Orange You Glad I Didn't Say Maggot?

Here's some junk I found under the bar of a really nice restaurant that I ate at not too long ago.

They had fruit flies.

Now they don't.

They also don't have the junk.

Ew York City, I know it's been hit or miss, but keep the faith George Michael.

Moment of Silence

Many times this is the position a rat takes when a snap trap gets it.

The head is hidden under the trap, almost with a sense of dignity, like covering a body with a sheet or flag.

Notice how the water bug shows up to check out the carcass near the rat's tail.

Ew York City will be back next week.

Today's picture is from Charles.

The World Within You is Waiting Without You

Mosquitoes breed anywhere there is standing water.

This seemingly insignificant indentation in the sidewalk on 5th Avenue in Manhattan has been filled with dirty stagnant water for several days.

Mosquitoes will find this and begin to lay eggs, which will hatch into larvae and grow into adult mosquitoes.  The adults will then start to feed on the blood of human beings and start the process of procreation all over again.

The largest organ of the human body is the skin, which unfortunately is irritated when a mosquito feeds on it.  This irritation leads to the human scratching the area where the feeding took place.  Unfortunately, the mosquito who fed on the human also defecated on the human, and when the human scratches that area the mosquito's fecal matter enters the incision where the feeding took place.  This leads to various diseases, such as those associated with the Zika virus, infecting the human.

The stagnant water above covers an areas that is 5 inches by 5 inches.  That is enough of a breeding site to produce hundreds if not thousands of mosquitoes.

It's going to be a long summer.

Ew York City will be back sometime soon.

Come My Precious

In the courtyard behind this Park Avenue apartment building is a wall that houses some of NYC's most powerful residents.

You can see their front door, and you can see the evidence they leave behind on their travels in and out.

As they tunneled out the wall, the dust gathered below in a heap, and as they run in and out they leave behind their "rub marks."

It is taking us a while to evict these rats.  There are at least twenty of them living in here, with numerous entrances, back doors, escape hatches, etc.  And the bait we are using doesn't seem to interest them so much yet.  I'm sure they have numerous reliable food sources elsewhere.

But like nature itself, I am a patient man.  I will wait them out.  I will sit and watch, and wait, and wait, until one by one they fall into my hands.  I don't care how long it takes.  I'll be waiting.

My clients are not so patient, so I keep having to show them pictures of dead teddy bears and stuffed animals that I doctor up to make it look like a snuff film.  Fortunately, like the rats, the clients have poor eyesight.  But how does their sense of smell compare?

Also, the newsstand on my block raised the price of candy to $1.25.  But the newsstand across the street still sells candy at $1.00.  So what would you do if you were me?

Ew york city will try to get back here tomorrow, but it's kind of tough, you know?

Will You?

Darkness falls over the land.

Creatures of the night begin to evolve.

All has gotten out of hand.

Problems now to big to solve..



Keep it clean out there.

Ew York City will be back next week.

(Today's words borrowed from Shakespeare's 95th Sonnet.)

Double Double Toil and Trouble

My technician Charles sent me this interesting picture.

It almost looks like a scene out of Law and Order.

Pest Victims Unit.

There are two mouse traps in this picture.

Obviously, there is the good old snap trap, made of wood, metal, and plastic.

And then there is the repeat catch box trap.

The mice were so active in this particular restaurant that we were catching them in the silver box and on the snap traps.

So a snap trap was placed on the box trap, and, well, "snap."

That's a nice looking mouse.

Thanks.  I just had it installed.

Man, look at the tail on that thing.

Ew york city, making dreams come true, one dream at a time.

(Tomorrow's episode might make more sense than today's.)

Catching Some

This restaurant was seeing some serious mouse activity in the kitchen, and one quick look under the ovens was all I needed to see that there was some serious penetration going on, and that major exclusion was needed.

In the above picture, you can see the entry point where the floor meets the wall, and you can see the blue goodies that I put in there for the mice to eat.

