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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!
Michael Wienecke
Hey, so today I want to talk about one of the Hey, so today I want to talk about one of the most annoying, itchy paths that we deal with. And that’s the flea. Travis, tell us a little bit about fleas.
Travis McGowin
Alright, so typically your fleas can come from just a couple of different places. So obviously, most of the most of the people listening probably know, obviously dogs and cats, you know, dogs, cats notorious for bringing fleas into people’s houses. It’s probably, I’d say, you know, 90 95% of the time, that’s where they come from. But I mean, fleas can also come from other things like rats, mice, you know, that sort of thing as well. So, you know, if you’re seeing fleas and you didn’t have a cat or a dog or something like that, then you might need to start looking at an alternative, you know, animal that’s bringing them into your house.
Michael Wienecke
Yeah, I would say one of the, the main animals a wild animal bringing into your house will be a possum. If there’s ever a possum inside your house under your house, and you’ve got fleas, and you can’t get rid of them. That’s definitely one reason. One thing I’ll say about flea treatments, it’s just, you know, it’s kind of like German Roach, I know, we’ve talked about German roaches on the podcast, and how some things you just can’t do yourself. And I for one believe that. It’s just better to hire a pest control company to do fleas. It’s quicker, it’s easier, it’s cheaper. You know, I had a customer one time that said she had spent almost $600 on flea treatments, trying to get rid of it herself, where we came in and did our service. And it was one and done. She never had a problem again.
Travis McGowin
You know, it’s funny that you say that, because anybody who’s listened to our podcast for any length of time has heard me say this. And this won’t be the last time I say it, I’m gonna say it again. Just because you go to the store, and you see something that says, fleas or that it kills fleas on it does not mean that it should be used to kill fleas. Because I’ll give you an example. Back when I first started in pest control, I had a customer called me that had a fleet problem. The very first product that I used to treat was not the best product, it was labeled for fleas. So I mixed it to the appropriate label and everything else and then treated. And then later that afternoon, the customer came home and said, Oh my gosh, is worse. It’s worse, you know, whereas we only had a couple jumping on us at a time two or three at a time now there’s like, no, no law 15 to 20 jumping at us at a time. And so I had to go back the next day and treat again, and thankfully use the correct product. Bisco around the second time, learned my lesson and also took care of the customers problem. And I’ve been doing it the same way ever since. And I’ve never had a call back on fleas. Anybody who we’ve taken care of with the way the method that we use has been 100% satisfied. Like I said, I’ve never had a call back.
Michael Wienecke
Well, in all fairness, you are trying something new. That, you know, the label said that it would kill fleas. So, you know, you learned the hard way that not all not all labels are correct, I guess you’d say
Travis McGowin
well, and it goes and it goes to for pest control providers not even just for the homeowner that goes to their department store or home improvement store and buys something that’s labeled for fleas now I mean, this even goes for people like you and me the ones who do this professionally and who do this day in and day out. I mean, I would be willing to bet that almost every single product that we carry on the truck says something about being able to treat fleas but there again I go back to what I said a minute ago, doesn’t mean it should be used to treat fleas.
Michael Wienecke
That’s correct. That’s correct. Tell him tell him about the time. You know if you have the time and this was way before Travis was even in pest control, but if you ever have if you have the time he did get rid of fleas on himself. So
Travis McGowin
yeah, so after this was prior to me being in pest control and I had done a lot of research and you know I did what every homeowner has done before I went to the store and I bought like fleece spray and I you know this from the dog and cat out pet aisle at Walmart or wherever it was and sprayed my floors and let it dry and all this good stuff and then it didn’t work and it didn’t work so did a lot of research online and found this kind of really cheap home remedy way to do it. And if you’re willing to go through with it, it does work. It is not as quick as having one of you know somebody like us come through but it does work. So basically what I did was I went to Walmart and bought a couple of like these really cheap 98 cents $1 Whatever they were baking sheets like flat baking sheets, but just you know the small add You’re on them. And as you take these baking sheets, you put a layer of water in them. And then you put just a couple of drips of dishwashing liquid like, you know, Dawn or Palmolive, or whatever it is you use, you put a couple of drips of dishwashing liquid, and then you take a desk lamp, and you got the bulb in there, and you hover it over the water in the pan and you turn off all the lights in the room. And the heat and the light over the water will draw the fleas towards it. And they jump in and drown. Because the soap breaks the surface tension on the water if you don’t put so the fleas can just like stand on top of the water. But if you put soap it breaks the surface tension, and the fleas will drown. And so after several days of doing this, I didn’t have a flea problem anymore. So I can say that it works. It’s just, it takes a lot of time and effort.
