Ah, Spring! Oh-Oh, Pests!

Yikes! Termites!

By Alan Caruba

Poets never seem to run out of words to describe spring. Alfred Lord Tennyson said a young man’s thoughts turn to love when spring arrives. Gardeners especially welcome it to put their little part of the world in perfect order, and many thrill to the sound of “Play ball!”

Spring, for me, is an annual reminder of the sheer power of nature to regenerate itself. Wherever you live, the trees burst into bloom along with the fecund life cycles of every species. In a world shaking loose the icy grip of winter, spring is full of the promise of warmer days, blue skies, and the real greening that nature provides.

Along with other species, spring signals the emergence of insect and rodent pests. America has been suffering a plague of bed bugs these days because there is only one pesticide registered to kill them and the Environmental Protection Agency has been notoriously slow to permit its use. All manner of other non-chemical techniques are used, but the bed bugs survive and thrive.

I know a lot about pests because in the 1980s I began to provide public relations services for my home state’s pest control association. These days both the national and state associations have renamed themselves “pest management” groups, but the only thing you want to “manage” with insect and rodent pests is to kill them as fast as possible.

So, yes, when spring arrives, I know that a lot of pest control professionals are gearing up to do battle with cockroaches, termites, ants, spiders, ticks, bed bugs, wasps, and the many permutations of their various species. The profession had its beginnings in the Middle Ages when men called “ratcatchers” plied their trade. Even English royalty employed them to keep their castles rat-free.

At the time, few made any connection between rats, fleas, and the Bubonic plague that raged through Europe from 1347 for the next five years, but that didn’t stop the plague from killing off a quarter of the population of Europe, some 25 million! Try to imagine what life would be like without pest control professionals today?

Spring, for example, marks the arrival of Lyme disease in many parts of the nation where there are large deer populations. The northeast is particularly vulnerable to this disease that is spread by the black-legged deer tick.

For homeowners and others with property, spring signals the presence of termites when their winged alates show up on window panes, attracted by the sunlight. What most do not know is that their home has likely been infested for several years until the colony reaches a point of sending the alates out to establish new colonies. Annually termites do more damage to homes throughout the United States than the combined effects of storms, fires, and earthquakes. Termite damage is frequently not covered by homeowner’s insurance. It is estimated they cause $5 billion in damage every year.

Termites aren’t the only insect that can inflict property damage, a colony of Carpenter ants, often several thousands in numbers, can enter a home overnight and begin to dine on its wooden elements.

Pest management professionals always urge consumers to have their homes and workplaces regularly inspected for signs of insect or rodent pests. The tendency, however, is to wait until there are signs of an infestation before people call for help. I’d rather know my home or business was pest-free.

For example, there are a variety of cockroach species indigenous to the United States. They include the American, German, and Oriental cockroach. A cockroach infestation can number in the hundreds of thousands. A single, female German cockroach can, statistically, produce more than 400,000 descendents in a single year. The young of German cockroaches mature in 36 days, while American cockroaches take up to 160 days. If you see one, particularly in a restaurant, it means there are thousands you can’t see.

Rodents, mice and rats, breed prodigiously as well. Rats have a life span of approximately nine months and are ready to breed within three months. Their gestation period is 22 days and they have an average litter of eight. A female rat can produce 20 offspring. Statistically, a single pair of rats has the potential, mathematically, of producing 359 million descendents in three year’s time.

I hope this hasn’t reduced all those warm, fuzzy feelings you have about the return of spring to those of dread, but in truth Mother Nature doesn’t care how you feel about spring or bed bugs or any of the many other creatures who are too busy reproducing to be concerned about your welfare and health.

Remember that the next time the EPA bans another pesticide or some environmentalist tells you that the biggest threat to your life is carbon dioxide, a gas you exhale all the time.

Mark Twain put these words in Tom Sawyer’s mouth: “It's spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you've got it, you want -- oh, you don't quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!”