Here's another view.  The problem that I had was that I really wanted to use cement to close it up, but I didn't have any one me.  So I ended up having to go back to the office to grab some.

But I didn't want to just leave the defenses down, so before I left to go get the cement I set out a glue board to act as a first line of defense in case any bad boys decided to sneak out while I was gone.

Sure enough, I came back and looked in the same spot, and there was Mr. Cutie stuck on my glue board.  My instincts paid off, and I outsmarted nature, THIS time.  I'm amazing.

But don't worry Mr. and Mrs. America, your mousy friend is ok.  I simply took a little Extra Virgin Olive Oil and poured it on the mouse, and he slid right off the glue board in perfect health.  Then I sauteed him with a little garlic and onion, and plated him nicely alongside some farfalle with asparagus.

One thing about this job: you eat good, brother.

Ew york city will blah blah blah you know the deal

No Comment

Please stop doing your own pest control, unless you know what you're doing.

Poor tree.

Ew York City will be back soon.

Battle of the Giants

Here's a buprestid beetle.

People in a very nice NoMad neighborhood restaurant started seeing these crawling around the dining room.  And this was in the middle of winter no less.

How can this be happening?  Is it a sign of the end of the world?  Should we be preparing for the zombie apocalypse?  Are they ever going to make Butterfinger BB's again?

No need to worry.  These little beetles actually sit dormant in the woody parts of plants in a larval stage, and then, whenever they feel like it, they pop out and starting doing their little beetle dance.

I don't want to nag everybody, but if you're going to bring nature into your restaurant (plants, flowers, Anthony Kiedis, etc.), then don't be surprised if nature is in your restaurant (beetles, flies, Les Claypool, etc.).

Ew york city will be around.

Ruggy Road (Buggy Road)

Here are some not so clear pictures of a nice carpet beetle infestation on the Upper East Side.

The resident had a lot of clutter sitting on this rug for a long time.  The beetles were able to live there nicely for many years.

All they wanted was their rug back.  I assure you.

Ew york city will be in and out this week.  In and out.

Steel your drink

The ice cube bin at the restaurant.

Under the seam of stainless steel is this collection of something nasty.

It's just what the flies needed.

Next stop: your wine.

Ew York City will be back tomorrow.  Rough Monday.

Max Problem

I don't know why I can't rotate this image 90 degrees to the left, but maybe you can turn your computer monitor on its side for a minute before you go on and read the rest of this.

Okay, thank you.

This was in a nice beauty boutique in an upcoming neighborhood in Manhattan, but the rats weren't really feeling the whole gentrification thing.

The light that you see in the picture was above the makeup displays in the boutique.  All sorts of eye shadow, lip gloss, foundation, and... I can't think of any other types of makeup, but you get the idea.

And on the top of the displays (where the light is) these big, beautiful rats would run back and forth during hours of operation.

That can be a little distracting to people looking for the right color lips.

This was actually a really tough job.  We had to do a lot of baiting, a lot of exclusion, and a lot of trapping, and it took a good long while to get the rats under control.

I haven't been there in a while, but I was thinking about frosting my bangs, so maybe I'll go.

Ew York City will probably be back a couple more times this week.

The Unknown

Sometimes I like not knowing.

Sometimes I like not knowing what it is that I've found under the kitchen appliances of a restaurant.

What is this?  What was this?

I don't know.

All I know for sure is that it was attracting fruit flies.

I hope someday I get to have an intelligible conversation with a fruit fly.

I want to find out their thoughts on so many things.

Like what did they think about the Seinfeld finale?

And can I borrow ten bucks, just until payday?

But maybe it's better not knowing what they would say.

Ew York City will be back tomorrow.

Layers and Layers and Layers

Here's an action shot.  We need more action in 2016.

In one of the "swankiest" restaurants in all of NYC our service manager Lester is pulling back some tiling on the floor and finding a lot of moisture and a whole lot of fly larvae.

