Happy Valentines Day (Photo credit: outdoorPDK)

Ah, Valentine’s Day… A day of love… A day of romance.

A day of cockroaches?

This week loving couples across the country are making romantic plans in anticipation for the big day. Reservations are being made at the finest restaurants. Bouquets of beautiful red roses and boxes of expensive chocolates will be at a premium as couples pull out all the stops to show that special someone just how much they are loved.

Getting “Unlucky” On Valentine’s Day

After a romantic Valentine’s Day dinner, you head home with that special someone. Upon arrival, you have Barry White softly playing in the background. You blindfold your date. She is guided upstairs through a trail of rose petals that lead to a candlelit bubble bath. As you remove her blindfold, any chances of getting “lucky” this Valentine’s Day are suddenly vanquished.

See for yourself:

A Roach Is Not A Love Bug

An ill-timed visit from a cockroach can turn an intimate Valentine’s date into a nightmare, complete with screaming and attempts to flee.  The sight of a roach can induce a primitive reaction of disgust, nausea, and even vomiting with your date; sucking out all the day’s romance and ensuring your previous gestures are overlooked.

Your only chance to save the evening is to play the hero and squash that disgusting cockroach under your shoe, and promise your lovely lady that you will sign up for Bulwark’s Roach Control so this doesn’t happen again next year.

More Evidence Valentine’s Day Roaches Are A Bad Idea

Valentine’s Day cockroaches are a bad idea, especially when handed to a woman in a red heart-shaped box that looks like a it should be filled with chocolates.  It really isn’t a pretty site.

Guy Pranks His Girlfriend With A Box of Cockroaches!

Guy Gives Girlfriend Box Full of Cockroaches on Valentine’s Day

Happy Valentine’s Day

All of us bug guys here at Blog Pest Control and Bulwark Exterminating would like to wish you all a Happy Valentine’s Day. May your day be filled with love and romance; and may it be cockroach free!
 

Related articles

• Say ‘I Love You’ By Naming A Cockroach For Your Valentine
• Do you have anything special planned for Valentine’s Day by Marian Lanouette
• Valentine’s Day Love is in the Air
• Friday Favorites: Valentine’s Day
• Snuggle With A Book Blind Date This Valentine’s Day

Anthony Ball

Pest Of The Week: The Fruit Fly

Fruit fly (Photo credit: John Tann)

Fruit flies are part of a diverse, cosmopolitan family of flies.

The Fruit fly has a very short lifespan, and shows gradual signs of maturing. As in other species of flies, temperature plays an important role in influencing the lifespan, of this pest.

Generally considered a simple nuisance, some Fruit flies destroy figs, raspberries and cherries, and are designated a serious agricultural pest; and pest control problem.

Links Round-Up: January 4, 2012

The Most Popular 2012 Pest Control Blog Posts From FMC Pest Wire 

http://www.fmcpestwire.com/2013/01/the-most-popular-2012-pest-control-blog-posts-from-fmc-pest-wire/  

How To Pack Your Christmas Decorations So As To Deter Pests

http://allamericanpestcontrol.com/how-to-pack-your-christmas-decorations-so-as-to-deter-pests/  

Top 10 Reasons to use Macy’s in 2013! 

http://www.macyspestcontrol.com/blog/top-10-reasons-to-use-macys-in-2013/ 

Pest Control Services: Do Bug Bombs Work?

http://www.resteasypestcontrol.com/blog/bid/255472/Pest-Control-Services-Do-Bug-Bombs-Work  

Pest Control: Maybe Roaches Aren’t So Bad?

http://www.pinnaclepestcontrol.com/grand-rapids-pest-control/pest-control-maybe-roaches-arent-so-bad/  

Birds May Use Cigarette Butts to Repel Pests

http://ehspest.com/_blog/RI,_MA_EHS_Pest_Control_Blog/post/Birds_May_Use_Cigarette_Butts_to_Repel_Pests/  

Pest Control Tip: Bee Awareness 

http://www.completelawn.net/pittsburgh-pest/pest-control-tip-bee-awareness/

Related articles

• Farmers tackle pests with colas
• Happy New Year From Blog Pest Control
• Pest control company nearly done with relocation to Nevada
• News Release: EPA Takes Action against Companies that Sell and Import Illegal Pesticides

Anthony Ball

Yes. The cockroach can jump… well at lest the Leaproach can jump, and up to 50 times it’s own length!

But this unique roach is the only 1 of ~4000 known roach species that can jump. While a few roach cousins like the American Cockroach are equipped with wings and do fly, the Leaproach has no wings. The secret to the roach jumpers success lies in it’s knees, modified with rubber-band-like resilin. Other differences from most cockroach species are in the antennae and eyes. The antennae also have an additional fixation point to apparently help with navigation. The eye’s are more rounded, perhaps an aerodynamic feature, and larger, possibly helping in sight for better landing. Oh one more distinction of honor for this particular roach…

Leapingroach wins Award for New Species 2011

Leaproach Awarded Top 10 New Species of 2011

According to the local Phoenix school of Arizona State University, the Jumping Roach made the top 10 New Species list for 2011! Who would of ever thought that cockroach would win a popularity contest? Hats off the this modern bug who is setting a new precedents for roaches everywhere.

