6 RE MB THE NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY, MAY 20, 2012

Pests What’s the Damage? What You Can Do What the Professionals Do Freakout Scale

COCKROACHES

Cockroaches have six tiny feet that carry myriadmicro-organisms, which are left behind on yourkitchen work surfaces each time the roach movesfrom its nest (in the wall) to a food source (crumbs bythe toaster) and back again. They are a majorspreader of disease. And as if that weren’t enough,they are also a trigger for asthma.

Your best bet is to block the bugs from entering yourapartment. Seal up the cracks, crevices and spacesaround pipes — gas lines behind the stove, waterpipes in the bathroom — with steel wool orexpandable foam. Then kill the stragglers with aninsecticide bait.

The pros will do everything you can do, but they willmost likely do it better. They are trained to find and fillall the fissures in your apartment, including unsealedcracks in your floorboards and oversized holesaround radiator pipes. They will also look in thebasement for possible points of entry.

BEDBUGS

Surprisingly to some, bedbugs don’t actually carrydiseases. But they do feed off your blood, and candecorate your legs and arms with bites that can itchlike crazy. Much of the damage is psychological andsocial — how many feet did you step back when yourco-worker told you about his bedbug infestation?

Call a professional. You’re looking at possiblyreplacing your mattress, and heat-treating all clothesand linens in your home. This needs to be done rightthe first time, and it can be expensive. You should buy a cover for yourmattress.

Many pros use trained dogs to help sniff out thebedbugs. That way treatment can be targeted.Portable steamers are brought in with special nozzlesand attachments to heat-treat soft surfaces.Afterward, dead bugs and eggs are vacuumed up.Upholstered furniture also needs to be treated.

RATS AND MICE

Rats and mice spread disease by urinating on yourstovetop and defecating in your pantry. They cancarry the plague, Lyme disease, rat-bite fever andsalmonella.

No food, no rodents. Mice need less than a 10th of anounce of food every 24 hours — a crumb. So keepyour kitchen (or the couch, if that’s where you snack)as clean as a hospital operating room. Take thegarbage out. Clean behind the fridge. Then seal upthose cracks and crevices, and, for good measure,set a few traps.

If there is a buildingwide infestation, keeping yourown space clean and sealed off is not going to stopmice or rats from living in your walls, or even chewingthrough those walls. Pest control specialists will workwith your super on eliminating the infestation, andpreventing another.

ANTS

Some ants like to burrow into soft, moist wood, sowindowsills are attractive home bases. Your pantrycould become as popular as a hot dog stand in TimesSquare.

Sweep, mop, vacuum, rinse — and repeat. If there’snothing to eat, then ants will close up shop. Seal uppoints of entry, like electrical outlets. Place dry goodsin airtight containers. The type of bait you usedepends on the species of ant. (Carpenter orpavement ants are common in New York City,although others live here, too.)

The pros will first look for where the ants are enteringyour apartment, and the building itself. Tree branchescan create bridges to window ledges, for instance.The experts can also properly identify the species ofant doing the infesting. Knowing that is key toknowing what type of bait to use to kill off colonies.

TERMITES

For such small creatures, termites can pack a heftypunch in the damage department. An uncheckedtermite colony eating through the joists and beams ofa building, as well as the flooring, paneling andwallboard, can cause thousands of dollars ofdestruction. Apartments on low floors are primarilyaffected.

It is not recommended that the average homeownertackle a termite problem.

The first task is to inspect the perimeter of thebuilding. Then workers will drill tiny holes around thebase of the building, and inject an insecticide into theground. Termites will then track through it and take itback to the colony, effectively delivering the poison totheir compatriots.

SILVERFISH AND HOUSE CENTIPEDES

These two don’t present major health problems, butthey are extremely creepy-looking, especially housecentipedes, which move at lightning speed on 15pairs of banded legs. They have a painful bite like abee’s.

They like damp and dark spaces, so bathrooms arequite popular. So are the spaces around a radiator orair-conditioner. Eliminate any sources of moisture. Ifyou live in a garden apartment, get rid of the deadleaves outside. Silverfish just love dead leaves.

Professionals will do what you would do, but if theproblem persists, they will clean yet again and applyan appropriate insecticide.

BEES AND WASPS

Wasps and carpenter bees are the most common.They can sting, and some people are allergic. Inhouses, carpenter bees act something like termites.They don’t eat wood, but they will burrow into beamsto nest.

In the old cartoons, it always seemed that Winnie thePooh got away with knocking down a hive and eatingthe honey. In real life, it is best to call in aprofessional.

Treatment is usually done around dusk — when allthe bees or wasps have returned home from theirday’s work. The pros can either poison the nest orvacuum the whole thing up. Afterward they will sealup the hole to make sure no new bees get any wiseideas.

CLOTHING MOTHS ANDPANTRY BEETLES

The clothing moth will chew holes in that favoritesweater you’ve had since high school, and pantrybeetles will move into your cupboards in droves,camping out in your cereal, flour and other dry goods.

