Five Common Pest Control Myths, Debunked By A Pro

Think one spray will wipe out a pest problem? On this episode of PEST PROSpectives, we take you inside the real mechanics of control—life cycles, hidden harborage, exterior pressure—and explain why lasting results come from strategy, not wishful thinking. With Amber Byars, who oversees field operations at Pest Pros of Michigan, we unpack five myths that cost homeowners time, money, and peace of mind.

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Pest Pros of Michigan

PEST PROSpectives is a Livemic Communications production.

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Setting The Stage: Five Myths

Richard Piet 0:08

Welcome back to Pest Prospectives. I'm Richard Piet. Yep, it's a little bit of a play on words, prospectives, because we're talking about the pest pros of Michigan and what they know, what they bring to the table to help you deal with the pests that might be in your home, in your business, wherever that might be. Amber Byars is back with us. She oversees field operations at the Pest Pros of Michigan. She's an ace as well. So talk about knowledge. Boy, we're always asking you questions, aren't we?

Amber Byars 0:40

That's right.

Richard Piet 0:41

It's true. And today we're going to talk about five myths of pest control that are out there that tend to come up that people tend to buy into that really aren't true. All right. This is a big one. First on the list, Amber.

Myth 1: Spray It And Done

Richard Piet 1:00

Spray it and it's done. Right? There's a perspective that, a perspective, not a prospective, that all you gotta do is come out and spray and it's over. Not always true, right?

Amber Byars 1:12

No, I think this is probably one of my favorites because it's so common. That's the first question people usually ask is what do you have to spray this? What can you spray to get rid of this? Like, and the biggest misconception about sprays, treatments, are that you do it and that's it. You just come and we wave a magic wand with this treatment, and boom, everything's gone. And that is so far from the truth for multiple reasons. One is pests have life cycles. In these life cycles, depending on what species we're dealing with, there's going to either be, you know, an egg, a larva, a pupa before an adult, or there's going to be an egg, a nymphal stage, which is like gradually getting bigger into an adult. So when we're thinking about these life cycles and a treatment, most of our treatments that we do will only affect certain stages of that life cycle, mainly adults. So adulticides are typically what we use to spray. And so we really need to focus on the entire life cycle in order to be successful. And what that means is there are other methods that play into this that we have to utilize in order to be successful.

Life Cycles And Treatment Limits

Richard Piet 2:31

Wow. That makes a whole lot of sense. Think about that. If the common approach is to provide a treatment that affects adults, but not the young or the larval stage, you've got a whole new crew on the way. And that has not been affected. That's huge.

Amber Byars 2:49

Yeah, it is huge. It will just result in disappointment. It will result in an unreasonable expectation that, you know, we're going to come in with this treatment and cure everything without knowing for the without the client knowing that just give it a couple of weeks or months and you're going to have this issue right back. Another thing that with the sprays are a misconception with rodents is that there's a spray that we can use to repel them. And most of the time, it's either going

Rodents: Why Sprays Don’t Work

Amber Byars 3:20

to be lethal trapping or a rodenicide application. And so, no, there's no spray for mice. I wish there was. That would make things so much easier, but there's not.

Richard Piet 3:31

All right. So there's more to it than just spraying. There's the point. Here's the next one. I've only seen one bug or one fill-in-blank, whatever that might be. That means there's more, right? There's not just one.

Amber Byars 3:46

Typically. Now there are some exceptions to that. Like I've seen, you know, just the one-off of a rodent that got into a home. We've

Myth 2: I Only Saw One

Amber Byars 3:55

been out to do rodent calls and because a client seen one and we find nothing. We don't find entry points. We don't find droppings. We don't find burrow holes, nothing, which indicates that there was a stray mouse that got in by chance, wandered in. And so they caught it very quickly once a door was open, whether, you know, whatever the case was. Um, but most of the time, yes, there are more. Um pests are certain pests are nocturnal. Certain pests uh like to are are thygmotrophic, which means they like to be in tight spaces. Um, so they're gonna be out of sight typically unless you know where you're looking. And so um referring to specifically to cockroaches here with that, if you see one, there's most likely a lot more in areas that you just can't see.

Richard Piet 4:46

Yeah. Okay. That makes a ton of sense too, doesn't it? Uh we don't know what we don't know, which is one of my favorites slogans. But uh it's true. We don't. And so there is more than

Hidden Habits And Where They Hide

Richard Piet 5:00

meets the eye in some situations.

Amber Byars 5:04

I like I said earlier, there's those one-off chances where there will just be one, but typically there's more, and we know where to look, you know, we know what to what to move in the home to see if we can find more evidence. Uh, a lot of these animals live in like the wall void or the attic space or the still plate in the basement. And who's spending their time there? Nobody. You know?

