Summer 2015 Newsletter. Invisible Bugs?

 

           I hope that you have had the chance to benefit from the experiences of the wonderful network of operators, vendors, and researchers in our industry.  Likely, over dinner or drinks, your conversations have probably covered a lot of interesting ground.  Look around the restaurant next time you're engaged in lively table talk over the worst roach job you have ever seen, or the new-hires reaction to his first bed bug infested apartment complex, and ask yourself how many other similar conversations are going on in your average restaurant.  Many bystanders that are not in our industry don't seem to understand the excitement and awe that many of us feel when we hear about that one job with the guy who had roaches in his beard, or the town home with bed bugs on the kitchen counter, or the mice who caused rust holes in the heating ductwork with their urine, or... Well, you get the picture.  Pest control is a science and we are professional researchers, observing on a daily basis the ever changing adaptations of our target pests, however entertaining, and implementing corresponding adaptations of the practices and products we employ.  Professional pest control requires observation of, and manipulation of tangible things.  Mouse droppings, bird nests, termite damage, improperly sealed crawlspace access doors, negative drainage, etc.  We are good at seeing things that the untrained eye may not see.

            But what about the things you can't see?  Like wall voids or inaccessible attics you may ask?  No, I'm talking about things being described that "are" right in front of your face, blanketing the carpet, raining from the ceiling, maybe even emerging from your customer's skin.  A typical encounter like this begins with a telephone call to your office where a customer describes a small insect that is causing them some skin irritations.  Perhaps some of them sound like common enough parasites, bed bugs, fleas, or foul mites.  But just as you are narrowing down a diagnosis, they throw you a curve ball such as "I've been fighting them for 8 months and I have coated every surface of my home with Sevin dust", or "I can see them emerging from the peanut butter, some are small, and some are long like worms",  "they started by boring through the plaster in my ceilings, and now they are boring into my skin to lay eggs."  Sometimes the individual will tell you how other members of their family don't see the pests and may even call the affected individual "crazy".                                                    I could go on and on about the symptoms and circumstances surrounding these experiences, but we will have to save that for the next time we do dinner and drinks.

            What I described above is a condition called Delusory Parasitosis.  If you want to delve into a more scientific than anecdotal review of DP, I recommend a book called "The infested mind, Why humans fear, loathe, and love insects" by Jeffrey A. Lockwood.  Chapter 6, "The Terrible Trio: Imagining insects into our lives" addresses DP, group hysteria, and Illusory Parasitosis.  Illusory parasitosis being a related disorder, where people interpret real sensations, such as itches and skin redness, as pest infestations that indeed do not exist.  Delusory Parasitosis is a persistent belief, oftentimes with no evidence whatsoever that an infestation exists, and most likely is located on or in the body of the individual experiencing it. Confused enough? 

            The chapter addresses an interesting question.  If you have a customer suffering from Delusory Parasitosis, who is most qualified to treat this individual?  Their family practitioner?  Dermatologist?  Entomologist?  Pest Control operator?  Psychiatrist?  Good arguments could be made that any or all of these might play a part in this individuals treatment, but the reality is that we all wish that the other one would do it, and are most likely just interested in distancing ourselves from the individual.

            For our part though, let's cover some rules of engagement. 

1. Never make an application without a proper specimen identification.  Doing so sends the message that you do have the solution, you just haven't applied it in a correct manner or volume.  You will have a customer for life.

2. Do put out glue monitors.  Using detection tools even if you suspect that there are no pests present dignifies the individual on your first visit, and in some cases may find something that you didn't on your first inspection like springtails, clover mites, fleas, or carpet beetles.

3. If no pests are collected, be adamant about not making an unwarranted application.  Pesticide labels have target organisms specified on them, therefore you need to have a target in mind before you apply.  The label is the law.

4.  Sometimes recommendations about the humidity level of the air or inquiring about any changes in laundry detergents shows that you are concerned for their well-being, and who knows, sometimes may make a difference.

