Merry Christmas from Each One of Us

'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house

Creatures were stirring, and not just a louse.

The bed bugs were tucked in the mattress with care,

With hopes that my blood filled limbs soon would be there

The children were nestled, all snug in their beds

With no idea that there were bugs they should dread.

And mamma in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap,

Had both been feeling itchy since our afternoon nap.

When under our bedding things started to scatter,

I sprang out of my bed to see what was the matter.

Down to the boxspring I flew like a flash,

Tore up the comforter despite my bad rash.

The bites on our breasts glistened like snow

And led me to believe there were bedbugs below.

When what to my wondering eyes did appear

An infestation that must have been here a year.

So nimbly they crawled, and scampered so quick,

All those blood stains couldn't have been caused by a nick.

More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,

I never would live long enough to give each one a name.

"Now Sucker, Now Lapper, Now Blood Lust and Trixie!

On Vector, On Stabber, On Dahmer and Stick me!

To the top of the mattress!  To the top of the bed!

Now suck away!  Suck away!  From toes up to head!"

As leaves that before the wild hurricane fly

No obstacle could keep them from my wife's ample thigh.

So up to the boxspring corners they flew

Their survival instinct teaching them just what to do.

And then, in a twinkling, as each little bug shimmered

I saw thousands of eggs on my boxspring glimmer.

And as I peered closer, I detected a scent,

Of over ripe raspberries wherever they went.

The mattress was stained black with droppings of old,

And shed skins were piled high in every fold.

Their bug eyes were compound, and followed us both,

And their little legs let them crawl right under our clothes.

(Okay, I'm getting sick of this.  Let's wrap this up.)

They spoke not a word, but went right to their work,

And stuck to our bodies even if we might jerk.

And one crawling right up the side of my nose,

Deposited excrement as red as a rose.

Then back they all crawled, down under the bed,

And left us only with rashes and bumps quite itchy and red.

And I heard them exclaim, as they crawled out of sight.

"Good night, sleep tight, and technically we don't bite, we suck."

Merry Christmas from Ew York City.

Rataclysm 2015

Nothing like a nice pair of work boots, right?

Oh, you're not impressed with my boot?  You're looking at something else in this picture?

Manhattan is surrounded by rivers, parks, highways, and all sorts of rodents.

As their intelligence continues to develop, their strength continues to grow, their survival instincts continue to be honed like the sharpest of cutlery, our days as the dominant lifeform on this island are numbered.

The best piece of advice I can give you is don't forget to tip your rats this holiday season.

Ew York City will be returning tomorrow for our Christmas Eve Spectacular.

Turn Down Phorid Flies

Who doesn't love Phorid Flies?

Well, you don't, and the inspector from the DOH doesn't.

But I love them, even though it's my job to exterminate them.

Phorid flies are just a brilliantly designed insect,

You probably recognize them by their habit of running really, really fast on a surface instead of just flying away.  "Run Phorid, Run!"

Another interesting thing about them is that some species target ants as prey for their larvae, so they actually can help you reduce your ant problem.  They will actually lay their eggs in the body of ant, and the larvae will crawl to the ant's head and eat it right off of the ant's body.  How cool is that?

They also appear to have a little hump back shape to them.

As with all flies, your sanitation is the key to keeping these flies away from your crab shack.

Ew York City will be sprinting back your way tomorrow.

We Clean Everyday

Every day someone tells me, "We clean everyday."

This is usually in the context of flies.  "I don't understand why we still have flies!  We clean every day!  We bleach the drains!  We mop everywhere!  We cover it with gas and set it on fire at the end of the dinner shift!  How can we still have flies?!"

Let me say that I feel your frustration.  And it doesn't feel good.  In fact, it feels kind of wet and slimy, and cold even.

In this one restaurant, fruit flies and houseflies were pretty bad, in the dozens, which, of course, feels like hundreds of thousands or even fly-illions.  The manager told me "We Clean Everyday!"  So I began to explore a little.

