RI, MA EHS Pest Control Blog

Here are some truths about Termites:

• Termites have been around since the time of the dinosaurs!
• Termite colonies eat non-stop, 24 hours a day, seven days a week!
• Termites have wings that they shed once they have found a good place to build a nest.
• Termites cause up to $2 billion in damage per year!
• All Termites are social insects and raise their young as a group.
• The total weight of all of the termites in the world is more than the weight of all the humans in the world.
• Termites feed on each other's feces.
• Termites lived 130 million years ago, and descended from a cockroach-like ancestor.
• Termite workers and soldiers are almost always blind.
• When termite soldiers detect a threat, they tap warning signals to the colony.
• Termites actually digest cellulose with the help of microorganisms in their guts.

George Williams,
General Manager - Staff Entomologist

Pest Control, RI, Pest Control, MA

Awesome roach photo courtesy of www.alexanderwild.com 

George Williams,
General Manager - Staff Entomologist

Pest Control, RI, Pest Control, MA 

We saw some big roaches in the basement... ya think! The good old American Cockroach (Americana blatanica) and he is VERY common in major cities. The older the building the better chance you have of seeing this guy. The are BIG roaches! Many people call them the water bug or palmetto bug.

(click image to enlarge)

Despite their pronounced wings they are not great flyers, they sort of flutter for short distances. They inundate city sewer, septic, steam, etc. pipes and get into buildings this way. In really urban sections they walk the streets on hot and humid days having come out of the underground street pipes. You can treat and suppress their activity but the real solution in those inaccessible pipes.

George Williams,
General Manager - Staff Entomologist

Pest Control, RI, Pest Control, MA 

Why Cockroaches Need their Friends

The much maligned cockroach is more sophisticated, and social, than we thought, according to new research.

They hide away, unseen, lurking in dark corners and crevices.

When they emerge, they aimlessly scurry and swarm, often around our houses, kitchens and supposedly dirty hotels and restaurants.

We end up despising them for their natural behaviour, seeing them as nothing more than pests to be avoided, exterminated even.

But cockroaches have in many ways been given a raw deal.

Scientists are discovering that these supposedly crude, and creepy automatons are much more sophisticated than we thought.

By unveiling the secret lives of these insects, they are finding out that cockroaches are actually highly social creatures; they recognise members of their own families, with different generations of the same families living together.

Cockroaches do not like to be left alone, and suffer ill health when they are.

And they form closely bonded, egalitarian societies, based on social structures and rules. Communities of cockroaches are even capable of making collective decisions for the greater good.

By studying certain species of cockroach, we may even be able to learn some insights into how more advanced animal societies evolved, including our own.

Living Among Us

A small proportion of insect species are renowned for their social skills.

Ants, termites and some bees and wasps, for example, are "eusocial insects", which have highly developed social structures and behaviours.

But while cockroaches were known to be gregarious, based on their tendency to live in groups at various stages in their lives, we understood little about how they actually behave around each other.

Cockroaches that do not hang out with one another suffer "isolation syndromes". For example, young German and American cockroaches left alone take longer to moult into new larger forms and eventually become adults.

Their later behaviour is also severely affected; young isolated cockroaches find it harder to join a community and mate later in life.

Young cockroaches, it seems, need to be around and in constant physical contact with one another to properly develop.

George Williams,
General Manager - Staff Entomologist

Pest Control, RI, Pest Control, MA 

Cockroach Found in Banana Pack from Coventry Supermarket

A SHOCKED dad got more than he bargained for in his weekly shop when a tropical cockroach jumped out of a bag of bananas.

Nik Holmes says he ‘‘jumped out of his skin” after spotting the unwelcome visitor in the bag of fruit bought from Asda in Walsgrave, Coventry.

While he was unpacking his shopping at home in Woodroffe Walk, Longford, he opened the sealed bag and the cockroach jumped out and scurried along the kitchen surface.

It took Nik minutes to catch the cockroach which was hiding behind his coffee machine.

His 10-year-old son Charlie had chosen the fruit while during shopping on Thursday.

Nik, a warehouse worker, said: “I did the food shopping as normal. My Charlie picked up the bunch of bananas.

“We went home and I opened up the bag to put them on our banana hook and this cockroach came flying out the bag. I’m not usually scared but I jumped out of my skin.

“The cockroach was trying to make a run for it. I tried for a minute or two to catch it. I put it in a glass jar at first but wanted something to seal it in and found a plastic tub.

“When I told my son he freaked out. He was petrified – he didn’t want to see it or go anywhere near it. I don’t think he will be coming shopping with me again after that.

