Bartender, What's this Fly Doing in My Vermouth?

I guess we need a good punchline for that set up, huh?

Oh, but there's nothing funny about a dead (or live) fruit fly in your bottle of liquor, is there?

It's not the same effect as a bottle of Tequila, is it?

Makes you want to make sure you're covering your bottles at night doesn't it?

It should also motivate us to be on top of our sanitation, shouldn't it?

It would probably make you think twice about the importance of pest control, wouldn't it?

I'm wondering if I can end every line with a question mark.  Do you think I can?

The Pitter Patter of Not So Little Paws

This pipe was on a roof of restaurant.  The workers kept hearing stampedes above the drop ceilings.

Whatever this pipe was for, it had become the express elevator from the roof to the kitchen for a clan of rats.

One option is to install wire mesh so that the ventilation can still take place, but large mammals cannot enter.

Another option is to reduce the population through trapping and baiting.

Man, can you imagine seeing a giant rat's head come out of this pipe?

I can.

Ew York City will be back, but not until I wake up.

You Are So A Gnawing To Me

Sometimes the obvious is so obvious that it's obfuscated.

You can quote me on that one.

We learn to look for every bit of rodent evidence we can find, including gnawings.

Rodents love to gnaw and live to gnaw, and they leave behind these little bits of matter, basically just little pieces of whatever it was on which they were gnawing.

It's annoying, but on the other hand, it's the equivalent of having a neon sign that says "You have mice!"

Learn to look for these.  They are a tell tale sign of activity.  Gnaw that there's anything wrong with that.

Ew York City will be back

Throw In the Towel

Yes, it's looking bad at this point.

This pile of towels is unfit for human usage.

You can see both mouse droppings, and the sebum, or rub marks / secretions, from a lot of rodent activity.

I would throw the top one away, and then launder all of the others.

Obviously, there is a an entry point(s) that needs to be found.  Traps can eliminate some of the population, but with an infestation this serious, we need to throw everything we can at them at once.

However, keep in mind that one mouse can make upwards of fifty droppings, especially if he is stressed out.

But I'm guessing there's a problem here.  No need to throw in the towel however, just reach back and start landing some blows.

Ew York City is coming back at you.

Through the door, swiftly

That breeze feels so nice.  The air feels so cool.  The flowers smell so good.  The mice are so cute.

Yes, it's another gap themed episode.  This one was so ridiculously big a duck made it through one time riding on a unicycle.

Anyway.

Keep checking around your spots.  Look for these gaps.  Look for these critical areas.  Install door sweeps.  Talk to your team.  Invest in the renovations.  Believe you can achieve.

This looks like a killer week ahead, but Ew York City will be on point.

Happy Monday.

Spot the fly spots

Here is a ceiling panel and a ledge in a restaurant locker room.

What are all those little dark brown spots?

Fly feces.

Once you start looking for fly feces, you'll never stop.  And you will amaze yourself at how often you see it just about every place you go.  House flies communicate through their excretions, and when they land on something, it's time to communicate and therefore time to excrete.

By the way, has a fly ever landed on your food, and you then shoo it away and keep eating what it landed on?  Then you have eaten these little brown dots.

Ew York City will be back on Monday.  Have a good weekend, get some rest, and be well.

Buggin' Out

Is this the first post where I've used the phrase "buggin' out"?  What took so long?  I wonder.

Anyway, here's proof our glue traps work.  This was actually in someone's apartment, in their dining room under the radiator.  Our technician Devin sent me the picture.

A couple things to point out here:

1)  The glue board is dated, as it should be.  The date lets us know that this activity is recent, so there has been a population explosion.  So we probably want to get some Insect Growth Regulator action going in this area.

2)  Though they are mainly adults, there are some younger stages present on the trap, so that is also an indication that breeding is going on.

3)  There are also some houseflies on board, that could be an indication of filth, decaying organic matter, or even rodents near by, especially since this was in an apartment that appears nice but obviously has some problems in the wall voids.

4)  Let's all just admit that we never ever know for sure what's going on in the walls.  How would the tenant respond if we told them "You probably have hundreds of giants bugs living all around you in your apartment?"  Probably with disbelief, I would imagine.  But when you show them a trap with 26 bugs on it, it kind of reinforces the facts.

5)  I like how the bug in the middle has its wings spread, like it was trying to fly off.

6)  It looks like there are also a couple earwigs on board, so that reinforces to me that there is moisture nearby.  If the moisture situation can't be solved, then we've just got to keep treating the wall voids and the radiators with a combination of products to keep the population down.

