Welcome to the ATX Pest Podcast, episode 18. We’ll just call this weather-related Activity is increasing. No very specific topic other than it’s been pretty buggy. As I have not done in the past few weeks a podcast episode, it’s because we’ve been very busy. Pest populations have exploded kind of late to the party this year, but nonetheless they’ve gotten really bad and, as you can imagine, I’m answering a lot of questions the past few weeks on why that is, and so I figured I would jump on here and finally knock out another episode and kind of discuss just that.
What’s going on. Why are we having so many pest problems in our area? And the answer to that is we just had a tremendous amount of rain, we had a lot of storms, hurricanes were going on down the the coast and we were getting a lot of that residual weather here, um, so in turn, we had a lot of a lot of flooding, a lot of moisture going on, and it was temperatures were definitely have been milder this year, um, but and then what happened was is we had a string of about four weeks roughly, of a hundred plus degree weather I got, all of a sudden, it finally got hot, um, and things started drying out, and that’s exactly what’s going on right now. Um, because over the course of the last few weeks it’s really dried out. So what’s going on now is all these different types of pests and, I would say, scorpions. For a little while was the number one call we’re dealing with, and then it kind of for a while it was earwigs. People were having a lot of earwig issues suddenly. And then, which the funny thing is, is that these type of issues are usually caused especially like earwigs and crickets. We really didn’t have a cricket invasion yet, not like we have in years past invasion yet Not like we have in years past.
A lot of these crawling, more seasonal type pests, have you know, thrive on moisture and populations build up, and that’s the excuse. Well, we’re having a lot of activity because we’re getting a lot of moisture, which is true. They’re breeding like mad and it’s just flushes them out and you see a little bit more activity, and so that becomes a problem. And then now we’re dealing with ant calls have been pretty bad, which is normal, which is normal. And then most recently, this past two weeks, probably the number one call, other than ants, has been American cockroaches, aka the water bugs that I’ve spoken about before palmetto bugs, tree roaches, wherever you want to call them, it usually depends on what part of the country you’re from, but that’s been this season. In a nutshell, spiders been a little bit of a topic. You know, it’s normal. Everyone normally get a couple of spiders here and there inside your house. You’re always going to have them outside, so get over that. But you have to ask yourself, and usually, usually this is well, let me back up. So what is? Everything is drying out. So what’s going on is they’re seeking moisture. Okay, they need food, water and shelter to survive, as we all do. So they are looking for water, looking for moisture, okay, and so naturally, what happens is and this is gonna go there again I’m gonna I’m gonna preach door seals again, but this is why we started as at our company offering door seals. Finally, after all these years and me talking about this, we’re finally providing a solution for folks and we’re using a very high quality threshold, that door seals that are specifically made for the pest and specifically the really the rodent part of the industry. So they have, there’s metal inside this. These seals that you know they won’t chew through, they’ll cut their mouth and they won’t. They don’t want to seal. They don’t want to chew through that obviously not fun for them. So they work extremely well and they’re actually very high quality and look good. So that was part of the deal. We just didn’t want to have a cheap door seal. So blah, blah, blah. Anyways, we’re offering them now. So why are they coming inside? Well, like I’ve said in the past, it’s 100 degrees outside. Now it’s going to be in the 90s still for a while. They’re naturally attracted to windows and doorways because they can sense and detect and feel the, you know, the coolness inside the home might be 90, 95, a hundred degrees outside, um, but it’s typically, you know, 70 degrees on average inside the structure. So they feel that, they feel that and so they’re attracted to the doorways and entry points, like the window tracks. Um, but especially doorways is the biggest one to mention. If there’s a gap there, where the hell you think they’re going to go? Well, they’re going to slip inside. Whether they and they, when they do do that, they actually have slipped through a barrier. That if you have a pest control company and they’ve treated there fairly recently and you haven’t wiped that up or rain hasn’t got after it, there’s probably some type of residual property left there, um spend a couple months, not going to be effective anymore after that period of time, but it’s been within a month or two, a few weeks. There’s still probably some protection left there. And this is a whole other conversation about how long these insecticides last and everything which I’m not talking about today. But not as long as you think. It’s about doing a good job with time of service, and we’ll leave it at that for today. But they’re going to slip inside. They’re infected or not, they’re probably going to die, but it takes hours, right, so they’re not dying instantly. So therefore, you happen to see them.
