Posted on July 21, 2011 with No Comments
Are you planning to move into a new home? Contact JP McHale today! We offer a home inspection service that surveys the property for any wood destroying organisms, such as termites and carpenter ants that could be causing damage to the property you are interested in.
Wood destroying organisms can decrease the property value and you should be aware as the new owner!
If you’ve recently moved into a new home, you may not be aware of pest issues right away. Rodents, insects, spiders and many more could be lurking in your newly bought residence, and you may not enjoy their company!
Be sure to maintain your home year round with pest control services. It’s always better to purchase a service program before pests make their way into your yard and home. Our services can not only save you time and spare you of stress, but can save you money by preventing pest damage that can become quite costly.
JP McHale offers a year round pest control service called the Home Pest Prevention Program which covers a multitude of critters.
Be sure to contact us today if you are interested in any our pest control programs or inspections!
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Posted on August 5, 2009 with 1 Comment
Everyone that has lived in a college dorm room knows that the colleges like to fit as many people as they can in close quarters. Two beds in a room half the size of your bedroom when you buy a house. Some rooms can have even three or four people in a very close proximity. Next door, you have the same thing, and some floors can have over 100 students living.
With the recent resurgence in bed bugs, they can thrive in this type of environment. There are a few precautions that can be made to prevent your child or you as a student from contracting bed bugs. Bed bugs are usually brought into the rooms by students.
Bed bugs travel usually by luggage. While packing ensure all your clothes are washed and that you’re current home does not have any evidence of bed bugs.
When you get to your room, take a look at the mattress for small brown spots or small crawling bugs. Look in seems of the mattress and in the small cracks in the bed. Bed bugs only come out at night, so spotting activity during the day is rare.
Special bed bug mattress covers should be used as a preventative measure. These covers will prevent bed bugs from coming from the mattress to the body. It will not prevent an infestation, but will help with it.
If you, or your child spots bed bug activity in their room, or a neighbors they should report it to the resident director immediately. This is a very serious issue and must be handled properly. Student must be relocated to other rooms, and all of the items in the room must be inspected and treated if activity is found.
FOR COLLEGES: It’s smart to monitor for bed bugs on a constant basis. K-9 bed bug inspection dogs are efficient, accurate and inexpensive. If you implement an inspection schedule into the dooms, you will be able to spot an infestation early, and keep it from spreading to the entire floor, and even other buildings. Bed bug lawsuits are on the rise, and you should protect your business from having a widespread problem. There have already been reports of bed bugs appearing in dorm rooms, and the cases we small, because the students caught the problem early.
If you would like more information on how bed bugs live and what exactly they do, we would like you to watch a great bed bug documentary
Posted on July 2, 2009 with 1 Comment
About.com wrote an article about bed bugs appearing in upscale hotels. Over the past 10 or so years, bed bugs have reappeared in North America. Bed Bugs feed off human blood, and are nocturnal, only showing themselves when you are sleeping. The hide in sheets, mattresses, headboards, and furniture when they are not feeding.
Because of Integrated Pest Management, IPM, pesticide use has been greatly reduced, and now treatments have become targeted at certain pests. About.com writes…
“Concerns about health and the environment led to many of these broad-spectrum pesticides being removed from the market. Today, pest control methods are more focused, designed to kill a particular species (like cockroaches). Bed bugs, since they are not specifically being treated for, are slipping through the cracks.”
Bed bugs travel in suitcases, and if they are present in a hotel that you sleep in, you most likely will carry them to your next destination.
The most upscale hotel and motels have the same chance of being infested. Sanitation has NO EFFECT on the presence of bed bugs. The only way that a hotel/ motel can prevent bed bug infestations is from weekly or monthly inspections. Years ago this was a tedious and expensive task for hotel and motel management, and time consuming for pest management inspectors. As of the last five years we have seen an increase in K-9 bed bug inspection dogs.
K-9 bed bug inspecting dogs are becoming more popular because they are about 90% effective and cheaper for hotel/ motel management. K-9 inspections will only take about 3-5 minutes a room, while human inspection can take a lot longer and are not as accurate.
We wrote previously about how to choose a K-9 bed bug inspection company.
The About.com article about the reappearance of bed bugs can be found here.
