Episodios

  • The Farm Local Business Spotlight

    The Farm Local Business Spotlight
    Sep 22 2025
    Join Michael as he interviews Dr. Beau Beard, one of the founders of The Farm! The Farm, which stands for “Functional Athletic Rehabilitation & Movement,” is a facility located in the Birmingham/Chelsea, Alabama area that specializes in chiropractic care, rehabilitation, performance training, and functional medicine! Podcast Transcript: Michael Wienecke Hey and welcome to the Peskies Pest Control Podcast today. I have got Dr. Beau beard with me. He owns The Farm chiropractic business in Birmingham, Alabama, and also Chelsea, Alabama. Beau, how you doing today? Dr. Beau Beard Doing pretty good. Hope my voice holds out here, so we’ll see. Michael Wienecke Hey, all good. You sound great on, you know, on camera and all that. So both tell us a little bit about your business. Let’s just kind of, you know, go into why you started all that fun stuff. Dr. Beau Beard Yeah. So we’re, again, we’re a chiropractic and rehab center. So it’s called The Farm, functional athletic rehabilitation and movement, which can be a mouthful. So just go by the farm. But it’s myself and my wife, Doctor Sloan, who started the practice back in 2014 and like I said, it’s a mix of chiropractic. So people tend tend to think chiropractic is just coming, get your back adjusted or popped and see you later. But we both have a masters in sports rehab. We have a lot of other, you know, fancy certifications nobody want to hear about. But what that allows us to do is kind of look at your whole health from, you know, global standpoint, yeah, we have a musculoskeletal focus, but our tagline is better than before. So the goal is, you don’t just come in and, you know, get your back pain taken care of. We’re looking at how you move, how you eat, how you train, kind of, the things you do throughout your life, and really try to get you to move better than before. So we don’t see you for the same thing in our office, hopefully, again, Michael Wienecke That’s great. Yeah, I know as a firefighter, you know former firefighter, mobility is everything. Strength is everything, because you just as we age, we start to fall apart. Dr. Beau Beard It’s a natural part of life. And I did a talk this morning to a bunch of firefighters, and we were talking on the importance of not waiting for injuries to show up, but hopefully getting yourself moving better and maybe a little more often so they don’t show up at all. That would be the real goal, which is kind of a bad business model, but that’s, you know, that’s what we want our patients to work towards and strive for. Michael Wienecke Yeah, I would 100% agree. I mean, the food is almost 100% if you’d agree. Dr. Beau Beard Yeah, it’s, you know, the funny thing is, people come to us, obviously, for, you know, an ankle sprain, low back pain, a headache, jaw pain, and, you know, within a couple visits, we’re talking to all these people about, yeah, how you sleep? How do you eat? Are you exercise, not enough or too much? Should you try something different? And, you know, all the fun stuff in between. But yeah, we’re really trying to take care of your whole health to our best ability, and also just be be a part of your healthcare team, you know, which is maybe a lost art nowadays. So we’re trying to bring that back. Michael Wienecke I would agree. I think, I think health in general is a lost art. Dr. Beau Beard We can have a long conversation on that. But yeah, like I said, you know, if somebody comes to me, and let’s say it’s because of their knee pain, and I think that maybe one of the more important aspects to not only help their knee pain, but for their health, is to, you know, decrease inflammation, lose some weight, you know, we kind of say, give them what they want, but keep them around for what they need. So we want them to be on knee pain, but I also want them to be a healthy individual that doesn’t need pain anymore. So we’re to pay anymore. So we’re gonna have those hard conversations that, you know, maybe I don’t have a treatment or a tool specifically for that, but I can help you walk, walking down that path. Michael Wienecke No, that’s awesome. That’s awesome. So what got you into business, you know, let’s just talk about what made you want to start and go out on your own and take that leap of faith, if you will. Dr. Beau Beard Yeah, so going way back, since I’m old now, when I was nine years old, I fractured my femur playing kind of pick up football. I still, to this day, have a titanium rod my left femur. And on the back end of that surgery, I just, you know, I was from small town in central Illinois, didn’t have the greatest, you know, post op rehab program, which meant none, and they basically, I guess, thought I was a kid and you’re going to be fine, you’re resilient. And everything wasn’t perfect, especially when I got into sports. So some things kind of came to light later. So I really got into this because I was fortunate enough ...
