NHT Day 05 01 Rodents

Well, good morning, everyone, and TGIF. Hopefully, all of you can see and hear me now. So let me send the chat. I'm gonna put a put a quick poll on your tablet. So you should say yes or no options, can you see me? And so, let's mark yes if you can. Hopefully, most of you that are signed into the session will be able to see me. I miss you, too, Stephen. All right, it looks like a lot of you, in fact, stormy, I'm getting more marking, yes, than I actually am showing total users, and so there's probably more people that are just not showing for some reason in our display. And so hopefully, most of us are able to see and hear the live broadcast, thank you for your patience by the way. We were having a bit of a technical glitch this morning, hopefully, things will be working fine from now on. But then we'll keep an eye on it as we progress. If you do have issues, let us know though. And hopefully, hopefully, we'll be good. All right, we're starting out this morning and again, TGIF to have to all of you, we've made it through the week, and so one more week to go, next week, but we do have the weekend ahead of us. We have some broadcasting we want to take a look at today. This morning, we're gonna tackle the important subject of rodents for the next two hours, and we'll finish about noon Eastern. From there, we'll take an hour break, come back, and round out the day with spiders and bed bugs. Remember, before coming to this rodents lesson, you needed to have done the pre-work video on demand. So hopefully, we all did that and are ready to go with that information. Also remember, if you have any other normal technical difficulties, you can always let us know or call that 1800-826-2492. Final things that I'll mention from a class and maintenance standpoint is if you're looking ahead to next week, week three, Monday is a field day. So you're not on air next Monday. You'll be back on air on Tuesday at 10 o'clock Eastern, and then we will be finishing up your classes either Wednesday for residential or Friday for commercial, but we'll get more into that next week. Once this three-week class ends, this concludes what we call Phase I. And so, if there's a one, you can probably guess there's going to be a two. And so Phase II is going to occur in four or five months when after you been on your route, you're gonna be brought back for one more live rodents lesson and then a series of on demand videos for sales. And the reason we're doing a Phase II is that there's so much information now that we're giving you, if we can pull certain things out we did, that way you, that's one less thing to learn at this instant, but then you can learn it later on. The other thing is for many of you if you're new to pest control, you may have never dealt with these pests. Therefore, you don't have a lot of questions. But once you have faced the pest and struggled with them, you may begin to wonder how do you deal with this? Or what would you do in this instance? And so that's again why we're coming back for Phase II. Your Phase II, I'm gonna chat the date, and I need all of you to write it down is August 10 at 8am or 10am Eastern. And so it doesn't matter which time block you attend the 8am Eastern is probably going to work best for East Coast and Central Time. 10am Eastern is probably gonna be better for the mountain and Pacific folks. You can pick either one, but it's a one hour live lesson on rodents. Before that lesson happens, you will have a book sent to your branch. In there, there is a page. You're supposed to write down your questions about rodents, give it to the branch, and have them scan and email it to us. And then the instructor will sit out here an answer those questions. But again, your Phase II is August 10 at 8:00 or 10am Eastern. We'll remind you again next week about this but this, but this is our first opportunity to bring that up. Final thing to mention is this afternoon the bedbug lesson that's on the schedule. If you have completely done the entire bed bug certification, meaning that entire manual, all the videos, all of the quizzes associated with it, and you have the certificate saying you, your name is certified, then you don't have to attend the bed bug lesson this afternoon. You still do have to attend spiders just not bed bugs. All right. Are there any questions, comments, concerns about schedules or class maintenance before you roll through rodents? Joseph in Central New Jersey. Good morning to you. Where do you find all the bed bugs certifications to do prior to Friday? Good, so the bed bug certification information is... So you'll get more on this, this afternoon, if you attend that lesson. Before coming to that lesson, you had a video on demand on tempo to watch on the biology and habits of bed bugs and your week one Instructions, your week one book should had instructions on that, so that should have been covered there. As far as the rest of the certification instructions go, the bed bug certification manual will tell you all about that. And that's something that should have been sent with your new hire kit. If you did not get one or you cannot find it, talk to your branch if they have one or they can help you locate it. Yeah, but that should have the blow by blow is to, where all the instructions are, what are all the things you need to be doing. But most of the information should be in there. The quizzes are gonna be in the learning management system. Now just like you did your driving certification things on that, the history and culture online was in that system, it'll be there too. But if you go in there and you don't see bed bugs certification listed under My Learning Plan, that's where need to have your