I'm not calling today's post Happy Ew Year's Eve

Here's a nice look at some mouse droppings in the middle of a restaurant dining room floor.

You should get to recognize these.

You should never handle these without gloves, and even be careful breathing them in when you sweep up.

Also, be advised that no matter how old they are, the DOH inspector will refer to them as "fresh rodent excreta" on his report.  That's even if they were made by the mice that came over on Noah's ark.

So clean, inspect, clean more, inspect more, and clean some more.

These are your mouse dropping resolutions for 2015.

Ew York City will see you next year.

That never gets old.

Mouse House

Do you see the mouse house?

Near the sidewalk cafe of a restaurant mice were running around right in the middle of dinner.  People were wondering where they could be coming from.

A brief inspection of these planters revealed numerous burrows, as well as "nests" underneath.

This is a reminder that mice don't need large places to call home.  Also, they don't travel very far to get to their food, so just running out from a planter and grabbing a crumb of a $14 hamburger is just what they like.

When you bring nature into the city, nature will win; eventually, nature will win.

Ew York City will be back tomorrow I think.

Heard It Through the Grape Vine

Here's a dark fruit fly, doing what dark fruit flies do, basically annoy you by resting right in front of you on a surface you don't want them resting on.

Smart move at least to cover the raisins.

Gotta find the breeding areas, probably not too far away.

Since you cover everything over night, you could leave a couple traps out, like vinegar traps, things the flies will "think" are uncovered by you by accident, and then, "Sploosh."

I'm not sure if fruit flies care much about good sources of fiber in general, but I'm craving raisins myself.

Ew York City will be back your way tomorrow.

Unwrapped

It's always fun to puff a little product under these traps and see what runs out.

We caught about a hundred water bugs.  Of course they live right under our feet, just enjoying the darkness and the moisture.  Occasionally a rogue comes out and scares the civilians.

This is one of the those spots you want to check every time, and for a while you want to do some MPI (the reverse of IPM).  By that I mean treat first and then inspect.  That's old school son.

Hope everyone of our readers had their dreams fulfilled yesterday, and now your life has meaning.

Ew York City will be back Monday.  Have a happy weekend.

Merry Christmas from Each One of Us

'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house

Creatures were stirring, and not just a louse.

The bed bugs were tucked in the mattress with care,

With hopes that my blood filled limbs soon would be there

The children were nestled, all snug in their beds

With no idea that there were bugs they should dread.

And mamma in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap,

Had both been feeling itchy since our afternoon nap.

When under our bedding things started to scatter,

I sprang out of my bed to see what was the matter.

Down to the boxspring I flew like a flash,

Tore up the comforter despite my bad rash.

The bites on our breasts glistened like snow

And led me to believe there were bedbugs below.

When what to my wondering eyes did appear

An infestation that must have been here a year.

So nimbly they crawled, and scampered so quick,

All those blood stains couldn't have been caused by a nick.

More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,

I never would live long enough to give each one a name.

"Now Sucker, Now Lapper, Now Blood Lust and Trixie!

On Vector, On Stabber, On Dahmer and Stick me!

To the top of the mattress!  To the top of the bed!

Now suck away!  Suck away!  From toes up to head!"

As leaves that before the wild hurricane fly

No obstacle could keep them from my wife's ample thigh.

So up to the boxspring corners they flew

Their survival instinct teaching them just what to do.

And then, in a twinkling, as each little bug shimmered

I saw thousands of eggs on my boxspring glimmer.

And as I peered closer, I detected a scent,

Of over ripe raspberries wherever they went.

The mattress was stained black with droppings of old,

And shed skins were piled high in every fold.

Their bug eyes were compound, and followed us both,

And their little legs let them crawl right under our clothes.

(Okay, I'm getting sick of this.  Let's wrap this up.)

They spoke not a word, but went right to their work,

And stuck to our bodies even if we might jerk.

