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Join Michael as he interviews Dr. Beau Beard, one of the founders of The Farm! The Farm, which stands for “Functional Athletic Rehabilitation & Movement,” is a facility located in the Birmingham/Chelsea, Alabama area that specializes in chiropractic care, rehabilitation, performance training, and functional medicine! Podcast Transcript: Michael Wienecke Hey and welcome to the Peskies Pest Control Podcast today. I have got Dr. Beau beard with me. He owns The Farm chiropractic business in Birmingham, Alabama, and also Chelsea, Alabama. Beau, how you doing today? Dr. Beau Beard Doing pretty good. Hope my voice holds out here, so we’ll see. Michael Wienecke Hey, all good. You sound great on, you know, on camera and all that. So both tell us a little bit about your business. Let’s just kind of, you know, go into why you started all that fun stuff. Dr. Beau Beard Yeah. So we’re, again, we’re a chiropractic and rehab center. So it’s called The Farm, functional athletic rehabilitation and movement, which can be a mouthful. So just go by the farm. But it’s myself and my wife, Doctor Sloan, who started the practice back in 2014 and like I said, it’s a mix of chiropractic. So people tend tend to think chiropractic is just coming, get your back adjusted or popped and see you later. But we both have a masters in sports rehab. We have a lot of other, you know, fancy certifications nobody want to hear about. But what that allows us to do is kind of look at your whole health from, you know, global standpoint, yeah, we have a musculoskeletal focus, but our tagline is better than before. So the goal is, you don’t just come in and, you know, get your back pain taken care of. We’re looking at how you move, how you eat, how you train, kind of, the things you do throughout your life, and really try to get you to move better than before. So we don’t see you for the same thing in our office, hopefully, again, Michael Wienecke That’s great. Yeah, I know as a firefighter, you know former firefighter, mobility is everything. Strength is everything, because you just as we age, we start to fall apart. Dr. Beau Beard It’s a natural part of life. And I did a talk this morning to a bunch of firefighters, and we were talking on the importance of not waiting for injuries to show up, but hopefully getting yourself moving better and maybe a little more often so they don’t show up at all. That would be the real goal, which is kind of a bad business model, but that’s, you know, that’s what we want our patients to work towards and strive for. Michael Wienecke Yeah, I would 100% agree. I mean, the food is almost 100% if you’d agree. Dr. Beau Beard Yeah, it’s, you know, the funny thing is, people come to us, obviously, for, you know, an ankle sprain, low back pain, a headache, jaw pain, and, you know, within a couple visits, we’re talking to all these people about, yeah, how you sleep? How do you eat? Are you exercise, not enough or too much? Should you try something different? And, you know, all the fun stuff in between. But yeah, we’re really trying to take care of your whole health to our best ability, and also just be be a part of your healthcare team, you know, which is maybe a lost art nowadays. So we’re trying to bring that back. Michael Wienecke I would agree. I think, I think health in general is a lost art. Dr. Beau Beard We can have a long conversation on that. But yeah, like I said, you know, if somebody comes to me, and let’s say it’s because of their knee pain, and I think that maybe one of the more important aspects to not only help their knee pain, but for their health, is to, you know, decrease inflammation, lose some weight, you know, we kind of say, give them what they want, but keep them around for what they need. So we want them to be on knee pain, but I also want them to be a healthy individual that doesn’t need pain anymore. So we’re to pay anymore. So we’re gonna have those hard conversations that, you know, maybe I don’t have a treatment or a tool specifically for that, but I can help you walk, walking down that path. Michael Wienecke No, that’s awesome. That’s awesome. So what got you into business, you know, let’s just talk about what made you want to start and go out on your own and take that leap of faith, if you will. Dr. Beau Beard Yeah, so going way back, since I’m old now, when I was nine years old, I fractured my femur playing kind of pick up football. I still, to this day, have a titanium rod my left femur. And on the back end of that surgery, I just, you know, I was from small town in central Illinois, didn’t have the greatest, you know, post op rehab program, which meant none, and they basically, I guess, thought I was a kid and you’re going to be fine, you’re resilient. And everything wasn’t perfect, especially when I got into sports. So some things kind of came to light later. So I really got into this because I was fortunate enough to play sports, you know, for a long time after that initial injury. And I want to make sure when I first got into practice that that never happened to a patient that I saw, right, if a kid came in with injury, or an adult that they got the best possible care. As it’s evolved now, it’s kind of more what we just talked about. Like, I see, you know, we have an athletic spin, but I see a lot more just, you know, general, you know, average Joes, weekend warriors, people that are just trying to be the best they can every day. And that tends itself towards a more holistic approach, or whole health approach. So now what kind of fires me up is, you know, solving the problems of, you know, can I not only get somebody out of pain, which becomes easier and easier as you go into practice, it’s well, can I get them to put on some muscle, you know, get over this kind of osteoporosis thing, lose a little weight, deal with this autoimmune issue, and you’re trying to do that is economically and as timely as you can. But also, like I said, like, we want them to get what they came for, which, if you package it correctly, you can do all that at once, and you just gotta, you know, that’s part of business, right? It’s figuring out how to package that. Michael Wienecke 100% Well, I mean, and I’d say it is all in a package. I mean, you’ve got to eat right. You’ve got to exercise. You’ve got to you’ve got to do all the things. So just like here at Peskies Pest Control, with the pest control, sometimes our customers have to help us out, just like your customers have to help you out. Dr. Beau Beard Yeah, I mean, there’s, I think everybody understands this. I could give you all of the best information. I could tell you stuff that’s in, you know, some of these books here behind me, and if you don’t act on it. I mean, it doesn’t change anything. So we don’t just say, Oh yeah, you got to go do this stuff. The really what your job becomes kind of a coach. It’s like how to kind of motivate people to stick with this, or make the change, or do their home exercises, or, you know, whatever it is, and that that can be really tough. I mean, myself included, I don’t think I eat perfect. I think I eat really good. I don’t do all the things I could do to keep myself feeling awesome, because I just want to go, you know, hit the trail and run, instead of doing my, you know, drills every once in a while. So the goal is keeping the motivation high, making it fun, right, not making it kind of a drag. Have to come into a clinical setting and at the end of the day, just, you know, really aligning goals. So if somebody wants to be able to do something that maybe they told they couldn’t do or they shouldn’t do, and you will allow them, or allow them to see that they could do that and eventually accomplish it. I mean, that’s that’s the fun stuff. Michael Wienecke Oh, 100%. Well, other than the amazing passion that you bring to this, you know, this line of work, because I know I’ve spoke with you off camera, you know, you bring a lot of passion to your to your business, and I really respect that. So what else sets you apart? Dr. Beau Beard Yeah, like I said, we, you know, when we it’s funny. So when we first came to Birmingham, I thought we are coming into the sports medicine mecca, right? We have James Andrews, who set up his Andrews institute here, who is basically the godfather of orthopedic surgery in the sports realm. And I kind of walked in, I was like, Oh, we’re kind of set apart and different based just on what we offered, right? That kind of chiropractic, physical therapy, sports performance, functional medicine, like nobody was offering. All that. Times have changed, right? We’re talking 13 years later. There’s more people offering those products, and now it’s kind of well, what does set us apart? I really think, is if you came into a session and, you know, just kind of follow to all the clinicians around the office, you’d see we have a lot of interns from a lot of, you know, chiropractic and physical therapy schools all over the country that come and hang out with us. So there’s an educational component to what we’re doing as doctors with other students that bleeds over to the patient visit, where it seems to be this kind of teaching thing. There’s also, you know, I teach to professionals as well. So the fact that I have to kind of stay sharp and hone my skills enough to where I’m not just, you know, treating people, but it’s like, Well, how am I going to go help other professionals treat on the same, you know, I don’t want to say the same levels. That’s like, we set the bar, but we’re trying to so I really think education is at the epicenter of all we’re doing, and it helps me stay sharp. It creates a more fun experience for the patient when they have interns in there and they see it’s kind of a team approach to their case. But yeah, if y