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    11 m
  • Fire Ants Are Invading Birmingham, Alabama Lawns!

    Fire Ants Are Invading Birmingham, Alabama Lawns!
    Sep 11 2025
    Podcast Transcript: Michael Wienecke 0:23 Hey, and thanks for listening to the Peskies Pest Control Podcast. I’m Michael, and we’ve got Travis here, and we are going to be talking about the fire stinging insect that is in your front and backyard that creates unsightly mounds and just causes lots of problems. Travis, what are we going to talk about today? Travis McGowin 0:47 Well, fire ants, just to put it blatantly for everyone, fire ants is the scourge of most people’s lawns, sometimes the scourge of the structure that you know you live in. They they range everywhere from, you know, East Coast to West Coast, and you know, as far up as, say, Virginia and down towards Florida. So I mean, they’re very wide area that they live in, and that that means that, you know, a large amount of people you know across the globe are affected by these insects. Michael Wienecke 1:22 100% you know, they’ve come in from boxes over centuries, from other countries. I would say just, just like any other pests that we have in the United States, it came from Asia. Travis McGowin 1:35 Yeah. So actually, I was reading about that and the they believe that. I think the red imported fire ant was actually originally from Brazil, Michael Wienecke 1:45 Brazil. Okay, I know, I know other ants have come in from from Asian areas and all the shipping containers and all that. So another fun fact about fire ants, they are called fire ants because when they bite, it is like fire. It feels like fire. Travis McGowin 2:02 Yeah. You know, instantly, when you get when you get hit by one it’s, it’s not some delayed thing, it’s, it’s instant pain. And you know, think it’s estimated that one to 2% of the population in the United States is actually allergic to fire ants, which, when you think about the population of the United States, 1 to 2% that’s a pretty decent sized Michael Wienecke 2:24 chunk. So I’m glad you brought that up. So a couple months ago, we were gardening in the backyard, and I turn around and see my two year old rolling around in the in the grass. Well, he was covered in fire ants from about feet to waist, so ripped his clothes off, hosed him down. He was probably stung. It’s funny, I was about to say bit, and that’s something else we’re going to talk about too. But he was stung about, I would say, 20 something times monitored. Monitored him for any kind of, you know, anaphylaxis or anything like that. Did not have any issues, thankfully. But yeah, they can definitely be a safety concern. Travis McGowin 2:56 My brother has a similar story. When he was around the same age, he actually, he actually sat on top of a fire ant mound accidentally. And to this day, even as an adult, you know, in his late 30s, he is still allergic to him. If he gets stung by a fire ant, he swells up in the side of the sting. And so, yeah, that that one encounter as a child still lingers with him, even as an adult today. Michael Wienecke 3:26 Well, my son loves ants now. He tries to find him wherever he can. He hasn’t been stung again, so we’ll see how that goes. But I I certainly hope he’s not in the same boat as your brother. So let’s talk about what to look for like, What? What? What are fire ants compared to other ants color wise. So you’re looking for more of a yellowish, reddish, brownish color. And of course, the mounds. So the where they nest is going to be those unsightly mounds like we talked about. You know, I’ve got one right now popping up in my driveway between the cracks and crevices of the driveway, leaf debris, rock debris, anything that can kind of give them a good harborage area. Travis McGowin 4:05 And they will shelter up under things too. And here’s the crazy part. You know, people may not realize just how big of a problem and how invasive these insects actually are, but to put it into perspective, those properties that have a significant problem can actually have upwards of 30 to 100 mounds per acre. So that’s that’s a significant amount of ants, when you consider that the average colony size for a decent sized ant colony, and remember, 30 to 100 mounds, so potential colonies per acre and a colony size of 80 to 250,000per colony of ants. Michael Wienecke 4:54 And that’s, that’s one queen colony. Travis McGowin 4:56 Right, Exactly. So, I mean, when you, when you really think. About it, if you had it on the high end of 250,000 ants, and let’s just say you had 80 mounds, you’re talking about 20 million ants in one acre of property. Michael Wienecke 5:13 That’s that’s a lot of ants. Travis McGowin 5:14 Just, just to put it into perspective, right? Michael Wienecke 5:17 Well, that’s why I try to let people know if you have one fire ant bed. Typically, there’s going to be more, whether it’s on your property or your neighbor’s property. But again, that’s a lot of ants. And the crazy thing too, is, is that that queen is producing upwards of 1500 ants per day. Travis McGowin ...