“I’m quite concerned about it – we still don’t know if it could have harmed us. It could have been something poisonous – the cockroach obviously stayed well hidden.

“I’m just glad my son didn’t open the bag. He wanted to help me with the shopping. It would have been even worse – I know it would have had a lasting impact on him. He would usually be in school but it was closed because of the polling.”

There are about 4,000 species of cockroaches, the most common are found in tropical and sub-tropical climates. They can often survive in extreme conditions more that other pests because they are adaptable but prefer warm environments. They can be carriers of bacteria and cause food poisoning in humans by contaminating food.

Some can live up to three months without food or water and air for 45 minutes. They can even tolerate high doses of radiation.

Nik took the bananas back to the supermarket and he was given a £1.35 refund.

A spokeswoman for Asda said: “We will be investigating how the cockroach made its way into the banana pack. It is something we take very seriously.”

George Williams,
General Manager - Staff Entomologist

Pest Control, RI, Pest Control, MA 

Cockroaches Make for Bad Neighbors

She wants out of her lease because of pesky insects that are taking over apartment.

"Sometimes we see them walking across the floor,” says Peggy Bublitz. “They come through the stove while we're cooking.”

She says cockroaches have taken over her Taylorsville apartment.

“They come through the vents and it oozes with sticky stuff,” she says. “Horrendous.”

That's why Bublitz keeps the light on at night. She says it keeps the cockroaches at bay.

For several weeks, Bublitz claims she has been seeing cockroaches take over.

And when she asked for help, the property manager for the Calloway Apartments sent over a pesticide company.

“They've been doing that for weeks now,” she says.

But she says cockroaches are still around and now she wants out of her lease without penalties.

“It's no way to live and I've begged them to get out of lease,” Bublitz says.

But the apartment's attorney says the cockroaches were brought in by a neighbor and it's not the landlord's fault.

“It's not a pleasant thing sometimes that when you have bad neighbors that do bad things and all the landlord can do is take the best action they can to remedy the problem," says Kirk Cullimore.

So she's stuck. She now duct tapes the stove, the windows and vents to keep cockroaches out.

“So I am to understand that I am going to have to live her for the duration of my lease sleeping with the roaches,” she says.

Cullimore says they can’t let her out of her lease because it’s about economics. He says if they let one tenant who complains they’d have to do it for the next person.

“They’d be bankrupt,” says Cullimore.

George Williams,
General Manager - Staff Entomologist

Pest Control, RI, Pest Control, MA 

Chocolate Allergies Linked to Cockroach Parts

Most people who are allergic to chocolate aren't having a reaction to cocoa or any of chocolate's other official ingredients. No, the flare ups are most likely triggered by the ground-up cockroach parts that contaminate every batch.

According to ABC News, the average chocolate bar contains eight insect parts. Anything less than 60 insect pieces per 100 grams of chocolate (two chocolate bars' worth) is deemed safe for consumption by the Food and Drug Administration.

Allergists say most foods contain natural contaminants. Aside from chocolate, cockroach parts also make their way into peanut butter, macaroni, fruit, cheese, popcorn and wheat. The roach bits can affect people with asthma, as well causing migraines, cramps, itching or hives in people who are allergic to them.

The first cockroach allergy was reported in 1943, and skin testing for cockroaches began in 1959. Cockroach allergies can be treated with allergy shots that contain trace amounts of the insect. [Could Edible Bugs Solve World Hunger?]

According to Morton Teich, an allergist at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, contamination by cockroaches and their droppings is unavoidable, because it happens at cocoa beans' source — the farms where they are produced. Preventing them from infiltrating the harvest would require the use of more pesticides, which Teich says are much worse for you than consuming a few extra bug parts.

Avoiding insects in your food is "almost impossible," Teich told ABC. "You probably would have to stop eating completely."

George Williams,
General Manager - Staff Entomologist

Pest Control, RI, Pest Control, MA 

Comcast Cable Box Comes With Cockroach Surprise - As Company is Sued For Very 'Buggy' Gear

Comcast is under fire in Illinois for installing buggy hardware -- literally. An Illinois resident says the company installed a set top box that came with a free cockroach infestation, and once installed resulted in the bugs "pouring out" into his home. When the user went to complain about the used device and his new friends, Comcast took several days to address the problem, the user going so far as to bring a bag of dead roaches into the Comcast office. While normally you'd think this was an isolated incident, Chicago's being sued by nearly a dozen current and former employees who say they were forced to install the "buggy" gear:

The employees claim they would find cockroaches crawling in and out of equipment, and in their lockers, trucks and equipment bags. They also claim the South Side facility had rats, a leaky ceiling and birds that flew in and out of the warehouse. The employees claim they saw cockroach eggs fall out of cable boxes that were supposed to be installed in customers’ homes. When an employee complained, the supervisor said, “just put the box in — you’re in Englewood. They’ll only have cable for a month. They won’t pay bills,” the suit said.