Podcast Transcript: Michael Wienecke 0:23 Hey, and thanks for listening to the Peskies Pest Control Podcast. I’m Michael, and we’ve got Travis here, and we are going to be talking about the fire stinging insect that is in your front and backyard that creates unsightly mounds and just causes lots of problems. Travis, what are we going to talk about today? Travis McGowin 0:47 Well, fire ants, just to put it blatantly for everyone, fire ants is the scourge of most people’s lawns, sometimes the scourge of the structure that you know you live in. They they range everywhere from, you know, East Coast to West Coast, and you know, as far up as, say, Virginia and down towards Florida. So I mean, they’re very wide area that they live in, and that that means that, you know, a large amount of people you know across the globe are affected by these insects. Michael Wienecke 1:22 100% you know, they’ve come in from boxes over centuries, from other countries. I would say just, just like any other pests that we have in the United States, it came from Asia. Travis McGowin 1:35 Yeah. So actually, I was reading about that and the they believe that. I think the red imported fire ant was actually originally from Brazil, Michael Wienecke 1:45 Brazil. Okay, I know, I know other ants have come in from from Asian areas and all the shipping containers and all that. So another fun fact about fire ants, they are called fire ants because when they bite, it is like fire. It feels like fire. Travis McGowin 2:02 Yeah. You know, instantly, when you get when you get hit by one it’s, it’s not some delayed thing, it’s, it’s instant pain. And you know, think it’s estimated that one to 2% of the population in the United States is actually allergic to fire ants, which, when you think about the population of the United States, 1 to 2% that’s a pretty decent sized Michael Wienecke 2:24 chunk. So I’m glad you brought that up. So a couple months ago, we were gardening in the backyard, and I turn around and see my two year old rolling around in the in the grass. Well, he was covered in fire ants from about feet to waist, so ripped his clothes off, hosed him down. He was probably stung. It’s funny, I was about to say bit, and that’s something else we’re going to talk about too. But he was stung about, I would say, 20 something times monitored. Monitored him for any kind of, you know, anaphylaxis or anything like that. Did not have any issues, thankfully. But yeah, they can definitely be a safety concern. Travis McGowin 2:56 My brother has a similar story. When he was around the same age, he actually, he actually sat on top of a fire ant mound accidentally. And to this day, even as an adult, you know, in his late 30s, he is still allergic to him. If he gets stung by a fire ant, he swells up in the side of the sting. And so, yeah, that that one encounter as a child still lingers with him, even as an adult today. Michael Wienecke 3:26 Well, my son loves ants now. He tries to find him wherever he can. He hasn’t been stung again, so we’ll see how that goes. But I I certainly hope he’s not in the same boat as your brother. So let’s talk about what to look for like, What? What? What are fire ants compared to other ants color wise. So you’re looking for more of a yellowish, reddish, brownish color. And of course, the mounds. So the where they nest is going to be those unsightly mounds like we talked about. You know, I’ve got one right now popping up in my driveway between the cracks and crevices of the driveway, leaf debris, rock debris, anything that can kind of give them a good harborage area. Travis McGowin 4:05 And they will shelter up under things too. And here’s the crazy part. You know, people may not realize just how big of a problem and how invasive these insects actually are, but to put it into perspective, those properties that have a significant problem can actually have upwards of 30 to 100 mounds per acre. So that’s that’s a significant amount of ants, when you consider that the average colony size for a decent sized ant colony, and remember, 30 to 100 mounds, so potential colonies per acre and a colony size of 80 to 250,000per colony of ants. Michael Wienecke 4:54 And that’s, that’s one queen colony. Travis McGowin 4:56 Right, Exactly. So, I mean, when you, when you really think. About it, if you had it on the high end of 250,000 ants, and let’s just say you had 80 mounds, you’re talking about 20 million ants in one acre of property. Michael Wienecke 5:13 That’s that’s a lot of ants. Travis McGowin 5:14 Just, just to put it into perspective, right? Michael Wienecke 5:17 Well, that’s why I try to let people know if you have one fire ant bed. Typically, there’s going to be more, whether it’s on your property or your neighbor’s property. But again, that’s a lot of ants. And the crazy thing too, is, is that that queen is producing upwards of 1500 ants per day. Travis McGowin 5:34 Right. That’s a that’s a significant amount of population ballooning in a very short amount of time. Michael Wienecke 5:41 That’s right. So let’s talk about some other we talked about the safety aspect of it. Let’s just talk about the yard. So I know, you know, I’ve got Bermuda grass in the front yard, and I’ve had, we actually just did a fire ant treatment at my house, and starting to see results within about three days. But they will ruin your grass, Travis McGowin 5:59 Right, especially if you you know those people who really take a lot of time and effort on their lawns. You know that you you may have a fertilization or a weed and feed treatment that you do, or that you have someone come out and do on a regular basis. And so, you know you pay to have a nice lawn. You want to enjoy that lawn in your outdoor areas, and then you have something that comes and just constructs this big, huge mound of, you know, dirt or sand, and then it, of course, leaves a dead spot in your yard, you know. And then other other problems with them too. I mean, they can, they can also destroy vegetation, if you have, you know, plants and different things, they can also be detrimental to that too. And I think it’s estimated that fire ants have an actual economic impact of I want to say it was like $6 billion per year from from damage and treatment costs. Total was like $6 billion. Michael Wienecke 6:58 Well, I mean, they have the ability to chew on wires. I mean, if you know, if they want to, you know electrical wires, that’s that’s another one of the biggest routes we see as far as a building, is, you know that AC line going into the building, or those electrical lines, and they just follow that path to reach least resistance, and then they’re in your home or your building. Travis McGowin 7:17 Well, not only that, too. I had a customer that, not long ago, called us in reference to fire ants, because they ended up having a mound that destroyed their air conditioner unit. They had to have things replaced inside. And what happened was, when these ants get inside of these air units and these electrical components of different like I said, not even just air units, but different products. You know, they may contact, some sort of electrical contact, which inflicts a shock on the ant, and that causes the ant to release a like an alarm pheromone or an attack pheromone, and then it just brings more ants. So then you have this huge cluster of ants that are attacking this electrical component that shocks the, you know, the ants in the first place, and they can just cause extreme damage, you know, even up to the point where you might have to replace components of a unit, or a whole unit, which can cost thousands and thousands of dollars for a homeowner. Michael Wienecke 8:14 I’m glad you brought that up, because, you know, same with the, you know, calling each other with the pheromones they do. The same with stinging. So that’s why, in that story with my son, he got stung 20 times, because when one ant stung him, they all released a chemical response to sting at the same time, Travis McGowin 8:29 Right, so, I mean, you know, with allergic reactions, a lot of people may not realize this. They say, Oh, well, I’ve been stung by ants, stung by a wasp, stung by whatever X amount of times throughout my life, I’ve never had a problem, but you can be stung by something 99 times, you know, just as an example, and never have a reaction. But that next time, that 100th time, may be the time when your body no longer has the ability to withstand that. You know that foreign body from a sting anymore, and then you know that can lead to an allergic reaction Michael Wienecke 9:01 100%. Well, we always talk about on this podcast as far as helping people and things that they can do themselves, but I personally would not recommend doing a fire ant treatment yourself. I’ve heard so many customers tell me that they get that, you know, white powdery stuff from the big box store, and two weeks later, you know, they’ve moved over into the left hand side of the yard, where they were in the right hand side of the yard. Travis McGowin 9:24 Absolutely. You know, DIY is great. I DIY a lot of different things, fire ants, or just ants in general, can be something that are that are difficult to just tackle on your own. Because if ants know that something is a killer to them, or something is a danger to them, then they just may up and relocate. So you know, some of these products that I’ve said it 1000 times on this podcast and to many other my customers, is that just because something says it can be used to kill an insect doesn’t mean it should be used to kill an insect. So, you know, whereas, if you. Some sort of drench on a mound with something that says it kills ants, and then all of a sudden, you know, a couple days later, here’s this new mound popping up, you know, X amount of dis

Podcast Transcript: Michael Wienecke 0:00 Steve, hey, so today on the Peskies Pest Control Podcast, we would like to talk about solving pest issues without chemical application. So we’re seeing a lot of especially this month, last month, with the amount of rain we’ve had Travis, I think you can, with Montgomery, I think you can attest to that, that it’s just rained every other day, Travis McGowin 0:24 Every single day, and it’s and it’s unseasonable. I mean, realistically unseasonable for, you know, May into June and then even into July. I mean, this is just not something that we typically have. It’s just pretty much downpours and heavy downpours every single afternoon. But, I mean, on a side note, my yard looks great. Michael Wienecke 0:46 Well, I can’t cut my grass, so my yard, it’s cut now, but you know, it’s hard to cut it in the rain, which also leads us to, you know, the whole issue of pests. If you if your grass is, you know, knee high, expect to have some pest issues, Travis McGowin 1:02 Right. So, you know, when you talk about rain and home ownership, the first thing that comes to mind, I mean, when we’re just kind of talking about a broad overview of things and a broad overview of pests and pest problems that you can, you know, potentially solve yourself. I know I can speak for my yard and my house. When I tell you that they’re right off hand, I can think of right now, there’s two pretty much clogged gutters right now on my house. And knowing that clogged gutters mean that it’s got leaf debris, it’s got different tree you know, pine needles, different things from trees, the debris is there, meaning that it’s not draining properly. It’s holding water. So Michael, what? What insects am I having a problem with from my gutters that I have not cleaned because I’ve just frankly, been lazy. Michael Wienecke 1:53 I can think of a few, but the main one would be mosquitoes. Travis McGowin 1:55 Right! So we have a large amount of mosquitoes now. Granted, our houses, our lot is kind of low lying. We do get a lot of drainage off of other lots around ours that comes through our house. So we do get a lot of standing water, especially when it rains day after day after day. If we don’t cut our yard, then we get a lot of standing water. So we’ve kind of remedied that. But mosquitoes, I mean, that leaf debris is going to bring roaches, things like that, that. Yeah, people don’t realize how much standing water is actually left in your gutters when you don’t actually clean them out. And then, you know, mosquitoes can breed in as you know, think the size a container, the size of a bottle cap. So think how much water is actually up there. It’s more than a bottle cap. Michael Wienecke 2:35 That’s right. And I mean, it’s, it’s hard to clean your gutters out when it’s been raining every other day, because