What's In Your Outlet

The Place: A very clean kitchen in a very clean apartment in a very clean building in a very clean neighborhood.

The Situation:  Daddy is stressed out because Mommy is freaking out because she saw a cockroach in her kitchen.

"But how can that even be possible?  My kitchen is spotless!  Where could it have come from?"

From space.  That's right, you heard me.  The cockroach came from space.

Ew York City will be back ..... haha just kidding.

But yes, the cockroach did come from space, but I don't mean outer space like ALF, I mean from the space in the walls.

All I had to do was take the plastic plate off the outlet, and it was very evident that the cockroaches had been living in the kitchen wall for quite some time.

You can clearly see the roach dander, i.e. droppings, on the left side on the yellow paint.

That's not just from day or two.  They've been there for a while, and this was just in one of the kitchen outlets.

Think of the outlets in your apartment as portals into an alternate reality where roaches and other pests rule.  Once in a while worlds collide and they come out into your dinner ingredients.

And that's that.

Ew york city will be back next week.

This socks

Our technician Melvin ran into this interesting situation last night.

A fly machine is being used by the restaurant staff to dry their socks.

Or maybe their socks have flies and they're trying to deal with the flies by putting them there?

It's a good place also to keep your hot pockets warm.

Try not to let your restaurant staff do stuff like this.

Ew York City will be dried out by tomorrow.

Snail Male or Female

Every now and then you have a weird one.

In the bathroom of an east side restaurant.

And no it wasn't even a French restaurant.

But yes, snails crawling up the walls in the bathrooms.

It just goes to show you that this thing called nature is so mysterious and beautiful.

And that I get paid to kill it.

Ew York City should be back later this week.

Fidgety in the Kitchen

Just another shot of the back of a stove in someone's immaculate uptown kitchen in their beautiful apartment in a totally desirable neighborhood where the mice are so active that they cover the back of the oven with their feces, urine, and grease.

This stove only weighed as much as a pick up truck loaded with tons of pick up trucks, but we did move it out, found some entry points, and sealed the deal.

The mice were probably active in the stove and kitchen for years.  Only by going in deep are you really going to get to the source of the problem.

Hey!  I wasn't supposed to do an entry today!  Well let's pretend this never happened.

Ew York City will be back when you least expect it.

Wet and Flied

How fast for the these wet rags in the bottom of a trash can to start attracting flies?

Very quickly.

Moisture.  Water.  Wetness.  Damp action.

Get rid of it.

Repeat after me:

I want to de-moistify my entire existence as it relates to pest management.

Now get out there and stay dry.

Ew York City might not be back until next week.  Everyone have a great holiday.

Fly Over

Just another slimy bar floor with lots of moisture and decaying organic matter, and that's going to add up to fruit flies.

One trick that some bars try is to run a fan over the floor after mopping so that the water dries more quickly and doesn't pool up in the cracks and crevices.

Every little bit of effort helps.  Well, almost every.

Ew York City will see you soon.

In your corner

I've told you a million times not to exaggerate.

Anyway, this is probably the one thousandth time I've found wet cardboard in a kitchen of a restaurant that has flies.

Am I a rocket scientist?  No.  I'm better than a rocket scientist.

But regardless, it's not brain surgery for someone to figure out that wet cardboard is going to attract flies.

But leave it to the civic engineer to have to go in and find this stuff.

When I was in law school, I wrote a paper about this regarding Dinkle vs. Lodgeman.  Both were found guilty of cardboard abuse.  The jury didn't even deliberate.

Get rid of all the cardboard in your entire life and mind.

Ew York City should be a round most of this week.

I Look Up I Look Down

Crazy mice in the bar.

They had crazy access behind this metal sheet under the bar.

The sheet metal prevented us from getting access to the holes in the wall and floor under the bar to do exclusion.

But we would not be stopped.

Knowing that we had to go with Plan B (questionable), we baited the void under the bar, and then we closed up all the way around on our sides with wire mesh.  Lastly we applied repellants to keep them in.

Bottom line: we won.  Us: a zillion.  Mice: less than zero.

Never quit fighting, never give up, never rub another man's rhubarb.

Today's episode of Ew York City is dedicated to David Letterman and all of his great pest related jokes over the years.  My favorite:

"Mayor Giuliani asked all New Yorkers to have their rats spayed or neutered."

Ew York City will be back next week.

Paper or Plastic

See how fast this paper bag breaks down into decaying organic matter once it sits in water for a few days?

Paper bags, cardboard, and anything else made from trees, etc. become an instant attraction for pests, especially flies.

Keep your paper goods hyperdry at all times, and if at all possible, reduce the amount of paper and cardboard you are using.

One word: plastics.

Ew York City is going to be back sometime this week.

Trailing Off

In the basement of your building, the mice rule.

You can tell that they love running across these cinder blocks: droppings, urine, sebum, no posted speed limit.  It's ideal cruising terrain.

This basement was absolutely infested with vermin.  The only way to bring them down was heavy baiting and heavy trapping.  It took some time.

Look for the trails little cowpoke.

Ew York City will be bake later this week.

Blue Light Special

Always a bummer to see someone misusing a fly light that they paid a lot of money for.

Here is a fly light machine, still plugged in, laying on its back with a metal tray on top of it in a restaurant basement.

Something tells me the flies are not having as easy a time finding this as they would if it were installed correctly.

The frustrating part is that the restaurant paid good money for this, but it's not being used correctly.

Let's make sure we're always aware of how things are looking in this area.  The machine should be attached to a wall away from food handling areas and facing away from any doors so as not to attract flies from outside.

Another thing I use to kill flies is my laser gun.

Have a good weekend.

Ew York City will be back next week.

Days of Yore

Here is a petrified mouse caught on a snap trap.  Not bad, eh?

Well, the bad part is that this mouse was caught right underneath the banquet seats in the dining room of a very, very fancy restaurant in Manhattan.

Yeah, that's how some mice roll.  They like those fancy crumbs.

So this is just another reminder to us that just because we do not see problems out in the open, that doesn't mean that there aren't problems literally all around us.

It's the economy, rodent.

Mosquito Presents

I observed some mosquitoes in this restaurant bar, and when I began to inspect a little further I found this little pool of stagnant water.

Believe it or not, this is all the mosquitoes need to live a happy, healthy life.  They can breed in great numbers in a little wet area like this.  It's a gift to them.

Since Mosquitoes do not observe Hannakuh or Christmas, we are under no obligation to give them gifts.  So let's keep our bar floors dry and make the mosquitoes uncomfortable and have to go back to the swamps of the Hoboken desert.

Ew York City is swamped.  Hope to be back tomorrow.

Come on in

Some nice rat burrows in the East Village.  Each burrow typically has three entrances.  The plastic box at the top right of the picture is a bait station.  Each burrow can be home to 10-20 rats potentially.

Did you notice the brick wall on the left?  That's your house.  That's why we call rats "commensal rodents."  They live among us.

Have a good weekend.