TREATING COCKROACHES
Usually people will call us after they’ve spent a lot of money on baits and found that they didn’t eliminate the problem. Do you know where to put the baits? Do you know what everyday products used around the house will render these baits ineffective?
In our experience, these baits only work if there is a very small infestation, if they are placed in the correct locations, if the house is free of all forms of aerosols and if the environment is kept clean of other food residue (other competing food sources). Remember, if you see more than one cockroach the chances are that your infestation is a lot larger than you think and spending money on baits may be a waste of time and money. The worst case we’ve had was a client who spent over $500 over twelve months on over-the-counter products. We killed over 1,000 cockroaches, and this was after they used a lot of over the counter bait.
TREATING SPIDERS
The main concern for you is to identify those items you do not want any chemical spray to get on. Ensure that pet bowls (especially water bowls) are brought inside. Children’s toys should be gathered into the middle of the lawn as far away from any spider areas as possible and then covered with a drop sheet. It’s also important that you ensure your clothes are off of the clothesline, as this is an ideal forage area for spiders. Fish ponds must be fully covered, and we ask that you double cover the fish pond as fish do not appreciate the spider chemicals. As a general rule of thumb, anything you don’t want sprayed, should be covered or brought inside. If that’s not possible, just be sure to advise us when we arrive so that we can avoid the area concerned. If you have any edible vegetables, herb garden or fruit trees we ask that you cover them prior to our arrival.
TREATING RATS AND MICE
Yes, of course you can treat them yourself, but before you do please understand the difference between we can do for you vs treating yourself. You will probably find claims on the packages on any over-the-counter bait that state it’s the same active as the professionals use. This is indeed true however, the main difference is the additives. If a rodent eats the standard poison you can purchase in hardware stores and supermarkets, when they die in the roof, or in between the cavity walls or under the house, you will have a distinct smell for approximately two weeks – unless you can gain access to the dead rodent and eliminate it yourself quick enough. That distinct smell is the rodent actually decaying. You may find a surgence of flies, bees, magots, etc in your house during this time. With the products that we use, in most instances they will die away from the home. If they do expire in your home, you will often have no smell at all, or at the most a lesser odour for no more than a couple days.
Another thing to consider is the placement of the baits. Often we will go to places where the homeowner has tried setting the baits themselves and we find that they’ve put the bait in all the wrong places. Rodents like to feel safe and they will generally not venture out to an area they have not been before, unless you make that environment safe. Another difference is the attractiveness in the baits that we use. Rodents can smell our baits from some distance and seek them out. In our experience this is not generally the case with products purchased over the counter.