How to Stop Pests from Becoming Unwanted Guests in Your Home with Orkin

Welcome to the vipHome Podcast where we talk about all the things homeowners need to know.

Glenn:

Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. I always love to talk about bugs and pest control, and it's not something that a lot of people love to talk about. So I'm happy to be able to share my love of bugs and pest control with your viewers.

Glenn:

I got into this uniquely as a lot of people do in our industry. It's not necessarily the industry that people say, "I want to be the bug killer when I grow up," or "I want to play with bugs when I grow up." But actually, when I was very little, I did have a pet, scorpion. We found it in the garage. My mom was hesitant at first. It was just a little scorpion. We put it in a fish bowl and it turned out to be the best pet we ever had-

Jacqueline:

No way.

Glenn:

... because it didn't need to be walked, you didn't need to take it... Bathroom breaks weren't a problem, vacations weren't a problem, all of that. I went on to college. I was going to be a pediatrician. Lost the thought about having anything to do with bugs and got to college and I had to take an elective class for my degree. I took an entomology class and had this realization that I can play with bugs for the rest of my life as a job.

Glenn:

Went down, changed my major. Again, my mom wasn't thrilled, but she's happy now. I'm gainfully employed. She was a little worried at one time. I went through college, I ended up taking some time in between. I got a bachelor's and a master's in entomology, but I took some time in between and I worked in a virology lab for a while, making vaccine components and stuff, and came back to the entomology.

Glenn:

And did the master's degree and fell into the industry doing structural pest control type stuff. Then I worked at a regional company in the Atlanta, Georgia area, and times past, some things happened at that company. They got acquired by a larger company. I decided it was time to step up to the big leagues and come to the biggest. So I'm happy to be where I am today.

Caroline:

Can you share a little bit about what entomology is? I know it's the study of bugs maybe.

Glenn:

Yeah, so I can elaborate. Entomology actually lumps in a lot of different things because we seem to be the catchall for things that other people don't want. Entomology by definition is the study of insects, and insects are six legged, three body segments, stuff like that. Spiders don't technically fall into entomology by definition, but we lump them in because they're the closest thing to the study of in that aspect.

Glenn:

In the pest control world, entomologists get lumped into rodent control, other wildlife, snakes, just the full gambit of things that come that... I see Caroline's shaking. Yeah, it's the stuff people don't want.

Caroline:

Yeah. I don't really mind bugs so much and spiders are fine, but you introduce the snake to the crowd and whoa.

Glenn:

I'm not a snake person myself-

Caroline:

Oh, good.

Glenn:

... but I will happily take a tarantula and put it on my face. So I'm still weird.

Caroline:

Okay.

Glenn:

There's entomologists, and then there's normal people, and I fall into the entomologist category.

Jacqueline:

What's a day in your life look like for you?

Glenn:

We get a lot of specimens sent in that either our operations have trouble figuring out what it is. We get a lot of Facebook requests for pest IDs, customers, random fans of Orkin that follow us on social media platforms. We'll post a picture and say, "Hey, what is this? Hey Orkin man." We're the behind the scenes Orkin men and women for that matter. We have a nice team of Orkin women that are employed here.

Glenn:

So that is one big aspect that we do is pest identification. It's really critical to the pest control process to know what you're trying to control. The second thing that we do is we problem solve. If there's unique situation going on in the field that an operation is having trouble with, or maybe it's a pharmaceutical plant that has something going on, that it's just highly sensitive.

Glenn:

We can go out, we can assess the situation, we can provide recommendations for solving those type problems. The last thing that we do is really assist our field operations in writing protocols so that they have the best... We evaluate equipment, we evaluate products and we write the protocols to help them have the best tools, and the best knowledge, and the best process to solve these problems the easiest way for them and the best for our customers.

Caroline:

Can you share a little bit as we go into the late summer, early fall, what pests really become problems? I know you said that you're solution-oriented, but before calling Orkin or before calling a pest service, how can you prevent some of these pests from doing harm?