Michael Wienecke
Yes, that does sound like a lot of effort. You know, I feel like we’re getting off topic, but I’ll tell a story. So I, I had a customer and they were infested with fleas, they had a house that they were redoing, and they had had nine dogs living under their house, from the time of them buying the home. And then you know, getting the contractors out there and all that. So they had to get all these dogs out. And they had fleas. I mean, this was one of the worst flea treatments I’ve ever done in my life. That being said, we ended up getting rid of the problem, it did take quite quite a few treatments to finally solve that issue. But I brought them back to my house. And so
Travis McGowin
it’s kind of inherent risk of being in the job that we’re in, my wife always gets it he better not bring roaches and fleas and you know, whatever else back door.
Michael Wienecke
My wife was livid. So she’s like, Hey, you gotta get rid of this problem. So I mean, you know, I’m, you know, I gave myself my own review, like, you know, treated like, I’ve vacuumed the house, I treated with our products
Travis McGowin
as quality control right there. On your own house. Hey,
Michael Wienecke
that’s right. So, literally within you know, 24 hours, no more fleas.
Travis McGowin
Now, I will say I will say this, and kind of go over how we do this. But number one, if it is, if it is a problem that’s coming from one of your from one of your pets, your domesticated pets, excuse me past pet pets that are so close your domesticated animals, your cats or dogs, whatever your pets that you have at your house, get your animal treated, oh yeah, that’s step one. If you’re not getting regular treatments, we take our dogs to the vet, we get flea treatments done, or you know, in the form of like a pill that they eat. And it works wonders, we don’t ever have flea problems. But if you have a flea problem in your house, and you’re not getting your animals treated, then it’s only a matter of time after you call somebody like us to come in that you’re going to have the problem again. So step one is getting your animals treated. But Michael, whenever you go on site to start a Flea Treatment, tell us what the process is for how we treat for fleas, and kind of walk us through real quick here towards the end of the podcast.
Michael Wienecke
Yeah, so consultation with the customer is always key. So you know, talk to the customer. I know we’ve we’ve talked them on the phone and gone over that, but I do like a face to face consultation. So ask them how long it’s been going on again, just, you know, you know, reconfirm that they are taking their dog to the vet, where the most activity is in the house. After getting all that information, we’ll start out so we have a special pest vacuum that is completely sealed. If you try to vacuum it with your own vacuum, you know, there’s crack crevices, these fleas can fit through very, very tight areas, I mean, you can squeeze one with your finger and it can almost slide through your fingers. And they’re designed that way. So they can you know, just run through here very quickly, but so will vacuum the entire house. And another thing I’ll say is a lot of people will I don’t have carpet in my house, but I still have fleas, how’s that possible? Fleas can fit in, like I said, the tiniest cracks and crevices. So hardwood the baseboards all that not very hard for them to just, you know, wedge right in there and just have a home not not to mention blankets, clothes, all that other stuff. So again, we’ll vacuum the entire the entire house. After that we use an adulticide. And then we use an IGR, which is insect growth regulator. So the adulticide is going to kill the adult fully on contact. And then of course, it’s a 90 day product, so it’s going to last active for 90 days. And then we use that IGR which is going to kill any of the larva. So the vacuuming is to try to remove what we say 50% of the population it through the carpet or the floor or anything like that. And then also to try to get that pupa up because there’s not there’s not many pesticides out there insecticides that will kill a pupa. So then once we’ve vacuumed, we do a full treatment there. And then customers get to go they’ve got to wait about four hours so they can reenter the house and then nine times out of 10 they don’t see another flee after that tour. Even if they do see a few jumping around it doesn’t take much longer and they’re completely gone
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
