PEST PROSpectives

Top 5 Pests That Can Make You Sick

• Pest Pros of Michigan

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What lurks in your home could be silently threatening your family's health. 

In this episode of PEST PROSpectives, Amber Byers, Associate Certified Entomologist and Director of Field Operations with the Pest Pros of Michigan, reveals the hidden dangers posed by five common household pests in this eye-opening conversation.

Knowledge is power! Hearing this information now can help you protect you and your family later if you encounter these pests.

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Pest Pros of Michigan


PEST PROSpectives is a Livemic Communications production.

Richard Piet:

I'm Richard Piet. Welcome to PEST PROSpectives Pest Pros of Michigan and if you've clicked on this one, it's because it says the top five pests that pose health risks. Yeah, let's talk about that knowledge. Knowledge is power, right? Amber Byers is back with us. Associate certified entomologist and director of field operations with the Pest Pros of Michigan. Hello, amber.

Amber Byars:

Hey Richard.

Richard Piet:

All right, let's have it. Let's start off with the first of our top five pests that pose health risks, and this one is very familiar mosquitoes.

Amber Byars:

Yeah, absolutely, and I kind of bundle mosquitoes with like flea and ticks as well, because they're all coming from pretty much that same area the harborage areas, the vegetation they like being in, overgrown, you know, shady areas that have a lot of water issues or standing water nearby.

Amber Byars:

So we start off with mosquitoes, especially here where we're at in Kalamazoo. We're very familiar with some of the diseases they can transmit, because a few years ago we were all impacted by the triple E outbreak, the Eastern equine encephalitis, which is contracted from birds who have it, and then mosquitoes can then infect people or horses through the bite and that's no fun. It causes like flu-like symptoms, it can cause inflammation of the brain and then, if we're moving right on to ticks, ticks have the Lyme disease and I always think of my puppy, who's a full grown dog, but all dogs are puppies, right? So I think of her because she loves going out and foraging through the woods. When we're out visiting my sister, when we're on walks through the woods, and so you know, ticks will climb up those little blades of grass and just wait for a host to walk by and attach right to them, and ticks with Lyme disease will spread through human contact.

Richard Piet:

Yeah, they're great hitchhikers.

Amber Byars:

They are absolutely. I was just out at my sister's this past weekend and she was telling me like whenever 11 goes into the you know tree line, make sure you check her. And sure enough, the next time she came out I was looking at her and she had a young tick on her. So Lyme disease is no joke and people should definitely be aware of it and be checking their animals and maybe getting them on a preventative treatment through their vet. That's what I do. I have my dog on a monthly plan and it works for fleas and ticks and heartworm, which again is contracted through mosquito bites.

Richard Piet:

Sure, and I suppose it's worth mentioning that, of course, not every mosquito has a disease, not every tick has a disease, but these potential threats are out there, so it's important to safeguard against them.

Amber Byars:

Oh, absolutely yeah. I mean, I'm sure we've all been bitten by a mosquito and not all of us contracted the crazy stuff that they can pass. So, yeah, it's definitely worth noting that if you do get bit or come into contact with one of these paths, that it's not the end of the world. But yeah, just to be aware that it is something that could happen, absolutely.

Richard Piet:

Yeah, and another one that the mosquitoes carry is West Nile, of course, which is quite serious.

Amber Byars:

Yeah, absolutely Same thing going on there with the flu-like symptoms and you just feel real bad if you get those.

Richard Piet:

Yeah, so when you talk about these kinds of, I guess, what I'd call warm-weather pests I say that because that tends to be their busy season, right? I say that because that tends to be their busy season, right? What kinds of approaches does Pest Pros undertake to try and mitigate the amount of these around? I mean, I see that you can have a treatment for these kinds of pests, right?

