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Michael Wienecke 0:12
Welcome to another episode of pesky pest control podcast here in Birmingham, Alabama with Michael and Travis. We do this podcast as a community service for Birmingham, Hoover Vestavia hills, mountain Brook Halina, Alabaster, Pelham, and all other surrounding areas.
Travis McGowin 0:35
Hey, so today we’re gonna talk about beetles and more specifically the Ladybug and the Asian lady beetle. Now, around this time of year, getting close into the fall and winter time, that’s typically when people start having issues with them, especially the Asian lady beetle. know over the last couple of weeks, we’ve had a couple of phone calls, in reference to the Asian lady beetle invading multiple my customers houses. I had one customer in particular, who has a vaulted ceiling in their living room. And when I tell you that we’re 1000s of these Asian lady beetles, up on the ceiling, just crawling around looking for a place to overwinter and to ride out the colder weather. So typically, the Asian lady beetle is commonly mistaken as a ladybug. But it is a very good copy. However, there are some subtle differences that you can look at to try and differentiate between the two beetles themselves. First of all, we’ll talk about the Ladybug. So the ladybug is actually a very beneficial creature. You want this creature inside of your gardens and where you’re growing your flowers when you’re growing your crops. They’re harmless, they will typically feed on other garden pests that you have. So that’s a good thing for you if you’re growing crops, and they usually stay outdoors. You recognize them by their red color with their black spots. But the one of the main differences between the Asian lady beetle and an actual beneficial ladybug is there’s an M, the letter M shaped spot on the back of the top of the head of the Asian lady beetle, whereas the ladybug does not have that little spot. Also, your typical Ladybug may be brighter, more vibrant and red color, whereas some of your Asian lady beetles are almost yellow, or very, very kind of a pale red, so they don’t look the same as the ladybug. The Asian lady beetles, actually can can cause odors, you know, they typically do invade your home, like I said, looking for a place to overwinter they’ll come into your home, through cracks, crevices around doors, around windows around eaves and your attic. And they’re kind of aggressive, they have been reported by one of my customer who is allergic to actually bite and give her some reactions to those two. Um, so some things that you can do as a home owner to try and just get rid of them or to stop them before they become an actual problem would be one to seal up the GAC the gaps and the cracks and the crevices around your outside of your house, whether that’s around your doors around your windows, around your eaves. One customer that I had, in particular had an issue around their chimney, where there was large gaps where the wood siding on the house had started to shrink and become weathered over time throughout the years that the house had been there. And so these Asian lady beetles come back year after year after year through these gaps and cracks. And it was particularly on one side of the house where there’s a lot of sunlight, so it’s really warm, and it’s just a really desirable location. So as with all pests, sealing up their access is really the number one thing that you can do, that’s really the best thing that you can do to prevent them from coming inside your house. You know, so you may be asking yourself, what now I already have them in my house. That’s a good question for you to ask because call us call us and let us come out and take a look at your house. Let us see what the extent of the problem is. In the case of my customer that had the vaulted ceilings that I mentioned, I found several accesses. inside the attic where there was just huge gaps are the outside of the house. So we did seal those up. We also treated the attic space to try to get rid of the ones that were in the attic. And then we also treated with the UNLV fog inside their house just to go ahead and eliminate the ones that had already made it inside the house. And as a consequence of treating it inside the house. After I was finished. I went around and looked on the outside of the house and there were hundreds if not 1000s of these Asian lady beetles crawling around on the outside of the house. So where I had actually ran them out of the house with the USB fog, and then I was able to actually treat them on the outside of the house too. So don’t get discouraged, you do have options. But like I said, the best thing to do is to call us before it becomes a problem, and solve the problem before it starts. So seal up that house. Get your pest control provider to get some good treatments going on around the inside and outside of your home, in preparation before they actually make their way into the house. Because once they make their way into the house, whether it’s in the attic, whether it’s in wall voids, they are there and they’re there to stay all throughout the winter. And it’s next to impossible to try to get rid of them completely. So definitely be vigilant when you start to see signs of them, reach out to us or reach out to your pest control provider. And let them know that that they can come and stop that because you know if you have a house for example, like that’s a log cabin, or that has wood siding, where you have wood that contracts and grows and shrinks and based upon the weather and based upon the age, you’re gonna be open to a lot more issues with these beetles when they decide to make their way into your house.
Michael Wienecke 6:16
Thank you for listening to the pesky pest control podcast here in Birmingham, Alabama with Michael and Travis. If you have any questions about what we’ve discussed today, please give us a call at 205-470-8161 and ask for me Michael wyniki. I’ll be happy to speak with you anytime. And don’t forget to share this podcast with your friends and subscribe to us on Apple, Amazon, Google and Spotify. Thanks for listening and we’ll see you next time.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