And if you need Phoenix Roach Control then try Bulwark Exterminating… Shameless I know.

Make it a great day!

Related articles

• Leaping Cockroach Gets Around on Spring-Loaded Knees (wired.com)
• Leaping cockroach jumps as high as a grasshopper (newscientist.com)
• Cockroach Infestation Takes Police Cruisers Off The Road (boston.cbslocal.com)

Transcript from Roach Control-How Roaches get in your sink:

“The roaches come in from out here; they shoot up underneath the J-rail, and start infesting inside the walls.”

“Roaches are thigmatropic, thigmatropic. You can say that however you want to say, thigmatropic, however you want to say it. I believe that’s the correct spelling, if it’s not, you know, who cares. But, this word right here means that they prefer to have pressure on three sides of their body at all times. It’s the way that they feel safe”.

“I’ll give you an example: Mammals, we use our vision to feel safe. If we put a blind fold over Riley’s head. And tell him to walk across, the freeway? He’s going to take that blind fold off before he walks across the freeway. He doesn’t feel safe. Well, most invertebrates like roaches, scorpions, crickets; they don’t feel safe unless they have pressure on three sides of their bodies, it’s how they’ve survived for so long. They stay in cracks and crevices. It’s different with mammals, we rely in vision. I tell you this because it’s not normal for the roaches to come out. They prefer to never come out. They would prefer never to see the homeowner. Just never, ever come out. They always want to stay; they don’t want to walk across that freeway with a blind fold on, okay? I’m trying to explain this.”

“But, it gets so crowded back there and so populous that they start coming out. They start to be forced out. They’re cannibalistic. They’ll eat each other. The weaker ones are going to flee. So, they won’t run out along this pipeline and hang out inside the cabinet, a lot of times, they’ll, they’ll, there’s a backing to the actual cabinetry. It’s not the sheetrock, in most cabinetry, there’s a backing. And it’s maybe just an eighth of an inch between the sheetrock and the backing of the cabinet, and that backing is a great location for roaches to hang out, between the cabinets and the wall itself. So, they’ll hang out in between there, and at night when it’s dark, they might run up around up onto the sink, looking for soap scum, looking for toothpaste, things like that, okay- Hair follicles off the, you know, off of a hair brush.”

“Every now and then, one falls into the sink at night and runs around, but cannot get out because the sides are too slick. Eventually, the sun starts coming up and he says I’ve got to get out of here, so he shoots down the drain and hangs out right by the water; he’s like cool, new place, going to inhabit this place, okay? He can’t get all the way down into the sewer because this is what’s called a P-trap right here, it’s always filled with water, that’s what the green represents. The water prevents gases from the sewer lines and pests like roaches and mice from coming up the drain.”

“These roaches will never come up the drain. And then Betsy comes in, in the morning time, turns on the water, she sees no roaches, right? And she turns on the water; the water comes out of the spicket, out of the spicket, into the drain and starts to flood this guy, so he comes running out and she thinks she thinks roaches are coming out of her drain. But, they’re not. The roaches are infested in her wall. One fell into her drain and was hiding there for her because he couldn’t get back out.

- Bulwark Exterminating Roach Control

A woman in a Phoenix neighborhood flagged me down one day while I was working.  She wanted to know about our company (how much we charge and what services we offer).  After talking with her for a couple of minutes I finally got out of her that she was unhappy with her current pest control company.  She said they are in and out in 5 minutes and do not listen to her when she asked them to do something.  I told her that we would offer her the best customer service and professionalism while also solving all her bug problems.  She agreed to give us a chance.

When I serviced her house I made sure that I understood all her needs.  I knew that she needed a company that showed her that we cared about her.  I spent little extra time inspecting her home for problem areas.  Her entire backyard is grass, so I knew that the moisture from the sprinklers probably attracts many bugs like cockroaches and crickets.  This is what I felt was where the problem was starting.  I made sure that I used our Bifen granules to treat her grass.  I told her to let us know how things went.  Every month since her initial service this past summer, she has been bug free and is very thankful for our help.