5. At the end of the encounter the demeanor of the individual may dictate how you part ways.  Some people will actually be receptive to the notion that what they are "experiencing" is not something that everyone else is experiencing.  You might be sure to point out that certain physical health problems or dietary deficiencies might be contributing.  That being said, some people get more impatient and belligerent when you don't give them an answer they want to hear.  To those people it is best to simply tell them that you aren't capable of helping them and part ways.

            Delusory Parasitosis is anything but simple, and there are no silver bullets.  Accepting that when engaging with a customer who is experiencing it will make you more adaptive and hopefully helpful.  Above all, remember that we are professionals whose job it is to help people, even when the problems are more psychological than pest related.

            In late June I had the pleasure to sit in on the Urban Pest Management Conference planning meeting and I can tell you that we had some good exchanges on content and even formatting of certain presentations.  I'm already looking forward to it.

            Go out there and make a great summer in pest control!

           

           Nebraska State Pest Control Association Spring 2015 Newsletter               

          I want to begin my first newsletter article by saying that it is a privilege and a great opportunity to have been elected to serve as the president of the Nebraska State Pest Control Association.  As  past president, Jeff Voelker was an outstanding leader of our association.  Jeff is a great guy with some unique expertise in wildlife control.  Where many of our backgrounds stem from the insect end of the business, we are often intimidated by calls about wildlife problems.  If you have questions about how to handle some of these, Jeff is a fantastic resource.  That is, unless you are inside of Jeff's service area, then just recommend Critter Control!

         Being able to network with members of our association and benefitting from their experience is one of the things that make membership and involvement in the NSPCA so valuable.  We are all interested in developing the knowledge and ability of ourselves, our companies, and our employees.  My own family's business has an extensive history with the association dating back 25 years to my late grandfather's membership.  I am fortunate to have a legacy committed to education and a dedication to our industry.
          As pest management professionals, we don't have to look far to see evidence of the fact that we provide a vital service to the public. We protect buildings from damage, filth, and structural decay.  We protect people from nuisance pests, food contamination, disease, psychological stress, and sometimes deadly allergic reactions.  Fortunately, we have customers and a public that see, on a daily basis, the value of our services as well.  Unfortunately, it can take one incident to reverse decades of the positive image building our industry has accomplished.
         On March 20th a family of four were found in their room at an upscale vacation resort in the Virgin Islands,  the father unresponsive, and the mother and two sons convulsing with seizures.  An ensuing investigation found that two days prior a product containing Methyl Bromide had been applied to a room below theirs by the resorts pest control contractor, Terminix. 
         I have been involved in this industry for the last thirteen plus years and had never heard of methyl bromide being used in a structural setting, so I had to do a bit of research.  Beyond the science and labeling of the product itself, I found some pretty shocking information.  In 1987, the U.S. and 26 other nations signed on to the Montreal Protocol, international treaty developed to protect the environment from ozone depleting products.  In 1993 the EPA froze the amount of methyl bromide being produced and applied, and in the years following the amounts were significantly reduced until it was phased out altogether in January of 2005.  What I could not find however, was any explanation for why a pest management firm would posess the product, much less use it in a way that grossly violated the label. 
         To condense this into a take home lesson for us as applicators,  knowledge of and compliance to regulations and labels are important, sometimes deadly important.  To prevent harmful exposure to people and the environment we need to make sure that all applicators have been trained to READ THE LABEL. Think through the application process at every job to minimize risks and potential exposures.  Don't keep long-expired product in your inventory.  Take advantage of the Department of Agriculture's pesticide disposal events.  Keep your inventory secured, organized,  and up to date so that you know exactly what you stock and what is leaving your shelves.  Keep an approved product/practice list for your technicians so that you, and they always know what is on their truck.    And of course, READ THE LABEL!
         That being said, these types of occurrances are rare, and the majority of those involved in our business take great care to ensure that even minor cases of exposure and misapplication don't happen.  The fact that we belong to an association of professionals such as ours demonstrates that we are dedicated to a high level of professionalism, safety, training, and the image of our industry.
         I look forward to the coming years of serving the Nebraska State Pest Control Association, alongside our Vice President Shawn Ryan, and the rest of our board of directors.  I encourage everyone reading this newsletter to get involved in the association if you are not already.  One of the many important benefits of your involvement is the input that we have on the content of the Urban Pest Management Conference, which can make a large impact on the relevance of the education being provided.  If you know someone who used to be involved and isn't anymore, reach out to them.  If you know someone new in the business, tell them about the association.  If you are already involved and you have ideas on how to make our association more valuable, tell any of us who serve on the board.  I hope everyone has an enjoyable and profitable Spring.