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    13 m
  • Tips to Keep General Pests Away in Birmingham, Alabama!

    Tips to Keep General Pests Away in Birmingham, Alabama!
    Jul 14 2025
    Podcast Transcript: Michael Wienecke 0:00 Steve, hey, so today on the Peskies Pest Control Podcast, we would like to talk about solving pest issues without chemical application. So we’re seeing a lot of especially this month, last month, with the amount of rain we’ve had Travis, I think you can, with Montgomery, I think you can attest to that, that it’s just rained every other day, Travis McGowin 0:24 Every single day, and it’s and it’s unseasonable. I mean, realistically unseasonable for, you know, May into June and then even into July. I mean, this is just not something that we typically have. It’s just pretty much downpours and heavy downpours every single afternoon. But, I mean, on a side note, my yard looks great. Michael Wienecke 0:46 Well, I can’t cut my grass, so my yard, it’s cut now, but you know, it’s hard to cut it in the rain, which also leads us to, you know, the whole issue of pests. If you if your grass is, you know, knee high, expect to have some pest issues, Travis McGowin 1:02 Right. So, you know, when you talk about rain and home ownership, the first thing that comes to mind, I mean, when we’re just kind of talking about a broad overview of things and a broad overview of pests and pest problems that you can, you know, potentially solve yourself. I know I can speak for my yard and my house. When I tell you that they’re right off hand, I can think of right now, there’s two pretty much clogged gutters right now on my house. And knowing that clogged gutters mean that it’s got leaf debris, it’s got different tree you know, pine needles, different things from trees, the debris is there, meaning that it’s not draining properly. It’s holding water. So Michael, what? What insects am I having a problem with from my gutters that I have not cleaned because I’ve just frankly, been lazy. Michael Wienecke 1:53 I can think of a few, but the main one would be mosquitoes. Travis McGowin 1:55 Right! So we have a large amount of mosquitoes now. Granted, our houses, our lot is kind of low lying. We do get a lot of drainage off of other lots around ours that comes through our house. So we do get a lot of standing water, especially when it rains day after day after day. If we don’t cut our yard, then we get a lot of standing water. So we’ve kind of remedied that. But mosquitoes, I mean, that leaf debris is going to bring roaches, things like that, that. Yeah, people don’t realize how much standing water is actually left in your gutters when you don’t actually clean them out. And then, you know, mosquitoes can breed in as you know, think the size a container, the size of a bottle cap. So think how much water is actually up there. It’s more than a bottle cap. Michael Wienecke 2:35 That’s right. And I mean, it’s, it’s hard to clean your gutters out when it’s been raining every other day, because can’t get up there and do that. So it’s just been, it’s been a very hard, I would say, two months. Travis McGowin 2:46 It has. It’s just been out of the norm for Alabama. But I’ll tell you one thing that has continuously been coming to my houses or my house, is cardboard boxes with the word Amazon on the side. So we get deliveries every single day. So we take the items Michael Wienecke 3:07 Can we say Amazon? Travis McGowin 3:08 I don’t know. I think we just did. I don’t think it really matters. Amazon, Walmart, their Target. Okay, I got a bunch out of the way. So Amazon boxes are a staple. I see Amazon delivery drivers come through. You know, our area all the time. We’re in a rural area, so Amazon’s really just everywhere. But we pulled the item we ordered out of the box. We throw the cardboard box on the back porch, and Michael, what happens next? Michael Wienecke 3:31 Well, I’ve got the same issue right now. Spiders, ants, millipedes, roaches, silverfish, earwigs, wasps, bees, Travis McGowin 3:43 Small children. Michael Wienecke 3:45 Just about anything that likes a warm environment. Travis McGowin 3:50 Well, not only that, but what happens with all the rain we’ve had the the boxes get soaked. They absorb water. They never dry out, and it just creates this nice little habitat for for pests that, you know, you wouldn’t normally have out there, but there again, we didn’t, you know, throw away the boxes. We didn’t burn them. We just decided we needed to stack them on the back porch. Michael Wienecke 4:09 Well. And that brings up a great topic is, how do they breed roaches when they’re, you know, in a lab, or something like that. What do they use to breed roaches? Travis McGowin 4:18 Oh, certainly, cardboard or other types of paper material. I mean, it absorbs and holds moisture. It’s good cover for them. It packs down good, and it just gives them a perfect environment. Michael Wienecke 4:29 And one of the worst outside termite issues I’ve ever seen was a customer that put cardboard as their weed control. So instead of using the ...
