The Intruder Part Three

As our story comes to close, we are reminded that an intruder has made his way into your home.  He has left droppings and urine in various areas.  He has several entry points wherein he gains access to your house.  So how do we deal with this?

First, as you can see above, we close the entry points.  This is called exclusion.  In this case, cement would have been great, but there were some obstacles to using it.  Instead, we used steal wool and lathered it with rodent repellant.  We also filled each hole with rodenticide (veneno para ratons primo!) and gave that time to work.  But there's one other thing we did:

Nothing like a good old fashioned rat snap trap to get the job done.  Baited it with your favorite candy bar, and set a bunch of them around.  The fact that we closed all the holes but still caught big daddy on a snapper indicates either 1) we missed a hole, or 2) big rat boy was hiding in the apt somewhere, maybe under the baby's crib or somewhere.

Intruders intrude.  It's what they do.  We've got to be prepared to defend against them at all times.  What are you doing to protect your home from the intruder?

Ew York City will be back

The Intruder Part Two

In last yesterday's episode we saw some heavy duty (haha) droppings in a nice Manhattan townhouse.  How did such a creature get in to such a nice house?

We went into the boiler room which was adjacent to the laundry facility, and look at what we found in the foundation.  This cavern sized hole led out toward the sewer.  And it wasn't the only one:

We found other smaller holes throughout the boiler room.

The challenge now is: how do we close the holes, and where is the intruder?

To be concluded tomorrow

The Intruder, Part One

The intruder

The great thing about having an intruder in your apartment is that he leaves evidence behind.  Now the evidence might be difficult to find sometimes, but if you look really closely like a Sherlock or a Columbo or a Drebin, you should be able to find the clues you need to conclude that your apartment has had an unwanted visitor.

In the above picture we see some of the evidence.  This is in a really nice upper east side townhouse.  It is in the laundry room.  You should be able to see some droppings, about forty of them.  You should also notice some urine mixed in, several patches.

Looking around the laundry room you see more droppings and more urine stains, and you notice that the droppings and urine stains are getting very close to the next room, which happens to be the television room or "den."

As you examine these droppings, you notice that they are about the size of a tic tac breath mint, maybe even a little bigger.  They are dark, and they shine or glisten, so that tells you that they are fresh.
You just did laundry last Tuesday, so all of this "activity" must be recent.  But where did it come from?

Continued tomorrow...

Cover All

In the battle against fruit flies, every single thing you can do to fight them is worth it.  They are relentless.  They are invasive.  They reproduce practically overnight.  They are bold and brave, and they are really into your bottles (sometimes literally).

Here is a bar that did something to fight the fruit fly war: they covered some of their bottles with saran wrap.  It's a good move, because it prevents the flies from getting into the bottles (exclusion) and it limits the scent of the liquors from attracting pests.

The problem is that they only covered some of the bottles.  Others were left exposed and therefore vulnerable.  I'm sure at the end of the shift the bar workers are tired and want to go to bed.  "They had a little drink about an hour ago!  And it's gone-"  Sorry, wrong pest movie.

Anyway, diligence is key here.  Time has to be taken to be comprehensive.  Cover every bottle.  Don't leave anything exposed.  As we said in an earlier post, if you give them an inch they'll take a mile.  So make sure your crew is covering all your bottles on every single night.

You'll be glad you did.  Even if you're gonna need a bigger box of plastic wrap.

Drain City Slimers

It's August.  Hot.  Humid.  Sweaty.  Slimy.  And that's just your drains.

Are you keeping tabs on your bar drains (ha ha ha)?

In a relatively short amount of time, your drains can become absolute havens of pest conducive conditions and fly breeding.

This drain needs a steam treatment with a heavy wire brush to break down the organic matter.  It also needs a bio-enzymatic foam treatment to keep eating away that build up.  And then it needs a chemical treatment to kill whatever may left behind.

Summer in the city, and the drains are feeling gritty.  But why?

Ew York City will return on Monday.  Keep up the good work.