can’t get up there and do that. So it’s just been, it’s been a very hard, I would say, two months. Travis McGowin 2:46 It has. It’s just been out of the norm for Alabama. But I’ll tell you one thing that has continuously been coming to my houses or my house, is cardboard boxes with the word Amazon on the side. So we get deliveries every single day. So we take the items Michael Wienecke 3:07 Can we say Amazon? Travis McGowin 3:08 I don’t know. I think we just did. I don’t think it really matters. Amazon, Walmart, their Target. Okay, I got a bunch out of the way. So Amazon boxes are a staple. I see Amazon delivery drivers come through. You know, our area all the time. We’re in a rural area, so Amazon’s really just everywhere. But we pulled the item we ordered out of the box. We throw the cardboard box on the back porch, and Michael, what happens next? Michael Wienecke 3:31 Well, I’ve got the same issue right now. Spiders, ants, millipedes, roaches, silverfish, earwigs, wasps, bees, Travis McGowin 3:43 Small children. Michael Wienecke 3:45 Just about anything that likes a warm environment. Travis McGowin 3:50 Well, not only that, but what happens with all the rain we’ve had the the boxes get soaked. They absorb water. They never dry out, and it just creates this nice little habitat for for pests that, you know, you wouldn’t normally have out there, but there again, we didn’t, you know, throw away the boxes. We didn’t burn them. We just decided we needed to stack them on the back porch. Michael Wienecke 4:09 Well. And that brings up a great topic is, how do they breed roaches when they’re, you know, in a lab, or something like that. What do they use to breed roaches? Travis McGowin 4:18 Oh, certainly, cardboard or other types of paper material. I mean, it absorbs and holds moisture. It’s good cover for them. It packs down good, and it just gives them a perfect environment. Michael Wienecke 4:29 And one of the worst outside termite issues I’ve ever seen was a customer that put cardboard as their weed control. So instead of using the plastic, it’s a, it’s great, it’s it’s eco friendly, but it’s also a great food source, Travis McGowin 4:47 Right, exactly. And, you know, that brings up another thing, not even just cardboard, but talk about things like scrap wood around people’s houses all the time. I see where, you know, I get it in the wintertime. You. If you got a fireplace, a wood burning fireplace, you want that firewood close to your structure. No one likes to run out outside in the cold and try to get a couple more logs for the fire. Totally get that was the same when I grew up, too. But inevitably, you stack wood on the outside of your house and you’re going to have a nice habitat for it. There again, general household pests, things like roaches, earwig, silverfish spiders, black widow spiders, brown recluse. Yes, large cockroaches, like American roaches, are going to love that. And then, of course, a homeowner’s worst nightmare, termites. Michael Wienecke 5:35 Well, and we’ve seen that firsthand. You know, we had a customer a couple of years ago that she was storing firewood in her garage, and found a termite, you know, infestation in the garage due to the firewood, Michael Wienecke 5:46 Right, good point that you don’t even have to have it stacked along the outside of the structure. If there’s gaps, cracks, crevices, you know, damage or cracks in the foundation, they can come up right through that from underneath the house and go straight up into the firewood. It could be sitting in your living room, it could be sitting in your garage, and you could still be susceptible to that. So wood, scrap, pallets, like I said, firewood, any type of boards where you’ve done remodel or construction and you just discarded them out of the side of the house. All of that stuff needs to be moved away from the house. Michael Wienecke 6:19 100% and I mean, when we go to our, you know, a new start, or someone that’s having an issue, that’s something we look for, you know, we’re looking for mulch bags that are sitting right up against the house, that have been sitting there for a couple months, or leaf debris stacks of pallets in the backyard. The other day, a rotten door was in somebody’s backyard. Michael Wienecke 6:42 If you recall you, and I actually went out on a termite inspection. This has been months and months ago that had a crawl space, and you went into the crawl space and lifted a piece of scrap wood under the house, and there were live termites, actually, and eating the scrap wood underneath the house in the crawl space. Michael Wienecke 7:00 Oh yeah, I’ve seen that with wooden ladders. I’ve seen it with pallets. I’ve seen it, you know, having wood under your house in a crawl space is is not a good idea. Travis McGowin 7:07 Well, I like what you said, too, about bags of mulch or different types of ground cover that people use underneath their shrubberies and in their flower beds. I can’t tell you how many times. I mean, we all have good intentions. We’re going to go, you know, we’re going to go to, oh, I’m going to say some more box stores. We’re going to go to Lowe’s or Home Depot or Marvin’s or Tractor Supply, or wherever it is that we go and we shop, and we’re going to buy the mulch that’s on sale. It’s like, Oh, great. I’m going to go get X amount of bags of mulch. We’re going to get this done, and you spread one or two the rest of them. Sit there and sit there and sit there because you run out of time, or you got to go to the ballpark, or whatever it is that eats your time away away from your home. And then I can’t tell you how many times I’ve moved on these bags, and there’s like a gigantic ant infestation all wrapped up inside of these bags because they’ve just sat there. Michael Wienecke 7:53 Yeah, and it doesn’t even have to be mulch bags or wood a ladder. I had a customer the other day having ants all over the property, inside, outside. And they were coming from more than just the ladder. They were coming from a lot of the crape myrtles around, but the ladder was giving them that, you know, that warm environment under, under where the ladder was, was resting on the ground. And they were just going right in the house, between the ladder and the house, Michael Wienecke 8:19 Right, and we’ve talked about ground but people don’t realize, not even just around the, you know, the lower portion of your house, but things that they can do to keep pests, such as, you know, carpenter ants, things like that, off the side of their house is trimming your trees back. Like I I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen these improperly trimmed crape myrtles, or, you know, these large, healthy, grown trees around the outside of the house with the limbs overhanging and eventually touching the eaves of the roof of the structure. You know, just a couple weeks ago, I had two basically back to back calls for carpenter ants from t

Podcast Transcript: Michael Wienecke 0:03 Hey. So here today on the Peskies Pest Control Podcast, we’re going to talk about crane flies or Skeeter eaters. What are some other names, mosquito Hawk, tarantula flyer. I’ve heard all kinds of names, Daddy Long daddy, long legs, all that kind of stuff. Travis McGowin 0:23 So I feel like in Alabama, it’s getting harder to differentiate between real mosquitoes and crane flies, because I feel like the real mosquitoes are getting bigger. But that’s a conversation for another day. Michael Wienecke 0:35 Well, let’s see, may it rained, I think, every other day. Travis McGowin 0:39 It’s still raining every other day. Michael Wienecke 0:40 Yes, it is still raining every other day. So I think the biggest takeaway from here with mosquito hawks or crane flies are that they are not mosquitoes. They do not bite, they do not cause any issues. Like mosquitoes, they just kind of buzz around and are extremely annoying. Travis McGowin 0:58 Yes, but unlike mosquitoes, they like you said, they don’t bite, they don’t consume, you know, human or animal blood as their primary source of food. And even after, you know, the larva emerge into adults. The adults really don’t even they hardly consume anything before they, you know, do their reproductive cycle and then basically just die. Michael Wienecke 1:22 Yeah, what 10 to 15 days, and they’re, they’re goners, and really, they’re just kind of bouncing around, you know, like we get calls from customers, they’ll say, Hey, I’ve got a very large mosquito I’ve never seen before, or very large mosquito buzz around the house. And that’s typically what it turns into is a crane fly issue, which there’s no treating an adult crane fly. It’s just they fly around, they die, and then they start back over spring to fall, Travis McGowin 1:48 Right, and I mean, honestly, their primary focus, or primary, I guess, benefit to the environment, is that they’re basically one decomposers, so, and I’m going to assume that’s probably more on the larval side, where they’ve, you know, laid whatever eggs are going to lay, the larva hatch and probably feed on organic matter around the soil, decomposing things, probably very much like a termite does, just returning those items into the soil and enriching the soil. Other than the other thing is like just being a food source for other animals, for things such as, you know, fish, other insects, birds, bats and just other animals. I’m sure, probably, you know, lizards and things like that too. So when they emerge in large numbers, and like you said, customer calls, they’re flying around inside your house, because inevitably, once you open the door, they’re going to come flying in. You know, in those times when they’re kind of ballooning in their population, that’s when other animals get to feed on them and use them as one of their food sources. Ecosystem, yep. And it works out. It works out really well for everybody involved. Well, I guess, except for the crane fly. Michael Wienecke 3:01 Except for the crane. Well, let’s talk about the damage that they do cause. So one thing that they can cause damage to the grass, the larva. The larval stage, you know, which, that’s where they spend 90% of their life, is underground. They can destroy root systems and cause a little bit of damage to your grass. Travis McGowin 3:19 Right, and the larva actually look like, I guess you could say little, you know, little worms or or really, really small, thin grubs. Maybe some people would describe them as that, but a lot of people refer to them. I guess because of their they’ve got, like, a darkish brown color. But a lot of them refer to the larva as leather jackets. And like you said, the adults really don’t damage anything, but leather jackets can certainly hurt lawns and gardens. They’ll feed on plant roots. And you know, I’m sure it could either kill kill your grass, or kill your plants, or definitely make your yard, you know, off colored, or something like that too. So certainly could become a nuisance to someone who really likes a very manicured, well watered and lush lawn, or or lush, you know, group of plants in a garden. Michael Wienecke 4:11 Yeah, definitely. I was just lost with my train of thought. So we’re talking about the larval stage. Oh, where they like