your neighbor in pest control
Roy, Washington
Pierce County
FREE NO PRESSURE QUOTES (ants, rats, mice, wasps, bees, hornets general insects and many more)
253-242-0097
CONTROL MEASURES FOR COMMON PESTS
Q&A
At Tony the ex Terminator, we are your neighbor and expert for all your pest control needs. Take a look at the list of frequently asked questions below for some useful answers. If you can’t find what you need, let us know and we’ll get back to you shortly.
How do you control rodents?
In all rodent cases, the most important aspects for control is exclusion and access denial. I will work with you on what and how to best exclude your home. Exclusion is simply sealing openings to some degree. Access denial is removing tree limbs, planting and other means of access, this only the home owner can typically control and remedy. From there I use traps to capture anything within the excluded structure. You will not find me using poison inside a home as this will cause bigger headaches for you down the road. By trapping the mouse or rat, this allows for removal and prevents the odors and other pests that come with carcasses. Outside your home I will use rodent bait stations which are placed in an optimal location to best suit your ongoing pest issue. This will help limit the overall pressure on your home and maintain overall control of the population.
Why are spiders everywhere and how do you control them?
Spiders are prolific in the PNW due to our abundance of insects and our temperate climate. They are also extremely beneficial because they eat so many insects. However I know that spiders are a fear for most. Spiders, unlike most insects do not absorb product into their bodies well. Most insects absorb product through their legs or through self grooming practices. Spiders however do not and to affect them the products must come into contact with the spiders body for a period of time. This is not practical since spiders do not sit or lay down. So the only practical way to get rid of spiders is either the old school shoe method, directly spraying them or through impacting their food source. Spiders feed on other insects, which means the most effective way to kill a spider is treating their food source. Interior treatments for spiders are not done unless there are some underlying circumstances. We typically treat around the home to infect spiders food supply helping eliminate your spider population. It always feels like an abundance of spiders in your home when in fact there are very few. The use of sticky traps along your walls in dark areas are very effective and recommended.
How do you get rid of Sugar ants (OHA)
Although commonly referred to as sugar ants, these ants are actually called Odorous House Ants (OHA's) named so because of the odor released when crushed. This ant is not an ant that can simply be eliminated with a service or two for many reasons and many scenarios. This ant has colonies that bud we refer to them as budding ants. This means one colony of the OHA has multiple queens. Anywhere from 3-5 and approximately every 27 days those queens take a small portion of the nest elsewhere and start a whole new nest. Again, that process is referred to as budding or fracturing. This also happens when a colony gets some type of danger or warning signal. They communicate through pheromones and Trophallaxis. Pheromones are chemical ques or a scent they release to communicate. Trophallaxis is very similar, but done through a mouth to mouth process, usually through the exchange of saliva or food. Most people make this ant worse through over the counter products, home remedies or by simply killing the ants. These home measures cause the colony to bud making a small problem much larger and much harder to control. We use non-repellent products which are undetectable in most cases by the ant. This allows the ants to carry on without knowing they are inadvertently absorbing product into their bodies via the fatty tissue on their legs. When they go through the trophallaxis (feeding) the poison is then carried into and spread throughout the nests. The products work slowly mainly due to the nature of the ants and how many nests need to be eliminated. Each nest needs ants to locate, carry and feed enough product to and from the nest for days or sometimes weeks to get enough product back to begin the nest collapse. Ongoing service is the only way to maintain adequate control of this pest.