Ask a Pest Expert a Question – CKNW radio – Jan 21, 2022

Mike:
Yeah, creepy crawlies, ants, bugs, stuff crawling through your backyard in your home. That’s the worst, man. How do you deal with it? Well, you probably call my next guest, Mike Londry, owner West Side Pest Control. This guy is the man, and we’re going to open up the phone lines here. So get set to call me if you have pest control questions. We got ads for West Side Pest Control running the show. I actually really like the ads. I think they’re really fun to listen to. Here’s one of the ads that runs. Have a listen to this.

Radio Ad:
Coming soon. One of the Earth’s most ancient creatures, spawning in the dank, dark spaces of our world for over 400 million years. Infiltrating homes, laying eggs by the thousands and by the time you see one, it’s already too late. Silver fish. Protect your property with West Side Pest Control.

Mike:
Okay. Let’s check in with Mike Londry now, owner of West Side Pest Control. Hey Mike.

Mike Londry:
Hey, how you doing?

Mike:
Mike, we’re not going to charge you for that ad. Okay. That’s a freebie. We’re going to get you there.

Mike Londry:
Sweet. Thanks Mike.

Mike:
So listen, the silver fish thing is interesting to me because I have them in my place and in my basement, and they’re really gross. I don’t like them at all. They’re real creepy looking things. They’re very fast when you try to squish them too. I mean, you can sneak up on them, but once they know you’re there, they start moving really quickly. And I thought it was interesting in that ad that we just played, that you referred to them as like this ancient species or something. And they do look kind of ancient in a way, is that true? They’ve been around a long time these things?

Mike Londry:
They have literally been around for hundreds of millions of years and they’re not going anywhere. And they really haven’t changed or evolved much in that time either. So yeah. They’re well adapted to many environments on this planet and their favorite is humid environment. Areas with lots of moisture. And of course we live here in a temperate rainforest, which is well suited to them.

Mike:
Okay. So you mentioned in the ad there that once you see one, it’s almost like too late to get rid of them, but you can get rid of them I assume though?

Mike Londry:
Yeah, we can certainly improve the situation. I tell most people, the realistic expectation is normally somewhere between 90 and 95%. Now the one nice thing about that is, it’s not like three days later or three weeks later, even three months later, you’re going to see the same resurgence of them again, because these insects actually live for years and they take several months before they can even start producing more silver fish. So knock the population down and it takes them years to build those numbers back up again.

Mike:
Okay. Mike, we’re in the winter months here right now. And I suspect you’re probably busier in the warmer months than you are in the winter or do you get calls in the winter too?

Mike Londry:
It’s year round. There’s always pests. There’s always people with them. Winter months it’s rodents predominantly, mice and rats looking for a nice cozy place to reside inside a home, or other type of structure.

Mike:
Okay. What’s the situation with sort of rodentia levels right now in Metro Vancouver. Vancouver has won the award almost every year. Undefeated record, rattiest city in British Columbia. Lots of rats in Vancouver. Is that your experience?

Mike Londry:
We are never relinquishing that title. I’m quite certain of it. Yeah.

Mike:
Yeah. So what’s the deal in the winter. They’re looking to get in your house to stay warm?

Mike Londry:
They are, but they’re still venturing out. Rats don’t come into people’s houses to start sharing food with them in their kitchen. Mice do that, but rats don’t cohabitate with people. So this is one of the reasons they do so well in Vancouver, is because we have a much more mild climate than other parts of Canada. The rats live in your walls or in your attic or in your crawlspace, but then venture out during the day to find sustenance. Whereas in somewhere like Winnipeg, they’re just hungering down and hoping to survive.

Mike:
Okay. When you deal with a rat or mouse problem, what is job one when you go into a home to deal with that? How do you get rid of them?

Mike Londry:
Job one is always trying to find how they’re getting in and out of the structure that they’re in. Personally, rats are my most enjoyable service to do. I really love the challenge. First thing that I do when I get to the sidewalk in front of the house is try and guess what’s happening before I’ve even started and always ask the person living in the house, tons and tons of questions, because they’re up at night, hearing the noises and hearing the scratching and the people in the structure always know a lot about what’s happening in their home. What time of day you’re hearing noise. I mean, time of day that you’re hearing noise can indicate whether it’s rats or squirrels, that the type of scratching the intensity and volume of it can help us determine whether it’s mice, rats, squirrels, raccoons, et cetera.