Glenn:

And harm is what we're trying to prevent. I think the harm isn't necessarily... There's obvious harm that they could do to people, some pests, but there's harm to homes. And that's the target that we're thinking about today is as weather cools off, we get into these cooler months, shorter days, these pests try and find someplace to go. They're trying to escape the cold weather. They're trying to find someplace to bed down just like we do during the winter months, we want to stay warm and cozy.

Glenn:

So there's really two major categories of things that we could be facing. Rodents are a huge one. Rodents try and migrate into homes, businesses, whatever, during the fall months so that they can survive the winter months and breed at the same time. The second category, and we'll get into what can we do about it in just second. The second category is what we call occasional invaders. And these are things that don't typically feed or breed in homes, but try and escape things like the cold, the hot.

Glenn:

They're looking for water, they're looking for some kind of food resource, and they just happen into the home by accident. So call them occasional invaders. Some of the occasional invaders that we might think of would be boxelder bugs. Boxelder bugs, I get hundreds of friends asking what these red and black looking bugs are that come in mass to the side of their house or whatever.

Glenn:

They're predominantly black, they have some red markings on them. When they're young, they're almost exclusively red with some very little light black marks, black legs and stuff like that. So they're just really bright and striking in color and people just see hundreds of them all the sudden on the side of their house or whatever. And it's just a common occurrence. A lot of things will kill them, they'll go away, but you want to try and keep them from coming inside.

Glenn:

Stink bugs or predominant.

Caroline:

We get a lot of them.

Glenn:

Yeah, Caroline mentioned she was from the New England States. That is a huge area for the brown marmorated stink bug. It's an invasive species. If you think of what home plate looks, a home plate shape, pentagon shaped, but that's more of what it's like. They call them marmorated, that means speckled or patterned in color. And they're this brownish pattern on their body. They call them stink bugs because if you touch them, they release this chemical that stinks and it's a repellent to other insects and other predators.

Caroline:

I have a question on stink bugs.

Glenn:

Yeah, [crosstalk 00:08:01].

Caroline:

... if it's a myth or a rumor, but I heard that if you kill them, that that stink actually attracts their friends, so you get more.

Glenn:

While we find it offensive, that smell can be an aphrodisiac to other stink bugs. It has some pheromones in it, so they will use it to aggregate, they will use it to find each other. It also has some antibacterial qualities. So I'm not saying that we should take stink bugs and clean our hands [crosstalk 00:08:38] from COVID-19 or anything, but it does help them protect themselves from other microorganisms that might cause them illness.

Glenn:

One thing that I don't want your viewers to do is suck them up in their vacuum cleaner. If you suck them up in the vacuum cleaner, that smell, that stink can get in the vacuum cleaner and it is really hard to get it out. So it's better to trap them, throw them outside, get them with a cup and a piece of paper and take them out, or just grab them with a Kleenex or something like that.

Glenn:

The Kleenex will keep the oil from getting on your hands. You can wash your hands afterwards, but they don't bite or anything. So it's something that you can just grab and get rid of and not ruin your vacuum cleaner.

Jacqueline:

Would you say that there are insects that you would recommend or would be okay with using a vacuum to clean up, if you will?

Glenn:

Yeah. Another occasional invader that we think about as ladybugs. Ladybugs, I highly recommend sucking up in the vacuum cleaner because-

Jacqueline:

Okay.

Glenn:

... if you smash a ladybug like on your wall or on your curtains or whatever, they'll release this orange stain. It's similar to the stuff that a stink bug would release. It's a chemical that they exude to try and ward off predators or whatever, but it will stay in wallpaper. It'll stay in paint, it'll stay in fabrics. So by sucking them up with the vacuum cleaner, it doesn't let them scotch that out and stain the surface.

Jacqueline:

All right.

Glenn:

Most bugs, it's not a problem to suck up in the vacuum cleaner. It's really the ones that we think about like stink bugs that have this pungent odor associated with them that we don't want to do that.

Jacqueline:

That makes sense.