And one crawling right up the side of my nose,

Deposited excrement as red as a rose.

Then back they all crawled, down under the bed,

And left us only with rashes and bumps quite itchy and red.

And I heard them exclaim, as they crawled out of sight.

"Good night, sleep tight, and technically we don't bite, we suck."

Merry Christmas from Ew York City.

Rataclysm 2015

Nothing like a nice pair of work boots, right?

Oh, you're not impressed with my boot?  You're looking at something else in this picture?

Manhattan is surrounded by rivers, parks, highways, and all sorts of rodents.

As their intelligence continues to develop, their strength continues to grow, their survival instincts continue to be honed like the sharpest of cutlery, our days as the dominant lifeform on this island are numbered.

The best piece of advice I can give you is don't forget to tip your rats this holiday season.

Ew York City will be returning tomorrow for our Christmas Eve Spectacular.

Turn Down Phorid Flies

Who doesn't love Phorid Flies?

Well, you don't, and the inspector from the DOH doesn't.

But I love them, even though it's my job to exterminate them.

Phorid flies are just a brilliantly designed insect,

You probably recognize them by their habit of running really, really fast on a surface instead of just flying away.  "Run Phorid, Run!"

Another interesting thing about them is that some species target ants as prey for their larvae, so they actually can help you reduce your ant problem.  They will actually lay their eggs in the body of ant, and the larvae will crawl to the ant's head and eat it right off of the ant's body.  How cool is that?

They also appear to have a little hump back shape to them.

As with all flies, your sanitation is the key to keeping these flies away from your crab shack.

Ew York City will be sprinting back your way tomorrow.

We Clean Everyday

Every day someone tells me, "We clean everyday."

This is usually in the context of flies.  "I don't understand why we still have flies!  We clean every day!  We bleach the drains!  We mop everywhere!  We cover it with gas and set it on fire at the end of the dinner shift!  How can we still have flies?!"

Let me say that I feel your frustration.  And it doesn't feel good.  In fact, it feels kind of wet and slimy, and cold even.

In this one restaurant, fruit flies and houseflies were pretty bad, in the dozens, which, of course, feels like hundreds of thousands or even fly-illions.  The manager told me "We Clean Everyday!"  So I began to explore a little.

I looked under the grease trap below the sink.  "Hmm, that looks like something.  But it probably isn't because they clean every day.  Let me get out my flashlight and look more closely."

"Hmm, yes, yes, definitely.  I see something.  Let me get out for 3 foot long screw driver and see what I can pull out from under here..."

"I think I found something, but I'm not sure.  It looks like produce and rotting cardboard, but I could be wrong."

"So there's where that pink plastic lid to the pickles went!  And that loaf of bread that I wanted to use for that liverwurst sandwich."

Class, we see that once we have finished cleaning, the first thing we need to do is to start cleaning.

Follow this line of dialogue:

Anyone:  "Hey, what's clean?"

You:  "Nothing is clean."

Have a happy weekend from Ew York City.

Existence Exists

Lot of water bug graveyards around, just get down and look.  These little cuties go belly up all the time, sometimes just 'cuz it's that time of the month.

Lots of times you'll find just some legs, because they are very cannibalistic.

Today just blew up like a crayola seesaw, so I gotta run.

Ew York City will respect you back tomorrow.

Reality Bites

Someone in an office felt something bite them.  They looked on their arm and saw what they thought was a little red bug.  They grabbed a tissue, killed it, balled up the tissue and threw it in the waste basket.

The office manager heard about what happened and was worried that it might have been a bed bug, so she dug the tissue out of the trash and looked inside.  Then she called me.

She would later tell me that when she looked in the tissue she "didn't see anything."  She said this with an air of confidence, as if to say, "there's nothing to worry about."

So I asked her to point me to the trash can, where I proceeded to dig out the tissue a second time and look inside it.  In the picture above you can see what I found (not the nickle, the little thing next to the nickle.)