to breed. So biggest thing is going to be always a water source, major water source, marshes, ponds, they’re always going to lay eggs kind of near that area. That’s going to help those eggs thrive. And of course, you’re going to have a a lot of crane flies during the the spring and fall. Travis McGowin 4:36 Right, and it just depends on what breed of crane fly. There are, you know, here in Alabama, most of the time, like you said, spring into summer, you’re going to get your biggest group of population. But there’s even a European crane fly that will actually start to hatch and grow, you know, from the August to September, sliding over from. Late summer into early fall as well. So, you know, there’s really a large time block when you’re, you as a customer, may actually see them. Just know that they could be different species, but they’re, they’re about the same in terms of what they do, how they act, how they reproduce and that sort of thing. So really, not, you know, not one species to be alarmed about more than any other. I mean, it’s, it’s about the same across the board. Michael Wienecke 5:25 Right, and they all kind of look similar, like you said. But there are, they are size comparison. So I’ve seen some that are almost half the size of what, you know, I guess our standard crane fly, you know, I would say probably, what, two inches long, roundabout. Travis McGowin 5:25 Right, probably on the high end. And I know that, you know, makes people, makes people a little nervous to see that sitting on their wall, or, you know, to come essentially swooping down while you’re trying to walk through a doorway or walk outside. And kind of their erratic flight behavior, you know, may especially scare your kids or something and then they’re walking by em, but certainly harmless, certainly can’t do anything to you, and other than just really being more of a nuisance than than anything. Michael Wienecke 6:10 Well, so I think the takeaway is, is if you see a bunch of crane flies buzz around your house, just watch the ping pong effect, and they’ll go away in about 10 to 15 days. Travis McGowin 6:19 And they are not mosquitoes. Michael Wienecke 6:23 Not mosquitoes, yes!   CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR PEST CONTROL! CLICK HERE TO VISIT OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL!   The post Crane Flies Are Not Mosquitoes in Birmingham, Alabama! appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

Podcast Transcript: Hey everybody, welcome back to the podcast. Today, I wanted to discuss something that seems to have been kind of on an increase in terms of phone calls that we’ve been receiving on our phone lines, messages that we’ve been receiving through our website from customers. So I felt like it was something that needed to be addressed again, and wouldn’t hurt to give you some information. On but today we’re going to talk a little bit about fleas. Now fleas are, unfortunately, a very common pest a lot of people have experience with a lot of people have difficulty with at some point or another. You can have difficulty with fleas if you have pets of your own, and even sometimes, you can run into situations where you have problems with fleas, even if you do not actually own any pets. And I’ll discuss a couple of those situations. But just a couple things about fleas to make you think about the fact that they can actually balloon from a very small problem initially up to something that seems like you just cannot get rid of them. And this is because, for example, if you have pets, dogs, cats, if you have those animals living around your house or inside of your house, a domesticated animal, those fleas typically like to feed on the animal. Not saying that you wouldn’t see a flea in your house. You wouldn’t see a flea on your body at some point or another. It’s definitely possible, but as long as there’s a host food source, such as your pet, to take the brunt of the problem, most of the time, you may go a long time without really even noticing that you have a problem or that your pet has a problem. A lot of times, people discover it, though, when something happens and the pet is removed from an environment, say, the pet passes away. You know, something happens where you have to rehome that pet. You know, just various different reasons why you may no longer have that cat or dog inside your house, but as soon as the food source that pet is taken away, now, all that the fleas have left to feed on, unfortunately, is you so, you know, like I said, a lot of times, it balloons into this big problem, or people don’t even know that they have the problem until it’s a little bit too late. But female fleas alone can lay anywhere between four to eight give or take eggs after each time they feed on your pet or you. And in the grand scheme of things, they can lay somewhere between four to 500 eggs throughout their entire life cycle, and that’s just one female adult flea. So if you have multiple you can see where it could just seem like something that you may not ever be able to get rid of. And that’s not true. There are definitely methods that are successful in getting rid of fleas, but it definitely feels like a mountain that’s a little bit difficult to climb. So let’s talk a little bit about this. What are some ways that we can get rid of fleas? There are a lot of DIY people in the world, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I am on that same Avenue with many different projects around my house that I try to protect into and saving some money and that sort of thing. But if not done correctly, you can actually exacerbate the flea problem and you can actually make it completely worse. You’ve heard me say it on the podcast many times. This will not be the last time I say this. I tell my customers all the time. Just because a product says you can kill fleas with it, or you can kill roaches with it, or any of those pests, doesn’t always necessarily mean that that product should be used to kill that particular insect. So sometimes these products actually have an effect on making the insects seem like it’s worse inside your home, for example, if you use a product labeled for cockroaches on certain types of roaches, like German roaches, and it’s. Wrong style of product, you may actually cause those roaches to relocate to a different room in your house that you never actually had a roach problem in up till that point. And the same can go with fleas as well. So number one, if you want to get rid of fleas, and I tell my customers, is if I’m going to treat their house, this is number one in the discussion where I talk to my customers, you have to get your pet treated for the fleas, and you need to maintain regular flea treatments on those pets. Unfortunately, the way it works, we can certainly treat a house for fleas, but if the host is no is never treated or maybe just given a flea bath and not given some type of, you know, medication from the veterinary office. If there’s not some long term treatment plan for your animal, there’s a high likelihood that those insects will be back and you’ll have a problem again in the very near future. So that’s that’s number one we always recommend to the customer. Hey, please get your animal treated. You know, sometimes it’s a situation where maybe you don’t have a pet, and you move into an apartment, you move into a rental house, and you end up finding that there are fleas and that even though there hasn’t even been a tenant in that rental property or that apartment for months. That’s because fleas can actually lay dormant. Eggs can lay dormant and not hatch for around six months or even longer, sometimes depending upon the temperature and the environment that they’re in. So I mean, you could even move into having a flea problem where you didn’t have pets to begin with, or maybe even in your yard if you had a neighbor that breeds dogs. I’ve seen this before in some of my customers where the neighbor whose yard backs up to my customer’s yard actually was breeding dogs and ballooned flea problem in their yard, which kind of spilled over into my customer’s yard, where they were getting bitten, eventually even transferring into my customer’s house, which was a big problem. So get your animals treated. Encourage your neighbors, friends and family, to have their animals treated so that they don’t have flea problem. But that’s only the first step. So at pesky we have an awesome Flea Treatment Program. I have yet to come across a time where we employed this program and it did not work for the customer. It’s very effective. We’ve got a lot of experience doing it, and we treat every single house the same way when they have a fleet problem. So initially, what we go in and do we make sure that the homeowner, family members, pets, all of those things are out of the house at the time of the treatment. And the very first thing that we do is come in with a vacuum, and we have a pest control vacuum, a special one designed specifically for that purpose. And basically what it does is upon pulling those insects and those eggs and even some dirt and dust and all with it, upon pulling those up into the vacuum and actually locks them inside of a bag where the debris sits to where they cannot actually get out, and they’re not loose inside the vacuum container or anything like that. So basically it pulls it into this bag where we’re able to then take that bag and dispose of it in a manner where it’s not going to reinvest the customer’s property. And so we vacuum all of the floors. It doesn’t matter if it’s got carpet on it. It doesn’t matter if it’s a rug. It doesn’t matter if it is a hard floor, wood floor. Doesn’t matter. We vacuum all those surfaces, because even the smallest gap, crack, crevice in a floor or in a carpet allows for fleas to hide, and it also allows for harborage areas for those fleas, egg eggs. So we also vacuum upholstered furniture as well couches, chairs and kitchens or dining rooms, recliners, Ottomans, anywhere where those fleas can be, anywhere where those eggs can also be attached to. We vacuum all of that stuff. After that, we come in with a two part liquid treatment. Now this is another important reason why family and pets needs to be out of the house, because this product needs time to be applied, and then it needs time to dry. Now, once it dries, it is considered okay to contact, so that two part liquid treatment actually has two different active ingredients that we use, the first being an adult decide or a pesticide that’s actually going to kill those adult and younger fleas that it comes into contact to but the neat thing about it is this is that the second ingredient has a more long term life cycle breaking effect, and that’s called an IGR, which stands for insect growth regulator, hormone. So those two ingredients come. Cobbled together and applied in the problem areas where you have fleas, does amazing work and getting getting rid of those fleas. Now I will tell you, most people, when they come home from my testimonials, where I’ve spoken to customers after the fact, say that they see instant results. That’s because we have vacuumed up a huge amount of the population, and then we’ve also liquid treated. However, you have to consider this, it’s a little bit of a more long term game to get rid of fleas, because, like any insect, fleas lay eggs. Any insect that lays eggs has larva inside of it that are completely protected from the effects of pesticides. There’s not any pesticide on the market that can penetrate inside of the egg of an insect, and that specifically also goes for fleas. So sometimes these products actually cannot affect an insect, larva or egg, until that egg hatches, and then, once it does, either they contact the adulticide, and it actually kills the the in the recently hatched flea, or it contacts the growth regulator. And what that IGR does is it inhibits a larval or nymphal stage insect, like a flea, into inhibits it from being able to grow into an adult, biting egg, laying flea, so eventually it breaks the life cycle. What I like to tell my customers about the Flea Treatment is that once we are done, you can roughly expect that product to continue to work, you know, as long as it’s applied. But I like to tell them to help us out for the nex

