, if there's more, you know, organic, moist material, unsanitary, bad trash habits, you know, yes, they'll be more successful there, but that doesn't mean that they won't be successful in a clean home.
• 7:42
  Richard Piet: All right.
• 7:43
  Richard Piet: So uh don't uh judge the old book by the cover, is the point.
• 7:47
  Richard Piet: Uh they could be just as cozy in a clean environment as we would be.
• 7:54
  Richard Piet: And so there's something to keep in mind.
• 7:56
  Richard Piet: Another of the myths.
• 7:58
  Richard Piet: Here's another one that you probably deal with pretty often.
• 8:01
  Richard Piet: Uh once they're gone, I'm done.
• 8:04
  Richard Piet: I don't need any more pest control services.
• 8:06
  Richard Piet: True?
• 8:07
  Amber Byars: That's true.
• 8:07
  Amber Byars: Yeah.
• 8:08
  Amber Byars: We get a lot of either reschedules or just straight cancellations because our clients, we've done such a good job, right?
• 8:15
  Amber Byars: This is what they say.
• 8:16
  Amber Byars: You've done so well.
• 8:18
  Amber Byars: I don't have any pests.
• 8:19
  Amber Byars: We don't need you anymore, which is great.
• 8:21
  Amber Byars: Um, but my first response to a client when they say this is we've done so much work here on your property.
• 8:29
  Amber Byars: We've gotten to the point where you want to be and where you are in a preventative state now.
• 8:34
  Amber Byars: Yeah.
• 8:35
  Amber Byars: Um, what I don't want to see happen is you cancel the rate that we have now.
• 8:41
  Amber Byars: And in three months, you're calling with a new issue because more times than not, that is what happens because the control goes away or the preventative goes away.
• 8:52
  Amber Byars: So I see this a lot with mice, where you know, I haven't seen a mouse in six months.
• 8:57
  Amber Byars: So we don't need your services anymore.
• 9:00
  Amber Byars: And yes, you're that's true, you haven't seen a mouse in six months, but we've been doing the control for you.
• 9:06
  Amber Byars: So we tell clients, we highly recommend you stay for these reasons, because you're on preventive maintenance, you still have activity outside, but you don't have any inside.
• 9:17
  Amber Byars: I don't want to see you get an activity inside, but we'll leave that up to them.
• 9:21
  Amber Byars: And if they decide to take a pause, we hear back for a moment about 60 to 90 days.
• 9:28
  Richard Piet: That quick.
• 9:29
  Richard Piet: 60 to 90 days.
• 9:30
  Amber Byars: Yeah, well, because once that control effort stops outside with the population control, the pressure on the home gets higher.
• 9:38
  Amber Byars: Yeah.
• 9:38
  Amber Byars: And so one of the methods of control is exclusion.
• 9:42
  Amber Byars: And if our exclusion work is done well, that could last a lot longer.
• 9:47
  Amber Byars: But over time, because mice are always chewing, their incisors never stop growing.
• 9:54
  Amber Byars: So they will chew back through eventually if the pressure's high on the home and if the pheromones are there and if their vulnerabilities are there.
• 10:01
  Amber Byars: So um just something we try to explain up front, just to limit clients being disappointed in the future again with either their decision or thinking that they could cancel and not have a problem ever again.
• 10:13
  Richard Piet: Yeah, it it reminds me of um our own health, right?
• 10:17
  Richard Piet: So some folks will be on a medication, I don't need this anymore.
• 10:21
  Richard Piet: I feel fine.
• 10:22
  Richard Piet: Well, you stop it and then uh the problems come back.
• 10:25
  Richard Piet: So this is a similar thing.
• 10:27
  Richard Piet: Makes perfect sense.
• 10:28
  Richard Piet: You have a plan, you've studied this, you've now executed that plan, and to stop it then brings up a greater risk that uh things will uh revert back to the way they were, maybe even in 60 to 90 days, which I don't know how years go by so fast.
• 10:47
  Richard Piet: 60 to 90 days.
• 10:48
  Amber Byars: That's pretty quick.
• 10:49
  Amber Byars: It is specific more so to rodents with a higher pressure outside, with a higher population.
• 10:56
  Amber Byars: Um, if you're if we're talking about a colony like a termite colony or even a stingy insect colony that it gets controlled and then run maintenance, that could maybe take longer to reinfest.
• 11:10
  Amber Byars: Um, because well, with termites, there's really it's really hard unless we're on a maintenance program to ensure that the property is effectively protected because they're subterranean and they live in the ground and we can't see through the ground.
• 11:23
  Amber Byars: So maintenance is great for termites.
• 11:25
  Amber Byars: With stinging insects, it's a lot easier to see because they're on the exterior of a home, right within, you know, visual uh sight.
• 11:33
  Amber Byars: So um, but still maintenance is all around a really great tool.
• 11:38
  Amber Byars: Um, but again, clients they think sometimes that once they're gone, they're gone forever.
• 11:44
  Amber Byars: And it's just up to us to kind of explain that a little better.
• 11:48
  Richard Piet: Well, I speak from experience.
• 11:50
  Richard Piet: In fact, with with the ground bee thing, uh, it was a great relief when they were gone.
• 11:56
  Richard Piet: Uh, but as we've talked about on this episode, it was not a one-and-done deal, and it was not just a spray and goodbye and it's over.