Mike:
I saw a mouse in my house once and a guy came by to deal with it for me. And he put out these little kind of a feeding station, sort of hidden in corners of the home. And I said, “What is that, poison or something?” And he said, “No, it’s not poison. What it does is it makes the rat thirsty. And that makes it go out of the house to drink.” You ever heard of that tactic?

Mike Londry:
Well, that would in fact be poison. That would be rodenticides. So rodenticides are anticoagulants, which will tend to make anything that consumes them thirsty. With that in mind though, the myth the rodenticides will simply make a rodent leave your house, is totally untrue. The same as any animal when it doesn’t feel well. I mean, just think of us. When we don’t feel well, we don’t generally want to go outside, we just want to hunker down in our bed and have a snooze. And if your home happens to be in the attic or walls of someone’s house, that’s where they’re going to go reside and I think you’re going to be dealing with a worse problem, which is a deceased rodent in the walls of your house. So using rodenticides inside of homes, you’d certainly want to use some caution before just throwing it out here and there.

Mike:
So what do you prefer? To trap them and remove them or what?

Mike Londry:
Yeah. Again, our focus is always on trying to find out how they’re getting in and out of the house. I mean, if you have rats living in a wall, we do a full inspection from the top of the roof, down to the foundation, seal up every potential access point. And then if we find the main one on the outside at a house where they’re coming and going, we install a one way access door. So the rodent can exit the house, but can’t reenter again. And then it’s somebody else’s issue.

Mike:
All right. Welcome back. Mike Londry is my guest, owner of West Side Pest Control. Phone lines are open to him. 604 280 9898, is the number. Star 9898, toll free on your cell. Let’s go right to your calls here, Cheryl and Richmond. Hey, Cheryl.

Donna:
Hello. Thanks for taking my call. So I have an issue with the rat. He got into my tin shed. I had some grass seed in there from last year, and I should have put it in a glass container, I didn’t. I went to put the snow shovels away and there’s grass seed, rat poop and rat urine everywhere through my camping stuff, my bike, everything. So I preliminarily cleaned up the grass seed, picked up as much rat poop as I could. And now I’m concerned about my health. I wore an N95 because I had one and I went in there and I did my best to do a preliminary clean. I’m worried about my health. Does the disease that’s associated with the poop and the urine, do I have to worry about that when I finish going in and tiding up? And how do I deal with the rat poop and the urine to disinfect items that they’re on and so forth properly?

Mike:
It was a really good question I think. Go ahead Mike.

Mike Londry:
Yeah. Health and safety is one of the main reasons why pest control companies exist and why the general public has concern for pests in the first place. Anytime you’re doing a cleanup, we all have masks these days, so I would wear the best mask that you have while you’re doing the cleanup, definitely wear some disposable gloves. One of the key things to focus on anytime you’re cleaning a rodent’s droppings or bird droppings or anything like that, is just not to disturb the particles. You’re getting a lot of dust in the air. So try to use a hyper filtered vacuum for any of those droppings. And then just use a spray bottle with a bit of bleach and water when cleaning those surfaces. Wear gloves, and then wash your arms and whatnot after the cleanup. As long as you’re being safe, you should be fine.

Mike Londry:
We typically use full tyvek suits and boot covers and thick gloves, and a half mask respirator when we’re doing a clean up like that. But the important thing to remember is just not to use a broom or dust pan, and really disturb the area so that you get dust in the air.

Mike:
Yeah. Right. Thanks for the call, Cheryl. Let’s go to Scott on the line in Vancouver. Hi Scott. Go ahead.

Scott:
Hi, Mike, how are you guys doing?

Mike:
Good. Good. Go ahead.

Scott:
This question’s a little bit convoluted, but I’m concerned in one of the industries that I’m working in currently, is down working at the grain elevators and other places that do have large rodent populations. And it’s very hard to control them. And of course, live trapping them isn’t really feasible. So they use a lot of Rodenticides in there, but I’m really concerned about it getting back into the environment, higher up in the food chain with raptors and anything else that might be taking these animals in as a food source. And I want to know, are there products that are being developed that are safe, but still effective?

Mike:
Mike?

Mike Londry:
It’s a very fine type rope that we walk in terms of the Rodenticides. There is actually a big change that came into effect at the end of July in 2021, in that most commercial facilities, homes, et cetera. We are no longer allowed to service them, able to service them with second generation anticoagulants. So this means they’re essentially the stronger, more recently developed rodenticides. There’s lots of positive around this change, but there are exemptions government facilities, food production, green elevators would be included in those that at this point are still allowed. Those second generation anticoagulants, a lot of the ones that are used are actually developed not to have an effect on secondary poisonings. And it’s unfortunate that there’s a lot of the products that are used incorrectly and that’s usually where the issues come in. It’s not so much the products, but how they’re applied.

