Pest Management Professional, September 2011

rodent management series PART 6 OF 6 Cardboard boxes offers mice sought after nesting materials and sound dampening features Continued from page 49 5 Food spills and odors Boxes that used to contain food items are prone to the spills and breaches of the boxes around them or from the packages within Cardboard retains the odors of food residues and such odors will attract mice and other pests to the boxes initially into which they might move 6 Colony odors As mice hide within or travel on boxes they urinate defecate and smudge rub onto the surfaces Because it is an absorbent surface cardboard collects these odors some of which contain individual family and colony pheromones In turn the pheromones communicate a range of different messages to the mice including for other mice to investigate a box or to encourage new mice to invade other boxes nearby 7 Spatial separation Boxes containing items that divide them into smaller components cardboard panels cans other boxes cardboard dividers etc are beneficial to social mammals By nesting within a large case full of boxes of granola bars for example a mouse has its own space TEMPRId IS EFFECTIVE Spider Control Trial Temprid provided effective control of spiders for over 10 weeks Transport and Termidor only worked for 2 to 4 weeks before the spiders came back Exceptional performance and longer residual mean less callbacks with satisfi ed technicians Lasted just 4 weeks with only 40 control thereafter Termidor Transport Lasted just 2 weeks with only 85 control thereafter OE08NARBYL EJP1 Temprid 100 control of spiders for 10 full weeks Weeks of virtually 100 spider control now approved 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 for use on brown recluse spiders Continued on page 52 Field tips Ask your client the location of the most ignored forgotten stationary boxes in the zones where mice are seen and or in which food is nearby Inspect those boxes for signs of mice Suspect boxes must be a standard part of any inspection Look on top of and around the perimeters of all boxes in areas of mouse sightings for droppings holes or smudge marks Educate commercial clients about the importance of properly storing and monitoring boxes Install snap trap stations to monitor around boxes in suspect zones In food facilities stock rotation in the storeroom and out on the floor is mandatory It only takes a few overlooked food boxes scattered among hundreds of thousands of others to cause significant and costly problems For any boxes containing mice identify its contents Any future shipments from that locale should be checked carefully to ensure theyre not the source of the mice and theyre not being sent while infested Any boxes containing an infestation should be carried away to another area and surrounded with glue traps There the boxes can be disassembled piece by piece until all the mice are captured Until an infestation is brought under control especially in areas of repeated sightings encourage clients to avoid storing boxes in any out of sight out of mind areas because theyre likely to be forgotten R C mypmp net Pest Management Professional September 2011 51