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    14 m
  • Crane Flies Are Not Mosquitoes in Birmingham, Alabama!

    Crane Flies Are Not Mosquitoes in Birmingham, Alabama!
    Jul 1 2025
    Podcast Transcript: Michael Wienecke 0:03 Hey. So here today on the Peskies Pest Control Podcast, we’re going to talk about crane flies or Skeeter eaters. What are some other names, mosquito Hawk, tarantula flyer. I’ve heard all kinds of names, Daddy Long daddy, long legs, all that kind of stuff. Travis McGowin 0:23 So I feel like in Alabama, it’s getting harder to differentiate between real mosquitoes and crane flies, because I feel like the real mosquitoes are getting bigger. But that’s a conversation for another day. Michael Wienecke 0:35 Well, let’s see, may it rained, I think, every other day. Travis McGowin 0:39 It’s still raining every other day. Michael Wienecke 0:40 Yes, it is still raining every other day. So I think the biggest takeaway from here with mosquito hawks or crane flies are that they are not mosquitoes. They do not bite, they do not cause any issues. Like mosquitoes, they just kind of buzz around and are extremely annoying. Travis McGowin 0:58 Yes, but unlike mosquitoes, they like you said, they don’t bite, they don’t consume, you know, human or animal blood as their primary source of food. And even after, you know, the larva emerge into adults. The adults really don’t even they hardly consume anything before they, you know, do their reproductive cycle and then basically just die. Michael Wienecke 1:22 Yeah, what 10 to 15 days, and they’re, they’re goners, and really, they’re just kind of bouncing around, you know, like we get calls from customers, they’ll say, Hey, I’ve got a very large mosquito I’ve never seen before, or very large mosquito buzz around the house. And that’s typically what it turns into is a crane fly issue, which there’s no treating an adult crane fly. It’s just they fly around, they die, and then they start back over spring to fall, Travis McGowin 1:48 Right, and I mean, honestly, their primary focus, or primary, I guess, benefit to the environment, is that they’re basically one decomposers, so, and I’m going to assume that’s probably more on the larval side, where they’ve, you know, laid whatever eggs are going to lay, the larva hatch and probably feed on organic matter around the soil, decomposing things, probably very much like a termite does, just returning those items into the soil and enriching the soil. Other than the other thing is like just being a food source for other animals, for things such as, you know, fish, other insects, birds, bats and just other animals. I’m sure, probably, you know, lizards and things like that too. So when they emerge in large numbers, and like you said, customer calls, they’re flying around inside your house, because inevitably, once you open the door, they’re going to come flying in. You know, in those times when they’re kind of ballooning in their population, that’s when other animals get to feed on them and use them as one of their food sources. Ecosystem, yep. And it works out. It works out really well for everybody involved. Well, I guess, except for the crane fly. Michael Wienecke 3:01 Except for the crane. Well, let’s talk about the damage that they do cause. So one thing that they can cause damage to the grass, the larva. The larval stage, you know, which, that’s where they spend 90% of their life, is underground. They can destroy root systems and cause a little bit of damage to your grass. Travis McGowin 3:19 Right, and the larva actually look like, I guess you could say little, you know, little worms or or really, really small, thin grubs. Maybe some people would describe them as that, but a lot of people refer to them. I guess because of their they’ve got, like, a darkish brown color. But a lot of them refer to the larva as leather jackets. And like you said, the adults really don’t damage anything, but leather jackets can certainly hurt lawns and gardens. They’ll feed on plant roots. And you know, I’m sure it could either kill kill your grass, or kill your plants, or definitely make your yard, you know, off colored, or something like that too. So certainly could become a nuisance to someone who really likes a very manicured, well watered and lush lawn, or or lush, you know, group of plants in a garden. Michael Wienecke 4:11 Yeah, definitely. I was just lost with my train of thought. So we’re talking about the larval stage. Oh, where they like to breed. So biggest thing is going to be always a water source, major water source, marshes, ponds, they’re always going to lay eggs kind of near that area. That’s going to help those eggs thrive. And of course, you’re going to have a a lot of crane flies during the the spring and fall. Travis McGowin 4:36 Right, and it just depends on what breed of crane fly. There are, you know, here in Alabama, most of the time, like you said, spring into summer, you’re going to get your biggest group of population. But there’s even a European crane fly that will actually start to hatch and grow, you know, ...
