tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-40122799043254519842012-01-26T15:57:13.115-05:00North Forty Pest Control Co. - Insect AsidesTimely information, tips, and stories from our daily travels into the bug and animal world.Jon Quinthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00646200487685360755noreply@blogger.comBlogger281100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4012279904325451984.post-23219813972360165982011-12-14T12:07:00.000-05:002011-12-14T12:07:03.327-05:00They Seem to be Everywhere.
Normally, at this time of the year we are getting a lot of calls for mouse problems, but this year there doesn't seem to be that many of them. HOWEVER, what seems to be literally coming out of the woodwork are flying squirrels. These are adorable little critters which seem to be in everyone's attic this year. Some are getting down into the living area of homes, where I have spent much timeJon Quinthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00646200487685360755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4012279904325451984.post-15142397035329572302011-09-19T13:25:00.000-04:002011-09-19T13:25:15.156-04:00I'm Buried in Postcards
Every year in early Fall, I send out fliers to previous mouse customers advertising the annual mouse treatment. These fliers contain a postcard that the customer can drop in the mail and when I get them back, I call and set up an appointment. It works great for me and the customer. They don't have to remember to call from year to year, because they get a reminder from me. The only "problem" is Jon Quinthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00646200487685360755noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4012279904325451984.post-51348486089172147882011-07-19T11:49:00.000-04:002011-07-19T11:49:14.239-04:00Yellow Jackets and Bald Faced Hornets We're getting close to their "season". I've already run across a couple of nests. They are about as big as a softball right now and are nearing "critical mass" where they will explode in size and population, seemingly almost overnight. I get calls from people saying they have a big "bees" nest and it wasn't there yesterday. It was there, it was just much smaller and easily overlooked.
Jon Quinthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00646200487685360755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4012279904325451984.post-5486587439449859992011-07-11T06:27:00.001-04:002011-07-18T06:07:13.686-04:00Upside Down Powder Post Beetles?
Saturday, we went to a customer who was complaining that she had small
piles of sawdust on the floor of an out building. We investigated and
sure enough, we found about a dozen piles of sawdust that looked like
the picture on the right. The sawdust was very fine with the consistency of talcum powder. This is characteristic of powder post beetles, but they are usually in overhead beams and weJon Quinthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00646200487685360755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4012279904325451984.post-23439570410881874002011-06-22T14:46:00.000-04:002011-06-22T14:46:31.929-04:00Barely Keeping His Head above Water - Literally!Yesterday morning I went to do a carpenter ant job here in Woodbury. I checked in with the customer, told him what I was going to do, and went to the the truck to get my equipment. As I started toward the back of the house, I noticed they had an in ground swimming pool in the back yard. As I got a little closer, I noticed something in the pool. It was a young skunk, probably about 8 weeks old, Jon Quinthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00646200487685360755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4012279904325451984.post-49278341619727536712011-06-05T15:26:00.000-04:002011-06-05T15:26:37.884-04:00Carpenter Bees While carpenter bee (these are the huge "bumblebee" looking critters you might see flying around your roof line) season is almost over. At least as far a active drilling goes, there is only about another week to go and they will be done for the season. In the past, we have done treatments that were designed to kill them, but since over the past few years it has become evident that a lot of Jon Quinthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00646200487685360755noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4012279904325451984.post-7213264301274972172011-06-05T15:05:00.001-04:002011-08-04T07:30:08.408-04:00Carpenter Ants Once the weather broke this spring the carpenter ants became real active. These are the big black ants that can be seen crawling around inside or outside. If you have them inside, more than likely you have a nest of them somewhere in the structure of your home. These ants do damage because while they don't eat wood for food the way termites do, they tunnel out an area for their nest. When Jon Quinthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00646200487685360755noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4012279904325451984.post-42004208450965299412011-04-23T11:57:00.000-04:002011-04-23T11:57:18.409-04:00Things Are Starting to Move At the middle of March, we mailed out fliers, with return post cards, to existing customers offering flea, wasp, and carpenter ant prevention treatments. We have gotten a lot of them back, and are doing those treatments now.
