RI, MA EHS Pest Control Blog

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 

Cockroaches: A Plague for Restaurants

You know them when you see them.

The ribbed, icky brown shell encasing the inch-long body. The six sticky legs. The small black head sporting two long antennae.

They are cockroaches — and chances are, they will find their way into a restaurant sooner or later.

“The situation with roaches in restaurants is that it’s not so much a constant battle as fighting every now and then,” said Joseph Davidson, district manager of Topeka-based Schendel Pest Service. “But it’s not a matter of if. It’s always a matter of when. Nobody is immune to having pests.”

Not everyone considers that to be the case, and only about 3 percent of restaurants in Shawnee County have had a roach problem in the past year, according to inspections by the Kansas Department of Agriculture. But it is a battle restaurants fight on a daily basis, because once cockroaches are present, they can be difficult to eradicate.

“It’s horrible,” Rick Garner, co-owner of Sweet Pea’s, said of the restaurant’s 17-month fight to remove cockroaches from the 85-year-old building at 1306 S. Kansas Ave. “Once they’ve gotten established, it’s something you’ve got to do constantly. You’ll never get completely rid of them. It’s almost impossible.”

THE ISSUE

At least 24 restaurants have had roach problems in the past 13 months, according to KDA inspections from Jan. 31, 2011, through Feb. 3 of this year. Eight of the restaurants — including Bobo’s Drive In, 2300 S.W. 10th Ave., Sweet Pea’s and Sakura Restaurant of Japan, 5632 S.W. 29th St. — have had roaches on more than one inspection in that time.

Bobo's had about 20 live roaches and 22 dead roaches on site during its latest inspection on Jan. 3. Owner Richard Marsh said battling the critters is a "continuous process."

"It's something we never rest at," he said, adding that Schendel comes once, sometimes twice, a month to treat and inspect the diner. "It's not an unsafe place to eat. We follow the rules and definitely take the proper steps."

Having roaches on site, dead or alive, is considered a critical violation by the KDA because the insects are vectors for disease. Roaches have been linked to the spread of such diseases as dysentery, gastroenteritis, cholera and hepatitis B. They also can carry salmonella, E coli, and other bacteria and pathogens that cause human illness.

Although each critical violation — infractions more likely to cause food-borne illness — is serious, repeat offenses are fined differently. Live roaches on site carry the heaviest fine — of $500 — on the third consecutive offense. The fourth offense results in a two-day suspension.

Pest control services have an arsenal of treatments for the vermin, ranging from growth inhibitors, which block roaches from reaching maturity, to sticky traps and bug bombs. Most restaurants have pest services out once a month, Davidson said, but without the restaurants’ help, those inspections can only go so far.

“If pests are gone, but the manager or owner doesn’t fix any conditions, it’s easier for pests to return and re-establish,” he said.

Depending on the level of cooperation from the restaurant and size of infestation, he said, roaches can take anywhere from one to three months to eradicate.

Restaurants can do their part, he said, by keeping a clean environment and maintaining a sound building. That means fixing chips in tiles and holes in walls because they can serve as points of entry, as well as hiding spots for food.

Davidson said finding cockroaches in restaurants is fairly common for Schendel employees, who service more than 800 restaurants in six states. One reason for that, he said, is because pests enter facilities through several sources, whether it is on foot, on a customer or in a produce shipment.

But the main culprit behind cockroaches encroaching on restaurants, he said, is us.

"Pests want three things: food, water and shelter," Davidson said. "We provide them all three with our own existence."

Although Davidson insists cockroaches are an inevitability for restaurants, not everyone buys into the theory.

“I have been an inspector in field, and I guarantee you that is not true,” Nicole Hamm, KDA inspection manager, said of claims that every restaurant has cockroaches.

THE FIGHT

Sweet Pea’s has been battling roaches since it moved into 1306 S. Kansas Ave. in June 2010, Garner said. It and Sakura each have had four inspections in the past 13 months with roaches — the most of any in Shawnee County.

Calls to Sakura weren’t returned.

Garner, co-owner of Sweet Pea's, blamed the aging building, inherited conditions from the previous owner and a lousy pest company — which the restaurant replaced in the fall — for the restaurant's continued roach problems.

On its most recent inspection — Jan. 31 — the restaurant had about 40 dead cockroaches. Most were found in the basement and downstairs dining room, which seats people once every other month, Garner said. As of Friday, it hadn’t had a follow-up inspection.

The restaurant hasn’t seen a live cockroach in almost three weeks, he said, and has the roach problem “under control.” Its new pest control company comes out once a month, he said.

Although having pests in restaurants is inevitable, Davidson said, that fact shouldn’t scare people from dining out.

“It’s there,” he said of the cockroach problem, “and we’re still here. We’re still alive. Almost all restaurants around will be very diligent in trying to keep something like that out of their restaurant to keep their food safe."

His advice: Judge a restaurant by what you can see.

“If it’s dirty out where you sit and eat, the kitchen probably isn’t better,” he said.

And that is exactly what the proprietors of Sweet Pea’s want patrons to do.

“We keep this place as clean as any restaurant in town,” Garner said.

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 

AirTran Sued Over Cockroaches on Flight

You've heard of snakes on a plane, now here come bugs on a plane.