Mike Londry:
There’s some new technology that’s being utilized, but it’s very expensive. And there’re traps that use CO2 but they require a lot of maintenance and there’s a high cost to them. The long and short of it is that, with those green elevators, it’s going to be a constant battle. Trapping stations are probably the best alternative to rodenticides. You just going to need more of them and a lot of regular maintenance.

Mike:
Sure. Okay. So I thank you for that call, Rick in Port Moody. Go ahead, Rick.

Rick:
Gentlemen, thanks for taking my call. Beavers, how in the hell do you safely trap out beavers?

Mike:
You got a beaver problem, man? Oh, wow. Okay.

Rick:
Port Moody has been plagued with beavers now for four or five years. We’ve got a very core group of people that want to leave them alone. And they’ve destroyed some salmon streams. They just make a hell of a mess. Now they’ve moved into an area and we’ve got roads flooding and stuff because of them, trail flooding and stuff. The city is spending thousands and thousands and tens of thousands of dollars to try and wrap wire around all these trees because of a few people that want to keep the beavers. So they’re making the environment so it’s not beaver friendly, but they don’t want to get rid of the beaver. How would you try so you you don’t hurt the thing, but you can relocate it, what’s the plan?

Mike:
Mike.

Mike Londry:
I wish I could give you an answer to this question. Unfortunately, beavers are outside our wheelhouse of services that we provide. But I assume you’ve already done this, but the first thing I would do is contact your local conservation officer. There are a couple of companies, I think, Humane Solutions is a company that does do some wildlife trapping. I would maybe give them a buzz and see if they can provide you some more info.

Mike:
Thanks for that. Good luck with that one. Let’s squeeze in one more here before the break, and then we’ll take some more calls. Corine in Cloverdale. Hi Corine. Go ahead.

Corine:
Yes. Hi. I was inquiring about moles in the backyard and front yard.

Mike:
Moles in the yard. You got 30 seconds here Mike, go ahead.

Mike Londry:
Moles are the absolute worst. I have them at my place and I tried to learn how to get rid of moles many years ago. It is a complete art form. There is a company called ARG Mole Removal, and moles is all that this guy does. His name is also Mike, and he really knows his stuff. So if you need help getting rid of moles, that would be my recommendation to contact him.

Mike:
He knows his moles. Why are they so difficult to get rid of here?

Mike Londry:
Because they never surface. They’re always below the ground and when you see a mound, they’ve already moved somewhere else.

Mike:
Okay. Mike, stand by here as we take a break, there’s always lots of calls for Mike Londry, West Side Pest Control. Today is no exception. If you’re still on the line, hang in there, we’ll get to you. Keep phoning me. 604 280 9898 is the number. Roll with my guest, Mike Londry, owner of West Side Pest Control. Mike is always a super popular guest on the open line. If you have a question about pest control around your home, now is the time to call 604 280 9898 is the number. 604 280 9898, star 9898, toll free in your cell. Back to the phone lines. Pat on the line. Hi Pat, go ahead.

Pat:
Hello gentlemen. I have a question regarding beatles, specifically ones that are called, I think they called them stink bugs. They might be called something else. You seem to get them into our home certain times of the year. And right now we have a bunch of them. They fly around and call around and they’re quite creepy.

Mike:
Stink bug, what do they smell bad?

Pat:
Apparently if you crush them, they do. They don’t smell if you don’t crush them. This is what I’ve read. But maybe Mike knows more about…

Mike:
Wow, creepy. Mike, you’ve heard of this?

Mike Londry:
Yeah, absolutely. If you do crush them, they do kind of smell like rotten eggs. So try to avoid doing that. Gently encourage them outside instead of squashing them. Stink bugs have been around this area for the last few years. They started turning up about 10 to 15 years ago in the interior first and they’ve they slowly made their way out to the West Coast. They really love foliage and they love to over winter in structures. So they generally spend most of their time outside in the spring and summer, but they will over winter in people’s homes.

Mike Londry:
So one of the things you can do to discourage them from doing this is to keep foliage and close contact with the house, cut back about one to two feet. In terms of elimination, it can be quite tricky because they literally reside inside the walls of your house and they don’t have massive nests like carpenter ants, or really leave a lot of sign of them being there. So I would use a lot of vigilance in terms of trying to figure out where they might be coming from and maybe leave out a few glue, sticky traps, you can purchase from the hardware store, in a few different rooms of the house. And then you might start to narrow it down.

