The Residential IMM problem...

I regretfully have little professional residential pest management experience, having spent a decade in the food and beverage realm of IPM almost exclusively, however insects are insects and food is food. So while I never served this market directly, I have had to help professionals deal with stored product insects in this setting.

The first case study that fell onto my feet was from maybe 7-9 years ago, I've been at this game for 10 solid years now btw. It was a residential home in the greater Tulsa, OK area with a history of IMM issues. The home owners went through 4-5 pest management companies, it was the 4th/5th company that reached out to us at Trécé Inc. for technical assistance, that PMP and I are good friends to this day still. All because of a phone call for advice and learning together in the field. To this day I love getting to walk a clients property with them. **Hint... Always be willing to seek advice, Socrates — "The more I know, the more I realize I know nothing."

In the beginning the home did indeed have a bird seed/animal food infestation of IMM, says the home owner. Over the year or so, even after "finding and removing the infestation" (I say this because it is used as THE problem solved quote everywhere, not the pillars of IPM flow chart) they still had IMM showing up in the residence.

I visited the house with the new (now 4th or 5th PMP Co.) and we did an assessment. Found no visible food infestations, no larvae and no pupation cases. Yet every night the home owners hand counted (they had records) and electrified IMM to death (that tennis racket looking bug zapper thing). So I did what anyone selling pheromone products for a living would do, asked the PMP/Home Owner to remove every single pheromone product from the house, add a few IMM monitors to the exterior of the house and report back in a few days. Feral IMM... Yup! That is what presented. Now they were still seeing the occasional IMM floating by around dusk but that ended within the month.

So were the PMP's wrong here, heck no! They just failed to account for the complete biology of this insect. They in fact do readily occur in nature, as do most other stored product pests. We hypothesis they had exterior and interior IMM activity at the same time, while one was remedied with removal the other was left unattended and started to seek out the pheromone monitors.

The 2nd case study came from Baton Rogue, LA, this time the PMP had a clothes moth issue that he could not locate and was seeking guidance after talking with our distributor. Now this case I did not visit first hand, the PMP took me through the history and his actions very thoroughly though. Out of my now experience I asked "Did you try moving a monitoring systems outside?" He then said I have not and proceeded to tell me above a stilt system holding the house up that he never considered to inspect underneath. Low and behold he had an exterior population of clothes moth that were translocating into the home. Some per label insecticide application later, continued monitoring and the problem has not returned. Or the PMP doesn't like to talk to me... Just kidding Cajuns love to chat and are awesome folks!

The 3rd case study almost mirrors the first, save for me and the PMP (3rd or 4th PMP at the residence btw and first to ask for advice) found 2 single cast skins of larvae along a facia board under the gutter system outside. Which lead to us finding an old boiler roof vent that was not screened or capped. It was unused since the new system was installed. The larval skins led us to the entry point from the outside. So we placed a few exterior monitors, used low amplitude loaded interior monitors and bingo, it was an exterior feral population of IMM. Roof rat nesting started the IMM problem a year or so prior, the roof rats were eliminated by previous PMP's but the IMM's to thrive until the final PMP assessed the residence. Exterior repellent based residual treatment were also used as part of the IPM program. I should note the next step for the home owners was a full house fumigation using Vikane, not a cheap solution and as shown would NOT have solved this issue. Fumigation is a kill step period. Once the aeration is complete, anything outside or reintroduced can ignite another infestation. Us OG fumigators use to joke about schedule the next fumigation after just finishing the current one and how that's not really IPM... But that was the industry back then. We now know better!

The most recent case study, #4, comes from a PMP in the Oklahoma City, OK area consulting a former food PMP from Kansas, who now owns her own Company, about the issue and her recommendation to contact us for advice. The residence was not visited by us, we spoke to the PMP, he explained a history similar to case study #1 and #3 and we repeated the process. This time the exterior traps showed a few IMM but the firebox insert trap showed over 20+ IMM in a week. It was either a chimney issue or exterior feral population of IMM. The home owner had the chimney inspected and cleaning, the PMP started exterior repellent based insecticide treatments and will maintain exterior IMM monitoring in the warmer seasons. I told this PMP that I am finally motivated to write a brief article to help others solves these issues. Moral of the story, don't overlook entry points into a structure. I have the exact same issue with my house and maintain traps in the firebox all warm season.

So in closing, think outside the box, learn the biology of your enemy, like really learn it! Be thorough. Ask for assistance, this allows you to serve your clients better and highlights your progression in a really cool career field. Oh... and keep using those amazing #STORGARD monitoring systems and #CIDETRAK IMM Mating Disruption too, just be sure to follow a real IPM plan as well.

I hope this article helps our people!