Mike Londry on CKNW – How to keep pests away in the fall season

Mike:

All right, let’s talk to my next guest now, Mike Londry. He is the owner of West Side Pest Control. How are you doing, Mike?

Mike Londry:

[inaudible 00:00:10] call in to get in the contest.

Mike:

No, I don’t think… Maybe next time, Mike, maybe next time.

Mike Londry:

Okay. I’ll try tomorrow.

Mike:

Okay. All right, Mike, let’s talk about pest control here. In the fall, do you find it in the pest control business that you’re in, in the fall season, is that a busy time with people noticing creepy crawly stuff around their homes and they call you guys?

Mike Londry:

Yeah, absolutely. We’re always busy in the summer with all the insects. Then there’s usually a little bit of a lull when everybody goes back to school and starts with the new routine in September. But as things cool down, things that might’ve been comfortably living outside during the warmer summer months decide to start looking for warmer places to reside.

Mike:

Yeah. Yeah. I bet. Yeah. What is this been like this summer for you guys, especially in terms of the COVID reality that we’re facing? Has this been a busy summer? I’ve seen a lot of wasps around my house. Has that been a bad summer for wasps?

Mike Londry:

You know what? It’s actually been a fairly typical one, and it started out as a slow summer for wasps, but that was just from our cool and wet spring. But then as the summer warmed up, especially in July, they quickly got back to their usual routine and yeah, it ended up being as busy as… I would say it was above average for wasps this July and August.

Mike:

Right. We just seemed to have a lot of them buzzing around my back deck. Have you ever seen one of those things that people hang up that looks like… It almost looks like a fake, a wasp nest and it’s supposed to scare away the wasp?

Mike Londry:

You could use a paper bag if you wanted to. Those are definitely a debatable deterrent for wasps. Having treated over a thousand wasp nests myself, I can tell you that I’ve seen them as close together as 10 feet apart, actual wasp nests, not the fake ones. So you know how well they work is definitely debatable. I think it’s one of those things that it may be more of a placebo than an actual deterrent.

Mike Londry:

One of the things that I can tell you does work very well are the pheromone wasp traps. You can get them from local hardware stores for less than $10 each. They work for a number of weeks and they’re non-toxic and they do a job of keeping them away from the areas where you don’t want them. So I would highly advocate a pheromone wasp trap over a fake nest, but if you want to be certain, maybe use both.

Mike:

Okay. Speaking to Mike Londry, West Side Pest Control. What happens if you see some droppings in your house and you think, “Uh oh, maybe I got a mouse in here.” If you see droppings, probably definitely you’ve got a rodent, right?

Mike Londry:

Yes. Yeah. Again, once they found a warm and comfortable place to reside and maybe some food as well, they’re not likely to not return. Finding droppings inside the house usually means that, as far as the rodents are concerned, that house is as much theirs as it is yours. So if you see some, it’s best to start looking around under the stove, maybe behind the fridge, any places that would possibly be accessible that might be close to anywhere that… Things like pipes are egressing from the walls into any room in the house is where you’re likely to notice them because…

Mike:

Mike, what is the most common call you guys get there at West Side Pest Control? The most common pest you deal with?

Mike Londry:

Year round, it’s definitely rodents.

Mike:

Oh, yeah. Okay.

Mike Londry:

Yeah. Rats and mice are constantly battling for top position.

Mike:

Okay. Mike, you mentioned that you’ve taken out hundreds of wasp nests over the years, and I’m sure you’ve seen a lot of gnarly stuff. What’s the craziest call you’ve ever been out? What’s the weirdest, craziest thing you’ve seen?

Mike Londry:

Oh, there’s so many crazy things. Now, it wasn’t actually a call that I did, but one of our technicians, a couple of years, ago was going to inspect somebody’s attic for rats. When he opened up the hatch to the attic, there was a wasp nest right in front of him. This was in the summer. Now, it wasn’t just any wasp nest. It was about two and a half to three feet high and about five feet in length. It was the size of a small black bear.

Mike Londry:

He was crazy enough to use a piece of wood and gently poke it to see whether or not it was active. Fortunately, it was a dormant nest, but it definitely scared him. We got a picture of it, and it went up a couple of years ago on our Facebook page and there was a lot of wild faced emojis below that one. But Conrad did survive to tell the story.

Mike:

Oh man, you ever deal with raccoons in people’s attics and stuff?

Mike Londry:

Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mike:

What do they like to get rid of? Is that an easy one?

Mike Londry:

No, they’re evil.

Mike:

Oh really?

Mike Londry:

Yeah, absolutely. They’re, without a doubt, the most vicious of all the pests that we deal with. A lot of people would probably say they’d prefer a skunk over a raccoon every day. I would prefer a skunk before a raccoon any day of the week.

Mike:

All right. Welcome back. My guest is Mike Londry. He is the owner of West Side Pest Control. Yeah, we’re talking pest control. So if you have a comment or question, phone me right now. 604-280-9898, star 9898 on your cell.

Mike:

Kim in New West, hi ya, Kim.