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    8 m
  • Fleas Can Turn Into A Problem in Birmingham, Alabama!

    Fleas Can Turn Into A Problem in Birmingham, Alabama!
    May 30 2025
    Podcast Transcript: Hey everybody, welcome back to the podcast. Today, I wanted to discuss something that seems to have been kind of on an increase in terms of phone calls that we’ve been receiving on our phone lines, messages that we’ve been receiving through our website from customers. So I felt like it was something that needed to be addressed again, and wouldn’t hurt to give you some information. On but today we’re going to talk a little bit about fleas. Now fleas are, unfortunately, a very common pest a lot of people have experience with a lot of people have difficulty with at some point or another. You can have difficulty with fleas if you have pets of your own, and even sometimes, you can run into situations where you have problems with fleas, even if you do not actually own any pets. And I’ll discuss a couple of those situations. But just a couple things about fleas to make you think about the fact that they can actually balloon from a very small problem initially up to something that seems like you just cannot get rid of them. And this is because, for example, if you have pets, dogs, cats, if you have those animals living around your house or inside of your house, a domesticated animal, those fleas typically like to feed on the animal. Not saying that you wouldn’t see a flea in your house. You wouldn’t see a flea on your body at some point or another. It’s definitely possible, but as long as there’s a host food source, such as your pet, to take the brunt of the problem, most of the time, you may go a long time without really even noticing that you have a problem or that your pet has a problem. A lot of times, people discover it, though, when something happens and the pet is removed from an environment, say, the pet passes away. You know, something happens where you have to rehome that pet. You know, just various different reasons why you may no longer have that cat or dog inside your house, but as soon as the food source that pet is taken away, now, all that the fleas have left to feed on, unfortunately, is you so, you know, like I said, a lot of times, it balloons into this big problem, or people don’t even know that they have the problem until it’s a little bit too late. But female fleas alone can lay anywhere between four to eight give or take eggs after each time they feed on your pet or you. And in the grand scheme of things, they can lay somewhere between four to 500 eggs throughout their entire life cycle, and that’s just one female adult flea. So if you have multiple you can see where it could just seem like something that you may not ever be able to get rid of. And that’s not true. There are definitely methods that are successful in getting rid of fleas, but it definitely feels like a mountain that’s a little bit difficult to climb. So let’s talk a little bit about this. What are some ways that we can get rid of fleas? There are a lot of DIY people in the world, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I am on that same Avenue with many different projects around my house that I try to protect into and saving some money and that sort of thing. But if not done correctly, you can actually exacerbate the flea problem and you can actually make it completely worse. You’ve heard me say it on the podcast many times. This will not be the last time I say this. I tell my customers all the time. Just because a product says you can kill fleas with it, or you can kill roaches with it, or any of those pests, doesn’t always necessarily mean that that product should be used to kill that particular insect. So sometimes these products actually have an effect on making the insects seem like it’s worse inside your home, for example, if you use a product labeled for cockroaches on certain types of roaches, like German roaches, and it’s. Wrong style of product, you may actually cause those roaches to relocate to a different room in your house that you never actually had a roach problem in up till that point. And the same can go with fleas as well. So number one, if you want to get rid of fleas, and I tell my customers, is if I’m going to treat their house, this is number one in the discussion where I talk to my customers, you have to get your pet treated for the fleas, and you need to maintain regular flea treatments on those pets. Unfortunately, the way it works, we can certainly treat a house for fleas, but if the host is no is never treated or maybe just given a flea bath and not given some type of, you know, medication from the veterinary office. If there’s not some long term treatment plan for your animal, there’s a high likelihood that those insects will be back and you’ll have a problem again in the very near future. So that’s that’s number one we always recommend to the customer. Hey, please get your animal treated. You know, sometimes it’s a situation where maybe you don’t have a pet, and you move into an apartment, you move into a rental house, ...
