I have had a recent call about the pest situation in a building.
I will not mention which one or what town or county where they are located. This person has had a very challenging time with management to resolve the issue.
If you are having a problem and do not receive the necessary remediation and satisfaction you should call the local municipality and let them know and let management know what you plan to do and if that doesn’t make them fix your problem, then maybe notifying the health department will; they will step in and hopefully force the problem to be taken care of in an expeditious and efficient fashion.
Fines could result from this action and no management wants this type of exposure, which could cause problems renting their units in the future.
Bed bugs are an extremely difficult pest to eradicate. High heat is the most effective way to reduce and actually eliminate the insect.
However they are the size of an apple seed and are brown to red in color and their shape is flat and are not so easily identified, unless you are looking for them.
They can hide pretty much anywhere and can be transferred by clothing or any other object from one location to another. They are very difficult to see and the female eggs are white in color and are the size of two grains of salt and are almost impossible to see without carefully searching and identifying them. Female bedbugs can produce and lay up to 5 eggs a day and up to 500 per year!
Bedbugs can live up to one year without food. Indications of an infestation in your home or business or any other location can include a red, very itchy swelling on your skin, brown or red fecal spots on bedding or upholstery, molted bed bug skins and excessive infestations may have a sweet smelling odor associated with them.
They are able to hide anywhere and cold does not have much of an effect on them; but heat does and this is the method that a professional exterminator utilizes to alleviate the problem.
However, there is a product you can purchase online that will also kill bedbugs immediately and this could be another more economical process to minimize and eliminate bedbugs on contact. It was invented by some university entomologists and from the reviews, it works very well.
Since I am not here to promote products, you can go online and find it under “spray for bedbugs.”
It appears to be extremely safe for children and pets; you must read all the information to make your own decision to purchase. You can call me for product suggestions too. However, if your situation is more than you can handle, then hiring an exterminator to use the “ high heat process” will be the method that will eradicate your problem.
It takes several hours for this process to work. Some companies actually have dogs that are trained to find and sniff out bedbugs and have been successful in locating and identifying them.
Call me if you need some advice on who to hire.
Roaches are another issue that some buildings have had a few issues with and this shouldn’t be a huge issue if handled properly.
I have used boric acid in the past (only use with a professional exterminator and do not use this yourself, as a respirator is required. The holistic approach to minimizing and riding oneself of roaches is to make sure all the cracks, crevices and holes where water pipes go through the home or apartment are sealed with steel wool, thereby preventing their entrance into your place.
Also, checking all packages that you bring in are “roach free.”
In hot air systems, putting in a fine mesh screening, making sure they are cleaned periodically) in air and exhaust vents will eliminate their passage into your home too. Dr. Harold Harlan, staff entomologist for the National Pest Control Association, said that the least costly and most effective strategy for effective roach control was that eliminating food and water from counter tops, toaster ovens and places that there would be an accumulation, will also cut down on their encroachment into your home.
Roach baiting traps also are a way of controlling them, extremely safe around children and pets are highly effective. The bait used in some, is ingested by foraging roaches that return to the nest, where baby roaches then feed on the doomed roaches’ sputum and excrement, enhancing the product’s effective range.
You surely do not want these pests in your place when your home is being shown, so do your preventive maintenance or get the issued resolved asap!
Phil Raices is the owner/broker of Turn Key Real Estate at 7 Bond St (soon moving to 3 Grace Ave). in Great Neck. He has earned the designations as a graduate of the Realtor Institute and is a certified international property specialist. He can be reached by email:Phil@TurnKeyRealEstate.Com or by cell (516) 647-4289 to answer any of your questions or article suggestions or provide you a free comparative market analysis on your property.