Stirring up the hornet's nest

            The idiom of "stirring up the hornet's nest" is a way of saying that your are dealing with a volatile situation that makes people angry or upset.  Obviously, that phrase stems from the fact that if you were to stir or disturb a literal hornets nest, the hornets would react aggressively.  It is safe  to say that you wouldn't volunteer to stir the literal hornet's, but it raises a valid question about a much more common action; would you plug the only entrance to a hornet's nest, which would prevent them from coming and going, feeding their young and their reproductives, regulating nest temperature and humidity, and guarding their home?
             Honey bees, yellow jackets, and bald faced hornets share something in common with us, they are social animals.  This means that they have a sense of community and they put a great deal of effort into raising their young.  So let's paint a scenario, one that will take more imagination for some than for others.  So you have a big extended family, and you like them.  Alright, so you don't have to be especially fond of them, but you like them enough to make sure that they and their children don't starve or get killed by predators.  I hope that last part doesn't take too much imagination but since I don't know your family I'll just move on.  So you and all of your family live in the same apartment building and work together for the good of your community.  One day a neighbor who is irritated with/afraid of you comes and sprays your doors with tear gas, boards all of your windows shut, barricades the doors, and turns off your air conditioner.  My guess is that you would all shrug your shoulders at your misfortune and peacefully starve to death.  No?  But surely hymenoptera(social insects with stingers) have a weaker will to live than we do, or maybe they confuse easily, right?

Does this hornet look like a quitter?



 

             While these sound like ridiculous assumptions, they are the exact assumptions that scores of new customers make every year before they call our office in an annoyed or panicked condition.  Let me clarify that I am not ridiculing anyone who has done this, I just want to educate everyone I can for future situations like this because making the wrong decisions with these pests can cause painful injuries and even death for some people.
            Typically, between July and September, you may see around the outside of your home large and active congregations of these pests.  During the heat of the day you will see a cloud of insects hovering around one or two spots with a small entrance passing through to a wall void, a space underneath your porch, a soffit void, or even a hole in the ground.  Many times people will underestimate the extent of an infestation like this to include only the dozen insects that they see outside of the nest at any given time. What they don't know is that the individuals that they see are members of the colony that are  charged with foraging for food and nesting material or scouting and defense.  Behind the entrance lives hundreds, even thousands of other colony members.  A common response is to spray the hole with a can of insecticide until you see a pile of dead bugs.  Satisfied with your success, you caulk the hole shut or stuff a rag in it (soaked in insecticide for good measure).  Over the next two to three days you continue to pat yourself on the back, after all, you've seen no activity and there are even a few more dead bugs.  Then one day, they are back in full force, using a hole a few inches from the one that you sealed.  Turns out they didn't stay in their apartment building to die.  Bees, wasps, and hornets build their large and beautiful (in my opinion) nests out of paper, all of which they have cut and compiled from leaves, twigs, and other available materials.  Their ability to cut this material also enables them to dig their way out of some pretty well boarded windows and barricaded doors.  It is not uncommon to find these insects heading toward the inside of the home to make their escape by chewing through a sheetrock wall covering.  Then the infestation that you didn't like outside of your front door is now in your basement family room.
           The point is, when you underestimate the abilities of pests that infest your home you often times make more work for yourself and sometimes expose your family to danger.  One way to prevent infestations like this is to eliminate entry points into your home.  Excess space around hose bibs, air conditioner condensation lines, spaces around windows, broken soffit, etc. all make for inviting shelter opportunities.  Should you find that these pests have already moved in, the safest and most successful treatment is done by an experienced professional, and I happen to know a few.  2014 was a fantastic year to be a pest professional, so thank you to all of our loyal customers, and I hope that we will have a chance to serve any and all that need our services in 2015.



