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Welcome to another episode of Peskies 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, Helena, Pelham and all other surrounding areas!
Travis McGowin
Hey, so today we want to come and talk to you about a pest that can sometimes come in and inhabit more specifically your kitchen, not just your house. But your kitchen. These little pests that you get are called stored product pests. And that can include a wide range of different insects. So Michael, why don’t you tell us just to name a few a couple of stored product pests that maybe you’ve come into contact with in some customers houses?
Michael Wienecke
Yeah, no problem, Travis. So the most common ones that we see you know, there’s there’s a bunch of different ones, but the most common one is always the Indian meal moth. And then you got weevils, not going to go into description description of what type of weevils, I know, you know, you had a really cool weevil the other day that we’re going to talk about but weevils are weevils or weevil. So you know, the biggest thing about stored product pests is just making sure that you’re rotating stock, you know, and I say that like a grocery store, because when they are moving, old product to the front putting new product in the reason they do that is so they don’t get this problem, because unfortunately, bugs can be in our food. It’s a nasty thing. But it just it is what it is. That’s what that’s what I tell our customers. So. But yeah, I mean, I had a call the other day where a lady had moss flying around her kitchen, and went in there and evaluated it. And we found out that her oatmeal, I believe was or oatmeal was out of date, and she had some dead ones in that meal. You know? So biggest thing is just making sure that when it’s out of date, you know, getting rid of it, because it’s going to cause a lot more harm than good. I know groceries are just outrageously expensive right now. But you know, it’s also expensive to have, you know, 1000 Moths flying around your house.
Travis McGowin
Yeah. And so I’m glad you said the Indian meal moth actually had a customer that went to a couple of days ago that had it. And during my inspection and speaking with the customer there on site, you know, I was advised that they had found whatever it was that the the moths were investing and had already disposed of it. You know, prior to our arrival, but any male moths, I’ve seen him in fest, like you said, oatmeal, I’ve seen him in fast food for geese, I had a customer that had a like a duck pond or a geese or Goose Pond behind their house. And they used to go by purpose made food for that, and couldn’t figure out where the Indian meal moths were coming from. And I found them in their pantry in a bag that was open. And I just didn’t realize it and there were hundreds of them flying around the pantry inside the bag. So we tried to remove as many of the adults as we could get rid of the food source. And then I never had another problem since. And yeah, you mentioned I did run into a new one that I had not seen before. I mean, I’ve seen weevils before, but actually got to see what’s called the cow pee weevil, which is a primary investor of soy beans and things like that. But they had actually infested some bags of black eyed peas that my customer had in their closet. Yeah, and then another one you didn’t mention too that I have seen before too is confused flour beetles. So that’s another one that I’ve that I’ve seen them, you know, in a customer’s home, so, but I like how you said that rotating your stock. I don’t know how long the customer had the Black Eyed Peas in their cabinet. You know, I’m not sure if it was bought rep for the new year. You know, a lot of people like to eat black eyed peas and you know, that sort of thing for New Year’s but the 100% end all be all making sure that you don’t have them or don’t have a problem with like he says rotating your stock, getting rid of them. And if you do end up with them, get rid of what they’re investing what they’re feeding on. Right.
Michael Wienecke
Yeah. So that’s one thing that I’m glad you brought up because, you know, there’s not, you know, don’t get me wrong. I’ve been to houses where there’s been 1000s flying around the house, we’ve got you know, the lava everywhere and that that requires a treatment, you know that that was vacuuming the house treating with an IGR adulticide you know, getting rid of that problem and removing the the adults. But as far as if you just see a moth in your kitchen flying around, you know, the Indian meal moth, it’s brown and light light tan colored normally, if you’re pulling out, you know, once you see that in your kitchen, you need to suspect hey, I need to go through my oatmeal, my rice, my corn, whatever it may be if your husband’s a hunter or you’re a hunter, then you know, check that horn. We had a you know back when we were the fire department. I had a lieutenant that was he had weevils all over his house and I wouldn’t you know, he didn’t he wouldn’t let me come over and see it. So he just he just kept asking me question after question. He finally found he had a bag of corn in his attic that had been out there for a long time. Um, so yeah, just, you know, not really need for a treatment. Honestly, what we say is we just get rid of the food source. And once the adults are once the you know, the pupa hatch, the adults die and then you don’t have a problem again.
Travis McGowin
Exactly, exactly just being very observant. Sometimes it takes a little hunting. I think the customer the other day that had the weevils was very surprised at how long actually hunted inside of the pantry to find this, but I finally did, it might have started at the bottom of the pantry and went to the top, I found it quicker, but I started at the top and went down. So that’s always how I guess, yeah, had I started at the bottom, I’d have found that like, you know, within two or three minutes, but anyway, she was very surprised at how long we hunted. But you know, I explained to her that they have to be coming from somewhere they have to be feeding on something if we found their food source, then we’re gonna take care of your problem. So and we did she was very happy and and, you know, we didn’t require any pesticides, the bulk of the bulk of what we had in there, we vacuumed up and then we threw away this infested bag of Black Eyed Peas and moved on.
Michael Wienecke
There you go. And I’ll say one other thing because you know, summer is right around the corner and a lot of people like to feed their birds and have you know, bird feeders outside sunflower seeds, bird seed, also a huge, huge problem, especially if it’s left, you know, over the winter and then the next year and all that so
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