I showed it to the office manager, and, of course, her response was "I don't really see anything.  What is that, fuzz?" etc.

I believed it was a bed bug, so the next step was to bring it back to the boys at the lab and take a look at it under the microscope.

Lo and behold:

That is the top half of a bed bug.  I'm guessing the back half got lost or destroyed in the initial encounter.

This is a reminder that pests can be a lot smaller than we can even imagine, and unless we really look closely and inspect, inspect, inspect we might miss something.

Fortunately we were able to go in and do some treatments in the office and prevent a further outbreak.

Please keep every bit of evidence you can for your Pest Management Professional to look at.  Don't throw anything away.  Don't assume that we won't want to see whatever is is that you found.

No evidence is "too small" or "nothing."  Look at everything.  You could be sitting right on exactly what we're looking for.

Ew York City will be peering in at you tomorrow.

No One Does It Better

You gotta hand it to rats: they are relentless, resilient, and radical.

Imagine if you and your family lived in a city where all of the residents wanted you dead; where every single chance they had they tried to kill you; where they even hired professional killers to work full time to try to exterminate you.

How well do you think you and your family would do?

Rats are in that exact situation, and they are doing just fine.

This picture is in a restaurant, in a bar area that was in disuse for some time.  When I went back there to inspect (because you have to inspect everywhere, literally, if you want to be successful as a Pest Management Professional), I found that the rats had made themselves quite an elaborate burrow system right under the bar, and had dug in and gnawed the flooring material right into nesting material.

As you can see, they also had some nice man made holes they could use to travel through the walls.

No one is better at survival than rats, mice, cockroaches, flies, bedbugs, mosquitoes, and other "pests" that you and I hate.  (Well, I myself don't really hate them, but that's another story.)

One thing we learn from this is that one man's trash (or neglected piece of property) is another creature's treasure (in this case, a bar has become an apartment building for rats).

Learn from your enemy so that you might not be destroyed.  Don't look at things the same way.  Look with the eyes of a rat.  Become a rat.  Accept that you are a rat, and you will survive in these dark days of the pre-Apocalypse.

Man I need some sleep.

(and sorry about the overuse of parentheses).

Ew York City will return soon.

Let's Not, and Say We Did

Continuing our theme of not cleaning up after ourselves, here are some other shots of dirty dishes left out after dinner and all night long, and a sink strainer full of food debris also left out over night.

Again, this is just inviting trouble; trouble in the form of flies, cockroaches, and rodents, as well as people that are addicted to sneaking into other peoples' kitchens and doing their dishes for them.  That last type of trouble is very rare however.

So let's do our own dishes.  Let's stay that extra hour and clean up everything.  That way, when we get home, we can sleep like a baby roach.

I get the feeling this is gonna be a rough week, but I'm gonna bring it.

Ew York City will be back tomorrow.

Spicy Friday

Every now and then I walk into a restaurant first thing in the morning and find a situation that looks like this.  The kitchen staff literally just left everything sitting out until the next morning.  I know because I have the key to the restaurant and was the one who opened up the front door and turned off the alarm.  Also, the mice and roaches I interviewed confirmed that these products were out all night.

Nobody feels like cleaning up after a long day of cooking, but c'mon, even cockroaches clean their antennae and flies clean their feet, so you gotta clean your kitchen at the end of the night.  Don't leave it for the morning crew.

These various spices and ingredients could certainly be attractive to flies and roaches, and some may even attract rodents, so you've got to close up shop tightly every night.

And the bright side is that also we eat the occasional bug, it does no harm to us.  The bugs are in fact high in protein.

Don't ask me how I know all that.

Have a happy weekend from Ew York City.

The Cycle of Life

I've got some better pictures of this sort of this happening.  I'll post them in the near future.

But in the meantime, as you look under this restaurant's stove, you see a lot of food debris gathering between the pipes, and if you look closely you can actually see that some plant life has begun to sprout.