Podcast Transcript: Travis McGowin: Thank you for joining us again for another episode of the Peskies Pest Control Podcast. Today, we have a very special topic to talk about. Wildlife, and not just any wildlife, one that causes so many problems, so much frustration, and it’s just an overall nuisance to a lot of homeowners, and that wildlife is squirrels. Now, just recently, if you’ve been following along with our YouTube channel, you would have seen that I posted a video where we were actually trapping squirrels at a customer’s house here in Deatsville, Alabama, this customer woke up Christmas morning to some crazy noises going on inside of their kitchen. They’ve got an older home. The layout is a little bit different than what you might would typically see nowadays when people build a new build. So inside their kitchen, they actually had a kitchen cabinet that, when you open the doors, actually showed their breaker box. So the breaker box for the electrical wiring in that portion of the house was hidden behind this old kitchen cabinet, but the breaker box wiring actually went straight up into the attic, so there was no buffer zone. There was no enclosure that hid these wires from view, so when the squirrels made entry into the attic, they were able to come straight down through the wall void, following the wires and right into the customer’s kitchen cabinet. So imagine yourself waking up on Christmas morning to enjoy that time with your family, only to have pure and utter chaos from a rodent running around inside your kitchen, knocking things over and just making a mess. Thankfully, the customers were able to open a window in an adjacent room, using a broom or some other item inside the house, they were able to shoe that squirrel to that room and get the squirrel to leave the house out of a window. But if you’ve ever listened to any of our wildlife discussions or podcasts, you would know that that, unfortunately, is not the end of the potential problems that are going to be caused by squirrels. So before we dive into our inspection and how we would handle this problem, let’s talk a little bit about why squirrels or any other road in our wildlife would be an issue inside of your home, whether that be the living space, the attic space, the crawl space, wherever they may be. So since we’re talking about squirrels, if they make entry into your home, there’s always the potential for them to gnaw or chew on things, and that’s true with virtually any rodent on the planet. So for squirrels, rats, mice, doesn’t really matter. They’re always going to be chewing on something. And one thing that they always seem to search out and find that they always enjoy chewing on is electrical wiring. Why is that a problem? Because it’s electrical wiring. Definitely don’t want to have a house fire start somewhere in your home, in your attic from a rodent gnawing on those wires. It’s extremely important if you have a rodent issue, to get those animals out of your house as quickly as possible. So that’s kind of the worst case. But on top of that, you have the general mess that they make in your attic. They constantly go about throughout the day, foraging for different things to eat. They bring those items back and they store them in your attic. They eat on them in your attic. This can cause a huge mess. And not only that, but there’s the waste that comes from these animals pooping or peeing and just making their general home up there where they don’t need to be. So there’s several problems, but we’ve been able to help. For example, this customer in Dietz, Ville, Alabama, rid their attic space of these rodents. So after they called us, we set up an appointment. I went out there personally to inspect the property, and while I was on site inspecting the outside of the home, I could actually hear the rodent running around in the attic space close to the eaves. I could hear that rodent inside the attic. So that helped me pinpoint a couple of entry points around the house. If you watch our YouTube video, you’ll see that the gable vents on the side of the house actually are supposed to have a mesh wiring that keeps insects and rodents and different things birds out of the attic space, but still allows for ventilation, and there was just a gigantic hole in this attic Gable vent. I. Allowing these rodents to climb up the side of the house and directly into the attic. So we came back, we placed some traps, and there’s a little bit more detail in that YouTube video, if you’d like to see the type of traps that we used. We placed some traps over those entry points with bait on them, and lo and behold, we caught a squirrel. So you may be saying to yourself, Okay, I can do this. I can find the entry point. I can set a trap. I can catch a squirrel. What next? Well, once you catch a squirrel or whatever wildlife it is that’s getting into your attic, we always recommend resetting that trap or those traps. You want to ensure that you’ve caught everything that’s been going in and out of your attic that’s been making a home inside of your home. You want to make sure that you catch it before you ever seal them up. Sealing up a live rodent inside of your home, whether it’s there again, the living space, the attic space, the crawl space, can cause problems. That rodent, that wild animal, at some point, is going to try to get out of that space where they’ve now been closed into. We’ve seen where rodents have chewed from the attic space into the living space of the house through sheetrock, and just caused lots of damage and chaos. So we definitely want to try to make sure that we have trapped everything before we ever tried to exclude and keep these animals out. So once you’ve trapped and ensured that you’ve kept all the animals out, that’s when we take over with exclusion. So what we did for this customer is, once we ensured the truck the squirrels were caught, we took hardware cloth on the outside of the house, and we were able to mount it to the outside of the house, still allowing for that addict to be ventilated properly, but keeping out rodents, keeping out different larger insects and birds, or anything else that wants to try to make its way up into that attic. So one other thing that I would like to also add is about the laws, the legal aspect, the stipulations of being able to trap wildlife, and of course, specifically here in the state of Alabama. So all of trapping and wildlife laws all go through the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, and they typically will issue permits for organizations, companies like ourselves, for homeowners and individuals to be able to do trapping the legal and appropriate way. So you want to make sure that if you are going to use a company that they are legally allowed to use trappings methods for controlling wildlife, controlling nuisance wildlife, and always check with your local laws and statutes before you attempt to handle any kind of wild animals, there may be some that are protected species. There may be some very specific ways that you are or are not allowed to trap these animals, and a couple of other things to touch on too. In reference to those laws in the state of Alabama, you are not legally allowed to transport a wild animal inside of a vehicle. You’re not legally allowed to take one of those wild animals across county lines. You’re also not allowed to transport them across major waterway drainage areas either. So you’re kind of left with one or two options. You can either let the rodent go, let the squirrel go, or you can either use a trap that dispatches or kills that squirrel on site, or you have to kill the squirrel on site as well. And they’re very particular about the methods that you’re supposed to use for doing that as well. So I say all that just to basically point out that you need to make sure that you’re checking with your wildlife officials to make sure that you’re doing things the right way, the legal way, ethically and humanely as well. So I hope that this shed some light on what it is that we were able to do for that customer, in reference to getting them rid of squirrels in their attic and ensuring that those squirrels never come back and attempt to take up residence inside of their attic ever again, as well of some of the ethics and laws behind making sure that you do this the proper way, if you have any other questions, we would absolutely love to talk to you. If you’re having a rodent or wildlife issue, we would love to assist you. As long as you are in our coverage area, we would be more than happy to come out and take a look to see what it is you’ve got going on. If you would like to see our YouTube video about this topic, CLICK HERE! The post Keeping Squirrels Out of Your Birmingham, Alabama Attic! appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