Caroline:

I always remember as a kid, when I found a ladybug, I was so excited and my mom was like, "Oh no, you don't want ladybugs. That means something's wrong or an infestation of sorts." So-

Glenn:

Ladybugs are actually very beneficial. To have them in your garden is amazing. They eat aphids, which are pests of plants. They suck the plant juices, ladybugs actually eat those. So they're really good to have around. Yeah, you don't want them inside. They will die inside. Other parts of the country, in like the Pacific Northwest, Colorado, those areas, they actually get really, really, really bad infestations of ladybugs.

Glenn:

So like the stink bugs that we were talking about, or boxelder bugs that we get in mass in these areas, in your area, my area, Atlanta, Georgia, Southeast, they get mass infestations of ladybugs. And those lady bugs can die in the attic, in the wall voids, in places where you can't get to them as easy. And those bug carcasses for lack of better term can attract other pests. There's other pests that feed on dead bugs, so you can get secondary pest infestations from having dead bugs in your house.

Jacqueline:

That's good to know.

Caroline:

Yeah. Maybe my mum was right in [crosstalk 00:11:46].

Glenn:

It's never good to have bugs in your home unless they're pets. The first thing that I would say to tell homeowners to do is walk around your house. Not just walk around and say, "Oh, the bushes look pretty," or "The roses are nice." That's wonderful to do, but look for things that don't look right. Scratch marks, bent gutters, top shingles. Those types of things are things that are indicative of another problem, something's happened to make that happen.

Glenn:

And those are oftentimes things that we're looking for when we go out and do an inspection. We have a little more trained eye, so we see things that a homeowner may not see. But fixing those type things or looking for a soffit vent or an eave that has scratch marks on it may indicate that there's been a squirrel trying to get in, a raccoon trying to get in. Some other type of rodent trying to get into the attic space. And that's that first side that a homeowner might see.

Glenn:

For occasional invader type stuff, sealing cracks and crevices, putting up screens on windows, making sure the screens are tight. Caulking around plumbing lines, your cable line comes into your house somewhere, making sure that caulking that's around it is good and tight. In your air conditioning, HVAC lines, making sure those are sealed around them. Any kind of penetration from the outside to the inside of your home should be sealed up really well.

Jacqueline:

About two years ago, I had squirrels in my walls. I lived on the top floor. I was on the third floor of a three story apartment complex. And I guess, I don't know how they got in through the roof. Somehow there was some kind of opening and it was my bedroom wall and they were living in. And yeah, there was just some opening and I guess they had sealed it and they had gotten rid of the... They were squirrels, and then the squirrels tore it open again and came back in.

Jacqueline:

And it was just something they were in the trees and they crawled into the house as it got colder in late September, October, and-

Glenn:

Any branches that are overhanging, touching, bushes touching the home, any of that, the more that can be cut away from the home helps pests from being able to jump or just walk right onto the house. If your bushes are 12 to 18 inches away from the foundation of your home, like cutaway on the backside from the street, you can't tell. It still looks beautiful, but it keeps ants from being able to walk from the bush onto the house and get in or something like that.

Glenn:

Same with the trees overhanging keeps squirrels from dropping on. There's cockroaches that nest into trees that drop onto the house and will come in through the soffit vents and that type stuff. So all of that that you can keep cutaway is a really good preventive tip as well.

Caroline:

I feel like we need all the preventative tips that we can get.

Caroline:

How often do you think or would you recommend like Orkin services or pest control services over the course of a year? Is it seasonally, or twice, or-

Glenn:

If you're going to employ the services of a pest control company, I would have them come... Typically, they're going to come monthly, bimonthly or quarterly.

Caroline:

Okay.

Glenn:

And a lot of that is dependent on what region of the country you're in. If you're in a really cold climate, you may not need it as often, so they may come quarterly. But it is important that somebody is looking year-round because there's different pests that will come in the fall, then the spring, then the summer, then the winter, whatever. So your home is really under constant attack from stuff trying to get in, from keeping mosquitoes away, or keeping the rodents out in the fall, or protecting from the spring emergence of a lot of different pests.

Glenn:

That's their big... It starts getting warmer, they start growing their population sizes, they start moving around more because it's warmer outside. So it really is important that somebody is looking on a regular basis. Depending on what you want to have them look for or how you want to do that, companies are more than willing to come out on a onetime basis or come out on a regular basis.