While Comcast was busily installing bug-infested equipment in low-income Illinois homes, the company was making great political hay from a low-income broadband offer most users can't get. "Comcast adamantly denies the allegations and will vigorously defend itself in court," a Comcast spokesman insists.

George Williams,
General Manager - Staff Entomologist

Pest Control, RI, Pest Control, MA 

Biofuel Cells May Turn Cockroaches into Cyborgs

The sugars in a cockroach's belly have been harnessed by a fuel cell and converted into electricity, a big step toward turning insects into cyborgs, scientists are reporting.

Once miniaturized to the point that the fuel cells are non-invasive to the cockroaches, they can be implanted to power sensors or recording devices, for example.

A rechargeable battery inserted along with the so-called biofuel cell would store the trickle of energy it generates, explained Daniel Scherson, a chemist at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

"If you want to be futuristic, one may use the energy stored to try to control the neurological system of the cockroach and then you might be able to (control) the cockroach (with) a joystick," he told me.

Yes, in the future, that nasty cockroach scurrying across the kitchen floor might actually be a spy set loose by a nosy neighbor, or the CIA.

Sugar Fuel

The power supply for this fuel cell is food the cockroaches eat, avoiding the need for devices that harness electricity from movement, such as shoes that turn mechanical energy into electricity.

The fuel cell devised by Scherson's team uses a cascade of reactions by enzymes to convert energy stored as sugars into electricity.

The first enzyme breaks down the sugar trehalose, which cockroaches constantly produce from their food, into two simpler sugars.

A second enzyme oxidizes the simple sugars, releasing electrons that "can then be funneled together to electrodes where they are captured and delivered to oxygen," Scherson explained.

The team first tested the system on trehalose solutions, then inserted prototype electrodes into the belly of a female cockroach. It worked.

The biofuel cell produced a trickle of electricity — 0.2 volts. Full details on the system are published online in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Intermittent Tasks

Since the researchers don't want to load down a bug with a heavy fuel cell and impair its ability to move, they envision storing the energy up in a battery, then using that energy to perform tasks such as power sensors.

One potential application is to equip social insects such as bees or ants with sensors tuned to detect a dangerous chemical and send them out to the environment.

Periodically, the sensor would turn on and broadcast its finding, shutting down between broadcasts to allow the battery time to recharge.

Operating at 0.2 volts is enough power to send a message a few inches, according to Scherson, far enough that a message could be sent down a line of ants spying on a top-secret meeting in a park.

To get there, the researchers need to shrink their fuel cells so they can be fully implanted, find long-lasting materials to make them with so they don't breakdown inside the bugs' bodies, and build the signal transmitters.

All of this is in the realm of possibility, noted Scherson.

"People do wonderful things with circuitry."

George Williams,
General Manager - Staff Entomologist

Pest Control, RI, Pest Control, MA 

Cockroaches, Bed Bugs, Mold Spark $10M Lawsuit

A civil lawsuit alleging long-term substandard living conditions against the owner of the Cordova Estates apartments in Rancho Cordova is seeking $10 million in damages for 97 tenants.

"It's horrific. It's disgusting. I can't describe it. I was without heat for three years," said tenant Jessica Munoz, the named plaintiff in the lawsuit.

The lawsuit, filed this month, alleges that the property owner, Juvenal Campos, did not fulfill his duty to maintain habitable apartments for tenants paying $525 to $725 per month in rent.

A prepared statement sent by "the owners" of the property stated that they are trying to address issues in those apartments.

"We are disappointed by the filing of this lawsuit," read the statement which was signed "the owners".

Meanwhile, Rancho Cordova code inspectors stress Campos is facing a string of code violations based on a recent walk-through of the apartment complex.

"He is facing roughly 150 violations ... He could face fines in the hundreds of thousands of dollars if we continue to come out and things not be done," said Kerri Simpson, Rancho Cordova Code Enforcement officer.

City officials said they are working the property owner to fix the owner. However, Simpson said previous agreements to fix problems in the past failed.

George Williams,
General Manager - Staff Entomologist

Pest Control, RI, Pest Control, MA