Travis McGowin Did you survive the holidays? Michael Wienecke I did. I did Travis McGowin unscathed. No issues, no, no pests, no family issues. You had a good Thanksgiving? Michael Wienecke No, a lot. You know, we wouldn’t be on this podcast. We weren’t talking about some kind of pest. Kind of pest issue. And yeah, unfortunately, at my home, I had a pest issue that popped up the day before Thanksgiving, and it wasn’t fun. So we had fruit flies all throughout the house. And so that’s what we’re going to talk about today, because as on as we’ve always talked about on this podcast, we talk about things that we see at customers house, at customers houses, and just so happens that I’m the the one that has them. Well, thank Travis McGowin you for being the guinea pig for today’s episode, but realistically so we just got through with thanksgiving. We’re diving straight off into the Christmas season. If your family is like mine. More specifically, if your spouse is like mine, you’ve had Christmas up since before Thanksgiving. Uh, so you’re knee deep in the holidays. And of course, along with that, brings the inevitable family get togethers where you know you may have a family get together that’s two weeks before two weeks after the holiday. Uh, everyone’s got a lot going on. And it’s so easy to go to the store buy the food that you need to cook fruits, vegetables, everything in between, and then forget about it and let it sit. And then Michael tell us what happens. Well, Michael Wienecke it’s funny because, you know, searching around the whole house trying to figure out what it is. Because, you know, obviously Travis, obviously Travis we’ve seen, I can’t even count how many fruit fly issues we’ve had or seen at customers houses. Jim searching around the kitchen trying to find where this issue is. I know it’s either something rotted or, you know, something that’s been out, like you said, overnight, or something like that. Well, between two stacks of paper was a banana, and it was very black, very, very black. So that was, that was the source. Got that removed, cleaned up, and, you know, and we’ll talk more about it, but we went into the treatment phase and got it pretty much eliminated that day, right before, I think, dinner time with my family for Thanksgiving. So it worked out pretty Travis McGowin well, right? And you know, some fruits, some vegetables, last longer than others based upon their storage, whether they’re on the counter, whether they’re in a cool, dark place, like maybe the bottom of a pantry, but inevitably, like I said, at some point you’re either going to forget that it’s there, you’re going to use what you need and put it back, and then, you know, it just sits too long, and it starts to, you know, maybe get a little too ripe, or even ferment or rot or something like that. And then somehow or another, they always find it, like they always the fruit flies will always find it. And then that’s when your problem starts. They start to colonize in that fermenting, decaying fruit or vegetables, or whatever it is you’ve left out that’s starting to get really gross. Michael Wienecke Well, and I hate to say this, but I blame the grocery stores, obviously, because you’ve got, you know, massive, massive amounts of vegetables and fruits. And where do they come from? Travis, where do these flies come from? So how do they get on these fruits? They Travis McGowin fly not out of thin air. They don’t just show up in your house out of thin air, that’s for sure. So they probably really fall into that category, very similar to a lot of other pests that are invited pests, because they don’t just occur naturally in your house. They’re usually brought in. So you know, if you had bananas sitting there on a shelf at a grocery store with just a huge stack of bananas, and the stock didn’t get rotated properly. And there’s definitely a chance that you could end up with some larva or something like that on what you bring home, and it wouldn’t be an issue normally, until you don’t actually finish the food before it gets too ripe or starts to, you know, spoil, Michael Wienecke right? I mean, you know, it’s coming from the grocery store, it’s already there in the food and it’s just sitting there, and as it ferments, it’s going to start, start popping into a big issue. So, and the the easiest way to control it is just getting it in time, kind of like I did remove that banana, you know, took it outside, threw it in the trash can. I have, I’m able to do a treatment, obviously. So I phoned all my drains, I did, you know, sanitization, to get rid of that problem. But really, just removing that banana, over time, the adults would have died, right? Travis McGowin But let’s be clear just how fast it can actually spiral out of control. Oh, yeah, you know, from start to finish, and we’ll do the breakdown of of what happens over the course of this amount of time. But in roughly 10 days, you can have a massive infestation if you if you don’t handle it early on, right? Michael Wienecke I. Seen them in every room of a house before. So, yeah, if you don’t get it very quickly, I mean, they, you know, they can have up to 500 500 eggs, Travis McGowin and that’s per adult, right? Per adult. Female laying eggs can lay up to 500 in their very short life span, per Michael Wienecke adult, yep. So if you let it go and go it. It is catastrophic, Travis McGowin right? So, so we’ve, I know we’ve kind of alluded to this already, but you know, if you, if you find that you have fruit flies, they’re becoming a problem. You’re seeing one two, and then more and more and more over, over the course of maybe, you know, five days to seven days a week, and then you end up taking the you take the the tour, the inevitable tour around your house, in your kitchen, trying to hunt through, apparently, stacks of paper where you have a banana hidden, or, I Michael Wienecke also have two children, Travis McGowin no excuses, yes, yes. But you take that tour and you’re looking through your pantry. I mean, even sometimes your refrigerator can be an issue too. You know, you take that tour and you find it and you throw it out. What do you do with what’s left? What do you do with the remnants that are still flying around? Michael Wienecke So, as a homeowner doing it themselves, they can build a trap with vinegar and a little bit of soap they go down and they get trapped in that. So you’re going to get rid of the the adults, and then again, that life cycle. As long as you’re cutting that life cycle off, then you shouldn’t have a problem. Now, again, when you have 1000s of fruit flies flying around the house, it’s a little harder to control it with just those little traps due to the fact that they are nuisance. They’re in your eyes, they’re in your nose, they’re in your ears, that kind of thing. So that’s when I would highly recommend, you know, a professional coming out and taking care of Travis McGowin it well. And you know, just for, just for referencing and mentioning, we actually had, it wasn’t fruit flies, but we actually ended up with a bit of a fly problem. Thanksgiving Day, we were cooking outside, frying a turkey coming in and out of the house. And by that night, we actually looked up on the ceiling, and they were actual house flies on our ceiling. So the next day, my youngest son decided it’d be fun to take our floss water, which we don’t have a traditional flash water. We’re too bougie for that. We have the electric you have an electric one. Yeah, it looks like a tennis racket. And I think his kill count for flies was like 21 flies by the time he got done. And he had a blast and entertained him for hours. So if you’re looking for a good Christmas gift for somebody, and you’ve got a fruit fly problem, a rotten banana, and, yeah, get them a rotten banana. Take it to their house. I’m just kidding. Don’t do this, but take it to their house. Get them one of the electric fly swatters that looks like the tennis racket. Hours of fun when it zaps those flies and you see, like the little spark come off of it, there’s nothing really more satisfying. That’s, I mean, that’s just my opinion. I even got in on the kill count a little bit. I killed a couple that he couldn’t reach so, but good fun for the whole family, right? And an instant knock down when you’re knocking them out of the air. Michael Wienecke I like the gun. I like the gun that shoots the salt. That’s what I like. Travis McGowin But see, that’s a little messy for me. I don’t want little granules assault all over the house either. True. Yeah. Anyway. Well, hopefully everyone listening had a great Thanksgiving, and hopefully you have a very Merry Christmas as we approach into the deep holiday season before New Year’s and the cold and the cold, thank God. Michael Wienecke Well, thanks for listening. You. Visit our YouTube Channel! Click Here! 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Welcome to another episode of Peskies Pest Control podcast here in Birmingham Alabama with Michael and Travis. We do this podcast as a community service for Birmingham, Hoover, Vestavia Hills, Mountain Brook, Helena, Alabaster, Pelham and all other surrounding areas! Michael Wienecke So today here on the pesky pest control podcast, we are going to be talking about my favorite subject, roaches, not just any Roach, the largest roach in Alabama, not in the world, Travis McGowin but before we now we dive off into the bug stuff, let’s acknowledge the obvious. It’s been a while. Michael Wienecke Yes, yes. I completely just forgot about that. Yeah, yes. Well, Travis McGowin it has been a while, yeah, but for those of you who do listen on a regular basis, we apologize, but it has been a while. Things have things have been wild around here. The bugs have been non stop, and so we had to take a little hiatus, and now we are back. Yes, Michael Wienecke it’s a lot harder to do everything you know than you’d think. So, Travis McGowin right? So anyway, American cockroaches, let’s talk about them. Yes. Michael Wienecke So American cockroaches are in your house. It’s becoming fall, and they are going to find their way in through holes in the wall, holes in the brick, pipes, vents, tree branches touching, you know, the side of the house to let those guys bypass any products or anything like that to get into the house. Travis McGowin I mean, I haven’t seen any in my house. You said they’re in my house. Well, you Michael Wienecke just said you had a smokey brown roach in your house that was Travis McGowin off record. We didn’t want to talk about that. That was off record. Much Michael Wienecke harder to control, much harder to control. Yes, Travis McGowin so, yeah, the American cockroaches. And I tell a lot of customers this, the American cockroaches like to live underneath pine straw, underneath mulch vegetation areas. So they’re very typical to see them around the outside of your house where you’ve got landscaping, and they like to eat under that dead and decay that layer of dead and decaying vegetation up underneath all of that landscaping material so they can make a nice little home for themselves. And typically, they don’t usually want to come inside and they don’t usually want to infest a person’s house. But there are exceptions in the fact that sometimes they mistakenly wander their way in, Michael Wienecke or they just weasel their way in because it’s a nice dry spot, and it’s been raining for five days straight, Travis McGowin right? And I also think, too, that sometimes with gaps, cracks and crevices around the house, whether it’s doors, windows, anything like that, that you end up, you know, at night, you got light coming through those gaps, cracks and crevices. I don’t think that helps your I don’t think that helps your calls either when trying to keep them out. No, 100% Michael Wienecke I can remember as a kid, I was watching TV one day with my window open, and an American cockroach flew right in and landed on the TV and scared me after death. Going straight Travis McGowin for the light makes you, makes you think about those commercials that they used to have where you’re sitting there watching it looks like a regular, normal commercial, and then this bug goes and crawls across the screen and always looks so real, like you want to throw something at the TV? No, I know. I wonder if they were ever liable for someone throwing it, throwing something at the TV and breaking a TV, and like, you know, had to pay for somebody a new TV. Oh, I Michael Wienecke almost broke my TV. So, yes, I can