Pest Control Comedy Hour

 

 

What did the termite swarmer say to the pest control operator?

Happy spring! 

What did the homeowner say to the termite swarmer?

Thanks for the warning. 

Fact is, we haven't seen many termites swarmers in the last few years. But we have seen some very recently. If you see any insects that look like this in or around your home, you know who to call. Termites swarmers are an indication that you have a happy, healthy, and growing termite colony in and around your home , which is good news for them but bad news for you.
I was going to use the line "termite swarmers are no laughing matter", but that would have been really lame.

By the way, if you correctly guess the number of termites present in this photo, you win free advice.  www.BenzelPest.com                                  

Termites Did What!?

He's not the only one capable of superhuman feats

First off, I would like to apologize to the crowd of my readers that have endured an agonizing 10 month wait between blog posts.  As if Wyoming and Nebraska Winters weren't harsh enough, you were, no doubt, forced to entertain yourselves with things other than harrowing tales of pest invasions and the rewards of managing them.  I will now do my best to thaw the deep frost of your boredom and anticipation.
In my last post I promised to dazzle you with personal experiences that I and other local pest management professionals have had with reticulitermes flavipes, aka the eastern subterranean termite.
Here are a few of the more remarkable feats accomplished by this seemingly tiny, soft-bodied insect.
When Customers Close a Door, The Termites See a Window....
I have seen termites damage the composite wooden panels on an overhead garage door that was frequently used.  So, what?  Termites eat wood, why wouldn't they eat a door?  Because, considering that these insects come up from the soil, and all of their above ground foraging and feeding is done inside of excavated galleries or inside of mud tunnels that they create, that means that despite some pretty regular and rough disruptions to their food source, they managed to either do all of the damage to the door in very persistent return visits, or all of the damage very quickly in a brief period of the door's inactivity.  Have you ever read a longer sentence?  The termites made me do it.  I should have drawn a picture.
When All Other Food Sources Are Exhausted...
I ounce visited a customer's house after they had been out of town for about a week and a half.  Both of us were shocked to see that termites foraging through a bedroom wall had exited the sheetrock wall covering, tunneled down the wall's surface to the bed and constructed a mud tunnel across the customer's pillow.  I should point out that this occurred before we began control measures at the home.
Hungry For Knowledge...
Books, magazines, newspapers, cardboard boxes, check registers, business documents, and pictures.  This one is not so shocking to those who work with termites often, but it is shocking to people that lose these things to a colony with an insatiable appetite for cellulose.  And destruction, for you Guns and Roses fans out there.
Rocky Mountain High...
I have heard people assert that certain geographies with high altitude are impervious to termite infestation.  Maybe sometimes they are right, but I don't think that is the case anywhere near us.
While working in the Medicine Bow National Forest, West of Wheatland, Wyoming, I found termites doing damage to a house, a shed, and absolutely mowing through aged wood piles.  This was at 7,200 feet above sea level.  So do you live in a place that is too high for termites?  Probably not.
Produce Aisle
I once heard a report of termites eating the centers out of live tulip stems in Lusk, Wyoming.  It seemed like an unconfirmed anecdote bordering on urban legend.  While Lusk termites seem to be a special breed, capable of things that termites in neighboring towns haven't figured out yet, conventional wisdom said that termites eat dead things, not living things.  The day that I found termites eating a live apple tree in Torrington, I started to think that there might be something to the story.  When I asked my Dad, a longtime termite veteran, what the strangest termite stories that he could remember were, he told me that he had come across termites eating live carrots in Sidney, Nebraska.  So tulips?  Plausible.
Clean as a Whistle.
Subterranean- Situated or operating beneath the earth's surface.  Right?  Usually.  I told you that Lusk was an amazing place for termites and those that work with them so here's another one.  When you find termites doing damage to a home, you typically inspect to find the link that leads back to the soil.  Once you have found that, you treat accordingly.  As it turns out, it has been proven that termites don't live in the soil because they have any special attachment to it, it just happens to hold moisture very well.  If termites can maintain the humidity levels necessary, they can construct and thrive in carton nests virtually any where they want.  That was the case with one colony of termites situated above a shower in Lusk, where termites were actively foraging and damaging the area surrounding the shower but we could find no tunneling or other active route leading to the soil.

