Mad About You

The Madagascar Cockroach

You will know it's crawling on your face at night by the hissing sounds it makes.

Ew York City will be back tomorrow.

Fluorescent Deathstyle

Look up.

Every now and then and again you'll see these sleeping beauties above your head.

This is a nice American cockroach that expired for one reason or another, and decided to claim the fluorescent lighting as it's final resting place.

It's a reminder that these large cockroaches are all around us at any given moment, and that they could fall onto your hair or down your shirt from time to time.

It's a good idea for PMPs to make sure these ceiling voids and wire housings are baited nicely from time to time.

Ew York City might be back tomorrow.  We'll see.

Death to the Exterminators

Sometimes when I walk into a restaurant's basement I say to myself, "I wish I could crawl under a big pile of rubbish and hide."

And fortunately, many restaurant's provide such an opportunity for me.

Once I'm under the rubbish, I usually find little gnomes, elves, and pixies with which to entertain myself.  Sometimes they'll even hand me fresh mushrooms, and I'll eat them and close my eyes and breathe deeply.

It's Friday, the schedule today is totally crazy, and this is what your basement looks like, and you wonder why you have vermin and pests running wild.

Ew York City will be back Monday, if we live that long.

Have a great weekend.

Roll Infestation

One of our overnight technicians Melvin was crawling around on his belly in one of your favorite nighttime nosh spots and came across this huge nest of rolls.

The rolls will often hide behind the pipes, where they will look for butter and jelly to eat.  Also they enjoy cold cuts.

Then after eating, they will mate with each other and produce muffins, cakes, and latkes.

Many years ago, someone saw a roll crawling across the kitchen counter, and they smashed it with a rolling pin, and that's how pancakes evolved.

I'm on a roll here.

Ew York City will bounce back tomorrow.  Then I'm taking the weekend off.  I need it.

Build High

This restaurant was seeing a lot of houseflies in the dining room.

Yes, the presence of houseflies can be indicative of sanitation issues.

But (fwoosh!) it can also be indicative of a dead rodent decomposing in your air ducts.

I had to crawl up here and pull out the dead body.

Another time when I was crawling up there chasing a water bug I fell through the drop ceiling onto the dishwasher.

And when I was a kid, I got hit in the face by a rusty chainsaw that was on fire with nuclear waste.

Ew York City will buzz you up tomorrow.

Check your vents.

Enter the Dragon

I remember this alley well.

I had to squeeze between the two walls to get to that dark area where the rats where living.

I remember I could see the rats poking their heads out holes in the wall and sniffing me.

It was intense.

The bottom line: stay in shape, make sure you have fresh batteries, accept that rats are your equals, and love it.

I invited some people to join me in the alley.  I haven't heard back yet.

Ew York City will sniff you out tomorrow.

We Leave for Home on Thursday

It's Monday.

It's rainy.

It's cold.

I'm tired.

I just felt like looking at something pretty.

Nice looking wasp.

It's actually Sunday night.

Ew York City will be back Tuesday.

Protect Your Garbage

Even when you're planning on taking out the trash, the trash is not yet taken out.

That was from last night's fortune cookie.

Every minute your trash sits somewhere it is sending signals to pests to come into your restaurant / apartment / bodega / treefort and do some damage.

Get that trash out as soon as you can.

The basement in the above picture was full of mice. Even if these trash bags sat there for 30 minutes, that was plenty of time for the mice to get loose, get busy, and get down.

One thing we recommended here was to get those big trash hoppers.  If the trash absolutely must sit in the basement for a couple hours, don't let it be vulnerable like this.

Protect your garbage!

Ew York City will be taking you out on Monday.

Have a nice weekend.

Be careful, it's dark out there.

Rubbing and Nibbling

This is in an office.

They tried to close a hole with expandable foam from a can.

The mice have been chewing it = the little yellow specks on the floor.

The mice have been rubbing on it = the dark marks on the yellow foam.

The mice have been making droppings = the droppings.