• 12:05
  Richard Piet: There was more involved in that, I can attest.
• 12:08
  Richard Piet: Well, our last myth here that is quite common, and uh folks, this'll resonate.
• 12:14
  Richard Piet: Believe me, doing it yourself is cheaper.
• 12:18
  Richard Piet: We've had this come up, Amber, over time in some of our episodes.
• 12:22
  Richard Piet: The idea that we're not trying to suggest a DIY situation isn't effective, but there are some misperceptions about it.
• 12:32
  Richard Piet: And this is one of them.
• 12:33
  Richard Piet: It's cheaper.
• 12:34
  Amber Byars: Yeah, and I'm all for giving information to clients that they need if they are truly going to go out on their own to do something with our professional hand on it.
• 12:45
  Amber Byars: I'm I'm always more than happy to give some bullet point information for them to be successful.
• 12:51
  Amber Byars: But we usually come in after the fact, after clients have already tried something for so long is when we get called in because they've had enough.
• 13:00
  Amber Byars: They're they're miserable enough now to call, you know.
• 13:04
  Amber Byars: So when that happens, then we're kind of playing a backwards game.
• 13:08
  Amber Byars: And most of the time, the reason why DYI fails is because these over-the-counter products that clients, you know, Google and then go buy from the Home Depot or whatnot, they are labeled for certain pests and they will kill certain pests.
• 13:26
  Amber Byars: But the way that they interact with these pests biologically, you want to pick the right chemical per pest.
• 13:36
  Amber Byars: Okay.
• 13:36
  Amber Byars: So people just will go buy anything, spray it, and you know, because it's a $20 can versus a $200 service.
• 13:44
  Amber Byars: But what happens with that is either they're going to treat this area and these bugs are going to just go everywhere, or they're going to halfway die and then re-emerge, halfway die and re-emerge.
• 13:57
  Amber Byars: One of the biggest headaches I see clients go through this with are with wasps.
• 14:03
  Amber Byars: When they have yellow jackets going into a part of their house, or they start hearing them in the wall, they'll go buy a can of wasp freeze at the store, and they'll just go, you know, inject it all into this area.
• 14:18
  Amber Byars: And then boom, they have this huge wasp nest breaking in through their house because the repellents in that treatment did something to the colony.
• 14:29
  Amber Byars: It it knocked down some of the workers, but it let the rest of the colony thrive.
• 14:35
  Amber Byars: That's very similar with any other colony insect, an ant.
• 14:38
  Amber Byars: I don't think I've ever met anybody that's wanted to treat termites on their own, but it can get pretty egregious if you try something that the chemical compounds aren't what you should be using.
• 14:50
  Richard Piet: Yeah.
• 14:51
  Richard Piet: And think about the time invested in that, as well as the cans or the the containers you're buying of material.
• 15:01
  Richard Piet: Now you're you're fighting that fight on your own, and uh we don't necessarily have the perspective of the pest pros and knowing exactly how to handle it.
• 15:14
  Richard Piet: And and this is a great time to uh mention again, you have studied uh how these pests behave, what uh they're attracted to, their behaviors, and how to interrupt that.
• 15:29
  Richard Piet: The rest of us are just uh living our lives until we get an interruption like this that causes us to want to go out and try and handle it ourselves.
• 15:38
  Richard Piet: And and uh it makes sense then with our layman's view that we may not be successful at it.
• 15:47
  Amber Byars: I understand the budget factor in most of these decisions.
• 15:50
  Amber Byars: Like I think that if I had a pest issue and I wasn't in pest control, I might try something on my own.
• 15:56
  Amber Byars: But knowing what I know now and having a platform like this to say to people, go for the professional standpoint first, especially if it's something that can cause damage, disease, or discomfort to you or your property, always go towards the professional route because I've met way too many people that have really banged their head up against the wall for so long before calling.
• 16:23
  Amber Byars: And at the end of everything, they ended up spending twice or three times as much money and time as they would have if they would have just gone to the professionals first.
• 16:33
  Amber Byars: And when we talk about damage, disease, and discomfort in pests, we're looking at things like bedbugs, cockroaches, stinging insects, any wood-destroying insect, like termites, carpenter bees, anything like that, carpenter ants.
• 16:48
  Amber Byars: You want to just go the professional route first because it's worth the investment for sure.
• 16:54
  Richard Piet: Yeah, it starts to get pretty serious in uh in those situations.
• 16:58
  Richard Piet: Yeah.
• 16:59
  Richard Piet: All right.
• 17:00
  Richard Piet: Hopefully, we've given you some things to think about here, particularly if you had not been enlightened about some of these things.
• 17:08
  Richard Piet: We ask the Pest Pros about these things to help you be educated and understand.
• 17:14
  Richard Piet: Did we stir up questions for you about your own situation?
• 17:19
  Richard Piet: Click through from the show notes to the Pest Pros website and reach out.
• 17:24
  Richard Piet: The Pest Pros of Michigan are happy to answer your questions and be of service.
• 17:29
  Richard Piet: We have other episodes like this too.
• 17:31
  Richard Piet: The Pest Prospectives episodes are easily available, but we invite you to subscribe so you know when they come around.
• 17:38
  Richard Piet: And we'll be around again before you know it.
• 17:41
  Richard Piet: Thank you, Amber.
• 17:42
  Richard Piet: Thank you.