Caroline:

Do mosquitoes count as under your control?

Glenn:

Mosquitoes are actual insects, so yes.

Caroline:

I get horrific mosquito bites. No matter where I am, just a million of them.

Glenn:

My wife is the same way. It bites her and she immediately gets like a big red welt that shows up. I fed mosquitoes in college [crosstalk 00:16:28]. I don't react the same way, and-

Caroline:

Okay.

Glenn:

... that's an important thing to remember when people... I'm not going to knock on the doctors because I wanted to be one, but you cannot diagnose what kind of insect, or bug, or spider, or whatever bit somebody by the skin reaction.

Jacqueline:

Oh.

Glenn:

It's absolutely impossible. Everybody reacts differently. We use bedbugs as an example, some people react to bedbug bites, some people don't. Some people react to mosquito bites, some people don't. So the red mark that you get on your skin, the swollen red mark is an immune response to the saliva, to the histamines, whatever that the bug bites you and injects, and everybody's body reacts differently to those.

Glenn:

We hear all the time, "Oh, well, that's a spider bite. My doctor told me it was a spider bite." Your doctor can't tell you. Your doctor's seeing an immune response to something. It could have been a bedbug, it could have been a mosquito, something else, a tick. It could have been a lot of things and produce that same reaction. It's important that you pay attention. If something does bite you, try and get a picture of it.

Glenn:

Try and throw some tape onto it, something, catch it because that helps people in determining what to do about that particular bite.

Caroline:

My horror story for the day was going to be, I was at the sleepaway camp in a tent, sleeping in a tent and I had this huge, huge welt in the crease of my arm. And it ended up being a spider laid an egg or some eggs in my arm.

Jacqueline:

No. No.

Glenn:

I would put potentially disagree.

Caroline:

I think that was more of the story, but it was like a huge-

Jacqueline:

Oh.

Caroline:

... thing.

Glenn:

Glenn:

Where was the camp?

Caroline:

West New Jersey.

Glenn:

West New Jersey. I do not know of any spider that lays its eggs underneath the skin of a human. There are other things that will not necessarily lay their eggs in your skin. There's like almost nothing that does that. But there are things that when they bite you, you'll get like an abscess type underneath the skin from the reaction that your body has to it. And sometimes the easiest thing to do is pull that like pocket out surgically.

Caroline:

Yeah, that's what they did.

Glenn:

Awesome.

Caroline:

And it's funny because I think I was like seven at the time. So I think what seven-year old knows the word abscess? You know what I mean? I think it became a story. I tell that back to my mom, she's like, "You have eggs in your arm, come on." So that's a story though.

Glenn:

My mom told me that if I eat watermelon seeds, I'd grow a watermelon in my belly.

Caroline:

I know that one too.

Glenn:

That's not true either.

Jacqueline:

I had something, I was... This is a little bit unrelated to honing homes, but I guess it was a summer home. My stepfather's from Sweden. We moved to the States and was living here for a while, but he maintained this little cottage he kept in the Swedish countryside. So in the summers, we would go over and visit his family and then we'd stay at the house for a few days. So I don't know if you have experienced Scandinavian bugs, specifically ticks.

Jacqueline:

But I was playing outside and I had... I guess a tick landed on me and it burrowed into my skin. And I had to have my stepdad take tweezers and pull the tick because it was not just on my skin, but i-

Glenn:

Buried.

Jacqueline:

... that. The craziest... I can't. I remember it clear as day because we don't have ticks like that in America to my knowledge. Maybe we do, but I'm not entomologist so I don't know. But I remember having to lay down, men pull the tick out from inside of my... It was inside. Oh my gosh.

Glenn:

Yes, all ticks feed that way. So all the ticks-

Jacqueline:

They go inside of you?

Glenn:

Yeah. They burrow into your skin and that's how they feed. Ticks actually make... Part of their salivary enzymes, the proteins in their saliva make almost like a tube in your skin and it helps the flow of stuff into their mouth.

Jacqueline:

[inaudible 00:21:17].