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    19 m
  • Keeping Squirrels Out of Your Birmingham, Alabama Attic!

    Keeping Squirrels Out of Your Birmingham, Alabama Attic!
    Feb 7 2025
    Podcast Transcript: Travis McGowin: Thank you for joining us again for another episode of the Peskies Pest Control Podcast. Today, we have a very special topic to talk about. Wildlife, and not just any wildlife, one that causes so many problems, so much frustration, and it’s just an overall nuisance to a lot of homeowners, and that wildlife is squirrels. Now, just recently, if you’ve been following along with our YouTube channel, you would have seen that I posted a video where we were actually trapping squirrels at a customer’s house here in Deatsville, Alabama, this customer woke up Christmas morning to some crazy noises going on inside of their kitchen. They’ve got an older home. The layout is a little bit different than what you might would typically see nowadays when people build a new build. So inside their kitchen, they actually had a kitchen cabinet that, when you open the doors, actually showed their breaker box. So the breaker box for the electrical wiring in that portion of the house was hidden behind this old kitchen cabinet, but the breaker box wiring actually went straight up into the attic, so there was no buffer zone. There was no enclosure that hid these wires from view, so when the squirrels made entry into the attic, they were able to come straight down through the wall void, following the wires and right into the customer’s kitchen cabinet. So imagine yourself waking up on Christmas morning to enjoy that time with your family, only to have pure and utter chaos from a rodent running around inside your kitchen, knocking things over and just making a mess. Thankfully, the customers were able to open a window in an adjacent room, using a broom or some other item inside the house, they were able to shoe that squirrel to that room and get the squirrel to leave the house out of a window. But if you’ve ever listened to any of our wildlife discussions or podcasts, you would know that that, unfortunately, is not the end of the potential problems that are going to be caused by squirrels. So before we dive into our inspection and how we would handle this problem, let’s talk a little bit about why squirrels or any other road in our wildlife would be an issue inside of your home, whether that be the living space, the attic space, the crawl space, wherever they may be. So since we’re talking about squirrels, if they make entry into your home, there’s always the potential for them to gnaw or chew on things, and that’s true with virtually any rodent on the planet. So for squirrels, rats, mice, doesn’t really matter. They’re always going to be chewing on something. And one thing that they always seem to search out and find that they always enjoy chewing on is electrical wiring. Why is that a problem? Because it’s electrical wiring. Definitely don’t want to have a house fire start somewhere in your home, in your attic from a rodent gnawing on those wires. It’s extremely important if you have a rodent issue, to get those animals out of your house as quickly as possible. So that’s kind of the worst case. But on top of that, you have the general mess that they make in your attic. They constantly go about throughout the day, foraging for different things to eat. They bring those items back and they store them in your attic. They eat on them in your attic. This can cause a huge mess. And not only that, but there’s the waste that comes from these animals pooping or peeing and just making their general home up there where they don’t need to be. So there’s several problems, but we’ve been able to help. For example, this customer in Dietz, Ville, Alabama, rid their attic space of these rodents. So after they called us, we set up an appointment. I went out there personally to inspect the property, and while I was on site inspecting the outside of the home, I could actually hear the rodent running around in the attic space close to the eaves. I could hear that rodent inside the attic. So that helped me pinpoint a couple of entry points around the house. If you watch our YouTube video, you’ll see that the gable vents on the side of the house actually are supposed to have a mesh wiring that keeps insects and rodents and different things birds out of the attic space, but still allows for ventilation, and there was just a gigantic hole in this attic Gable vent. I. Allowing these rodents to climb up the side of the house and directly into the attic. So we came back, we placed some traps, and there’s a little bit more detail in that YouTube video, if you’d like to see the type of traps that we used. We placed some traps over those entry points with bait on them, and lo and behold, we caught a squirrel. So you may be saying to yourself, Okay, I can do this. I can find the entry point. I can set a trap. I can catch a squirrel. What next? Well, once you catch a squirrel or whatever wildlife it is that’s getting into your attic, we always recommend resetting that trap or ...
