One thing about the pest control industry is nothing is ever the same. Thirty seven years ago when I came in the industry everything was different. If we didn’t use a product that smelled we were accused of spraying water. In less than five years if we used pesticides that were odorous customers got upset.
Things changed. The rules changed. The products changed. Baits, growth regulators, and pesticides with unique properties became preeminent, along with heat treatments, baits made out of soil fungus, then there's herbs to kill bugs. A lot of people are big on mint, lemon, cinnamon, cloves, rosemary and thyme. I'm big on all those also. At my dinner table.
The pests changed also.
Take roaches for example. Here in the North in years gone by, for the most part, we only dealt with German, American, Oriental roaches and an occasional woods roach. Then from out of nowhere brown banded cockroaches crashed onto the scene with a vengeance. Where did all those brown banded roaches come from? I have no idea, but the question I keep asking is - where did they go? They disappeared as fast as the appeared. What happened? I have no idea.
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| Credit: Le Monde des insectes Some are all black and some have some red on their bodies. |
After a couple of calls with him outlining what he was seeing, it dawned on me, I’d read about a spider that looked and acted like an ant.
Myrmarachne formicaria, the jumping spider that looks and acts like an ant.
They mimic and move like ants to avoid being eaten by larger spiders and insects.
According to Paul Shamble, now at Harvard University, who co-led the work while at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, “Ants bite, some sting, many have potent chemical defenses such as formic acid, and they tend to be quite aggressive, plus they can often recruit similarly well-armed nest mates.” “Ants are remarkably well-defended animals”, and it’s been shown as a result these spiders “are less likely to be attacked by predators.”
I'm told they first appeared in the United States in 2003 in Ohio.
Now for bed bugs.
I hate bed bug work. It’s like having to do the worst cockroach and worst flea job all bound up into one, and I’m too old for that. My son has no problem with bed bug work. That’s the young for you. He recently came across what has to be one of the worst infestations imaginable. Here’s a picture of a couch. Sorry about the side ways view, but it's clear how bad this house was. The woman living there had such a low blood count she had to be taken to the hospital and was transfused. Did the bed bugs cause that? I don't know but it wouldn't take much to make me believe it.
The girl has some retardation issues and is supported by her family. To resolve this they not only threw out her furniture - they thew out her clothes and everything else and hired a "bed bug cleaning company" at $85 dollars an hour. It's my view it's worth it.
How did she get them? Her daughter and her family were living with her. After her daughter's family trip to Niagara Falls for a small vacation....they ended up with bed bugs.
While it's true things changed the argument must be about how much good did these changes make? We now have products that absolutely kill termites, ants, bees and wasps, better than ever. But is the nation better off than before. The cost of bed bug control has now become a major economic factor in pest control, and the back story costs, as we've seen here, and the emotional and psychological costs have been shown to be high.
Ticks are notorious disease carriers and they're just might be on the verge of becoming a national plague. Why? Does the fact we've gained good products justify the fact we've lost good products that were effective ticks and bed bugs? Is the nation healthier than before?
Forty seven percent of those between the ages of 18 and 37 believe cancer can be cured with alternatives to medicine relying on food or supplements or ancient wisdom. This in what can arguably said to be the most scientifically advanced nation in human history. So it's no wonder people believe eating organic can prevent cancer. Well, does organic food prevent cancer?
People believe that it does, in spite of studies showing that claim by the organic industry is not only without foundation......it turns out these "organic" farmers are cheating.....really....they're cheating and using non approved products. On October 12, 2018 Alex Berezow from the American Council on Science and Health wrote an article saying:
"Three farmers in Nebraska just plead guilty to a food fraud scheme in which they were selling conventionally grown corn and soybeans as organic. They pulled off this scheme from 2010 to 2017 and made nearly $11 million in the process. How could they get away with it for so long?"
No on can tell by taste of look whether some product has been grown "organically" or through conventional means. So, to find out requires chemical analysis and the National Organic Program, who is supposed to enforce the rules don't bother, and their inspection system is seriously flawed. In short.....the USDA just trust farmers and suppliers. And no one is looking very hard at imported "organic" foods.
Berezow goes on to state: "The organic industry is built upon a gigantic lie: that is, the notion that "natural" farming methods are safer and healthier while "unnatural" methods are dangerous. Worse, the organic industry perpetuates a myth that it does not use pesticides, when it absolutely does. It should surprise no one, therefore, that such a deceptive industry would attract its fair share of hucksters."
So, the rules change, fad becomes accepted as science, foolishness become wisdom, and and we're still left with the question - Is the nation better off?
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