Apparently this is comfortable to an Akita.

I guess when you spend most of your time being attacked by a rambunctious puppy any rest is good rest.

Why do I have ticks in my house!!?  I can’t tell you how many times this question has been uttered on the other end of my phone.  In the last couple of years we here at Hunter Pest Control have seen our flea and tick business quadruple.  This is a fact that’s not easily lost on me as when I began my pest control career around 6 years ago fleas and ticks were a thing of the past.  We almost never fielded a call on fleas much less actually performed a flea or tick job.  The insect growth regulators in the monthly drops and pills like Advantage and Frontline had effectively shut down our business. 

This absence was, like many things in pest control, a part of a larger cycle.  Just as we seem to have complete control of a major pest mother nature finds a way to show us we’re not as smart as we think we are.  With this in mind the last few years we’ve seen the pendulum swing back and the fleas and ticks seem to have the upper hand. 

 My analysis is that several factors are responsible for this influx of these parasitic buggers and there could be changes for the better on the way.

Chemical Resistance-Insects have a nasty habit of evolving past our chemicals and treatment practices.  One of the big reasons for this is their rapid reproduction.  Most insects are so prololific that their evolution occurs much faster than that of other animals.  So we’ll see insects respond to changes in their environment more quickly.  The individual insects who are resistant to a certain chemical will live through a treatment with said chemical and their offspring in turn will out compete those insects who are suceptible to that agent.  In short order those insects with resistance or different habits make up the majority of the population and now you have a stronger resistant population.  I’ve heard a lot of discussion that the above mentioned products aren’t working as well as they once did for these very reasons.  This is probably a reason for the recent influx of fleas an ticks.     

Robust Environment-The last few winters have been unseasonably warm even by Houston standards.  I’m hard pressed to think of one hard freeze for 2008 and 2009.  Landscapers and bug guys love this-because they know their bread and butter is alive and well.  However St. Augustine grass isn’t going to suck your blood and give you Lymes Disease.  In a normal winter a lot of things including bugs die off.  This is a natural part of nature and serves to keep populations and the ecosystem in check.  When you have a warm winter you not only have more fleas and ticks survive you also give them a longer period in which to breed and actually increase the population.  Mother nature has also lended the fleas and ticks a hand with rainy springs and summers.  Moisture more than anything else will support huge pest populations and the wetter the better as far as bugs are concerned.

With all this said there may be relief in sight.  In contrast to the last several years I am hard pressed to think of a colder winter than the current winter we’re experiencing.  We’ve had week long spans of freezing weather and  legitimate snow and freezing rain.  I heard the weatherman say this is Houston’s 5th coldest February on record and the coldest average daily temperature since the 70’s.  Our extra business has fallen off the map and it’s mostly due to the bugs being forced into submission by the cold.  I’m actually quite happy about this since we’ve had many customers with horrible flea/tick infestations.  My hope is that this bitter cold will significantly reduce the numbers of these biting parasites to managable levels.  Only time will tell on this but I am cautiously optimistic.

 There’s nothing quite as traumatic as witnessing an ant or termite swarm inside of your home.  If you’ve experienced it first hand you know what I’m talking about.  If you haven’t,  picture several hundred small flying bugs streaming out of your walls and clumsily buzzing around running into everything.  Its even scarier when your talking about carpenter ants.  Carpenter ant swarmers are both huge and scary.  As scary as they are carpenter ants and all ant species are preferred to the dreaded termite swarm.   

  Carpenter ants will remove wet rotted or damaged wood in order to live in an area but they don’t actually eat the wood.  For this reason they don’t usually do near as much damage as termites.  Left untreated however they can still be a significant problem.  Termites on the other hand are wood eating machines.  They don’t take breaks or holidays and they’re all non-union.  How’s that for a cheesy pest control joke?  Anyway you get the picture….they all swarm but I consider termites the worst of the bunch.

I bring all this up because in the last 2 weeks we here at Hunter Pest Control have seen 2 carpenter ant swarms in 2 different areas.  This is odd considering carpenter ants are supposed to swarm in late summer.  Its not so odd when you consider the roller coaster like weather patterns we Houstonians have become accustomed to.  The carpenter ants are programmed to swarm during a certain set of environmental circumstances and for whatever reason the combinations we’ve had lately have caused them to swarm, at least in 2 spots that I know of.   I’m betting a lot more have done the same.   If you see these big nasty’s in your house it most likely means there’s a colony living inside the walls of your home.  Your best bet is to call a professional pest control company (like us) and have them treated before they do any more damage or even worse scare somebody!

We also shouldn’t forget that termite swarming season is right around the corner.  Some termite swarms can occur as early as late February and the season kicks into high gear in March and April depending upon where you live.  Termite swarmers are very similar in appearance to ant swarmers with a few exceptions.  The easiest one to remember is that ant swarmers have a well defined “waist” where as termites don’t appear to have this partition or break between their abdomen and thorax.   This website has a good side by side comparison of ant vs. termite  swarmers. 

 Keep your eyes peeled for these swarms in the coming weeks and months as they are sometimes the only sign of infestation that you’ll see.

Either the Rock’s getting smaller or he’s getting bigger…I’ll let you decide.

Before

After

Sure he looks harmless….

Unless you’re a fluffy inanimate object. 

In which case he’s a cold efficient killing machine.