7)  Perhaps the most important lesson with this is that a glue trap is a valuable way to keep problems out of sight.  And if they are out of sight they are out of mind.  The person would have been freaking out with bugs crawling every where.  But if I have my traps in place, I minimize the psychological damage to my clients.  Since I am a Pest Management Professional, I am able to withstand greater amounts of psychological damage anyway.  It doesn't both me.  It's fine.  I'm okay.  I like it, actually.

Ew York City will be back tomorrow.  Don't bug.

The Way Up Is Down

There is something empowering about getting down on the ground.  I'm serious.  Try it.  Get down and you'll feel better when you get up.

Another benefit of it is you'll find things you never would have found otherwise.  Think of it like an Easter Egg Hunt.

This was under a sink in the prep kitchen.  It was big enough to stick a carrot in.  Or even a small yuca.  The thing is, you could not see it if you were standing.  The way we found it was by crawling around on our bellies through the muck just like back in Nam.

Once we closed it up, we saw a marked improvement in the number of rodent activity.  Such a simple solution, and yet something overlooked by the restaurant staff and the previous pest elimination companies.

So on this Monday, my message to you all in Ew York City is to GET DOWN!

See you tomorrow.

Get Away Day

As they say in America, Happy Friday!  It's a day where we look forward to getting away from work, from headaches, from stresses, and, for those of us in Pest Elimination, from rodents.  Maybe.

Well here are a couple pictures (I apologize if the quality is too good and perfect) of a mouse that tried to get away from his problems, but he ended up stuck in the wall, and by the time I found him he was hard and crusty.  This was under a dishwashing unit in a kitchen.  He must have tried to burrow through the hole in the wall, but perhaps he had too much chicken parm and ensalada before trying to make his escape. Notice how long his tail is.

Where was he going?  Did he have plans for the weekend?  Did his girlfriend report him missing, or did she just go to the club without him?  We'll never know.

To all our readers, we wish you a happy and safe and pest free Get Away Day, and a nice weekend.  Enjoy this beautiful weather, and we'll see you on Monday for more Ew York City.

Creeping with the Enemy

One of our night technicians (aka the Night Crawlers) Gil passed along these pictures to us here at Ew York City.

Those silver boxes that you see are rodent traps.  They are repeat catch traps.  They are designed to catch multiple rodents at once (maybe up to 15 or so) and prevent them from running around your restaurant.

The problem that we see here is that the traps have been moved by someone at the restaurant.  I'm going to guess it was the cleaning crew but it could have been anyone.  In any case, unless these silver boxes are kept in their proper position they will be rendered ineffective and won't catch any mice.  They are supposed to be on the floor and up against the wall.  Mice are not going to go into them if they are sitting up on objects like grease containers or if the traps are on their sides.

Help your team to help us help you.  Remind them not to move these boxes away from their proper position, or at least put them back.  If one of your team keeps moving them, pull him aside and inspect him for whiskers, a tail, and two long front teeth.  It might be that he's working for the enemy.

Under the Fridge Downtown

Life is like a large kitchen appliance.  You never know what you're going to find when you slide it out and look underneath it.

This restaurant was having all sorts of issues: rodents, cockroaches, all sorts of flies.  It was bad.

One of the many, many things we did was to move things that hadn't been moved in a while.  We weren't disappointed.

Here we can see months (years?) worth of food debris.  Also, notice how there are trays and cans stuck to the wall.  They could be full of sludge, slime and other pest breeding material.

Imagine if the restaurant had been cleaning these areas the whole time with at least some degree of regularity.

Sanitation makes things look better.

Sanitation makes things look better.

Not an ink spot

Come here.

Look closely.

Closer.

Closer....

(just get a little bit closer).

What do you see?

You don't see it?  You can't see ?!

Well, don't worry.  There's nothing to see but some dust, dirt, hair, etc.

This happens not infrequently actually.  People are convinced they have bugs, and they might, but when it comes time for them to produce their specimen, they pull out a napkin with lint, crumbs, boogers, dandruff, who knows what else?  But it's not bed bugs, and it's actually not any kind of bugs.

Sometimes I'll use the phrase "head bugs," and I dont' mean it to sound like I'm making fun of someone, but the bug idea enters into our mind long before the actually bug enters into our range of senses.  That isn't to say there aren't more bugs around us than we realize.  It's just that there is a part of us that wants to believe we've found something.  And so we march up to the exterminator and hand him a zip lock bag full of pocket lint and say "There!  Are you happy?!  Now bomb my bedroom!!!"

A visual inspection is so important.  Make sure you get a positive identification whenever possible. False peace is not true peace.

Hope you had a good Labor Day.  Ew York City will be back tomorrow.