Sometimes folks are saying I’m finding dead ones inside and they’re calling me. What do you want me to do? Okay, he called me, thank me, right? So, yeah, sorry, can’t, can’t, apologize for dead bugs. But, and oftentimes we’ll say hey, you know there’s some dead ones and there’s some that are barely moving there. Again, you know you’re welcome, right and so. But when people do see them, very lively, and that provokes, you know, some concern, for sure Valid, you know you understand the phone call then. But what is this all boiled down to? How the heck did they get in there to begin with and we point out constantly and does anyone fix it? No, so why should you expect that you’re just going to have a company come and do the same thing, that it’s going to fix the problem, or, oh, they’re not cutting it for me, let me call and let me get another service. And that’s what people do oftentimes. Well, they’re idiots. If you’re doing that, you know, think about it Seriously. You’re firing a company to hire another company that’s going to do probably precisely the same thing and probably use some of the same exact products. That’s why you have to find a company that is knowledgeable, that will provide inspection, even if they don’t do the work. Like my company, we’re full service Not everybody is, and it’s okay, you know but at least have a company that’s knowledgeable and that can provide some insight and and some, you know, free advice is fine. I mean, just because we give advice, people doesn’t mean that we’re reaching in everyone’s pockets. We give, we give more advice and probably 75% of the time we don’t even make a sale and that’s fine. The people that are serious, that really want to fix a problem, they’re going to pay for it. If they don’t, then it’s on them, and that’s the way we look at it so we remind people over and over and over and over again. Hey, remember the last three times I’ve been in your house and we discussed this same exact situation, okay. And then it comes down to frequency. Okay, everyone’s like, well, if you’re not happy with results on a quarterly service because quarterly service is like starting all over again every single time okay, nine days, a long time. I’ve talked about, about frequency and in the past and prior episodes look for that if you want to. You know, hear me talk about that more. You know, why are you trading there again? Why are you trading another quarterly service for another quarterly service? You know, maybe you should have more frequency because the you know tolerance, your pest tolerance, is less than what quarterly is going to provide you.
So, but back on topic, okay, so the biggest question I get is or, when you get these phone calls or emails or text messages or what have you, and throughout the course of conversations it’s like well, I’m finding them in the bathroom or the kitchen, and that’s exactly why. Okay, um, it’s I’m finding them coming through the drains. Well, no, they’re not coming up through the drains. Okay, there happened to fall into that crawl, into that tub or that sink or whatnot, and they went down the drain to look for some type of moisture down there because there wasn’t any standing water sitting in the sink or the bathtub. So, excuse me, they’re going down to the drain to look for some moisture and come back up. So completely understand why people think that I’m not going to call anyone dumb for thinking that you don’t know any better. That’s why there’s professionals that do this, because we should be the ones to know these things and educate you. Like I said, the purpose of this podcast is to help educate people. Um, with things like this especially, um, we had a lady actually today, matter of fact, they won’t name names, but lives out in Austin area, um, don’t know exactly where, but one of our inspectors, aaron, went out and he uh determined why this lady was having all these American cockroaches. Was because of a humidity issue, he or? Well, moisture issue? Essentially they were. And she had some construction issues going on because of some water damage and they were coming up underneath her shower drain. And so let me read, let me see what his notes said here I’m gonna click on it because I don’t want to misspeak here, but it was a something to think about. Alright, there she is. Miss Laura had let me see it says home is sealed well. So this is what he did. He inspected home. This is his notes Inspected home Home is sealed well on a roof line and lower levels Weep holes, doorways, so they didn’t have these issues really going on.
Okay, oh, they did Issue with scorpions also. They had a couple scorpions getting inside, but the problem was is that all the doors needed adjustment and this is a very, very nice home Not a cheap home by any means, a couple million dollar home, probably Because I talked to them a little while ago about it and they just have these really expensive, nice doors that they weren’t aware that it can be adjusted. So Aaron showed them and they’ll probably fix everything, um and so but there was oh, nevermind, that was a separate job, so it’s a job before. But hey, there you go, door seals right there before. But hey, there you go, door seals right there. Proves my point on the door seal. That was why scorpion’s getting in. So he went, did an inspection there, the house, before that he did an inspection on prior to that. One says hello, today we treated for a very, uh bad issue with american cockroaches treated baseboard corners, you know, interior. They want an interior service done, baited exterior around the back patio and conducive areas there, which is a particular granular bait that’s specifically not just for them but other like earwigs and beetles and crickets and things of that nature works extremely well on that we use as well as American roaches. It’s a very green product to actually Treated bath trap issue with moisture under shower pan. So they’re the ones that had that problem with the construction moisture damage on their homes and it’s a very nice home to, just not the two, three million dollar home that was the second home that he did. So anyways goes to show it’s moisture driven air issues.
