Tips to Keep General Pests Away in Montgomery, Alabama!

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 ...