Glenn:

Yeah. Their head actually does bury into your skin though. There's also a fly, we don't have them in the United States. They might have them in South Texas or something. It's called a botfly. The botfly will lay an egg under your skin and it lives there.

Caroline:

Maybe that's what I had.

Glenn:

I'm trying to say this in a nice way. It lives there until it hatches out. Then it just falls out of your leg or something.

Jacqueline:

Oh my gosh. I don't ever want to go where those are.

Caroline:

Oh wait. While we're on this rare bug, spider, tick, our content managers, Susie, the one who brought these glorious questions for us wanted to know or to quote, she said, "The CDC has seen a rise in tick-borne diseases. So the best way to avoid a tick to make sure your home and lawn have as few ticks as possible. Do you have any..." I guess I read that better, but anyway, ticks, and homes, and ways to prevent them is the gist.

Glenn:

Uniquely, I moved into my house like five years ago now. I moved down a little bit closer to work and everything and diagonally across the street from me is another entomologist. We're like 0.0001% of the United States is entomologists and there's two on a street of like 15 houses or something.

Caroline:

Are you guys best friends.

Glenn:

We do talk a lot, yeah. Not many other people will talk to us, so we talk a lot. He is actually a tick specialist at CDC.

Jacqueline:

Wow.

Caroline:

Well, do you want [inaudible 00:23:08] our podcast?

Glenn:

Right. I'll talk to him. There is definite evidence of new ticks getting introduced into the United States, more and more tick-borne disease that people are being exposed to. So it is extremely important when homeowners go outside their house to wear repellents. The CDC website is a great resource for that. They have recommendations, they update their recommendations based on their research on tick biology and behavior to the best repellents.

Glenn:

There is also additional guidance there for kids, women who are expecting, all of this that we don't have time for this broadcast, but your viewers could go read if they're in one of those special categories or want the latest recommendation on repellents. The biggies that people need to think about for making their home less hospitable for ticks, cut their grass. Tall grass is notorious for ticks climbing up them.

Glenn:

They do what's called like flagging and they'll stick out their front legs like this as they... Their back legs will hold onto the top of the grass stick. They'll stick out their legs like this, and as you walk by and your pants leg, or your dog, or whatever, they'll grab onto it and go with you. It's important that you keep grass cut short so they can't do that. So tall grass is a no, no.

Glenn:

The other is creating what we call ecotones in the yard. So if you have a wooded section of your yard and then there's grass that goes right up to it, put like a gravel barrier in between. That harsher break between the wooded area and the grass is a huge deterrent to ticks being able to cross. So it keeps your lawn better protected from anything that might be coming through the woods. Deer will transport them, so getting deer attractive plants out of your yard, things that they might be feeding on.

Glenn:

If you have a garden in your yard that is attracting animals in, putting netting up around that to keep the deer, the bunnies or whatever from coming in will benefit not having ticks deposited into your yard that are looking for some kind of host. The point Jacqueline made about taking it out, it is important that you remove a tick properly. You don't want to touch them with... People will put lotion on them, put oil on them, put...

Glenn:

There's all these things about, well, when they can't breathe, they'll let go. They'll touch them with a burning match or something like that. All of those are horrible recommendations.

Caroline:

To your skin? A burning match to your skin?

Glenn:

To the tick because they think it will make the tick let go. The tick actually, their mouth part's scissor or saw down in as they're burying in. They put in a numbing agent, so you don't feel them burrowing in. But it's not like they're holding on like a dog to a tennis ball. They can't just let go. So if you touch them with something or you stop their ability to breathe, what they typically will do is spit.

Glenn:

They push fluids from their body in as they're letting go, and it takes them a while to work their way back out. But the saliva that they would inject into you is what potentially has the pathogens in it. The Rocky Mountain spotted fever, the Lyme disease, Powassan virus, all of those different things that they transmit are salivary transmitted. So if you smother them, if you burn them, if you do all of these different things, it could actually increase your chances of getting infected by whatever they might have.

Jacqueline:

Oh my God.