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    11 m
  • Fruit Flies Are Invading Birmingham Alabama Homes!

    Fruit Flies Are Invading Birmingham Alabama Homes!
    Dec 9 2024
    Travis McGowin Did you survive the holidays? Michael Wienecke I did. I did Travis McGowin unscathed. No issues, no, no pests, no family issues. You had a good Thanksgiving? Michael Wienecke No, a lot. You know, we wouldn’t be on this podcast. We weren’t talking about some kind of pest. Kind of pest issue. And yeah, unfortunately, at my home, I had a pest issue that popped up the day before Thanksgiving, and it wasn’t fun. So we had fruit flies all throughout the house. And so that’s what we’re going to talk about today, because as on as we’ve always talked about on this podcast, we talk about things that we see at customers house, at customers houses, and just so happens that I’m the the one that has them. Well, thank Travis McGowin you for being the guinea pig for today’s episode, but realistically so we just got through with thanksgiving. We’re diving straight off into the Christmas season. If your family is like mine. More specifically, if your spouse is like mine, you’ve had Christmas up since before Thanksgiving. Uh, so you’re knee deep in the holidays. And of course, along with that, brings the inevitable family get togethers where you know you may have a family get together that’s two weeks before two weeks after the holiday. Uh, everyone’s got a lot going on. And it’s so easy to go to the store buy the food that you need to cook fruits, vegetables, everything in between, and then forget about it and let it sit. And then Michael tell us what happens. Well, Michael Wienecke it’s funny because, you know, searching around the whole house trying to figure out what it is. Because, you know, obviously Travis, obviously Travis we’ve seen, I can’t even count how many fruit fly issues we’ve had or seen at customers houses. Jim searching around the kitchen trying to find where this issue is. I know it’s either something rotted or, you know, something that’s been out, like you said, overnight, or something like that. Well, between two stacks of paper was a banana, and it was very black, very, very black. So that was, that was the source. Got that removed, cleaned up, and, you know, and we’ll talk more about it, but we went into the treatment phase and got it pretty much eliminated that day, right before, I think, dinner time with my family for Thanksgiving. So it worked out pretty Travis McGowin well, right? And you know, some fruits, some vegetables, last longer than others based upon their storage, whether they’re on the counter, whether they’re in a cool, dark place, like maybe the bottom of a pantry, but inevitably, like I said, at some point you’re either going to forget that it’s there, you’re going to use what you need and put it back, and then, you know, it just sits too long, and it starts to, you know, maybe get a little too ripe, or even ferment or rot or something like that. And then somehow or another, they always find it, like they always the fruit flies will always find it. And then that’s when your problem starts. They start to colonize in that fermenting, decaying fruit or vegetables, or whatever it is you’ve left out that’s starting to get really gross. Michael Wienecke Well, and I hate to say this, but I blame the grocery stores, obviously, because you’ve got, you know, massive, massive amounts of vegetables and fruits. And where do they come from? Travis, where do these flies come from? So how do they get on these fruits? They Travis McGowin fly not out of thin air. They don’t just show up in your house out of thin air, that’s for sure. So they probably really fall into that category, very similar to a lot of other pests that are invited pests, because they don’t just occur naturally in your house. They’re usually brought in. So you know, if you had bananas sitting there on a shelf at a grocery store with just a huge stack of bananas, and the stock didn’t get rotated properly. And there’s definitely a chance that you could end up with some larva or something like that on what you bring home, and it wouldn’t be an issue normally, until you don’t actually finish the food before it gets too ripe or starts to, you know, spoil, Michael Wienecke right? I mean, you know, it’s coming from the grocery store, it’s already there in the food and it’s just sitting there, and as it ferments, it’s going to start, start popping into a big issue. So, and the the easiest way to control it is just getting it in time, kind of like I did remove that banana, you know, took it outside, threw it in the trash can. I have, I’m able to do a treatment, obviously. So I phoned all my drains, I did, you know, sanitization, to get rid of that problem. But really, just removing that banana, over time, the adults would have died, right? Travis McGowin But let’s be clear just how fast it can actually spiral out of control. Oh, yeah, you know, from start to finish, and we’ll do the breakdown of of what happens over the course of this...