Amber Byars:

Yeah, great, great question. And you did mention like warm weather pests. Funnily enough, ticks will survive all winter and will be active on warmer days throughout the winter season. We love to get proactive with our tick treatments, like right before the season kicks off. We're always shouting out to our clients you know who wants to get on a proactive treatment, because we can do some granular spreading through the lawn to get to the younger ticks. We can do some treatment for rodents and attack the ticks at their first instar stage, before they even are interested in the larger rodents dogs, humans you know what I mean. And so we would also do for mosquitoes, larvaciding, because we're trying to break that life cycle before it gets to the point where it's going to be effective for us, right?

Richard Piet:

I think there's probably a perception right that well, mosquitoes are flying in from all over the place. How can I secure my own yard from them? But I think what you're talking about really helps repel them and get rid of them, doesn't it?

Amber Byars:

Yeah, and one of the new materials that they have available right now. There's a few different brands, but the one that we use it's called IntoCare and it's a bucket and it holds water and the water has a larvicide in it and an adulticide. I think we might've touched on this in one of our other talks, but it is more of a environmentally friendly product and it covers a larger zone than a treatment of liquid pesticides would.

Richard Piet:

I see, and of course, standing water mosquitoes love that, so they'll come right to it, won't they?

Amber Byars:

Absolutely. They need it to breed. That's where they lay their eggs. Floodwater mosquitoes will lay their eggs in areas where water will come, but container breeding mosquitoes are always going to look for standing water to land on and lay their eggs in.

Richard Piet:

All right. So there you are in the first of our list of pests that pose health risks Mosquitoes, fleas, ticks Guess what Next? Rodents? Yeah.

Amber Byars:

Rodents are some people's biggest fear you know, people just don't like to see mice or rats, which is funny, because certain people are okay with them. I'm not okay with spiders, but I can mess with mice all day long, you know you have the strength.

Richard Piet:

Yeah, I'm glad somebody does, that's right.

Amber Byars:

Yes, and this was a very real situation with the diseases that can be transmitted through rodent droppings and rodent urine. Gene Hackman just died. He's a celebrity, a famous actor who just died. So very real, 2025. People are still being affected by this.

Richard Piet:

And this is something that, in the case of his wife, I think they were not aware. It seems anyway, they were not aware. In fact, it's interesting you bring this up because I just read this article yesterday that of course there were rodents found on some of their property and this was the risk that they were taking, but probably didn't know it.

Amber Byars:

Yeah, absolutely, that's the other scary part, didn't know it. Yeah, absolutely, that's the other scary part. And so that's why we put such a heavy emphasis on the sanitation and remediation part of our service, because we can do the control absolutely and we can get rid of the mice. But what do they leave behind? They leave behind all the things that cause threat the rodent droppings, the urine, all the trailing that has the pheromones that could potentially bring new rodents in. If we get rid of that, then that risk goes down.

Richard Piet:

And if you look at the list of potential ailments that come from what you're talking about mice rats, salmonella, the hantavirus you referred to other pathogens as well. Where does this happen? If they're in your home, they're probably going where the food is right.

Amber Byars:

Yeah, and so you don't think about this, because mice are usually moving around when you're sleeping, when you're not at home, when things are quiet, and so they're traveling on your countertops, on the dishes that were maybe left out on places where you're not going to see it, because it's so microscopic, but that they leave behind those things that could transmit the disease. And so you pick up that plate that you left out a mouse may have, you know, done some business on there and you use that plate.

Amber Byars:

You don't know, you're not, you can't see it all the time. So kitchens, pantries, things like that. Yeah, boy, not a, you can't see it all the time. So kitchens, pantries, things like that.

Richard Piet:

Yeah, boy, not a pleasant thought to think about that. This happens, doesn't it?

Amber Byars:

Yeah. Yeah, it's not the fun part of the conversation and you never want to sell based out of fear, but this is the reality and sometimes you know, without educating somebody, they'll never know that you know yeah.

Richard Piet:

All right. What about wildlife? That's next on our list. What do we consider wildlife in this case?