Glenn:

The best thing is exactly what they did to you Jacqueline, grab it with tweezers as close as you can to the skin, pull straight out. It will remove it. They make tick removal devices and stuff that do that same kind of motion. You can get them at retail stores, online retailers, huge ones, whatever, we'll have those types of devices. Regular tweezers will work just as well.

Caroline:

How big is a tick?

Glenn:

About size of an apple seed? They're not very big.

Caroline:

Oh. Yeah.

Glenn:

If I do this, it's really big. If I do this, it's really small, but about size of an apple seed. Somewhere in that neighborhood is what you're going to look for for the adult size. The young, what we call instars, the larval stages of them, the babies can be really, really small. You may have heard the term seed ticks. Those are baby ticks that haven't grown up yet. They can be as small as like a period on a piece of paper or something and white or clear

Caroline:

Oh.

Glenn:

Really hard to see. They're less likely to be transmitting any disease at that point because they haven't gotten to where they fed on infected things, deer or boxes, or whatever that are carrying these different viruses. It's really just the irritation that you get at that point. The other tidbit I would say on the removal is when you remove it, make sure you got the whole thing.

Glenn:

If you've broken the head off in your skin because you pulled it an angle or didn't pull straight out, you can get some secondary infection type stuff going on. If that happens, go see your doctor. You're not going to die from that, but you could think that I have Lyme disease because I've gotten this further red, circular infection type thing. And it's really that you just didn't get the tick out completely.

Caroline:

Oh dear.

Jacqueline:

We'll let Susie know.

Caroline:

You had mentioned earlier that you had a scorpion as a pet. Good for you. Glad you didn't have to walk it. Can you share how common, if you didn't want them as a pet, the commonness of them in your home and what you do if one is in your home?

Glenn:

If you get a scorpion in your home, you-

Caroline:

Run?

Glenn:

No. Actually the majority of the scorpions that we have in the United States that would get into a home are not that venomous. I will mention that difference-

Caroline:

Well, a little.

Glenn:

We do have some in the Southwest that are fairly venomous. I wouldn't necessarily push them to deadly, but it would be bad. We have some bad yellowjackets, we have some bad wasps. It's not that it's completely uncommon for us to have things that can make us sick when they sting us. I do want to mention the difference between poison and venom.

Glenn:

Poisonous means that if you eat it, like a poisonous plant, you get sick from it. Venom is injected and you get sick from it. So insects, I can't think of a poisonous insect. People eat insects around the world as a source of protein. They eat spiders, they eat scorpions, they eat all kinds of things. Venom them injected snakes, scorpions, yellowjackets, all of that is what we're talking about.

Glenn:

When we say something is venomous, it means that it's going to sting you, bite you, whatever, and make you sick.

Caroline:

Got it

Glenn:

What you should do around your house, scorpions are notorious for getting into rock piles, gravel, woodpiles that you might have around your house. So elimination of those things, if at all possible. Or if you have gravel around your house, we often recommend you put gravel around your house as a barrier. A lot of insects don't want to cross that barrier, so it's a good barrier for other things.

Glenn:

Scorpions like it though and they'll nest in them and hide in them. So it's a little bit different. We talked about sealing your home up really well, caulking, sealing gaps and cracks. Door sweeps can be really good to keep scorpions out. So making sure that if you're inside your home, look towards your front door, or your back door, your basement door during the middle of the day, the bright sunny time of the day.

Glenn:

And if you see light coming around your door, something can get in it, some kind of pest. Scorpion can smash really flat and get in, so making sure that that door sweep, the brush, the rubber, whatever touches, the doorframe, it doesn't have to scrape your floor all up. That's too far down. But when the door is sealed, closed, that you don't see light coming around it. Extremely important.

Glenn:

If they do get inside, I don't recommend people like, "Oh, I'm going to throw it outside. I'm just going to grab it by the tail." Trained professionals do that, other people don't. Okay? They can sting you. Most of the ones that we have that people would run into, it would be like a bee sting, but nobody enjoys being stung by a bee either. So scoop it up with something. Scoop it up in the dust pan and just throw it out the front door.