Now I don't know how long it takes for this little plants to start growing, but it has to be a couple days at least, which means that this area is not being cleaned daily?

"Ya think?!"

Needless to say, this restaurant had been battling cockroaches and flies for quite some time.

You've got to find these critical areas in your restaurant and make sure your team is addressing them regularly and thoroughly.

Unless your plan is to grow your own vegetables under your kitchen appliances.  Then that's okay.

Ew York City will be back tomorrow.  Stay dry.

Peeling Away the Layers

Above we have a pretty clear indicator that your office has a mouse problem: droppings out in the open.  Very obvious, and also very bad for your health.

A little less obvious is droppings behind a piece of furniture.  Also, those dark marks are more examples of the sebum we've been talking about, the natural grease that rodents leave behind when they run around and play.

Finally, here's a bit of evidence that is easily missed.  You have to get down to see this hole right underneath an electric plug.  If you find this kind of evidence you are on your way to being a master.

Ew York City, evidence coming tomorrow

Rolly Pollies

Here we have some pill bugs / sow bugs / rolly polly bugs that have decided to become very visible after a Spring rainstorm.

No doubt they were content to lay low in the subterranean realm of the planter, but the influx of water drove them toward the surface.

As people started to notice this large amount of these bugs crawling around, we got a somewhat panicked call from the owner of the property.

I told the property owner that these bugs really are harmless, a nuisance at best, and once things dry up, they'll return to their homes and just continue living their bug lifestyle.

I gave him the option of either letting nature take it's course, and letting them return underground peacefully, or of us destroying all of these life forms through the application of pesticides.

Ew York City will be back tomorrow.

Know Your Droppings

Here we have a couple of freshly caught American Cockroaches,   This was under the stairs in a storage area at a restaurant.  (Don't worry, the roaches were safely relocated to a ranch in Westchester.)

One of the good pieces of data we can take away from this picture is to get an idea of what water bug droppings look like.  You could easily confuse them with mouse droppings, couldn't you?

Water bug droppings are typically slightly smaller than mouse droppings and, in my opinion, they are more uniformly round on the edges, whereas (forgive me) mouse droppings often show evidence of having been "pinched off."

So be encouraged.  Just because you found droppings doesn't mean necessarily that you have mice.  You might just have cockroaches.

Ew York City will be dropping your way again tomorrow.

Chewy Monday

Once you see it you can never not see it.

This nice restaurant was having a big rat or rats show up from time to time right in the middle of the kitchen.

A little investigation led us to this PVC pipe that went into the floor.

Two obvious giveaways here: one side of the pipe has been chewed right down to provide easier access for big baby, and the pipe has a lot of sebum, those dark rodent rub marks, on it.

We baited it hard and closed it with exclusionary products, and that took care of the immediate problem.

Bottom line is you gotta sometimes look for the obvious things instead of the obscure ones.

I need to get back down there and see how they're doing.

Everyone have a great Monday from Ew York City.

Take It Easy

One of the ways you can help reduce the risk of roaches, rodents, and bed bugs in your residence is through basic sanitation and maintenance.

This gentleman wasn't really using his fridge (above) for much other than storage of knickknacks and chachkees.  Cockroaches were enjoying it.  I suggested that he try to straighten it up in between deliveries of takeout.

His bed was full of bedbugs, but his living room (second picture) didn't have much furniture.  Still his recliner did have some bedbugs, and it's an important reminder that bed bugs will tend to congregate anywhere people sit, such as Citi Bikes.

Mice and cockroaches were living in his kitchen.  Plastic bags kept like this tend to attract all sorts of pests.  Obviously, you never know when you're going to need a plastic bag, so I get the impetus behind collecting them.  But just be aware that there's a downside.

I decided not to include any pictures of the bedroom.

Ew York City will be back next week.

Happy Thanksgiving from Ew York City!