manager load it for you. And they can go in the course catalog and load that in your plan. If they have any questions or difficulties about that, have them reach out to the Learning Center and someone can help them with it. All right, so let's get into then our subject for rodents today. And since we're running a little bit behind, we're getting a late start to the tech difficulties, I'm going to cut out the pre-work review because I just, we've got so much new information to cover. I don't want to spend it necessarily going through this. So I'm just gonna breeze through the answers, that way you can write them down and go back and look at it later. On page two of the participants guide, rats are cautious, large eyes and large ears describe the roof rat. And then house mice refer to forge 10 to 30 feet which is A, if you go to the page three scenario, scenario one was going to be the Norway rat, scenario two is going to be the roof rat, and scenario three is the house mouse. And go ahead and jot those down. And if you have questions let me know. But all of that you should have been able to answer yourself, if you did the pre-work video. Let's jump then to page four and get into the new material for today. And the new material is going to have these following objectives. By the end you should be able to list the PPE and tools needed when providing services for rodents, describe and identify four signs of rodent infestation, we're going to go through the three principles of rodent control, and list five ways customers can partner with you in controlling rodents. I also want to mention that with this live lesson that of all the modules that we deliver, this one has the most volume of information to get covered and the time we have. And so I'm gonna move at steady clip, we're certainly not going to rush, so don't panic, we'll take a nice steady pace. But I would say if you have questions, feel free to ask them, if they're pertinent to the topic we're discussing. But if it's trivial things or things that you're just kind of curious about, I would hold on to those. You can certainly email me or call me outside of class. If you do have questions about the points we're raising, certainly now feel free to ask those. As always, when we service for rodents, we're going to do AIM just like we do with any pets which is Assess, Implement, Monitor. I also wanted to mention that when it comes to rodents, just like I cover with flies yesterday, they're more of a commercial pets. Homes clearly get rodents but we're talking maybe a rat or maybe a mouse, we're not talking like we do in businesses like supermarkets or restaurants where you could have dozens or hundreds of these things, and it can be a really major serious issue. Likewise in commercial, the flies, you saw all those extra pieces of equipment we have like fly lights, air curtains, airstrips, same thing here with rodents. The last 15 or 20 minutes of this lesson, we're gonna show you some commercial specific strategies that residential typically will not touch. And so, just keep in mind that there is a big difference between residential and commercial. And Charlie, when I was going way too fast, the information I was breezing through is a pre-work review, again, you should know those answers from the pre-work if you did it. And if any of those you could not answer, by going back re-watch that video on demand if you hadn't watched it. That will give you all the answers, and you can get always email me or call me, I'm happy to help you outside of class. Going back then to AIM, we always begin assessing by interviewing the customer. We want to ask them basic questions to understand what they're experiencing. And as you can see on page four, things like what have you seen, where did you see it, how many, how long, you know, have you tried to treat for yourself. As it mentions there on page four, in commercial, remember you also have the added resource of the pest siding law. And I'm gonna ask a question in the next hour of this lessons, let's see if we can all get it right. People get confused about the difference between the pest siding log and the logbook. The logbook is that binder in the business that has all of those items like the floor level inspection report, the graph, the scopes and services, the service tickets, all of that's in that book. So remember, logbook. The pest siding log is one document in there, and that's where anyone in the business like the managers, the point of contacts, whoever it is wants to know pest sidings that happen when you're not present, they can put it there. And so from a service standpoint when I come in, besides interviewing the point of contact, I can also consult that logbook and look for the pest siding log in there to see what's been going on. Once we've done that, we can set off and inspect. And rodents, if you don't know, like to be secretive. Even the mouse, which is curious, will want to hide, and so these things may be hiding away in confined areas like crawl spaces, attics, you know, drop ceilings. If I put myself into that environment and there's lots of droppings around urine mold, I'm at risk. And so I need to protect myself and keep myself from catching some sort of disease or something of that nature. What I would like you to do then is to chat, what would be one item of PPE you would need to protect you from the disease stuff. And, folks, I know it's in your book, try not to look and cheat, just chat off the top of your head what might you need. Oh, it looks like a lot of you got the answers, respirators and gloves, and you're absolutely correct. Respirators and gloves would be a big one. Now respirators, folks, remember, if you did