We're starting to get calls for ants of all varieties, carpenter ants and the small household ants people typically call sugar or grease ants. Small household Jon Quinthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00646200487685360755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4012279904325451984.post-13817828493660421542011-01-08T19:01:00.000-05:002011-01-08T19:01:03.388-05:00"Squirrel" in the Chimney? I received a phone call yesterday morning from a gentlemen here in Woodbury, who told me he thought he had a squirrel in his chimney. He had heard noises early in the morning, but had not heard anything after that. It was an old house, so I told him his chimney might not have any flue liner in it which could prevent the squirrel from climbing out and maybe he had gotten out. I told him to Jon Quinthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00646200487685360755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4012279904325451984.post-55340960245868681102010-12-19T11:36:00.000-05:002010-12-19T11:36:50.739-05:00Great Year! The ants, bees, wasps, hornets, and yellow jackets have all gone to Florida for the winter (not really, they just go dormant). Bats have left their summer attic roosts and gone to their winter hibernaculas (caves and mines where they hibernate for the winter), hopefully free of white nosed syndrome. Woodchucks are hibernating and skunks, raccoons, and possums are hunkered down, but will Jon Quinthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00646200487685360755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4012279904325451984.post-60629608161776143322010-06-25T19:23:00.000-04:002010-06-25T19:23:53.338-04:00Mowing the Lawn? Trimming the Hedges? Be Careful! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Remember the fairly mild winter we had, and all that nice warm, sunny weather we got back in April, and May. Well, that was the perfect storm for all those yellow jacket and white faced hornet queens that left their nests last fall and went dormant for the winter. They came out of winter dormancy about a month early to start their new nests for this year and we have had no cool weather to Jon Quinthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00646200487685360755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4012279904325451984.post-53619943375230654082010-06-10T14:23:00.000-04:002010-06-10T14:23:42.435-04:00I Saw a Bat!
Most people have heard or read about "White Nose Syndrome" which is killing off thousands of overwintering bats. Well, it didn't get all of them. The other day I was doing a mouse job at a house, and as I was poking around the attic, I told the customer that he had bat droppings on the floor around his chimney. He said "I know and there it is now". I looked up and there was a bat flying around Jon Quinthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00646200487685360755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4012279904325451984.post-13104221568535211562010-04-29T18:35:00.000-04:002010-04-29T21:23:25.547-04:00'Tis the Season - Seeing Sawdust Below Your Roof or on It?
Every year during late April, we'll get a real warm day and all of a sudden you may some huge bumblebee like creatures flying around your house, especially the roof line. You may about to be infested by Carpenter bees (see picture on the right). These gentle creatures (the females can sting, but I challenge anyone to get one to do it) tunnel into wood. They emerge from winter dormancy inJon Quinthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00646200487685360755noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4012279904325451984.post-7955527484003269302010-02-28T11:19:00.000-05:002010-02-28T11:19:37.486-05:00It's Getting Close
The days are getting longer, the sun is getting warmer, and pretty soon you are going to notice one of the creatures on the right flying against a window in your home, trying to get out. What are they? They are wasps. The bottom one is the ordinary paper wasp and the top one is the Mediterranean wasp, an introduced species which is slowly pushing our native wasp out. The Mediterranean waspJon Quinthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00646200487685360755noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4012279904325451984.post-48184241270652861912010-01-19T18:30:00.000-05:002010-01-19T18:30:45.331-05:00Omigod, It Must be RabidSpring is a few months away, and that will mean animal babies all over the neighborhood. Baby birds with their mouths wide open in nests, waiting to be fed. Pollywogs swimming in vernal ponds. Baby raccoons, skunks, foxes, possums, etc. living huddled together in hollow logs and trees, in old stone walls, under sheds, decks, and raccoons in chimneys. They could be at your house. You're sitting atJon Quinthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00646200487685360755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4012279904325451984.post-69815441874840007552010-01-15T18:49:00.000-05:002010-01-15T18:49:53.427-05:00Squirrel FlueAt this time of the year, gray squirrels are breeding. After they breed, the females start looking for a place to build their nest and have their young. They prefer hollow trees, but will get into attics, or build a nest (made out of twigs and leaves) in the crotch of a tree branch. One annoying habit they have, however, is that they will check out chimney tops as possible nesting sites (thinkingJon Quinthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00646200487685360755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4012279904325451984.post-3697719352400251622009-12-30T13:32:00.007-05:002009-12-30T14:26:35.870-05:00They Look Like They Could Carry Off a Small Child
It's late July and you walk out into your backyard. Suddenly, you see
what looks like a huge "bee" (pictured above) flying over the surface
of your lawn. What is "that thing" you ask yourself? As you are asking
yourself that question, it disappears down a hole in the ground that
looks like the picture on the right. You have just become acquainted
with a Cicada killer, a member of the wasp Jon Quinthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00646200487685360755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4012279904325451984.post-7560883235061032202009-12-30T13:29:00.000-05:002009-12-30T13:29:49.722-05:00The Squirrel from HellI promised in a recent post that I would tell this story, so here goes.