Maybe because I started this whole termite discussion with a previous blog post referencing termites in Cheyenne, Wyoming you expect me to tell you a story about just that.  Truth is, I have never seen termites in Cheyenne.  The belief among some pest controllers is that they don't exist.  Maybe they don't.  But I have seen termites in Northern Colorado, Laramie, LaGrange, and Pine Bluffs, which makes a pretty tidy geographical ring around Cheyenne.  So could termites be in Cheyenne?  That depends on whether they want to be.
I hope that after reading this you have come to appreciate that termites are alive and well in our neck of the woods and that as a very successful social insect they can, at times, amaze the people that work with them every day of their career.  The good news is, they can be controlled, and as a member of a team that has protected nearly 2,000 structures in Wyo-Braska, I can help. 
Thanks for reading The People's Entomologist, who happens to be where the pests are, and by no coincidence, are where you are.

Termites in Cheyenne, Wyoming?!

Over the last five posts as The People's Entomologist, I have made it a special point to blog on topics that I think you, the public, would take interest in like bed bugs, interior pest harborage, and reduced impact methods of controlling pests.  Wasps, flies, bed bugs, boxelder bugs, ants, mice; seasonal invaders of all types.  I work with them, I understand them, I can control them, and I can educate you about them. But, truth be told, I don't love them.  Or at least, they were not my first entomological love.  It's time that I share with you readers the unvarnished truth about the The Peoples Entomologist.  Recently dubbed 'the Garrison Keelor of urban entomolgy', he speaks about himself in the third person, and he loves subterranean termites!
I know this probably comes as a shock to you because I have done such a convincing job of suppressing that side of myself in this blog.  I did it because I thought that people had heard enough about termites in the media, in our advertising, and in conversations with easily entertained pest controllers like myself.  I jumped on the bed bug bandwagon like so many other attention grabbers and hoped for all the optimal search engine results I could get.  But the time has arrived to end my silence.  The time is now to talk about subterranean termites and all of their hijinks here in Nebraska and Wyoming. 
This revelation came to me on a day while I was doing inspections in Torrington, Wyoming, some of them for purchasers in real estate deals, some for concerned private parties.  In the course of a day I inspected four houses, three of which had evidence of termite infestation.  That's right Torrington, you're odds of avoiding termite infestation are not so good.  On that same day I got a call from +Terron Soto who had found termite swarmers in a home in Glendo, Wyoming.  Now, some of you who are not involved in pest control industry might not know how exciting this short sequence of events is for someone like me, but let me tell you that I was thoroughly stoked.  Termite swarmers are the winged reproductive members of a termite colony, bred and groomed to enable that colony(usually a healthy, thriving, and expanding colony with resources to expend) to export their progeny to the far flung corners of their usual foraging territory to begin procreation. What exactly does that mean?  Termite swarmers fly away from the colony and start new termite colonies.  If and when this takes place, it usually happens in the Springtime.  However, for the last 8-10 + years, it seems like hasn't happened at all.  The reason why is a long and complicated list of theories that we won't get into here.  The point is, subterranean termites are alive and well here in Nebraska and Wyoming, always have been, and will, apparently, become all the more so in the future.  With those facts in mind, I thought that it might be a good time to mine the memory banks of the area's most seasoned termite experts to inform and entertain you readers with our adventures in termite control.
To start, let me take you back to 1993 when your's truly was about to begin middle school.  I had one very simple desire, to arrive at the first day of school sporting a $90 pair of Nikes.  The desire was simple enough, but it was the execution that was not as clear.  $90 happened to be roughly three times the budget allotted me by my parents and it was probably twice what my Dad was spending on his work boots at the time.  Not one to be easily swayed from my determination, I didn't see these as insurmountable problems, just problems.  Fortunately, there was a solution.  You see, obviously I wasn't born into money, but being born into a family operated pest control business, I was born into a job.  Come to think of it, in post-2008 America, that is the same as being born into money, I just didn't know it at the time.  But, I digress.  At the time, my Dad was two years into sole ownership of the business and selling termite treatments in Scottsbluff, Gering, Torrington, Sidney, Alliance, and Chadron.  He was selling them at an average of two a day it seemed, which was a good amount of work in itself just to sell them, but then they needed to be done as well.  He had a small crew working with him to complete the work, which at the time amounted to some dirty routine labor like drilling holes in concrete, vacuuming concrete dust, digging trenches in soil, and hauling scrap lumber out of crawlspaces.  At the age of 12 I was nearly foreman material for this type of work, so I joined in 2-3 days a week.  In a day's work I could pull down $25.  With Summer vacation being about 3 months long, it didn't take too long to reach my goal of rocking some fresh kicks.  In fact, compared to my friends who had paper delivery routes that netted them about $90 a month, I became a well bankrolled young man.  It was then that I realized that I loved termites.  Many years later, I became as fascinated with the insects themselves as I was with their capital potential!
"But what about Termites in Cheyenne, Wyoming?" you're asking yourself.  I won't completely answer that right now, that is for next time.  I will just leave you with this; I have seen termites do some amazing things, including a number of things that they are said to do infrequently or not at all.  I have worked alongside some other seasoned termite pros and we have marveled at the seeming determination and will of the subterranean termite to thrive and forage at all costs.  So tune in next time to learn about some of these amazing feats of the social insect known as the subterranean termite.  Until then, you have been reading 'The People's Entomologist', who is where the pests are, which happens to be where you are.