I looked under the grease trap below the sink.  "Hmm, that looks like something.  But it probably isn't because they clean every day.  Let me get out my flashlight and look more closely."

"Hmm, yes, yes, definitely.  I see something.  Let me get out for 3 foot long screw driver and see what I can pull out from under here..."

"I think I found something, but I'm not sure.  It looks like produce and rotting cardboard, but I could be wrong."

"So there's where that pink plastic lid to the pickles went!  And that loaf of bread that I wanted to use for that liverwurst sandwich."

Class, we see that once we have finished cleaning, the first thing we need to do is to start cleaning.

Follow this line of dialogue:

Anyone:  "Hey, what's clean?"

You:  "Nothing is clean."

Have a happy weekend from Ew York City.

Existence Exists

Lot of water bug graveyards around, just get down and look.  These little cuties go belly up all the time, sometimes just 'cuz it's that time of the month.

Lots of times you'll find just some legs, because they are very cannibalistic.

Today just blew up like a crayola seesaw, so I gotta run.

Ew York City will respect you back tomorrow.

Reality Bites

Someone in an office felt something bite them.  They looked on their arm and saw what they thought was a little red bug.  They grabbed a tissue, killed it, balled up the tissue and threw it in the waste basket.

The office manager heard about what happened and was worried that it might have been a bed bug, so she dug the tissue out of the trash and looked inside.  Then she called me.

She would later tell me that when she looked in the tissue she "didn't see anything."  She said this with an air of confidence, as if to say, "there's nothing to worry about."

So I asked her to point me to the trash can, where I proceeded to dig out the tissue a second time and look inside it.  In the picture above you can see what I found (not the nickle, the little thing next to the nickle.)

I showed it to the office manager, and, of course, her response was "I don't really see anything.  What is that, fuzz?" etc.

I believed it was a bed bug, so the next step was to bring it back to the boys at the lab and take a look at it under the microscope.

Lo and behold:

That is the top half of a bed bug.  I'm guessing the back half got lost or destroyed in the initial encounter.

This is a reminder that pests can be a lot smaller than we can even imagine, and unless we really look closely and inspect, inspect, inspect we might miss something.

Fortunately we were able to go in and do some treatments in the office and prevent a further outbreak.

Please keep every bit of evidence you can for your Pest Management Professional to look at.  Don't throw anything away.  Don't assume that we won't want to see whatever is is that you found.

No evidence is "too small" or "nothing."  Look at everything.  You could be sitting right on exactly what we're looking for.

Ew York City will be peering in at you tomorrow.

No One Does It Better

You gotta hand it to rats: they are relentless, resilient, and radical.

Imagine if you and your family lived in a city where all of the residents wanted you dead; where every single chance they had they tried to kill you; where they even hired professional killers to work full time to try to exterminate you.

How well do you think you and your family would do?

Rats are in that exact situation, and they are doing just fine.

This picture is in a restaurant, in a bar area that was in disuse for some time.  When I went back there to inspect (because you have to inspect everywhere, literally, if you want to be successful as a Pest Management Professional), I found that the rats had made themselves quite an elaborate burrow system right under the bar, and had dug in and gnawed the flooring material right into nesting material.

As you can see, they also had some nice man made holes they could use to travel through the walls.

No one is better at survival than rats, mice, cockroaches, flies, bedbugs, mosquitoes, and other "pests" that you and I hate.  (Well, I myself don't really hate them, but that's another story.)

One thing we learn from this is that one man's trash (or neglected piece of property) is another creature's treasure (in this case, a bar has become an apartment building for rats).

Learn from your enemy so that you might not be destroyed.  Don't look at things the same way.  Look with the eyes of a rat.  Become a rat.  Accept that you are a rat, and you will survive in these dark days of the pre-Apocalypse.

Man I need some sleep.

(and sorry about the overuse of parentheses).

Ew York City will return soon.