say that. But no, that that’s, that’s a great point. Turning off your lights at night. That’s going to stop any attraction to, really, any bug. I mean, spiders, because you’ve got your flying insects flying around that that that light. But roaches, you know, that’s our topic. So we’ll stay on topic. Roaches typically like to infest the lower portion of a house, like crawlspace, or, I’m not going to say infest. They like to gain entry to occupy, yes, I like to gain entry to crawl spaces, basements, like I said, the underside of houses, due to, you know, higher moisture content, much better. Survival, survivability, survivability, yeah. Travis McGowin So we know where they like to go. We know what they’re searching after. Let’s talk about a couple things that maybe you know you can do to prevent that. We’ve talked Michael Wienecke about it before. Try to keep your bushes, your branches, anything touching the the roof line or the side of your house, because you can put down product after. Product. If that Roach is crawling a tree, and that tree is hanging the the roof or touching a window, or it’s just going to be easy access for for that little guy or a little girl, Travis McGowin right? They can circumvent right over anything that you or that your pest control company, that your technician applies, that they just have a route to go around it or over it. Michael Wienecke Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, like, we’re talking about roaches right now, especially American roaches, because it’s fall, that’s when they start really getting into people’s homes again. You know, the pine straw around the house, just keeping everything nice and dry, trying to divert water away from your house, is going to stop them from feeding on that organic matter up under the pine straw and around the mulch, Travis McGowin right and some other common entry points that we can talk about sealing up, you know, HVAC entry points, where your HVAC lines go into the house a lot of times, there can be gaps right there. You can also seal up around vents. If you have a crawl space, you can seal up around those vents, you know, but you don’t want to block any airflow. You want to make sure that you have good ventilation and airflow inside the crawl space, too, gaps and cracks around plumbing. I know sometimes we see houses where there’s some master drains that are exiting the outside of the house that maybe aren’t buried underground, or have some other kind of plumbing or drainage pipes coming in and out of the structure somewhere or another. So sealing up any of those access points can keep you free from American cockroaches as well. Click Here to See This Podcast Video! The post Keep American Cockroaches Out of Your Birmingham Alabama Home! appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

Welcome to another episode of Peskies Pest Control podcast here in Birmingham Alabama with Michael and Travis. We do this podcast as a community service for Birmingham, Hoover, Vestavia Hills, Mountain Brook, Helena, Alabaster, Pelham and all other surrounding areas! Michael Wienecke Hey, so today on the pesky pest control podcast, I’d like to focus on termites. Termites are something we do a lot of we see a lot of termites, small jobs, big jobs. And today I’ve got my friend Jay Campbell with me. Jay, it was funny, because whenever to Jay’s house and talked him into let me do a termite inspection, got up under there and found the, probably the worst one of the worst termite claim damages I’ve ever seen. So Jay, tell your story, man. Jay Campbell It was bad. It was bad. Well, I’ve got a crawlspace. I’ve got a crawlspace house and I never go down there. That’s the problem. And so, you know, when I was young, I bought the house and everything and I let my termite bond lapse and, you know, didn’t have termite. What would you call it like a termite bond Michael Wienecke where the termite protection? Jay Campbell Yeah, it didn’t have the Sentricon and all that kind of good stuff. You know, so younger dogs, just let it go. You started your business and everything. And I was like, Hey, man, come on out. Check it out. And everything. And you know, I had to get under there to where do you kind of crawl? Yeah, that was fun. Yeah. Michael Wienecke It’s always good. It’s always good when a homeowner comes under there with us, because I’m like, Man, you can experience this. Yeah. Great. Jay Campbell So got up under there. And I’d had some water damage. I think there’s Michael Wienecke water down. Yeah, we started noticing a lot of mold. And yeah. Jay Campbell So it was a lot of moisture and everything, you know, know what I know now that drops in the termites. And yeah, it was bad. It was really bad. When you’re doing your tap test, or whatever, you could take a screwdriver, just drive it to the side of the, you know, through the side of the home, you know, two by sixes or two by eights or whatever they were, yeah, in the floor joists and everything. So yeah, it was bad. And then we ended up you know, having to tackle the situation, you know, so it was bad. Yeah. But we got it though. Michael Wienecke I remember we were sitting there when you when we found out you know, you were telling me about the boat you’re about to buy? I mean, you might you probably gonna have to hold off on the boat. Yeah, I had a lot of plans. there with that. But yes, yes. But it Jay Campbell was it was, you know, it is what it is. And you know, that’s what learned a lot. I’ll say that learned a lot. So yeah, it’s crazy. Well, Michael Wienecke so as far as having a termite bond, I mean, do you think you would ever not have a termite bond termite coverage on another house? I’ll Jay Campbell never do that again. Yeah, I mean, honestly, you know, tell me that, because if you did have if, you know, correct me if I’m wrong, if you have the termite bond, and that happens, the company covers it. I think Michael Wienecke maybe it depends on the type of coverage you have exactly. A repair bond if you have a retreat only retreatment only bond. Yeah. Jay Campbell So, yeah. So yeah, word of advice. Get your bond. Michael Wienecke Well, so, um, walk me through the process of repairing it. I think it’s amazing that you repaired your own house. I mean, you know, you literally took the initiative to tear your floors up, and I mean, just walk me through that. Jay Campbell Well, I had a guy come out, there’s actually a buddy of ours. He’s actually a friend of mine. Now here originally your friend. Yeah, buddy of mine. Yeah, Greg Kane, good guy. He come out and looked at it and everything and, um, you know, gave me a quote and everything and I was like, a little bit steeper than I wanted to go you know, and you know, that you know, this obviously, but you know, I work on cars for a living and I talked to my wife and everything and I was like, you don’t really want to spend that money or should I just try it myself, you know, if I can rebuild a total in the backyard in the shop at home, surely I can do something with the house and everything and I got a lot of friends and construction and all that kind of stuff. And, you know, people that I can bounce ideas off of, you know, like, I have a concept of how to do it. Yeah, it’s like a hey, what would code code thing to do here so that way whenever that date does come sell the house and you know, am I in the right in my going down the right path of fixing it and everything so Michael Wienecke I’m good Josh. Yeah, Jay Campbell Josh you know at the end there’s a lot of people I’ve talked to a lot of people with my bad my bad he knows a lot actually learned a lot that he that he knows a lot about that type stuff and I didn’t realize that Yeah. So yeah, got with dad. He’s got a bunch of friends I’ve talked to my good buddy Josh. I’ve talked to people at work but no friends and you know, they got people and also it was kind of like a and YouTube you know, we were talking about YouTube. Yeah, definitely YouTube a bunch of stuff and yeah, just got in there and just did it just started small and worked my way into it and obviously pulled the floors up and everything and I don’t think I sent you pictures but so the biggest reason I had to jump on it pretty quick was you know Benji was being born. Yeah, he found out we were pregnant. Everything is like, let’s talk I want to get on it now. Right? Right. Um, I don’t think I ever showed you pictures but in his room which you know where it’s at, yeah. The termites that ate into the sub floor itself. It was within a foot of the actual main beam of the house like the main I guess you I call it beam but but main Michael Wienecke structure? Here’s some structural damage. Jay Campbell Oh yeah, it could have it could have went about another foot, it would have been really, really, really bad. Michael Wienecke Well, that’s why I wanted to bring you on here. Because I mean, this is that house is the worst case I’ve ever seen. And I don’t I don’t mean to be mean. I get it. It’s like one of those things. And the cool thing about it was, and I was thinking about this, and I was like, you know, I really started my company. And it was like, what, two years three? I think it was like, after two years, we started doing termites. And your house was like the fourth or fifth house that I kind of inspected. You know, did all that training all that book, we’re looking at all these pictures, and I’m secretly screaming like, yes, you’re excited. Jay Campbell I can see it all over your face. You’re excited. Which I mean, it was cool, though. You know, it was Yeah. So the whole time being like, Hey, man, I gotta get I gotta get pictures. Don’t Don’t Don’t judge me. All right. Yeah, it was. So it was the fourth or fifth house. Michael Wienecke It was somewhere around there. I mean, you know, I was I was extremely green. And like I said, Do it try to do everything I could do to learn without actually getting in the field and getting out there and finding something like that? Jay Campbell Well, that was probably what once in a lifetime, maybe not once in a lifetime, Michael Wienecke but it’s a that’s a rare. It’s hard to find a termite, you know, infestation that completely tears down, you know, almost, really the front side. I mean, and we’re talking the room size was like 203 100 square foot Jay Campbell room. Yeah, things like a 10 by 12. And it was Michael Wienecke on their wall side of the window. You Jay Campbell had or had his room. But then if you it was like his room, but then it was like, in the living room as well. So it was he was there the whole front side of the house. Yeah. So it was bad. Yeah. But then to come to find out there was another water leak, too, that I saw that brought him in, right on the front side from the porch, you know, you know, I’m talking about what the porch came up. So I think that’s what brought them in, originally. Yeah, well, it’s funny. It was it was one man tear of it. She when she you know, obviously, we’re serious and our relationship, so she kind of started staying more at the house and everything. And at that time, it was my daughter for him. Yeah, yeah. Jay, what are these bugs? Oh, no, baby. I think that’s just please dance. Michael Wienecke You remember? Yes. I do remember that. Jay Campbell I was like, oh, no, it’s all good. Well, then the next year, they came back. And I was at work or something. And she looked it up. That’s when I sent you a picture. So what are these? Like? Do those are? What are you calling warmer? Warmer? Yeah. Oh, Lord, then I think that’s when you came out shortly after that. Yeah. If it was in the sheet rock in the in the two by fours and the walls and the floor joists in which you got the pictures, everything. It’s in the, like, the big window frame and the header in the header? Yeah, almost to the to the roof and everything it was? Yeah. Michael Wienecke Well, that’s why I’ve been so excited to bring you on here because it’s, it’s awesome. Getting your perspective because like you own a home, you pay for that home, you worked hard for that home. And to understand, you know, I would never not have a termite bond on my house. Obviously, I know a guy so yeah, but it’s just it’s that important, because that process you went through if you don’t mind? How much were the quotes that you were getting to repair your home house. Jay Campbell I’ve had a couple people come out in the highest now. I think the highest now there was some damage in the back as well. And I think all together. Like 50,000 That’s the quote you were getting. Ye