Overwintering Until Winter is Over

This is what happens to bugs that don't find a suitable spot to spend the winter.

About this time of year, we seem to get a lot of phone calls from very surprised customers that say things like  "I can't believe I have flies in the middle of the winter! Where could they be coming from?"  That is a typical statement in which you could replace 'flies' with all sorts of things like wasps, boxelder bugs, assassin bugs, ants, elm leaf beetles, etc.  Our customer's sentiments demonstrate that not only do many people assume that in the dead of winter(no pun intended), all of the seasonally invasive pests that they associate with the outdoors are dead, but also that these pests are not indeed dead!  So let's walk through some scenarios by which you find your home inundated with insects while the weather outside is frightful.   Since we started with flies, let's continue with flies.  This will be entitled ' A Fly's Journey Home', only it's not the fly's home, it's yours.
     All through the Summer months you notice flies here and there.  House flies gather on the shady side of your home on the really hot days, bottle flies billow up from the dumpster every time you take out the trash, and they all join with the yellow jackets to help you with your weekend barbecue.  Moving into early Fall, you notice that their activity is not quite as consistent throughout the day as it has been, many of the flies you find in the morning hours are clustered together in corners of window frames or behind gutter downspouts.  They don't seem to be as active as they once were, until the warmer afternoon hours of the day.  Every time you walk into your house, it seems like they are trying harder to follow you in.  By late Fall, the nighttime temperatures are dropping into the mid 30's and you are seeing fewer and fewer flies all of the time.  Your anticipation for the first frost to come along and kill every last one of those ants, flies, wasps, boxelder bugs, earwigs, and beetles is high, right? Wrong!  The truth is that every time you noticed a change in the behavior or number of flies throughout the changing weather conditions, they were moving, not dying.  Now that statement is not absolute, in that some insects do not find warmer places to go as the weather gets colder, and the Asian lady beetle that tries to weather a 0* night on the bottom side of a picnic table is in worse shape than the above pictured Volkswagon; but it is true for many, many invasive pests.
     Early on in my pest control career I was controlling flies at a dairy farm and I learned a lot about the preferences and behavior of flies.  I once observed an extension cord that ran from an outdoor electrical outlet to a water tank where it powered the heater that kept the cows' watered thawed during freezing temperatures.  This yellow extension cord that laid on the ground was absolutely encrusted with fly feces.  Now all around me were things that I knew flies loved, milk, manure, moisture, molasses!  Why were so many flies clustering on this electrical cord?  For the same reason that the tank heater was in the water, heat.  I don't know any dazzling scientific facts to emphasize the fly's magnificent heat-seeking abilities, but I do have that extension cord covered in fly poop during the winter to prove my point.  Fact is, as the weather outside cools down during the day and then does so even more drastically during the night, all sorts of pests have the ability to detect small amounts of warmth and to move towards it's source.  