We wonder why our walls are covered in flies

When right under our feet

There's a whole Thanksgiving Dinner's worth of food

Remember to check your grease traps regularly and have them cleaned

Ew York City will be back on black Friday

Happy Thanksgiving

Give Thanks

With this being Thanksgiving week, I thought I would put in this picture of a sparrow eating a water bug.

The water bug has been de-legged at this point.  In the picture it's just below the bird.

Just like cats keep mice away, perhaps we can utilize sparrows to keep our cockroach problems at bay.

So the next time you think to yourself, "I hate cockroaches," just remember that there are birds somewhere who are really thankful that they have something to eat.

Ew York City wishes every one a happy and yummy thanksgiving holiday season 2014.

In Dreams, I See You

Does your bed have any folds?

Does your mattress have any creases?

Are there any zippers nearby where you sleep?

Do you ever lay down next to any cracks, crevices, or folds of any kind whatsoever?

Bed bugs.

Bed bugs.

Beating their little drums, marching toward you with their little feet, only looking for blood.  Your blood.

Why do they like folds so much?  Why are they attracted to creases?

The same reason why you and I and fifteen other people squeeze under an overhang on a rainy day: shelter.

Every now and then you should inspect your bed room and say: are there any potential bed bug shelters in here?  Am I inviting bed bugs by having a bed set that is full of cracks, crevices, folds, creases, and such?  Was it really smart to furnish my bedroom with wicker?

Mattress encasements are a good way to reduce the number of potential bed bug harborages your bed has.  Also, monitoring and periodic inspections will help reduce the likelihood of an occasional intruder turning into a mega-infestation.

Interestingly, while you're squeezing next to that person under the overhang or on the public transportation, be aware of the potential for bed bug transference.

Ew York City will be dreaming of you tomorrow.

What's the occasion?

Here's one of our "occasional invaders," in this case a centipede.  This guy was about an inch long.  If you do some research you'll see just how big some species can get. Fortunately, those species are not so common in NYC yet.

In this instance it happened to invade a women's bathroom in a restaurant, and that, of course, is unacceptable.

For the most part these guys won't bother you much.  They prefer cool, dark, damp places, and are probably content to stay in the basement or outside under some trash or clutter or decaying something or other.

If you are seeing them on the main floor a lot, it probably means there's something going on down below, so take some time and check it out.

Also, if a centipede is ever chasing you, you can slow it down by inviting it to play This Little Piggy.

Ew York City will be back on Monday.  Stampede style.

Prime Grime

Trapped.  That's what happens to all your grease in your kitchen.  But is that a good thing or a bad thing?

Well, obviously it's good, but it's bad because it's so good for pests.  Did you "catch" that?

Ok sorry.

Anyway, clean your grease trap.  Clean it more often than you do now.  Have it serviced as often as possible.  And have your pest management team treat it every single time they come in.

Otherwise you'll be trapped in a world of pest insanity.

Ew York City will be back

Somebody making soup?

Nothing wrong with soup, especially in these chilly months.

But don't leave it sit out over night.  It might end up with some extra ingredients.

Ew York City will be getting steamy tomorrow.

Let's Get Exponential!!!

We actually find this a lot.

Here is a German roach, female, pregnant, 5'9'', 125 pounds, strawberry blond hair, enjoys long walks by the kitchen appliances.

Anyway, she wandered onto a glue monitor, got caught, dropped her egg sac (ootheca is the term, it's that long brown thing almost the size of the roach) and out came thirty something roach nymphs hungry, ready to start life, but unfortunately they got stuck too.

This is a good reminder to us why German cockroaches are masters of their domain:  there are so many of them, some are bound to survive.

Notice how close to the edge some of the babies are.  Is it possible one got off and lived to fight another day?  Absolutely.

So when it comes to German cockroaches, crunch all you want, they'll make more.

Ew York City will be adding to your life tomorrow.

Keep Your Head Down

Have a great weekend from your friends at EW YORK CITY!!!