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    9 m
  • Keep American Cockroaches Out of Your Birmingham Alabama Home!

    Keep American Cockroaches Out of Your Birmingham Alabama Home!
    Sep 20 2024
    Welcome to another episode of Peskies Pest Control podcast here in Birmingham Alabama with Michael and Travis. We do this podcast as a community service for Birmingham, Hoover, Vestavia Hills, Mountain Brook, Helena, Alabaster, Pelham and all other surrounding areas! Michael Wienecke So today here on the pesky pest control podcast, we are going to be talking about my favorite subject, roaches, not just any Roach, the largest roach in Alabama, not in the world, Travis McGowin but before we now we dive off into the bug stuff, let’s acknowledge the obvious. It’s been a while. Michael Wienecke Yes, yes. I completely just forgot about that. Yeah, yes. Well, Travis McGowin it has been a while, yeah, but for those of you who do listen on a regular basis, we apologize, but it has been a while. Things have things have been wild around here. The bugs have been non stop, and so we had to take a little hiatus, and now we are back. Yes, Michael Wienecke it’s a lot harder to do everything you know than you’d think. So, Travis McGowin right? So anyway, American cockroaches, let’s talk about them. Yes. Michael Wienecke So American cockroaches are in your house. It’s becoming fall, and they are going to find their way in through holes in the wall, holes in the brick, pipes, vents, tree branches touching, you know, the side of the house to let those guys bypass any products or anything like that to get into the house. Travis McGowin I mean, I haven’t seen any in my house. You said they’re in my house. Well, you Michael Wienecke just said you had a smokey brown roach in your house that was Travis McGowin off record. We didn’t want to talk about that. That was off record. Much Michael Wienecke harder to control, much harder to control. Yes, Travis McGowin so, yeah, the American cockroaches. And I tell a lot of customers this, the American cockroaches like to live underneath pine straw, underneath mulch vegetation areas. So they’re very typical to see them around the outside of your house where you’ve got landscaping, and they like to eat under that dead and decay that layer of dead and decaying vegetation up underneath all of that landscaping material so they can make a nice little home for themselves. And typically, they don’t usually want to come inside and they don’t usually want to infest a person’s house. But there are exceptions in the fact that sometimes they mistakenly wander their way in, Michael Wienecke or they just weasel their way in because it’s a nice dry spot, and it’s been raining for five days straight, Travis McGowin right? And I also think, too, that sometimes with gaps, cracks and crevices around the house, whether it’s doors, windows, anything like that, that you end up, you know, at night, you got light coming through those gaps, cracks and crevices. I don’t think that helps your I don’t think that helps your calls either when trying to keep them out. No, 100% Michael Wienecke I can remember as a kid, I was watching TV one day with my window open, and an American cockroach flew right in and landed on the TV and scared me after death. Going straight Travis McGowin for the light makes you, makes you think about those commercials that they used to have where you’re sitting there watching it looks like a regular, normal commercial, and then this bug goes and crawls across the screen and always looks so real, like you want to throw something at the TV? No, I know. I wonder if they were ever liable for someone throwing it, throwing something at the TV and breaking a TV, and like, you know, had to pay for somebody a new TV. Oh, I Michael Wienecke almost broke my TV. So, yes, I can say that. But no, that that’s, that’s a great point. Turning off your lights at night. That’s going to stop any attraction to, really, any bug. I mean, spiders, because you’ve got your flying insects flying around that that that light. But roaches, you know, that’s our topic. So we’ll stay on topic. Roaches typically like to infest the lower portion of a house, like crawlspace, or, I’m not going to say infest. They like to gain entry to occupy, yes, I like to gain entry to crawl spaces, basements, like I said, the underside of houses, due to, you know, higher moisture content, much better. Survival, survivability, survivability, yeah. Travis McGowin So we know where they like to go. We know what they’re searching after. Let’s talk about a couple things that maybe you know you can do to prevent that. We’ve talked Michael Wienecke about it before. Try to keep your bushes, your branches, anything touching the the roof line or the side of your house, because you can put down product after. Product. If that Roach is crawling a tree, and that tree is hanging the the roof or touching a window, or it’s just going to be easy access for for that little guy or a little girl, Travis McGowin right? They can circumvent right over anything that you or that your pest control company, ...
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    7 m
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