A boxelder bug who spends most of it's time near your home's foundation might find good opportunities in following heat through an aged window frame or gaps in the home's siding.  Since flies can fly, they are not limited in the location of the entry points into your home, so in addition to windows, doors, and vents, they often end up behind gutters, and in the cracks of soffit and facia.  These areas can lead directly into your attic which might happen to be a very comfortable place, at least for a while.  Before I continue with part two of 'A Fly's Journey Home', let me break to give you one example of what pests are looking for in the Fall months. 
     During the course of a given Winter, let's say for example that your daytime highs are in the high 30's and your nighttime lows are in the low 20's.  Your soil temperature at a depth of 4" away from a heated structure is 28*F.  The ground is not frozen because it doesn't rain or snow in Southeast Wyoming or the Nebraska Panhandle, at least not in 2012-2013.  You approach the outside of your home's foundation and rake away the mulch to expose the soil, or you lift up a yard ornament like a whiskey barrel planter, and what do you find?  Ants, live ants!  The ants that were supposed to be killed off by that hard frost months ago.  That's because for every 1 inch of mulch or other dense ground cover that those insects can scurry into, they gain 10* of warmth.  Amazing eh?  Alright, enough of this fun-facting and back to flies in an attic.
     I once entered the attic of a rural home located about a mile from a feedlot(that's a feed facility for cattle, in case anyone from New England is reading this).  The customer complained of a Wintertime plague of flies in the window sills, dozens a day, at a time when it didn't feel 20* warm in the sunshine.  When I lifted the attic access, before I could even shine my light around, the problem was made obvious by the sound of hundreds of buzzing flies occupying the attic space.
     Since most of us don't heat our attics(at least intentionally), eventually those flies who once had a good thing going  by escaping the elements and warming themselves in your attic, realize that the attic is now too cold for comfort and they use their super heat-seeking abilities to find the next warmest spot, which happens to be the living space of your house that can be easily accessed through a number of light fixture penetrations between your attic and ceiling.  Ever wonder why you find bugs in light fixture covers?  Once in your home, the fly is warm and perhaps recently fed. Time to indulge one of the fly's other insatiable desires, ultraviolet light.  Cue the window sill and fly is  basking in the glow, literally. He or she then expends whatever remaining energy and lifespan that remains in them trying to fly through a pane of glass.  Repeat this process daily for a two week period that results in piles of dead flies and then you call Benzel Pest Control and say "I can't believe I have flies in the middle of Winter!  Where could they be coming from?"
 "Have you read my blog?" replies The People's Entomologist.
     You can cancel your DishTV and your Netflix subscription because I can tell stories this good all day long, once a week.  You are the residents of Bayard, Bridgeport, Albin, Burns, Cheyenne, Crawford, Sidney, Alliance, Wheatland, Lusk, Torrington, and Scottsbluff.  I am The People's Entomologist and I can be found where you are, and at www.BenzelPest.com.