Throw away infected food, and put new dry goods inairtight containers. Dry-clean all of your clothes, tokill the eggs. Then open up a jar of elbow grease.Scrub your shelves — the corners, the undersides,the hinges — with hot soapy water.

The professionals will do what you would do. And ifthe pests come back, they will do it again and applyinsecticide to eradicate any stragglers.

PIGEONS

Like their friends, the rodents, pigeons havedroppings that can carry disease and odors, and ingeneral be unsightly. The mites they carry in theirfeathers can get into your home. And they nest onwindow ledges and sometimes in the spaceunderneath window air-conditioners.

Remove their nests and wash the area thoroughly.Set up bird spikes to stop them from coming back.You can buy these from your local hardware store.

Some pros specialize in bird control. They canremove the droppings from air-conditioners, ledgesand eaves. They can also install spikes and netting toprevent roosting.

SOURCES: Timothy Wong, M&M Pest Control; Jeffrey Dworkin, Ecology Exterminating Service; Andrew Klein, Assured Environments;Barry Beck, Assured Environments; Dr. Changlu Wang, Rutgers University; Dr. Gary Braness,!Yosemite Environmental Services; Dr. Jody Gangloff-Kaufmann, New York State Integrated Pest Management Program at Cornell University; Dr. Robert M. Corrigan, RMC Pest Management Consulting.

A Field Guide to the Pests in Your Apartment

The No. 1 Pest in

America.

House centipedes eat cock-roaches.

Vintage clothing can carry eggs.

Winnie the Pooh

always got lucky.

Termites like to

groom one another.

Bedbugs hide in

books and toys.

trol them. And unless you eat out everyday and don’t bring home a singlecrumb of food, pests will thrive.”

Finding a buildingwide solution topests like mice and cockroaches canmake the individual’s battle much easi-er.

One bit of good news is that the num-ber of complaints about bedbugs to 311,New York City’s information hot line, ison the decline, having fallen to 19,588 in2011 from 27,298 in 2010. This doesn’tmean you are free to start rescuingnice-looking upholstered chairs fromthe sidewalk, but the peak of the bedbuginvasion seems to have passed. Unfor-tunately, rodents and cockroaches arestill as pesky as ever. So are ants, flies,bees and pigeons.

Their presence can be a particularlyacute problem for people about to listtheir apartments for sale. Brokers will

tell you it is hard to say which is worsefor buyers touring an apartment: see-ing mousetraps in every corner, or be-ing greeted by the living, breathing pestitself.

As New Yorkers, we have little sway

over who lives around us, but we can tryto control the creatures living uninvitedin our homes. Our guide to eradicatingsome common ones is a basic how-to onwaging war against the harpies of therodent realm and the billions of six-

legged monsters marching and flyingacross the welcome mat. It was com-piled after consultation with pest-con-trol specialists and entomologists, andis intended as a starting point in what,with luck, will not be a prolonged battle.

Read. Roll. Swat.

ILLUSTRATION BY LISA HANEY

From Page 1

Pest catnip: Stickycounters. Leaky pipes.

Assorted crumbs.

Online this week, Gary Braness, apest management consultant andowner of Yosemite Environmental

Services in Fresno, Calif., will answer your questions.

nytimes.com/realestate

Ask the Expert

drugstore really does chase away cock-roaches with high-frequency soundwaves. It depends. The Web is full ofsites with recipes for concoctions toward off ants and the like, and some doindeed work. Try them out. Peppermintoil is said to be wizard at destroyingbird mites. And you’ll know soonenough whether or not that citrus-sugarsolution is killing off a colony of ants. Ul-trasonic devices? The experts are skep-tical.

But there is no true panacea. “Sanitation helps,” Dr. Braness said,

“but sanitation alone won’t totally con-

So how do you take up arms againstthe vermin in your home? All pestswant food, water and shelter. Get rid ofthose three necessities and you will go along way toward a pest-free existence.This means sanitation is everything.Equally important is stopping crittersfrom entering your home in the firstplace. If this seems daunting, call in theprofessionals.

Just don’t call them exterminators.Nowadays they call what they do pestmanagement control, and with goodreason. Today’s professionals are muchmore knowledgeable than the old base-board jockeys, who sprayed and prayed.They regularly consult with entomolo-gists. Some are certified in green busi-ness practices. Most are cognizant ofwhat types of chemicals they use andhow often. The really good ones will de-termine how the creepy crawlies aregetting in, and stop them at the source.Prices for pest management servicesvary widely, based on the pests in-volved and the size of the invasion. Butthe tab can run from $250, for a minorcase, to thousands for a full-blown bed-bug infestation.

If you want to try and tackle the prob-lem yourself, you might wonder wheth-er homemade remedies will do the trick,or if that ultrasonic device on sale at the

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