Stop Spraying You’re Making it Worse!

#whatbugsme in Knoxville TN

     If there is one thing you can do to make your pest problem worse it is spraying after I treat. Here in Knoxville Tennessee, we have a healthy DIY mentality. That used to be a good thing. Old farmers had a plethora of what we would now call life hacks. However, these days with mass marketing and rampant consumerism we have gotten lazy. We want a magic pill, a silver bullet to fix all our woes now. Americans spend a ton of money on magic weight loss pills, quick fixes, and products designed to dupe you out of your money.

Pest Control Scams

     This unfortunate turn of events also applies to pest control. The old farmer life hacks have been diluted into silly old wives tales. Plug in pest repellers are everywhere and people continue to buy them. I have found roaches nesting on and inside these many times. The crazy thing is that even after the customer sees that first hand, they still tout their effectiveness. Someone has been taking crazy pills.  Home improvement and grocery store sell a gambit of pest control product to anyone who wants them. Will they kill a bug? Sure, if you spray it directly on it, but then about anything stronger than water sprayed on a bug will kill it. It’s cheaper to squish it and go on. Either way, nothing has been accomplished. He has 100 friends waiting to mourn the flattened roach by eating it.

The Good Spray

You can even buy the professional products if you know where to look but do you know how to use them effectively and safely?  Especially in roach and bed bug infestations I am told all the time that the customer has tried everything, even the “good stuff” and still has the problem. The scary thing is that when they describe what they have done, almost every time they have used it in an unsafe manner. They didn’t even bother to read the instructions. Even the women aren’t reading the label and hosing down the baby’s bed with a product meant for exterior use. Then they ask me if my stuff is safe for little Allie and Whiskers. Crazy pills again, where is everyone getting them? Stop spraying!

Shotgun VS Sniper Pest Control

So, when a customer finally raises the white flag of surrender and calls me, the silliness doesn’t seem to stop. I have been back to several jobs where the results were not typical. So I start asking questions and find out they have been spraying after I treated. Even shelling out cold hard cash for a professional to take care of it they can’t resist that call of the Raid can. Here is the problem, modern professional pest control products are more targeted to the pest than years ago. Back in the day bubba came out with the nastiest thing he could find and doused everything in sight, the house reeked for weeks, and you had to leave due to the assault of your senses. How was that safe for little Allie and Whiskers?

These days the science of pest control is deep. The approach now is more of a sniper rifle than a shotgun approach. Using products that affect pest biology that we don’t even have is an exciting turn for the industry and for safety. Using these products along with baits and non-repellants gives us the scientific edge over Raid. But we still have to know how to use it properly. Stop spraying!

Non-repellant Spray

Non-repellants are often used to prevent pests being repelled to infest new areas and make the problem worse. They are also used because since the dosage is the poison and the pest doesn’t know the product is there, they don’t avoid it and end up getting a higher dose. Obviously that higher dose, is the best poison. If you spray your dollar store bug-be-gone around this non-repellant you have just ruined the main aspects of what made it effective.  You have paid for 2 treatments and now you get nothing. Stop spraying!

Baits

     Baits are a great way to eliminate and control pests. Everybody gotta eat. That is the main reason the pests have become pests, they are looking for food. We often provide this to them via poor sanitation. Remember what you consider a small insignificant crumb is a free feast to a tiny bug. Roaches are pretty nasty consuming just about anything including their feces, vomit, and even each other. So we use this against them with baits. If they want to eat, then I am the chef of death for them. The cool thing about baiting for roaches is that that material is transferred though the fecal matter and the dead ones causing a domino effect crushing the colony. If you run to the Raid can again, you will make my bait taste nasty to them and they will avoid it altogether. Again, you paid for 2 and got nothing. Stop spraying!

Case in Point

You called me out to fix the problem trusting that I knew how to accomplish it with my tools, experience, certifications, and licenses. Why would you put the money up and not let me do what I know I gotta do? I recently started a German Roach service where I found out they had first called a friend who said he knew how to fix it. After that treatment serving only to make it worse, they called me realizing their mistake. They did not like what I had to say. The guy they had come out first was not certified, had no credentials, left no paperwork (as is required by law), and generally screwed them royally. Because I had no idea what he had used or done past what they could tell me, I needed a month to let whatever he had used wear off or my treatment could be wasted.

This job was heavily infested and would take several trips to get them under control. After 2 treatments and results not enough to satisfy me it became apparent that the first treatment he did was worse than expected. The residual was hanging around long enough to tell me that he had used a product designed only for exterior use in their kitchen, scary! Once that debacle of a treatment was finally gone, the population of roaches plummeted fast as my proper treatment took hold. Now they are happily roach free but learned a valuable lesson. And another thing, this guy left a ziplock bag of dust for them to put out themselves labeled only with “not for cooking” in sharpie. If your pest control technician leaves a product with you and asks you to do his job, fire him on the spot. What he did was illegal.

Lessons Learned

I’m all about saving a dollar but some things just aren’t worth the risk. Like ketchup, don’t you dare present me with the cheap stuff, or even that nasty purple and green ketchup. We all want the most from our hard earned money but the cheap option is cheap for a reason. Have you ever heard the saying you have 3 options, cheap, fast, and good, but you can only have 2 at a time.? Cheap and fast is not good. Fast and good is not cheap. Cheap and good is about as available as unicorns farting rainbows. The point is, know what you are buying. Sometimes cheap can be the best option for your situation, you just need to be conscious what you are getting and set your expectations in kind. As I get older I have learned that many times it is best to suck it up and just pay the piper. You expect results from the job you paid me for and I expect you to not make it harder on me to give you what you want. So stop spraying and let me help you. If you are ready to drink my kool-aid, give me a call, but leave that dang bug-be-gone under the sink. Don’t even thing about it. No, stop it, I can see you thinking about it.