A North Carolina couple is suing AirTran Airways, alleging that cockroaches crawled out of air vents and overhead carry-on bins during a flight from Charlotte to Houston in September.

Attorney Harry Marsh and his fiancé Kaitlin Rush say the insects appeared soon after takeoff, and when Marsh pointed them out to flight attendants, they did nothing to help.

"These roaches and other pests caused great distress to a number of passengers throughout the flight," the complaint states.

All paying guests of the airline are entitled to "clean, pest-free" accommodations, it goes to to say.

The couple accuses AirTran of negligence and recklessness, infliction of emotional distress, nuisance, false imprisonment and unfair and deceptive trade practices, and is suing for more than $100,000 plus the price of their tickets.

In a response to the complaint filed with the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina, AirTran denies most of the allegations.

CNN legal analyst Sunny Hostin predicted the case would never go to trial.

"This is a case that's going to settle. Bottom line, I foresee a lot of free flights for this couple if they want to get back on AirTran," Hostin said.

"It's certainly not a pretty picture. The roaches were out long enough for them to take video and photographs, so that's exhibit A."

Source: CNN.com

George Williams,
General Manager - Staff Entomologist

Pest Control, RI, Pest Control, MA

Plague of Cockroaches Leaves Scientists Baffled

Cockroaches have returned to Moscow while experts were guessing why – and where – the unwanted guests had apparently disappeared.

Residents of Mal. Gruzinskaya Ulitsa were the first to witness thousands of cockroaches that suddenly appeared in the central area.

“The floor is just covered with them, we’ve got tired of sweeping it!” local flat owner Larisa told Vesti-Moskva TV-channel. “Most of them are on windowsills, look – those guys are just hanging out!”

Mystery invasion

The reasons for the cockroach invasion are unclear, and experts say they did expect to see them again after a sudden disappearance but didn’t think it was going to happen overnight.

Professor Dmitry Mukha, the head of the laboratory for biological diversity, thought cockroaches would get used to the latest pesticides in five years time, he told Komsomolskaya Pravda just before the invasion.

“When they develop tolerance to these chemicals, a second wave will appear then,” he said, adding that his laboratory is currently working on the new remedy.

However, cockroaches decided to come back before the arrival of a new pesticide that would help humans win the war “for a long time, if not forever”, as the professor hoped.

Endangered cockroaches?

The sudden plague comes after a sharp drop in cockroach numbers, which had led some biologists to propose adding the pests to the list of endangered species.

“Although they are parasites, every species bears a unique gene pool,” Alexandr Logunov, acclaimed ecologist and one of the creators of Russia’s Red Book, told KP.

His “natural modesty” and “people’s dislike” of the most widespread German cockroaches didn’t let him nominate this breed for the list, he said, but soon he was going to do so.

As an endangered species, cockroaches would be protected from angry residents – but for now at least there is no restriction on how to control them.

Hardy Germans

However, there seems to have been some ethnic cleansing going on among the cockroach ranks.

Only German cockroaches, who were first brought here by Russian soldiers returning to the motherland after the war with Prussia in the middle of the 18th century, have came back now.

And their oriental brothers – who appeared long before during the Mongol invasion – are still very rare – and not only due to some unknown Chinese pesticide that was widely sold in the end of the 90s.

Mukha believes that the superefficient chemical has nearly eradicated all breeds of cockroaches in Moscow, and Loginov added that the Oriental cockroaches are more vulnerable in general.

Unlike German cockroaches, female oriental cockroaches don’t carry their eggs on them, the biologist said.

“And of course, in premises where both breeds lived, German cockroaches would certainly eat any eggs they found from their neighbors,” he explained.

Source = moscownews.com

George Williams
General Manager - Staff Entomologist

Pest Control, RI, Pest Control, MA

• The world's largest roach (in South America) is six inches long with a one-foot wingspan.
• Crushed cockroaches can be applied to a stinging wound to help relieve the pain.
• There are estimated to be 4,000 - 5,000 species of cockroaches in the world. Of these, only 25 to 30 are considered pests.
• All U.S. pest roaches, like most American humans--were immigrants.
• Cockroaches bleed white blood.
• Roaches use their feelers (antenna) as noses.
• Cockroaches have six hairy legs. The tiny hairs found on each leg give them their sense of touch.
• Roaches have faster reflexes than humans.
• It's hard to sneak up on a roach. They have one great big nerve connecting their tails to their heads, alerting them to danger from behind.

George Williams,
General Manager - Staff Entomologist

Pest Control, RI, Pest Control, MA

• Cockroaches love the glue on envelopes, the glue bindings at the backs of books and the glue on the back of postage stamps. It’s a food source!
• A cockroach can hold it's breath for up to 40 minutes.
• Some female cockroaches mate once and are pregnant for the rest of their lives
• Cockroaches rest for approximately 75% of each day.
• Young cockroaches only need a crack about 0.5mm wide to crawl into your house. Adult males can squeeze into a space of 1.6mm.
• Cockroach can live for up to a month, without its head.
• Most species come from tropical countries and therefore need to be kept at a minimum of 25 degrees centigrade to survive.
• Cockroaches can run up to 3km/hr (0.8 m/s).

Pest Control, RI, Pest Control, MA