About 10-12 years ago, around 1:00PM, I got called to a Law Office in Waterbury for a squirrel running around the office. When I arrived, the squirrel was missing in action. The office was divided by those fabric covered cubical walls most of us are familiar with. I found the squirrel hiding in a corner behind the Jon Quinthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00646200487685360755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4012279904325451984.post-10668292513599706362009-11-29T13:01:00.000-05:002009-11-29T13:01:07.901-05:00Owl Caught in Leg Hold Trap An owl was found in Moodus last Wednesday with it's leg caught in a leg hold trap. Unfortunately, it has since been euthanized. Leg hold traps are designed to merely hold the leg of an animal and they have padded jaws. You can take your fingers, put it in the trap, set it off and it will hold your fingers. It will not break or crush them. These are the only traps legal to use in Jon Quinthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00646200487685360755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4012279904325451984.post-73125854024692283672009-11-21T13:24:00.000-05:002009-11-21T13:24:24.346-05:00Tiny Jumping BugsI have received about 3 calls for these in my first fifteen years in this business, then the other day I got two calls in one day. We went to the first job, because the customer had said they had a flea problem. I asked if they had any pets and they told me they had dogs and cats, so a flea problem made sense. We got our flea stuff together and headed out. When we arrived, we were met outside by Jon Quinthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00646200487685360755noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4012279904325451984.post-16343739636367919122009-11-15T19:07:00.000-05:002009-11-15T19:07:37.406-05:00End of the Season IIWell, the busy season is about over. The annual mouse jobs are pretty much finished. We have a few more, but not many. The ants, bees, wasps, and hornets have pretty much all gone to Florida for the winter. I never did find out where they go down there. Disney World? Just kidding, they really just go dormant for the winter. We've been doing the last of the bat exclusions now, because they are Jon Quinthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00646200487685360755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4012279904325451984.post-67968918151283664742009-10-28T11:13:00.001-04:002009-10-28T11:55:58.678-04:00Are you kidding me?I started this blog mainly as a informational source, and hoped to keep it unpolitical, and then this morning happened!
As most of you know, I do the Pest Control for the Region #14 School system. Well, this morning I got a call from the head of the cafeteria at Mitchell School here in Woodbury. She told me that the Public Health inspector had just been there and he had told her that they had Jon Quinthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00646200487685360755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4012279904325451984.post-35554339752109628092009-10-27T16:00:00.000-04:002009-10-27T16:04:57.724-04:00What is this?
At this time of the year you might be getting ladybugs in and/or around your house. If you are not, then maybe you have these. They are Box elder bugs. They do the same thing at this time of year that ladybugs do - look for a warm dry place to spend the winter. They are about an inch long. They spend the summer in maple, ash, and box elder trees feeding off the juices and leaves.Unless there is Jon Quinthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00646200487685360755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4012279904325451984.post-19536317790142997152009-10-27T12:15:00.000-04:002009-10-27T12:20:42.263-04:00Are you seeing them?
They are ladybugs or lady beetles. They are orange with black spots, about 1/8 to 1/4" long, and right now, by the thousands, they are looking for a warm protected spot to spend the winter after a summer of living in the trees. If you have a light colored house (they seem to prefer those), you may be overrun with them. They are crawling all over the sunny side of your house. They are getting Jon Quinthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00646200487685360755noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4012279904325451984.post-2027720118105071012009-10-14T18:29:00.001-04:002009-10-15T10:12:19.910-04:00SnakesSnakes - Oh, the horror! I guess it all goes back to Adam & Eve and the infamous serpent. Snakes are not slimy, in fact they feel quite dry to the touch. I can see some people shivering out there already. We are probably one the few pest control companies out there that advertise that we "do" snakes. What do we "do" with snakes? Well, let's give you a little background first. I get calls for Jon Quinthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00646200487685360755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4012279904325451984.post-74460046667820415012009-10-13T10:24:00.000-04:002009-10-13T10:24:00.925-04:00End of SeasonAre you getting some yellow & black "bees" in your house now that the weather is cooling off? These are yellow jackets and if you are getting them in the house, it means that somewhere in the structure of your home you have a nest of them. They don't have much longer, because after the first couple of hard freezes (low to mid 20's) they will be dead, but until then, as morning dawns and they Jon Quinthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00646200487685360755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4012279904325451984.post-38573897298917053342009-10-12T08:39:00.001-04:002009-10-12T09:49:04.114-04:00One Man Operation No MoreI started this business in 1995, after 30+ years in Corporate America doing Production Control work. I got laid off from two different jobs in a period of about two years and decided I wasn't going to do that anymore, so North Forty Pest Control was born. I have operated it by myself until last April when my stepson Matt Bryant joined the business part time. He has his NWCO (Nuisance Wildlife Jon Quinthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00646200487685360755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4012279904325451984.post-38449822847281009192009-10-12T06:34:00.003-04:002009-10-12T15:49:32.410-04:00It's That Time of the Year
It's mid-October, the weather is getting colder, and all those mice living outside are sensing it, too. They want a warm place to spend the winter and what could be more inviting than your home. It's nice and warm, especially under the insulation in your attic, or behind the furnace in the basement. "Yeh, I know, but my house is sealed up tighter than a drum, no mice can get into my house". DoJon Quinthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00646200487685360755noreply@blogger.com0