Glenn:

Or if you really don't want to let it live, flush it down the toilet. It'll be fine. It's not going to clog your pipes up and it's not going to come back later and haunt you in the middle of the night or anything like that. It's just going to [inaudible 00:32:42]. Hairspray is another good knockdown for a lot of pests. If you spray stuff with hairspray, it clogs up their breathing holes and they don't last very long.

Caroline:

That's a little sad. I don't [inaudible 00:32:58], but that seems a little sad.

Glenn:

It's just something that people tend to have on hand that will work.

Caroline:

Okay.

Glenn:

I don't recommend... This is not pest control for, you're going to quarterly go around your house and spray with hairspray. It's if you get a wasp in the house that you're worried about, hairspray can knock it down and get it.

Jacqueline:

I have wasp that likes to come visit, so that's helpful. Normally I just ask him to leave and who does leave. He's actually pretty nice. And he comes back and I'm like, "Can you go?" And I open the door and then he leaves. But then every once in a while, sometimes he comes back and then I just ask him to leave and he leaves again. So I guess, I don't have to do that to him, but if he gets aggressive, then I have [crosstalk 00:33:44]-

Glenn:

You should name him.

Jacqueline:

I should name... He's growing on me because he's respectful.

Glenn:

Another tidbit for your homeowners to think about is if you get like ants in the house-

Jacqueline:

I have a lot of ants.

Glenn:

Yeah.

Jacqueline:

I can't [crosstalk 00:33:59]-

Glenn:

Obviously, they're coming in for some kind of source. They're coming in for something sweet, they're coming in looking for water or something like that. Using something like Windex, some kind of glass cleaner, it will help to break down the trail pheromone that they have and can help stem them from continuing to come into that same place.

Jacqueline:

That is great news. Right before this call, I don't know why... I moved to a garden level, ground level apartment from a third floor, so I had the squirrel problem last time. Now I have ant problem and I just sprayed with Windex before this call because I'm like, "Maybe this will do." So that's great news.

Glenn:

Yeah, it'll kill the scouts and it'll help to remove that trail pheromone, but it is not necessarily a solution. Look where they're going, try and find what they're going to, follow the little trail.

Jacqueline:

[crosstalk 00:34:52] my kitchen. Maybe water.

Glenn:

Honestly, I feel for you. As a renter, you have a little less freedom than a homeowner does to do things. Like you mentioned the screen on the front door that needs fixing. I would even say that your homeowners might be in a similar situation right now. A lot of people are out of work right now because of the pandemic. A lot of people may be out of work for a period of time after the pandemic.

Glenn:

They don't necessarily have the funds to fix the screen right now or something. They're paying their bills, they're buying food, they're trying to survive during this. So doing little things can help. If you can take a piece of thread and try and pull it together, something to get it closer together. Put some saran wrap over it, suppressant seal on both sides and squeeze it together.

Glenn:

It's not going to be as attractive, but it might keep Mr. Wasp friend from coming in as easy in those situations. When something gets better financially or in your home, or if the landlord comes around eventually, then potentially call us out to say, "We can help you out in this way." We get it. We've seen the struggles that people have had during this with continuing service and we're working with them to keep themselves pest free while this is all going on.

Glenn:

So it's a good point that you make that renters may be in a situation that they can't do the structural modifications that a homeowner can. So the little tips and tricks like Windex, like hairspray, those may tide you over until you can get some professional help.

Jacqueline:

Yeah, That's all really helpful.

Caroline:

One of our common segments that we do with a lot of our guests is homeowner horror stories. Maybe you could share a story.

Glenn:

The homeowner horror story that I would bring up, luckily is not my home and it involves bedbugs. Bedbugs really need to be managed professionally. I never recommend a homeowner try and control bedbugs themselves, and this homeowner had. It had gotten way out of hand. They had tried their own home remedies.

Glenn:

It was to the point that when you walked in, there were bedbugs on the ceiling and they were dropping on your head as you walk through the room because they could sense the carbon dioxide that you're breathing out and everything and they were trying to find a food source. The biggie that I would say is, don't try and do that. The other thing that I will say drives me bonkers, but it doesn't drive me bonkers.