For the rumpteenth time, expandable foam is a good temporary fix.  But you've got to go above and beyond if you want to go above and beyond.

Ew York City appreciates your support.

See you tomorrow.

Healthy Filthy

I've been drinking a lot of juice lately myself, so I thought today we'd go with a picture of a juice bar.

Obviously this a filthy situation they have going on here, and it's not wonder they had fruit flies.

Flies always eat organic, so we can learn from their example.

And no, winter will not get rid of your flies, so stop trying to leave your windows open at night.

If you're gonna go green, you ought to be clean.

Ew York City will try something new tomorrow.

Playing the crumbers

I distinctly remember this moment in time.

(Cue the music)

I had seen a mouse run behind this kitchen stove.  When I looked behind it to inspect, I saw all these little white pieces of something.

Those are pieces of foam that was used to seal up a hole somewhere.

The problem is that mice really like this foam.  They enjoy chewing it and they will even use it as nesting material if they can get away with it.

So the mice in this restaurant had made themselves a nice little entry point through the foam into the kitchen.

It was kind of like the Holland tunnel.

I'm going to bed.

Ew York City will wake up tomorrow...

Let's make babies

I'm sorry this did not focus better, but hopefully it illustrates the micro size of this first stage German cockroach.  I tried to snap his / her pic before he / she ducked under the fridge.

When you see a baby roach, you pretty much can be certain that the adults are nearby and that they are doing well.

So I'm going to hit the sanitation really hard, and then get some products into these cracks and crevices.

Then I'm going to lay on my back and stare at the stars, and feel insignificant and finite, and then eat some grease from the grout between the tiles.

Ew York City will be back someday soon

It's a Drag to Have a Drain Rag Problem (Remix)

I don't really know what to make of this, but this restaurant was stuffing rags / towels into the drains in their prep kitchen.

These rags were full of moisture, decaying organic matter, and yuckiness.

Needless to say, flies were everywhere.

Make sure you know what your kitchen staff is doing.  Someone on your team may have thought they were doing something helpful, when in fact it was something counterproductive.

Check it out.

Ew York City will be back tomorrow.

Cream and Sugar and Your Blood

"Mega-infestation."  That's the word I used to describe one bed bug situation in a building on the UWS.

This picture illustrates what a mega-infestation looks like.  This lady's apartment was so overrun with bed bugs that the coffee cups in her kitchen were full of them, some alive, most dead.

Maybe we should start using ceramic glassware as monitoring devices.

You're looking at a lot of protein.

Ew York City will be perking tomorrow.

I'm a Fun Guy

This one restaurant was seeing fungus gnats.

Fungus gnats are typically looking for a good amount of water.

For whatever reason, this restaurant was letting the carpets in the upstairs dining area get really wet, even to the point that the baseboards were starting to get moldy.  The carpet was damp to the touch.

Through having the restaurant change its procedures, the moisture was greatly reduced, and before too long the fungus gnats were gone.

No more fungus among us.

Ew York City will be dripping your way tomorrow.

Never die, just rust away

Man I love Chocolate Cake.

This is not a picture of chocolate cake.

That brown stuff was once shiny, strong steel wool that was used to close an entry point in a restaurant kitchen.

We can see that after some time the once shiny, strong steel wool has corroded into old, brittle rust.

I was able to poke my finger right through it.

This is a reminder to keep an eye on these areas where steel wool has been used, especially if moisture is nearby, say for instance in a dish washing area.

There are better options than steel wool if moisture is going to be a constant problem.  For instance, try cement or water proof exclusionary material, or that fruit cake from the holidays.

Ew York City will be back tomorrow.  Welcome back to reality.

So Chew Me

Here is a door sweep on a walk-in fridge.

On the bottom left of it you can see how the rubber bottom has been chewed down by the mice.

Mice love to chew, it's what they do.

So when we replac3d this door sweep we installed it with the metal side toward the bottom, to give us just a little better of a chance at keeping them at bay.

Think strong.

Everyone have warm weekend.  Be careful, it's dark out there.

Ew York City will be back Monday.