Roachspotting

This is a smaller or younger American cockroach, i.e. the Water Bug.  I stumbled upon it in the middle of a kitchen floor.  Why do we find them dead in these various spots?  There could be a variety of reasons.

First, roaches die.  Sometimes they cannot choose where they will be when death comes upon them, and so they may end up dead in the middle of your floor, kitchen counter, bowl of porridge, etc.

Second, insecticides work, and they may "kick in" at various times.  So that roach that is lying dead on your floor on Friday may have actually "lit the fuse" on Wednesday, and he lasted 48 hours after contacting the insecticide.

Third, I have seen instances where dead roaches are moved by other pests or even predators.  So it is possible they died under your counter but were moved out to the middle of the floor by some other creature.

Fourth, life and death are great mysteries.  Who can know all the reasons why that roach is in the middle of your bathroom rug?  Is it trying to teach you something?  What lesson can you learn?

Have a good night, from your friends at Ew York City...

Maggot Rag

I think Maggot Rag would be a good name for a rock band.  Or for a character in the new Star Wars movie.

Anyway, our manager Nick pulled this out from a bar that was having fly issues.  All of those rust colored seed-shaped objects used to be fly larvae, or "maggots," and now they are in the pupae stage, waiting to hatch little flies that will begin to lay eggs within a day of hatching.  Isn't that amazing?

Moisture, decaying organic matter, filth, scum, smut, offscouring - whatever you want to call this, it is the cause of all sorts of problems in your restaurant.  Just by taking the time to get down and clean out under the bar, you can save yourself from literally hundreds of flies overwhelming you and your guests.

And then you'll have more time for band practice.

The Sauce is on the Wall

People really enjoy food, so much so that they splash the sauce up on the wall behind the booth in which they were sitting.

I'm sure that these walls are cleaned every day, but every moment the sauce sits there it is attracting flies, roaches, and other pests.

In addition to wiping the walls with "elbow grease," I would recommend having them periodically steam cleaned.  That will help to break down any organic matter and residues that may be difficult to see even though they have been building up for some time.

Ew York City will return tomorrow with something gross.

Rubbing it in

It's not always obvious, and sometimes it's only just a feeling.

This restaurant was seeing mouse droppings under the bar.  Any obvious "mouse holes"?  No.

But what about this air duct?  Are those rub marks?  Are those scratches from somebody's cute little feet?

Maybe.

In this situation, there is no hole to close, because the air duct is needed.  So we had to just go for population reduction using bait stations, snap traps, glue traps, repeat catch traps, and a little repellant.

There is a lot more that can come through the air ducts than just air.

Dander-ous Moves

What is roach dander?  It is a polite way of saying roach poop.  In these pictures you can actually see the outlines of the bottles on the top of this lady's fridge.  The tracings on the wall are literally made from roach dander.

Roach dander is a common cause of asthma and other respiratory problems.  Unfortunately, it's also a common ingredient in many of the dishes we eat.  The reason being that these little particles which the roaches leave behind in our kitchens can float down into our bowls of soup and mingle with the vegetables and noodles.

The only way it can get this bad is if there is a complete disregard for sanitation and a complete neglect to practice pest control procedures.  Keeping it clean is the key to keeping it roach free.  Now if you don't mind, could you please pass the pepper?

Fast Food

Fast food is so good.  Why?  Probably because it's healthy and fresh.

Roaches are known to eat anything.  The technical term in "omnivorous."  They have been observed eating paint, cardboard, glue, LSD, their own excrement, their own dead siblings, their own living siblings, their own body parts, fried green tomatoes, and almost anything else that we could imagine.

But even though they will eat crazy stuff, they have preferences just like you and I do.  When I dropped this fresh, moist morsel of fast food burger bun into their cage, they bugged out!  They tore this thing apart and within minutes it was gone.  I reached in to give them a second piece and lost most of my hand and part of my watch wristband.