© Alan Caruba, 2012

The Insanity of Protecting Rats

By Alan Caruba

Going back to the 1980s I have worked professionally with elements of the pest control industry providing public relations services  The process of educating the public is necessary because new generations must be informed of the threats pests pose to health and property.

Back when it was still known as the National Pest Control Association, I even received a beautiful certificate of appreciation that hangs in my office. At some point several years ago, it and state organizations changed their name to “Pest Management” presumably to divest themselves of the image of actually killing the creatures that annually spread disease and do millions in property damage.

In past years environmental organizations devoted a lot of time and money to convince the public that the real problem was the pest controllers, not the pests. If they all changed their profession next Monday, the entire nation would be totally over-run with roaches, termites, rats and mice in a month. The work is not glamorous, but it is utterly essential to society.

A case in point is bed bugs that have emerged in a few short years into a full-fledged pest problem from coast to coast. Thanks to the Environmental Protection Agency, the lack of pesticides registered to exterminate them has facilitated this new plague. There is, I believe, only one.

I have watched as the EPA has, since its founding, insanely strip pest control professionals and consumers of access to pesticides that formerly had protected their parents and grandparents, as well as their homes and businesses.

When you take away the pesticides, all you have left are the pests.

The modern pest control industry had its beginnings in the Middle Ages with the emergence of “rat catchers”, men who had developed a variety of poisons to rid homes and other properties of the ubiquitous rodent. Even the kings and queens of England had a royal rat catcher.

They were such a part of life in those times that the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin has been passed down to us. It was, of course, the combination of rats and fleas that spread the Black Plague in the Middle Ages, killing a third or more of the population of Europe.

So why, one must ask, have the burgers of Washington, D.C., responsible for passing the laws, passed the truly insane one titled the “Wildlife Protection Act” that requires pest control operators to not only capture rats in a fashion that does not harm them in any way, but to transport them twenty-five miles away to be set free?

As Dr. Don Boys noted in a recent Canada Free Press article, “Ken Cuccinelli, Virginia’s Attorney General, said D.C.’s new rat law is ‘crazier than fiction’ because it requires vermin not be killed but rather captured, preferably in "families", and transferred to a ‘wildlife rehabilitator’”, presumably living in Virginia!

Here are a few facts about rats:

# Rats have a life span of approximately nine months.

# Rats are ready to breed within three months. Their gestation period is 22 days and they have an average litter of eight. An average female rat will provide 20 offspring.

# A single pair of rats has the potential, mathematically, of producing 359 million descendents in three year’s time.

# The average overall length of a rat is l6 inches, with a body measuring 9 inches and a tail of 7 inches. The average weight of a rat is l ¼ pounds. Their color can range from reddish brown to black.

# A rat’s sense of smell is excellent, as is its sense of taste. They are particularly suspicious of food. This results often in “bait shyness.” Rats will leave a poisoned bait untouched for almost a week. Other members of the pack will avoid food not eaten by other members and often warn other rats away by sprinkling it with their urine or feces.

# Rats can gain access to virtually any structure. They can climb 15 feet up a rough, surfaced vertical wall. They can jump vertically one foot from a flat surface and they can easily traverse telephone wires and ropes. They are, in addition, good swimmers.

Virginia and other states contiguous to Washington, D.C. do not want the District’s rats. They have plenty of their own. They also have a complete host of other rodents and wildlife that require the ministrations of pest control professionals.

There are a host of very good reasons why every American city and town has extensive laws regarding the control of insect and rodent pests, as well as wildlife that, in my home state of New Jersey, includes raccoons, opossum, squirrels, turkeys, coyotes, deer, and bears!

Anyone with an ounce of common sense knows that rats must be killed to protect people and property, but not the idiots on the Washington, D.C. city council who were more intent on protecting the rats than their constituents.

A lot of Americans have concluded they need protection from Washington, D.C. and its incessant and insane production of laws and regulations that pose the greatest threat of all to our personal freedoms and to the nation’s economy, security, and future.

© Alan Caruba, 2012