Um, I think in this case there was something to do with the ceiling caved in on this house. Actually it was that bad of a moisture problem going on and there was like a pipe that wasn’t sealed and they got in and they were able to get onto the shower pan underneath. They’re getting in um and he fixed. He determined the issue um and recommended a dehumidifier and they were very um impressed the fact that why didn’t the ac guy, you know, tell me that? Well, the ac guy’s an idiot, I don’t know. Um did not aware. You know that you had a humidity issue, I guess um and I remember because I set this service up they called and spoke to me and told me because my notes right here, scheduler’s notes it says inspection issue inspection issue with American cockroach need to treat interior and exterior and may have a humidity issue. Because that was I noted that because that’s what Mrs said that she said, hey, I think I have a humidity issue, not sure though. And then Aaron went there and in fact, determined that they do, which is the root of the problem why they’re having this activity. So hopefully they’re getting into humidifier. He said so hopefully, from what he did and what they’re going to be doing and discovering this, finally, we’re going to fix this problem. So the power of an inspection, right. So that’s why we do these. Matter of fact, if you sign up with our company, EvoFoam Pest Control, just so you know, not only come do your initial pest control treatment, but we also send Aaron out, or Austin or Noah we have a couple other guys that help out with these, but we’ll send them that are very well trained as well. Send them out. We do a freak, one hour comprehensive inspection of your home and property inside and out, top to bottom, attic, everything, and literally give you a report on what the heck is wrong with your property, what’s not, what’s good, the bad and the ugly, pest issues that you had that you weren’t aware of. Conducive conditions on the property, you know leaf debris, clogged gutters, firewood too close to the home, poor drainage, whatever that it, whatever that may be, door seals, whatever it may be, we’re talking, we’re gonna bring that up to your attention and I tell you it’s something that we started doing fairly recently, last couple months, and it is worth its weight in gold. We have some very pleased customers that we, since we we started doing this I mean we always had. But this is very thorough and the good thing is is that people understand all what we do now because we didn’t do a good job of that and that’s why I started doing this and implemented this is because people didn’t know that we did exclusion work. I sealing up homes, eradicated roof rats out of attics, squirrels, raccoons out of attics, things of that nature, gables with hardware, cloth, you know, sealing that up, stuffing wheat poles with breathable mesh, doing garage door seals and corners and door. Now now regular door seals, and so we’ve been doing all. You know we started doing that recent, those things recently. But the exclusion we’ve been doing for for seven years we’ve been in business, um, termite, mosquito, um, you know we’re full service, we, we do all these things that everybody does. And we come to find out we had a few customers. We go to their house and oh, you guys are just here like let me check. No, no, ma’am, we weren’t. Well, you’re just here last week, oh, never mind, that was my mosquito company. I’m like what, what do you mean, your mosquito company? We offer that service. And so, you know, that was a little disheartening. So, you know, goes to show. Though, hey, we, you know we do great in a lot of things. We’re not perfect. We were doing really, I was, I was doing, I think we, I took real full responsibility.
I didn’t do a good job of um, contacting customers. You know, not trying to bother customers too much is always my mentality. But you know you got to bother enough and let them know what the hell you do, you know and what you can offer them and help them with. And so we’re doing. I feel like this is the fix for that. We’re doing much better with that, so, and it’s going quite well and people, we’ve had very good feedback, so hopefully that continues. So, anyways, that is the reason for the weather and everything is why everything’s exploded recently. So, um, I’m going to, I’m through talking, I got a lot of work, I got to go. Do I really appreciate everybody? Uh, tuning in. I’m going to continue to try to be more consistent, but it is what it is. I do whatever the hell I want. I want to do one once a week or every two weeks, or once a month. That’s what I’m gonna do. Okay, but now, seriously, I try to get back on track and stay on track now. But I appreciate you really serious, sincerely tuning in. If you have any questions, want to talk, discuss pest control anytime, I’m always happy to. If you need help, please call me. EvoFoam pest Control 512-588-2998. Mention this podcast. You’ll get a good discount. I promise Y’all be good.