Kim:

Hi. I have been battling Pharaoh ants for a number of months, and the extra additional problem I have is I have a cat. So I can’t use regular pesticides.

Mike:

Pharaoh ants, Mike.

Mike Londry:

Sure. Kim, are you in a multi residential building or is it-

Kim:

Yes.

Mike Londry:

You are. Has there been other units, do you know, that have been infested as well?

Kim:

Yeah.

Mike Londry:

Yep. Yeah. Pharaoh ants are a huge… can be a huge problem because they’re a very smart insect. As soon as they start to suspect that someone is trying to exterminate them, they go into reproductive overdrive and their colonies spread. It’s called budding. So it’s everyone’s knee-jerk reaction when they see insects to put out strong bait or to spray them with a can of Raid. That’s actually counterproductive in terms of eliminating them, and it can be very tricky to get every person in one building on board and educated.

Mike Londry:

So when it comes to Pharaoh ants, you want to be using a bait that’s a very low toxicity. So almost anything that you can purchase domestically is actually going to be the right concentration. I would even go as far as to purchase a liquid bait and dilute it 50% with any kind of juice or water. It’s probably going to be a [brait-based 00:08:36] bait. When it’s that diluted, your cat would have to consume gallons of it for it to have as much as a stomach ache. So I wouldn’t be too concerned on that front.

Mike Londry:

If you are, though, you can purchase bait stations. So if the bait can go in some kind of an enclosed station, that would be great. Straws are good. Try using a drinking straw, put the bait inside of that.

Mike:

Okay. Kim, good luck with that. We have a ton of calls here. Lynn in [Burnaby 00:09:11]. Hey, Lynn.

Lynn:

Yeah. Hi, Mike and Mike. I think I’ve got mice in my heating ducts, and I think they’re getting inside the house. I get a funny smell like [inaudible 00:09:22] during the day. I’m wondering, do they get into the heating ducts?

Mike:

Mike?

Mike Londry:

They can, but typically, they don’t. What they typically do is actually reside on top of the ducts. Often mice are mistaken for rats. So the ducts are usually like a fully closed network. So they’ll follow the pathway that the ducts are going on, but actually be on top of them.

Lynn:

Yeah. Yeah. Why are they getting-

Mike Londry:

If they’ve been nesting there long enough, then the smell of where they’re nesting and doing all their business right on top of the ducts when they come on will come through the ducts themselves. So the trick is going to be doing a thorough outside inspection on the building and determining where they’re coming in and installing a one-way door, would be the best thing. You might need a company like us to do that, and getting them out permanently.

Lynn:

All right. Should I buy some traps? Can I use Warfarin?

Mike Londry:

I wouldn’t suggest using any poisons, such as Warfarin, inside the house just because there’s a misconception that poisons will often [crosstalk 00:10:35]-

Lynn:

Yeah. No. My one more quick question, is that why I’m getting a smell coming up through the register?

Mike Londry:

If you’re using Warfarin now, you might be killing them off, and might actually be getting the smell of the deceased rodents.

Lynn:

No, no, I’m not using Warfarin.

Mike Londry:

Warfarin and other poisons are thought to make rodents thirsty and send them outside. That does sometimes happen, but more often than not, when a rodent is poisoned, it’s tired, it doesn’t feel well, it wants to go home and rest. If that place of rest is normally inside your house, that’s where they’re likely to die, and then the smell will follow.

Mike:

Okay, Lynn, you’d better call West Side Pest Control. That’s my advice to you. Sandra in Vancouver. Hi, Sandra.

Sandra:

Hi, you guys.

Mike:

Hi.

Sandra:

I have a problem with so many spiders. My basement looks like the Matrix when the sun shines on it, and I have a brand new grandchild, so I don’t want to… and a large parameter of the house, and I’m wondering what I can do?

Mike:

Kind of spiders are they? Are they big ones?

Sandra:

No.

Mike:

Okay.

Sandra:

I almost never see the spiders. I only ever see their webs.

Mike:

Okay. Mike?

Mike Londry:

Great. Yeah. So, if you’ve got a grandchild, and I’m guessing you’re concerned and sensitive about using insecticides to treat them, I would go about it the old fashioned way by just literally using a feather duster and keeping the webs down. That’s going to keep the spiders down. Another thing that you can purchase from hardware stores that are great at catching insects are glue traps. Those can be placed underneath couches and different types of furniture.

Mike Londry:

Many years ago, because I’m an advocate of not using insecticides if you don’t have to, my wife was petrified of spiders. We lived in a basement suite that had tons of them, and I put tons of these glue traps out. Every six months I would tell her that I was going to apply a product. I would literally just put the glue traps out. We went out for dinner, went to a movie, and nobody was ever the wiser. The spider population went down quite a bit. So I would definitely try that first. If not, there’s definitely some safe, low toxicity options, and lots of different pest control companies can give you advice on that.

Mike:

Okay. Sandra, good luck with that. Mike, we got more calls, but sadly we’re out of time. So what we’ll have to do is we’ll just have to have you back on. Okay? But thank you for coming on today.

Mike Londry:

[crosstalk 00:13:00] You bet. Thank you, Mike.