A point to ponder is: even if you don't leave any food out roaches will still come by your apartment occasionally, but if you leave food out they will come by with bells on.  So make them look somewhere else for food and keep your place clean!

Roach week on Ew York City continues tomorrow.

This was a difficult one to find for a while.  We had to pull the wall open and found that roaches were living inside.  You might be able to make out some of the roach dander on the walls.

I'm on the run right now fighting bed bugs.  I might try to get a second post up later today.

Rock n Roach

Shark week? Let's do cockroach week!

Welcome to Roach Week at Ew York City.  7 days of La Cucharacha.  Nothing like these little brown beauties.  A brilliant creature on some many levels and in so many kitchens.

People talk about multiplying like rabbits, but nothing multiplies like the German cockroach.  The adult female German cockroach can produce 600 offspring during her brief lifetime.  In fact, it is within the realm of possibility that every single one of these cockroaches above is related.

When I pulled these glue traps out from underneath this person's stove, just about every one of the roaches was wiggling its antennae.  They were all just recently caught.  Imagine how many did not got caught on the traps!  It's 10pm; do you know where your cockroaches are.

Tune in tomorrow for more of Cockroach Week on Ew York City, unless we run out of roaches.

No one's playing the blame game

If you call these things cockroaches, you probably moved here.

If you call these things waterbugs, you were probably born here.

That's a generalization, but it's based on years of experience.

However, water bug or "waterbug" is just a nickname, and technically these are American cockroaches, a much bigger variety than the German cockroaches.  The Americans don't multiply nearly as quickly as the Germans, so to find this many in a dry storage room means that there is a serious infestation going on.

These sticky boards are a great tool to monitor your areas to see if you have a problem, and they also do a lot to help keep the bugs from making a public appearance upstairs in your dining room.

To eliminate them, various products such as dusts, gel baits, granular baits, and liquids and aerosols. If there are cracks and crevices then exclusion should be performed.

Will we ever eliminate these giant cockroaches from NYC.  No, we never will.

What's that on the wall behind you?

Ew York City will return on Monday, August 11th.

Come Fly With Me

Flies.  House, fruit, drain, filth, shoe, Spanish; the varieties are nearly endless.

And the population is nearly endless as well.

A fly machine, with a sticky board such as the one above, will not eliminate your fly problem.  But it will help to reduce the numbers and decrease the population over all.

Why don't they make these glue boards look like the tongue of a frog?  And the whole machine could be a giant frog actually!  That would be cool.

Sticky week at Ew York City will continue tomorrow.

See what sticks to the wall

Sticky week continues here at Ew York City...

This is a weird one, but sometimes we see things that don't follow the text book.  This is actually a mouse dropping stuck to the wall.  How did it get there?  How long was it there?  Did the mouse wash its hands afterward?  We may never know the answer to these or other important questions.

I have seen rodents climb walls on several occasions.  This morning I actually saw a very large rat use a ladder just like you or I would.  So it's possible that's how this dropping got here.  Or perhaps it just bounced and stuck.  We could spend all day thinking about this.

Anyway, the point?  We don't just need to look for droppings and clean droppings in the usual spots. They could be anywhere.  Almost every time I think to myself that a pest is not capable of doing such and such, I usually end up eating my words.  And I don't even have an appetite.

Fly Nation

Amazing how flies can "stick" to any surface, even upside down on smooth plastic.  Their feet look like little claws, and they can adhere to nearly any surface and stay put for as long as they like.  They actually use their feet to taste, and they leave little traces behind on the surfaces on which they land.

That's all I got.  It's Monday.

Don't Stand for This

Standing water.  Looks kind of innocent actually, doesn't it?  Tranquil, clear, cool, water.  No big deal.

Water is life, and if you have standing water laying around you are attracting various lifeforms to your kitchen, whether you know it or not.

This may have only been here a few minutes, which is not that big of a deal.  Or it may have been here over night, which can be a very big deal.

Make sure your team is diligent about getting water off the floor fast, and looking for areas where moisture can build up.

Pests stand less of a chance if you get rid of standing water.