Richard Piet 5:27

We're not in. Yep.

Amber Byars 5:29

Yeah.

Richard Piet 5:29

I get it. All right. So more to the story is entirely possible. Here's one I really like. And and it comes from, I think, the idea that we think of pests, whether it's bugs or rodents or whatever the situation is, as being dirty, which is not entirely unaccurate. Uh, however, uh, we then say, My house is clean. I don't have pests. You can have pests when the house is clean. What do you say about that one?

Amber Byars 5:59

Yeah,

Myth 3: Clean Homes Don’t Get Pests

Amber Byars 6:00

this was a huge passion of mine when I first got into pest control trying to to really end or minimize that stigma that pests equal dirty or pests equal low income, or you know, like, um, because that's just so far from the truth. Pests do not discriminate, they will utilize an environment for what they need. Two of the biggest ones that I think of are German cockroaches and bed bugs. I have done bed bug treatments and German cockroach treatments in multi-million dollar homes that were spotless because the biology in these pests say that they, well, with with bed bugs, they are blood feeders. So they will be human blood feeders and they will be around human wherever humans are. Um, and they're hitchhikers, which means that you can get them from literally anywhere where there's humans, and whether that's a doctor's office or a movie theater. So, no, that does not equate that that person or property

Hitchhikers: Bed Bugs And Roaches

Amber Byars 7:00

is dirty. And same with German cockroaches, they are also hitchhikers. They can come in on deliveries, delivery packages, they can come from a neighbor, they can come from um somebody else that brought a bag over that happened to have a cockroach in it. Now, once they're in an environment, their success rate is higher if the environment has more conducive conditions. That's true. So if it has with German cockroaches, if there's more, you know, organic, moist material, unsanitary, bad trash habits, you know, yes, they'll be more successful there, but that doesn't mean that they won't be successful in a clean home.

Richard Piet 7:42

All right. So uh don't uh judge the old book by the cover, is the point. Uh they could be just as cozy in a clean environment as we would be. And so there's something to keep in mind. Another of the myths. Here's another one that you probably deal with pretty often. Uh once they're gone, I'm done. I don't need any more pest control services. True?

Amber Byars 8:07

That's true. Yeah. We get a lot of either reschedules or just straight cancellations because our clients, we've done such a good job, right? This is what they say. You've done so well. I don't have any pests. We don't need

Conditions That Boost Infestations

Amber Byars 8:20

you anymore, which is great. Um, but my first response to a client when they say this is we've done so much work here on your property. We've gotten to the point where you want to be and where you are in a preventative state now. Yeah. Um, what I don't want to see happen is you cancel the rate that we have now. And in three months, you're calling with a new issue because more times than not, that is what happens because the control goes away or the preventative goes away. So I see this a lot with mice, where you know, I haven't seen a mouse in six months. So we don't need your services anymore. And yes, you're that's true, you haven't seen a mouse in six months, but we've been doing the control for you. So we tell clients, we highly recommend you stay for these reasons, because you're on preventive maintenance, you still have activity outside, but you don't have any inside. I don't want to see you get an activity inside, but

Myth 4: Once Gone, We’re Done

Amber Byars 9:20

we'll leave that up to them. And if they decide to take a pause, we hear back for a moment about 60 to 90 days.

Richard Piet 9:28

That quick. 60 to 90 days.

Amber Byars 9:30

Yeah, well, because once that control effort stops outside with the population control, the pressure on the home gets higher. Yeah. And so one of the methods of control is exclusion. And if our exclusion work is done well, that could last a lot longer. But over time, because mice are always chewing, their incisors never stop growing. So they will chew back through eventually if the pressure's high on the home and if the pheromones are there and if their vulnerabilities are there. So um just something we try to explain up front, just to limit clients being disappointed in the future again with either their decision or thinking that they could cancel and not have a problem ever again.

Richard Piet 10:13

Yeah, it it reminds me of um our own health, right? So some folks will be on a medication, I don't need this anymore. I feel fine. Well, you stop it and then uh the problems come back. So this is a similar thing. Makes perfect sense. You have a plan, you've

Why Preventive Maintenance Matters

Richard Piet 10:30

studied this, you've now executed that plan, and to stop it then brings up a greater risk that uh things will uh revert back to the way they were, maybe even in 60 to 90 days, which I don't know how years go by so fast. 60 to 90 days.