Amber Byars:

Well, the two that came to mind for me were bats and raccoons. We deal with a lot of raccoon latrines Latrines is a fancy word for their toilet, where they use the bathroom and raccoon latrines can get pretty large, and the size of their droppings is almost like a medium sized dog, you know. So it's not hard to miss, but the amount of disease that can be associated with that is very high, and so you want to make sure that you are protecting yourself. We get the question a lot Well, can I just do this myself? Um, you absolutely can, but please heed the risks of contacting this without proper PPE. We always let clients know the risk of not getting it done by a professional.

Richard Piet:

Yes, and PPE, of course, is the professional grade apparel that you need to wear, protective equipment that you need to wear when dealing with all of this. Really, when we talk about raccoons and bats and you referred to the droppings this dries out and it becomes dust. Right, we can breathe that.

Amber Byars:

Yeah, yeah, great point. That is one of the things that is such a high risk with bat guano, because it can get airborne. Their guano is so small and it's just made of particles from that were digested and then released and so once it gets into the air from being disturbed somehow whether it's from somebody working in that area or another animal disturbing it you breathe that in and that's how you're going to, you know, be affected by that.

Richard Piet:

And you may not even know.

Amber Byars:

Yeah, and histoplasmosis is the number one thing that we see. Bats, the inhalation of the guano from bats yeah, and then rabies from the bites, but I haven't personally experienced any you know true stories with that in my career yet, but I do know that it is possible. I haven't encountered anybody personally that's had that happen to them.

Richard Piet:

Well, that's the thing I think people think about when they think about bats. I think about rabies. What you're saying is, it really is the guano and the airborne contaminants that we could breathe when there's enough of it.

Amber Byars:

Yeah, cause you know there's the stereotypical, all the bats going to get in my hair and the bats are. Because you know there's the stereotypical, oh, the bat's going to get in my hair and the bats are going to, you know, fly around my head. Yeah. I don't hear about that too much.

Richard Piet:

Right, that's not the real issue. Yeah, okay. And finally, after we've talked about bugs and wildlife, there is bedbugs. Right, are they actually a health risk?

Amber Byars:

Bedbugs don't pose a risk as far as spreading diseases, but they cause a lot of mental stress, right Anxiety, insomnia, just mental issues. If you're dealing with bedbugs and we've encountered hundreds to thousands of clients that have dealt with bedbugs it's something that, once you have them and have experienced it, they don't forget that they think every little speck is a bedbug. It's hard for them to sleep, it's hard for them to carry on with the day because everything that they see is in their mind a bedbug. And so if you can imagine dealing with that all day, every day, how your health could be affected Absolutely.

Richard Piet:

My goodness, I really hadn't thought of that, the idea that once you know you've dealt with bedbugs, it's a little bit of a leap of faith for an average person right To say, okay, I guess they're gone, now Everything's fine. And you have to get yourself back into that frame of mind and that can be tough.

Amber Byars:

Yeah, especially once you learn how people get bed bugs, you know it's just something that could happen to literally anybody. They're hitchhiker bugs. They hitchhike off of stored items. They can hitchhike off of public transportation, public places, churches. So it's very hard to know all of that, yeah, and then move forward once you've already dealt with them.

Richard Piet:

You know that's incredible and you really touch on the sensitivity of that, because we might think, you know, we'll pick up bedbugs staying as a guest somewhere else. But just in normal travels it can even happen, and then the notion of the mental stress that takes place after you've encountered that is notable. I would just add here that a number of the things that we've talked about today rodents, wildlife bedbugs, in particular we've done separate episodes on how the pest pros of Michigan handle those situations. Rodents, of course, are a very serious situation, and bats and raccoons and bedbugs All of those situations require an approach that the pest pros of Michigan have talked about in some of our Pest Prospective episodes. So we invite you to subscribe to those and find those episodes and you'll be able to hear in more detail about that. But here we are really five of the most prominent pests that pose health risks. This has been enlightening, amber. I'm not sure folks realize that this is a threat sometimes, and so this is good to know. Thank you.

Amber Byars:

Yes, absolutely, thank you.

Richard Piet:

Amber Byers, one Pest Pros of Michigan PEST PROSpectives .