Pest Control

Some time a while back I wrote that I have a monthly pest control service come to the house.  It costs $35 a month and overall I've been satisfied with their service.  If I needed them to come out a second time in a month then they'd do so.  Lately I don't know what they've used on their regular monthly service but it sure hasn't lasted long.  I've gotten overrun.

Now around here we have seasons, much like the weather only with bugs.  We have cricket season, frog season, millipede season, mouse season, gnat season, etc. with all these creatures coming into the house.  Lately the gnats have been so bad that you can't open your mouth on the front porch or you'd be eating them.  It's gotten to the point that at night they'd somehow make it into the house and cover the entire ceiling in the kitchen.  I would have just put up with it until my regularly scheduled appointment if it hadn't been for the fleas that I saw on my bedspread.  That's it.  Clark, I need you! 

My loyal pest control guy came out yesterday to spray the house and yard.  This time I paid attention to what he sprayed.  He used two products: Demand CS and Tengard.  I got on line to www.epestsupply.com .  They sell these two products, and many others.  They offer free shipping.  The Demand was used inside.  It costs about $1-4 per use depending on how concentrated you need it.  It is used on the following pests:  Ants, Bedbugs (adult), Bees (don't worry bees, you stay out of my house and we are both happy!), Beetles, Boxelder Bugs, Carpenter Bees, Carpet Beetles, Centipedes, Cigarette Beetles, Clover Mites, Cockroaches, Confused Flour, Beetles, Crickets, Earwigs, Firebrats, Fleas, Flies, Lesser Grain, Borers, Millipedes, Mosquitoes, Red Flour Beetles, Rice Weevils, Saw-toothed, Grain Beetles, Silverfish, Sowbugs, Spiders, Termites (above ground only), Ticks, Wasps.  

Tengard costs about $3-5 per gallon diluted.  Tengard One Shot contains permethrin - the same active ingredient used in the popular Dragnet FT and Permethrin Plus C insecticides for termites. It can be used as perimeter insect control on lawns, ornamental trees, shrubs, and on buildings and under you slab.  It kills: Ants, ant mounds, armyworms, bedbugs, bark beetles, bees, beetles, borers, boxelders bugs, carpenter ants, carpenter bees, centipedes, chinchbugs, cockroaches, crickets, earwigs, elm leaf beetles, fire ants, fleas, flies, firebrats, ground beetles, gypsy moths, millipedes, mole crickets, pillbugs, scorpions, silverfish, sod webworms, sowbugs, spiders, termites, ticks, wasps, etc..  Again, I don't want it killing bees so I won't be spraying it near them.  I won't use it near the garden or anything that the bees use.

If I had purchased these myself I would have used about $20 worth of insecticide.  This means it cost $15 to have someone else apply it.  To me, that's a bargain for an hour or two of their time.  But they don't always use that much stuff or spend that much time at the house.  This time they went overboard because of the fleas.  They also go to oldest daughter's house (aka my house that they are renting).  I pay for that service, so it's not really $35 a month it's $70. I think for that price I can tell myself I'm needed rather than Clark.  Even when they came over with the mouse sticky traps I ended up having to buy more at Tractor Supply when they were on sale 2 for $1.00.  After all, we trapped almost 50 mice IN THE HOUSE!  What can I say, I keep a clean house and the pests love us anyway.

What if it is today?  What if I can't just call up Clark and have them come spray?  I need to be able to do this myself with my own products.  We really can't be like the local native Americans.  In this area, they'd burn the place off and move 1/2 mile down the creek or river and start over to get away from the bugs.  They'd come back in a year or two, once their new place was overrun by bugs.  I can't do that.  We need to be able to control the pests, especially when TSHTF.  Having to deal with bug bites or critters getting into your food or garden just isn't going to cut it.