What's Under Your Fridge, Number Two

I'm not going to have a chance to post tomorrow since I'll be at a conference all day, so I thought I would give you two for one today.  That's nearly unheard of in today's economy!

So what are we looking at?  Well this is also what lurks under your fridge, except that instead of dozens and dozens of water bugs under a residential fridge, here we have a restaurant walk in fridge with pounds and pounds of, well, whatever this is.  There's a clearer picture below:

Needless to say, this restaurant was having a major fly infestation.

"But we clean and clean and clean."

"Did you ever dig under this walk in fridge?"

"Oh, we didn't know stuff went under there."

Not just stuff, my children, but years worth of decaying organic matter that smells like a sewer system in a fourth world country.

The restaurant staff was literally, by that I mean literally, standing around us with their jaws hanging open as we dug out this smut with our screw drivers.

Needless to say, the fly problem got a lot better by the very next day.

So what can we conclude about this?

1)  Even if you think you know, you do not know, until you do know.

2)  Admit that you need a fresh set of eyes every now and again to check your place out.  Teach your staff to clean using third eye vision, the mind's eye.  Learn that your problems aren't just the ones you can see.

3)  The earth is alive.  Water and organic matter are essential to life.  If you have water and organic matter in a kitchen, it's going to be full of living creatures, some that you can see, and some that you can't.  Are you okay with that?

Ew York City will be wrapping up a long week on Friday.  But Sunday's coming.

What's Under Your Fridge?

Someone called me and said, "I saw a roach crawl under my fridge."

A quick inspection with my flashlight on my hands and knees tipped me off that there was a "situation" under this man's large kitchen appliances.

So in preparation, I laid out a bunch of glue traps (about 25) and then I applied a flushing agent under the fridge.

All I had to do was sit back and watch the madness.

Dozens of the fastest, juiciest, and biggest American Cockroaches (Watah Bugs) come racing out from underneath the fridge.  Wow this was so exhilarating.   It was intense.

A couple things we learn from this:

1) Even if you think you know, you do not know, until you do know.

2)  Don't just jump in.  Make preparations.  Use some strategy.  If I would have just gone in hard under the fridge without any backup, these people would still be chasing water bugs around the house and finding them in baby's crib.

3)  We live in a beautiful and magical world, full of mystery and awe.  Will you embrace it?  Or will you catch it on a glue trap and throw it away?  Probably the latter.

Ew York City is crawling up your leg again soon.

It's a Cold Cruel World

I'm going to revisit this picture on a subsequent post, but I just want to get random here for una momenta.

1,2,3, "Random!"

The city has a policy that New Yorkers not feed pigeons.

Choosing not to feed something is called "starvation."

New York City's official policy is that we practice the starvation of pigeons.

Obviously, you can't feed pigeons without feeding other birds, so the policy is this: practice the starvation of birds in NYC.  When you see a dead pigeon on the street or sidewalk, it's very possible it died of starvation.  Starvation is a very painful way to die.

Why starve birds?  To fight rats.

So I say all that just to remind us of the reality.  It's not pretty.

And you're a New Yorker.

And an Ew Yorker.

See you tomorrow.

Don't Ask Alice

Every now and then I get creeped out.

Look at the size of these rat burrows (those are my two fingers on the left, I'm wearing gloves.)  Large is the appropriate word, either to describe the number of rats (plural) that are using this burrow, or the size of the rat (singular) that is using it.

In either case, I could fit my whole arm down this thing, but I'm not sure I'd get it back if I did.

However, the size of the rats is not the issue, nor is the precise number of their population in NYC.

The issue is that they prefer to live close to human beings.  They wouldn't be content to have their own island paradise away from us.  They like being near enough to people so that they can take advantage of all of the great garbage we produce.

So in these pictures, just a few feet away from these bushes are some stroller moms, out for a picnic with baby.  And baby is eating animal crackers.  And the crackers smell so good.  And so does baby's face.

Ew York City will be back the day after today.