Jameson Hunter

Phoenix branch technician

We have had this particular customer for about 2 yrs and in the mean time she had a relative come and move in with her.  Her relative brought several boxes and along with them an infestation of German cockroaches.  But, since the tech never knew about these boxes we continued doing regular treatments until 2 months after the relative had moved in which was June.  At some point she needed to get some things out of one of the boxes and stirred the roaches to life. Since the boxes were stirred she was getting an influx of roaches into her home so she called us and we went out to do a roach treatment as a callback.  She called back 2 weeks later and she was then due for her regular service at this point so we treated for her regular service along with the interior for these same roaches.  This went on for 2 months and she now wanted a manager to go out to her house and get this situated. I told her that I would take care of this along with a tech to double team this problem.  Little did I know how bad this problem was. Although they did not make it upstairs their problem was still severe, but we did an intensive treatment and set up a follow up the very next Friday.  This time I took a different tech to show them how bad the situation was.  When we arrived the problem was still there but did see several dead roaches, so went at it another way with a full Nygaurd interior treatment.  Nygaurd is a product that we use that is labeled for roaches.  This is something that we have not tried in our office till this year so we set up another follow up and came back the following week and several more dead roaches were found. So at this point we proceeded to treat under her dishwasher and her stove to extend the barrier and set another follow up.  The last follow up she did not show so I baited the outside and left a note for her to call me.  When she called her statement to me was since she had not seen anymore roaches she did not think that she needed to be there.  We still went one more time to follow up and had not even seen any more dead roaches.  We still treat this customer to this day. In our last conversation she told me that she blames it on her relatives who no longer live with her but brought the roaches, and that she is for ever grateful that we are her pest control company.

Ben Montes
Austin Manager

I went to this house in the run down part of town to do an emergency service.  It seemed like the tenants have issues with their rental home.  All five of them sat outside the house with luggage bags in tow when I showed up.  Unfortunately none of them spoke English fluently.  In broken sentences and hand signals, I gather that they were just in the middle of moving in when they noticed that all is not well.  The husband who had been quiet all this time suddenly burst out and said, “The roaches built that!” pointing to the house.  So I proceeded to do the service and was just sort of shocked when I had done the first socket.  There were hundreds of little hair-like feelers waving back at me.  Not even wall plates to cover the plugs.  I was thinking this would be an easy job.  Gross as it was; I kept on going and dusted every outlet.  After I was done inside, I proceeded to spray the exterior of the house. As I rounded the bend that leads to the back, I noticed a shoe sized hole near the foundation.  I immediately sprayed it thinking this would be a good hiding spot.  I started hearing screaming coming from the people inside and turned my head to see what all the commotion was.  However, I wasn’t able to find that out because of the sudden rush of cockroaches that came pouring out of the hole.  I’m not kidding when I say the roaches came out like a wave of Black Death and covered the entire patio and back wall.  These things were even crawling over the doors and patio furniture.  The more I sprayed, the more the roaches came, and for each that was dying, there were twenty more flushing out of the hole.  I soon found out the interior was no better.  By the time I finished the service, the tenants had left, but the office had called me with a message from the landlord. He lost the renters but will keep our service.  Seems like the last tenants were complaining about roaches too!

By: Oliver Gomez

Las Vegas, NV

Sometimes being in the service industry, service men and women might be asked to go beyond the normal realms of a normal job.  I like to joke about the fact that we are not the electric company and we have to actually strive to keep our customers happy.  Our customers have other options that they could leave us for.

So, one day I had a route that seemed to be a little demanding.  What I mean is that there was a lot of driving.  Sometimes this happens because we cannot control when our customers get pest problems and where they live.  Well, when it rains it pours.

By 2 PM I was calling my 5:00 service and letting them know it would be closer to 7 PM.  They were ok with this.  I also called my 6:00 service telling them it would be closer to 8:30 or so.  Well, if you have ever driven through Austin, TX in Friday rush hour, you know where you have been and you know how slow you were going.  After calling my 5:00 service for the 3^rd time, I let them know it would be closer to 9:30.  I honestly thought the customer would want to reschedule for another day and I was a little worried that the customer would be upset with me.  To my surprise, the customer said, “we will be here”.  I was happy to do the service late at night just for the simple fact that I was worried the customer would be upset for me falling so far behind.  On top of that, I called my 6:00 service for the 5^th time and told her that it would be closer to 11 PM.  To my amazement, she was good to go.  My 5:00 service that I was finishing up with around 10:30 was walking around his house with me while I did the treatment and he held the flashlight.  He was happy, I was happy.

Could it rain and pour some more?  By this time the rush hour was over so that was a relief, but that is when the roadwork started and I35 was shut down!  I called my 6:00 service for the 6^th time and said, I am sitting still on I35 so I don’t know when I will get there.  She said, “I am just up doing laundry, so don’t worry, I will be here and I will be up”.  I showed up at her house at 1 AM!  She was happy to see me as she had a horrible problem with some very large roaches.  She had just moved into and older house in a college neighborhood.  I think I got some pretty good advertisement as there was a very loud party happening next door!  They did not expect to see the bug guy!  I finished her house at 2 AM and somehow I was on time to my first house the next day.

The moral of the story?  If you have a pest control technician show up at your home on a Saturday morning and that technician is dragging his feet, has blood shot eyes, and might be slurring a little bit, it does not necessarily mean he was out parting the night before.

- George Bryant

San Antonio, TX