Welcome to another episode of Peskies Pest Control podcast here in Birmingham Alabama with Michael and Travis. We do this podcast as a community service for Birmingham, Hoover, Vestavia Hills, Mountain Brook, Helena, Alabaster, Pelham and all other surrounding areas! Travis McGowin Hey, thanks for checking out our video today as we wanted to go ahead and take a quick moment to discuss the official Alabama wood infestation inspection report. So what this form is, is for real estate transactions, whether you’re buying or selling a home, whether you’re refinancing a home, most of the time, mortgage lenders are going to require a wood infestation report what infestation reports are done in search of wood destroying organisms that may be affecting the home and this inspection is done so that it can be fully disclosed to the purchaser, as well as the seller. And then that way they can make an informed decision before they actually sign the dotted line and by the house. So as you can see on the this is the very first page of the report, man with the title official Alabama wood infestation inspection report, part A. And it does consist of a Part A and Part B. And then there is a third sheet, which is an addendum, but we’ll show you all that here in just a moment. So the first portion, the top part of part A labels, the company name, license number, address, and all the information for the company as well as the date of inspection and the date of issuance. It also has a spot for the sellers name, purchasers name, and it also list the inspectors name. Now another very important part to this is the scope of inspection. So this actually details what it is that the report encompasses. So you know, it lists out that some portions of the structure may be covered and not visible, list out if there’s any mold like conditions, or there’s concerns about molds and fungi in relation to indoor air quality and that it’s not covered. And then you know, you should have that inspected by someone else who’s certified in that type of inspection. So it’s really important to read the scope of inspection so that you really clearly understand what it is that has been inspected by this report. As you can see here, there’s also a list of the address of the structure and whether this report is only for the main structure itself, or whether it may include you know, some sort of outbuilding shop or shed that you have on the property. And there are some mortgage lenders that will require you to have all of those building inspected, instead of just inspecting the main structure that is for sale on the property. And then there’s also a spot for evidence of previous treatment, which is right here. And that is just going to be up to the inspector to see whether or not they found any evidence such as drill marks around the house bait stations for termites around the house and that sort of thing as well. So moving down to the next section, you have findings. So inspection reveals evidence of subterranean termites, powderpost beetles, wood boring beetles, dry wood, termites, wood, decaying fungi. And you can see there’s checkboxes to mark active or previous infestation. What you can’t see is right here, there’s a section that says remarks and additional findings. This is a spot on a fillable form where the inspector is able to put their remarks, you know, maybe they didn’t wanted to elaborate on something that they found or elaborate on what they checked. And so typically, they’ll type something in or write something in right there. So it’s always a good idea to go ahead and look at that remarks. And additional finding sections just to make sure that the inspector didn’t put something that was you know, very relevant or that might not want to be overlooked by the person who’s buying the house. Directly beneath that, there is a section for treatment. And it shows if any treatment was done on the structure. Now, sometimes this can be done in conjunction with this wood infestation report or it can be done previously well before the wood infestation report was issued. So in this case, the company that’s doing the inspection may have at one point in the past done treatment on this house and this allows them to showcase that to the new buyer. So they may have the above structure was or were treated by this company as follows and they may check this box and then you know they’ll write the date of treatment and the date that the treatment expires on these lines. And they will also note whether or not that is transferable or not transferable to a new property owner when the house is being purchased. And then at the very bottom of that is the last check box which is the above structure is are are not covered under a treatment contract by this company. This is a very important pour Part of this form. And the reason it is is because this tells you whether or not the house you are buying has coverage with the company that is doing the inspection. Now, just because this box is marked, that there is no coverage does not always mean that your house does not have termite coverage, there’s a possibility that your house could have termite coverage by a another company, and that that company is just not the one doing the inspection. But this box will tell you if the inspecting company does have coverage. And if it is marked that it is transferable to the new home buyer, it is a very good idea on your part, to reach out to that company after the closing of your home and ensure that they have updated contact information for you. That is one problem that we do run into occasionally, where contact information for the new homebuyer is not relate to us or to the other company that holds the termite coverage on this house. And if it comes time to renew, and they’re unable to contact you unable to get ahold of you, because they don’t have your proper contact information. And maybe they sent mailers and never heard back from you, then your termite coverage may actually lapse or be canceled altogether, at that time of renewal. So it’s always a great idea to go ahead and reach out to that company after closing, and just update the account information so that they have some sort of contact information for you. So right here, at the very bottom of part A, there’s a buyers signature form. And that, of course, is just going to be where the new buyer signs accepting the results of this report on part A. And then these boxes down here on the bottom are simply checkmarks were the people filling out the report, the company filling out the report can request that copies be sent to either the buyer, the mortgagee, the real estate agent, the seller and as well as the pest control company. So the next page is labeled as Part B. And part B starts off with, of course, showing the address and the date, just to make sure that this report goes along with that same address structure. And these conditions are very important to they kind of spell out a little bit more about what the extent of the report is. So it’s really definitely a great idea to read over these conditions and understand them. So that when you close on the house, let’s just say you close and that very same day, you start to move in and you walk into the house, and then you find something that maybe doesn’t look right to you. It’s a good idea to know what was either a not covered under this inspection that wouldn’t have been listed or be maybe unfortunately, somebody missed something during their inspection that should have been covered. So it’s a good idea to read the conditions governing this report just to ensure that you’re aware of what was covered and what to look for just in case something was missed. A little further down under the conditions governing this report is three checkboxes and it says inspection of accessible areas of this property indicates visible evidence of active or previous infestation as follows. Now this section should go right along with the section from part A, where the inspector was able to mark whether there was an active or previous infestation. So this should mirror whether there was anything found on part A it should mirror on Part B. So the inspector has the opportunity to say that there was evidence observed and that either control measures were performed, or control measures were not performed. And then as well as it should tell you that the evidence of an active or previous infestation exists below. And then they should be able to list that out. Now directly underneath that you see there’s more checkboxes for active and previous. And then it has the five wood destroying organisms that the report looks for. And in these blank lines to the right, the inspector should list a more detailed description of exactly where the wood destroying organism was found. So let’s just say hypothetically that there were subterranean termites found there were active ones, and the company did not provide any control measures. So they would check the boxes up here to mirror that, as well as check active by subterranean termites. And let’s just say for the sake of this video, that the termites were found in a wall, near a window seal in, for example, the living room, so the inspector may list out to the right of subterranean termites. The exact location of the activity, window seal on front side of the house and the living room. May be a little more specific than that. And so they’ll list that out. And directly below that is a diagram. So this diagram will actually give you a visual of where that activity or where that wood destroying organism was found in the structure. So this diagram should have it clearly marked. And then directly below this is a legend, or a key that shows you what the markings mean. So for example, if there were active termites found on that graph, where the termites were found, you should see something like S T, and N A,