Mike:
Okay Pat. Good luck with that man. That sounds like a bad… Stink bugs. Yeah, that’s a new one for me. I hadn’t heard of those ones before. Let’s go to Les on the open line. Hi Les, go ahead.

Les:
Good morning. Just a quick story and a question. My wife had a rat on the inside of her SUV by the wheel well, and it deceased there and it was taken out professionally and we did a shampoo, but the smell was unbelievable. Is there anything for an odor that you could put in there and eventually it’s going to go away? And my second question is, my cousin on the farm puts briquettes on the floor of his Semi. Is that a way to keep rodents away from your vehicle?

Mike:
He puts what on the floor? Did you say briquettes…

Les:
Briquettes that’s used for a batch cheese, like charcoal.

Mike:
Charcoal briquettes. Okay.

Les:
You put a couple of them on the floor mats and just leave them there. Is that viable solution?

Mike:
Mike.

Mike Londry:
I’ve never heard of the briquettes before. I’d be very curious to find out if that is a solution or not. I hear interesting or remedies from customers on a regular basis. So I wouldn’t discredit it, but I wouldn’t necessarily endorse the briquettes either. When it comes to the rat in the car, having it shampooed is awesome. If there’s a persistent smell there, there are some products. What you want to try and do is find an odor neutralizing product. We use something called Onna, that helps us to neutralize the odor as opposed to just mask it. You probably have to do a couple more scrub and rinse type of applications to really eliminate the smell. The other thing that you want to remember to do also is to move the car. If the car is parked in the same location, those rats are going to come back and potentially re-inhabit it again. So for at least a few weeks after shampooing the engine, park about a block away, let them become acclimatized to nesting under somebody else’s wheel well instead.

Mike:
Okay. Good luck with that one. Les, thanks for the call. Keep phoning 604 280 9898 is the number, star 9898 on your cell. Peter on the line. Hi Peter. Go ahead.

Peter:
Yeah, good morning. Mike, I’ve got a mouse and potentially a rat problem in the basement of the house. I’ve tried sticky mats. I’ve tried the regular traps, baited peanut butter no longer seems to be on their diet. And I’ve also tried high frequency noisemakers, nothing apparently is working. Suggestions please.

Mike Londry:
Sure. Okay. First thing I would do is say to turn the high frequency noisemakers, the ultrasonic devices off. Once they’ve established themselves, that’s not going to make them go away, but it’s going to disrupt all of their activities and all of their habits, and they’re going to be on high alerts, therefore less likely to go for a trap, which they would otherwise do if life was just kind of rolling along as usual. Definitely try some different baits. A lot of them like sweet substances, something chocolate like Nutella, sometimes works for us. Cooked bacon is also good as well. And what we like to often do in challenging situations is prebate the traps before setting them. So we leave a few traps there with a few different types of baits. Don’t set them, let them get comfortable in acclimatized. And then once you see what they’re going for, what they like, the area where they’re feeding, then set the traps out and actually trigger them to catch the rodents.

Mike:
You use a little rat psychology there.

Mike Londry:
Absolutely.

Mike:
Yeah. Get them in a false sense of security. And then you get them. Yeah. Okay. I get it now. Okay. Let’s go to Donna on the line. Hi Donna.

Donna:
I tuned in late. So I don’t know if we’ve already talked about silver fish. But when on the internet, I’ve tried everything, just everything. And bought the little deco things and the sticky pads, everything, but I’m very bug phobic and it’s not working. So I’m going to resort to getting sprayed, but I’ve read that it’s very toxic to humans. I’m worried about that. How toxic is the spray that they spray around?

Mike:
Okay. Donna, thank you for your call. I feel your pain because I’ve got these things too. Mike.

Mike Londry:
So Donna, the first thing that you want to do in addition to any treatment, is to try and lower the humidity. You can do that by simply turning on the kitchen and bathroom fans, as often as you can bear. And maybe even purchasing a dehumidifier from Canadian Tire, run it in the bathrooms over overnight times or any time for that matter. In terms of spraying, having a professional coming in and doing it is very, very low in terms of any health concerns or toxicity to yourself. I tell most people, if a person goes out to Home Depot and buys a can of spray and just puts on a paper mask and does the spray themself, it’s probably going to be less than half as effective and they’re going to be exposing themselves to way more of these insecticides than having a professional coming in and doing it.