One of the ice machines is right there, and when a few cubes would drop to the floor and melt, the liquid H2O would seep underneath the tiling and stay stagnant.  That's all the flies needed to get busy breeding.

Be careful, you might not like what you see.

I wish everyone a happy and healthy 2016.

Ew York City will be back soon.

Missed it by this much

Rats are an incredibly designed creature and a worthy opponent on every level, and many of my long time readers are aware of the mixed feelings I have about them.  Sometimes I hate them, but sometimes I love them, and in reality all they are is another visitor to this island called Manhattan just trying to find a comfortable place to live and trying to find something good to eat, and maybe trying to find someone to love.

This guy was caught right behind a nice Upper East Side restaurant.  The restaurant management wants to put a beer garden out back, but to do so we have to evict the current tenants back there, and in fact the eviction will be more of a genocide.

However, the rats that we are catching are the weaker, smaller ones, and the stronger, bigger ones are avoiding the traps and are laying low beneath the surface, perhaps moving underground and heading toward the Asian restaurant next door.  So the genocide will be limited in scope to be sure, and the bigger, badder rats will relocate and repopulate.

This guy got caught with a chocolate candy bar.  Sometimes I'll use beef jerky or slim jims.  Sometimes I'll put on some Tribe Called Quest while I'm setting the traps.

The skeleton of the rat is more malleable than many other vertebrate creatures of its size and body type, and that allows it to squeeze through the smallest of holes, cracks, crevices, pipes, etc., but it also means that when the trap hits the head (as in the picture above) the skull isn't really all that broken, just squeezed apart in two different directions.

Sometimes after I catch a nice rat like this, I'll carry it around with me for a while and swing it back and forth, and I'll act like I'm a baton twirler in the big parade.  And I'll feel so beautiful and special, just like I'm the prom queen again.

I'll be getting back to work now.  I hope your day is going well.

Ew York City will be back tomorrow if I feel like it.

Erase the Head

This was a good one, and I'm sorry I don't have more documentation of it than this, but in the corner of this restaurant basement was the above grate that you see, and underneath it was a living, breathing snarling mass of twisted and gyrating..

I'm sorry, I gotta take this phone call real quick.  It never stops some days.  I'll try to finish this story another time.

How's your building basement looking lately?  You go down there?

Ew York City will be back tomorrow I think

The Lance

It's not cool to keep your toilet plunger in your restaurant kitchen anyway, but if you do, please make sure that it's not holding stagnant water where fly maggots are living and breeding.

Also, ask yourself why you charge so much for the lobster bisque when there's hardly any lobster in it.

Give me liberty!

Ew York City will be back tomorrow player.

The Missing Pieces

Why in the world anyone keeps cardboard laying around is beyond me.

It's an organic paper product that attracts moisture and the pests that love moisture, plus it is an ideal harborage site and breeding ground.

And you can cut your widdle fingah.

There are some fly larvae visible in the top picture.

Have a nice weekend from Ew York City.

Tracking Trails

See all the rat tracks?

These are in the ceiling above the kitchen of a private residence in Tribeca.

Multi-million dollar apartment downtown Manhattan, completely surrounded by rats in the ceiling and floors...

And your point is?

Ew York City might not be back til Wednesday.  I have an absolute nightmare of a job coming up starting tomorrow and it's putting me in a very bad mood.

Pupae Don't Preach

This is in that ice tray behind the bar where the "rocks" are kept when you order a steaming hot "vermouth on the rocks."

We used to boil vermouth back in my day.

Anyhoo, these are some nice pupae.  Pupae is the term that refers to the cycle of the fly's life post-larvae (i.e. maggot) and pre-fly (i.e. fly).

Ice is certainly a vector of pests.

Bottom's up.

Ew York City will be back tomorrow.

What's in the Bag Dad?

A rat broke into an uptown apartment and ate a Hermes purse.

This is what that looks like.

Personally, I would still use the purse.

Have you seen what they cost?

Happy 2016.  See you tomorrow at Ew York City.