Glenn:

It just upsets me, when people just randomly use some kind of a product in their house that they don't really understand, that they don't apply correctly. There's a huge move to use diatomaceous earth. It's a naturally occurring product that will kill bugs. It's slow to act on bugs, but people way over apply it.

Glenn:

True application of diatomaceous earth or DE as it might be mentioned in places is so light that you don't see it on the surface. It's like dust that you might wipe off your TV or your entertainment center. What I've seen is that people will put it out in like piles. They're sitting amongst this dust that becomes then a respiratory hazard for them, and that's exactly what had happened in this situation.

Glenn:

It looked like they had taken powder, it was DE, but just everywhere. Their couch was covered in it, their carpet was covered in it, their bed was covered in it and it could not have been good for their health. Not that the bedbugs were, but their treatment was actually detrimental to them as well. That's my homeowner horror story. If you get bed bugs, sooner than later, try and get some professional help.

Caroline:

Would you see a bedbugs or would you had bedbugs?

Glenn:

They're about the size of an apple seed as well.

Caroline:

Okay.

Glenn:

And what you're probably going to notice first, if you don't react to the bite is things that look like black spots on your sheets, like ink blots type things. And that's actually their fecal material. It's blood that has gone through their body and it's concentrated so much that it dries black. So that's what you would see is these little black spots. Sometimes their shed skins because they shed their skin as they grow.

Glenn:

But the first indication is going to be that blood spotting, fecal spotting on your sheets and stuff.

Jacqueline:

And what causes them?

Glenn:

People pick them up from travel, from going to camp, going to the sleepaway camp and coming back. Going to a soccer camp, going to college, going to... Anywhere that you travel. Hotels might have them, airports, wherever. You might pick some up and then bring them home and they get into your house. It's nothing to be ashamed of. It's not that your home is dirty. It's not that you have done anything wrong.

Glenn:

And that's why it's important to let people know, let the professionals know as soon as possible so that we can come out and remedy it. The longer it goes, the more expensive it's going to be, and the harder it's going to be. So quick and easy at the beginning.

Jacqueline:

Wow.

Caroline:

I'm literally going to leave this call, go check my dog for ticks and go change my sheets. It's a wake up call.

Glenn:

If I do have one or two last minutes that I can-

Caroline:

Definitely, definitely.

Glenn:

... mention something. If you do go and seek the help of a company to help you out, seek out somebody that uses integrated pest management. Integrated pest management is a system where it's a process. It's an ongoing repetitive process where you assess the situation, you implement some kind of control measure, and then you monitor the situation for any new activity. And any new activity is then assessed, implemented, and monitored.

Glenn:

It's a way to solve problems in a proactive measure, so implementing these things like ceiling cracks and crevices and adding doors sweeps are things that are implemented to add length of time to not having pest problems. You're solving the problem before you get it. And it is something that we do at Orkin.

Glenn:

It's something that is very common in our industry, but there are some people out there that just come in and spray stuff. That isn't necessarily the best way to have a proactive pest program in your home.

Caroline:

Good to know. Anything else? Any last minute tips or tricks?

Glenn:

Get somebody to come take a look. Most companies, we do... Most other companies as well do free inspections. So call us out, let us do a comprehensive inspection. We might see something that you haven't noticed yet. Maybe it's the squirrel in your wall or that we may make a recommendation that we could really help you out with some mosquito control and knock down your potential for getting some mosquito-borne virus, exposing your children, or your family, or something.

Glenn:

So some are quick tips and tricks that we might give you in person, but it's harder for us to do that without seeing your home and your situation in person.

Jacqueline:

Really enjoyed this.

Caroline:

Good.

Jacqueline:

I learned so much.

Caroline:

[inaudible 00:42:20] bugs.

Jacqueline:

Yeah, I didn't know how I'd have so much fun talking about bugs.

Caroline:

Okay.

Glenn:

That's what happens to people. You'll be a pest control person soon. I'm bringing you in.

Jacqueline:

Oh good. Oh good.

Caroline:

It would be great to have you on again. This was great. And I think our viewers and our listeners will be just as impressed by all the bugs knowledge that we were. So, Glenn, thank you so much and we'll chat with you soon.

Speaker 1:

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