Mike Londry:
Once the professional spray has dried, it’s only coming off in microbial amounts, which is essentially enough to affect only the insects that are crawling over it. There’s lots of really strict laws in BC, some of the strictest in the world in terms of human safety and pest control applications. So I wouldn’t have too much concern or if any concern about that whatsoever.

Mike:
Donna, good luck with it. And thank you for calling. Ronnie on the line in New West. Hi Ronnie. Go ahead.

Ronnie:
Hey, how’s it going? I don’t really have much of a question, but I just really wanted to give West Side Pest Control a huge shout out. About maybe eight months ago, I had a huge tree rat problem. And I thought my wife was crazy when she hit her patter in the attic. Coming off, she’s a nurse so I just thought maybe her mind’s going crazy. But anyway, turns out she was right. We had a huge rat problem. So we did some research and we went the humane way. And West Side Pest Control came up and we got you guys in there and you guys sent a couple guys out and these guys were so money. The social skills, customer service skills. I wish I knew his name, but he had some sweet tattoos. I got a senior dog and they took time to hang out with my dog while they worked. And he came back, I think three weeks, back to back to back weeks just to make sure. Remembered our names, remembered my dog’s name and we haven’t had a problem since then.

Ronnie:
And they found three little holes, quarter sized up on the roof line, that there’s no way I would’ve seen that. And just the attention to detail, just hanging out and having a conversation, didn’t shoo me away. And I don’t know, man, you guys just got a really solid crew there and I really appreciate the work you guys do. Anybody has questions, you can skip them and just call them and they’ll come take care of it.

Mike:
Okay. Ronnie. Thank you for that. Man, you got a fan there, Mike.

Mike Londry:
Wow. Thanks Ronnie. I think that was probably Brandon who came out to your house. So if you’re still listening, Ronnie, I think it was Brandon. I really appreciate the feedback. That’s amazing. Made my day.

Mike:
So when he was saying you find a little teeny tiny hole going into the attic, will you typically get rats in an attic? I would always think they’d be on the lower levels. Now they go on the attic?

Mike Londry:
Oh yeah. We scour the house from the top to the bottom. Rats are tree climbers by nature, especially roof rats. So that’s why they’re called roof rat.

Mike:
Yeah. I had a buddy of mine tell me once, I thought I heard something in my apartment once, years ago and I was like, “I don’t know how this thing got in.” And he said, “Well, you got a fireplace in there, don’t you?” And I said, “Yeah.” He goes, “These things go vertical, man. They could come down to chimney.” And I’m like, “No way.” Could they go down a chimney?

Mike Londry:
Yeah, absolutely. Think of them as rock climbers and you see some of the crazy stuff that rock climbers will go up, they just need something to just pinch their little claws on. Like a stucco house has enough for them to grab and run up the outside wall.

Mike:
Wow. No wonder they’re so successful as a species. Jenny in New West. Hi Jenny. Go ahead.

Speaker 12:
Hi Mike. I have been dealing with the raccoons more than 10 years. And the raccoon they just come and try to poop beside our house. So I tried everything, whatever there’s in market. The last one we tried was sprinkle cayenne pepper. So cayenne pepper worked beside of our house, they don’t come anymore beside the house. And now they move to the roof. And I opened the window on the bedroom window upstairs and I tried to sprinkle but they still do come and I can’t get rid of them.

Mike:
Okay. Mike, raccoons.

Mike Londry:
Yeah. If the raccoons are up on the roof, that’s definitely going to be a challenge. Sometimes what we’ll do in those situations, they’re usually looking for somewhere to get out of the rain. So there might be a little overhang where there’s a [inaudible 00:28:04] on one section of the roof, overhanging the other one. We’ll sometimes install bird spike strips in those areas to deter them from wanting to go to those places. In terms of the cayenne pepper, if you’re using it where there’s an overhang and it’s always dry, that’s a great solution or a great potential solution, but you want to make sure you’re reapplying it if it rains.

Mike:
Okay. Mike, we could do a whole show with you because we still have a full phone board of people who want to talk to you. And I don’t know, maybe one day we should do that. Just do the whole show with West Side Pest Control, Mike Londry. But we’ll do that another day. Hey Mike, thank you for coming on today.

Mike Londry:
Thank you Mike.

Mike:
Okay. That’s Mike Londry there, West Side Pest Control. Thank you for all your calls on that today. All right. Here’s what we’ll do. We’ll take a final break. We’ll come back, find out what you had to say today in the buzz line. That’s next.