Amber Byars 10:48

That's pretty quick. It is specific more so to rodents with a higher pressure outside, with a higher population. Um, if you're if we're talking about a colony like a termite colony or even a stingy insect colony that it gets controlled and then run maintenance, that could maybe take longer to reinfest. Um, because well, with termites, there's really it's really hard unless we're on a maintenance program to ensure that the property is effectively protected because they're subterranean and they live in the ground and we can't see through the ground. So maintenance is great for termites. With stinging insects, it's a lot easier to see because they're on the exterior of a home, right within, you know, visual uh sight. So um, but still maintenance is all around a really great tool. Um, but again, clients they think sometimes that once they're gone, they're gone forever. And it's just up to us to kind of explain that a little better.

Richard Piet 11:48

Well, I speak from experience. In fact, with with the ground bee thing, uh, it was a great relief when they were gone. Uh, but as we've talked about on this episode,

Rodent Pressure, Exclusion, And Return

Richard Piet 12:00

it was not a one-and-done deal, and it was not just a spray and goodbye and it's over. There was more involved in that, I can attest. Well, our last myth here that is quite common, and uh folks, this'll resonate. Believe me, doing it yourself is cheaper. We've had this come up, Amber, over time in some of our episodes. The idea that we're not trying to suggest a DIY situation isn't effective, but there are some misperceptions about it. And this is one of them. It's cheaper.

Amber Byars 12:34

Yeah, and I'm all for giving information to clients that they need if they are truly going to go out on their own to do something with our professional hand on it. I'm I'm always more than happy to give some bullet point information for them to be successful. But we usually come in after the fact, after clients have already tried something for so long is when we get called in because they've had enough. They're they're miserable enough now to call, you know. So when that happens, then we're kind of playing a backwards game. And most of the time, the reason why DYI fails is because these over-the-counter products that clients, you know, Google and then go buy from the Home Depot or whatnot, they are labeled for certain pests and they will kill certain pests. But the way that they interact with

Termites And Stinging Insect Nuance

Amber Byars 13:30

these pests biologically, you want to pick the right chemical per pest. Okay. So people just will go buy anything, spray it, and you know, because it's a $20 can versus a $200 service. But what happens with that is either they're going to treat this area and these bugs are going to just go everywhere, or they're going to halfway die and then re-emerge, halfway die and re-emerge. One of the biggest headaches I see clients go through this with are with wasps. When they have yellow jackets going into a part of their house, or they start hearing them in the wall, they'll go buy a can of wasp freeze at the store, and they'll just go, you know, inject it all into this area. And then boom, they have this huge wasp nest breaking in through their house because the repellents in that treatment did something to the colony. It it knocked down some of the workers, but it let the rest of the colony thrive. That's very similar with any other colony insect, an ant. I don't think I've ever met anybody that's wanted to treat termites on their own, but it can get pretty egregious if you try something that the chemical compounds aren't what you should be using.

Richard Piet 14:50

Yeah. And think about the time invested in that, as well as the cans or the the containers you're buying

Myth 5: DIY Is Cheaper

Richard Piet 15:00

of material. Now you're you're fighting that fight on your own, and uh we don't necessarily have the perspective of the pest pros and knowing exactly how to handle it. And and this is a great time to uh mention again, you have studied uh how these pests behave, what uh they're attracted to, their behaviors, and how to interrupt that. The rest of us are just uh living our lives until we get an interruption like this that causes us to want to go out and try and handle it ourselves. And and uh it makes sense then with our layman's view that we may not be successful at it.

Amber Byars 15:47

I understand the budget factor in most of these decisions. Like I think that if I had a pest issue and I wasn't in pest control, I might try something on my own. But knowing what I know now and having a

OTC Chemicals And Biology Mismatch

Amber Byars 16:00

platform like this to say to people, go for the professional standpoint first, especially if it's something that can cause damage, disease, or discomfort to you or your property, always go towards the professional route because I've met way too many people that have really banged their head up against the wall for so long before calling. And at the end of everything, they ended up spending twice or three times as much money and time as they would have if they would have just gone to the professionals first. And when we talk about damage, disease, and discomfort in pests, we're looking at things like bedbugs, cockroaches, stinging insects, any wood-destroying insect, like termites, carpenter bees, anything like that, carpenter ants. You want to just go the professional route first because it's worth the investment for sure.

Richard Piet 16:54

Yeah, it starts to get pretty serious in uh in those situations. Yeah. All right. Hopefully, we've given you some things to think about here, particularly if you had not been enlightened about some of these things. We ask the Pest Pros about these things to help you be educated and understand. Did we stir up questions for you about your own situation? Click

The Wasp Wall-Nest Backfire

Richard Piet 17:20

through from the show notes to the Pest Pros website and reach out. The Pest Pros of Michigan are happy to answer your questions and be of service. We have other episodes like this too. The Pest Prospectives episodes are easily available, but we invite you to subscribe so you know when they come around. And we'll be around again before you know it. Thank you, Amber. Thank you.