your respirator's fit test already, that video we had you do, dust masks are not an approved substitute. Now there are some respirators that look like a dust mask but it still has to be rated to that respirator quality for it to work. Otherwise, it will not protect you from diseases, from pesticides, from other harmful things. Gloves are important to protect your hands. If your respirator happens to be only a half mask, meaning it only covers this part of my face, then in those instances, you want goggles or a face shield to protect your eyes. Now some respirators are full mask that will go up here and so in those cases you would need the goggles for that. The last item that's there on page five is a bottle of spray liquid disinfectant. And that's not a requirement, that's just a suggestion. That's because when the droppings in the urine dry out, and then you crawl around and disturb it, particles of it blow up into the air, and that's what helps expose you. By wetting that down, you are hopefully minimizing that from happening. And then, if it's a disinfectant, it'll start cleaning it up. Talk to your branch about what the options are for these materials. I would just encourage you not to use anything like ammonia or bleach because they themselves can be their own health hazard when in a confined space. Well, let's talk then a little bit about what an inspection would be like as we move on to page six. We've got a short video we produced, and we somehow got Bradley Cooper to do our video, I don't know how but we did. And I want you to watch him inspecting this kitchen cabinet. Notice, he's got his gloves on to protect him. He's not necessarily in a confined space 'cause the kitchen's pretty open, so he doesn't have to have the respirator necessarily. And he's looking around and so this all seems very basic. But what I want you to take away is an inspection should be three dimensional, 'cause in just a moment, he's going to look up under the cabinet. The point like I made with ants yesterday is not all pests stay low. Some pests like ants and rodents are very good at climbing. And if all you do is look down low, you may miss it, and that means then we have to make sure we do a three dimensional inspection when we're going in for these pests. You know, everybody's got to have at least one critic there, Adam. All right, well, let's go ahead and talk about what we're looking for. And if you're on page six as you inspect, the things you're supposed to look for are these things. And again, folks, like yesterday, these are not questions you should ask the customer. If I ask a customer what's the rodent drinking, they're probably gonna have no clue. These are not questions for them, these are your own questions to answer. And so we want to know what they're eating, what are they drinking, where are they nesting, and how are they getting in. And this should be old hat to you, folks, 'cause by now, we've covered the same concept for ants, for cockroaches, for flies. To help us understand what might fit the bill for these, I have a series of videos we got from Cornell University. Now I went on and online and found these videos and they were pretty good I thought at showing what these sources look like. And so we're gonna play the videos one at a time for food, water, and shelter. As the video plays, please keep in mind, I mainly want you to look at the visuals. I'm not as interested in what he verbally tells you in the video 'cause like with some of them with water, he'll talk about metabolic water, that's not stuff you're expected to learn or know, and some of it can be a little tricky. The main point again is just the visuals. Let's start them with what could be food for rodents, and let's see how many of your hunger for tater tots or French fries after this video. When it comes to acquiring food, rats and mice are opportunistic omnivores and can eat just about any item that becomes available. However, the ability to eat different types of food does not make rodents careless in what they choose to eat. In fact, rodents develop food preferences from a very early age and actually select their food to maintain a well-balanced diet. Rodents in residential settings feed on pet food, animal droppings, insect, seeds, and plants, or any of the prepared, stored or composted human foods that are easily accessible. Now you can see there that the food sources range from human food like the French fries, tater tots, all the way down to things we would even contemplate as food like feces. And so, yes, animal feces can even be a food source. That's just more reason besides roaches and flies and ants going after it, so will rodents. And so, that's why it's important for home owners to keep that picked up out of the yard. Let's now take a look and take a stab at the water sources for rodents. Requirements for water differ between rats and mice. As larger animals, rats require more water per day and obtain standing water from puddles, condensation on pipes, or foods with the high water content. Mice on the other hand can actually survive on metabolic water or water that is made from the breakdown of fat molecules in their food. This allows mice to live in relatively dry areas and feed on things such as cereals and grains without drinking water. Nevertheless, when standing water is available, both rats and mice will utilize this resource. In rodent management, it is important to identify and eliminate standing water. This can be a real challenge in commercial settings where water is used daily and extensively for cleaning purposes. Again, you can see lots of options for water and notice it could range from as large puddles, all the way down to just simply condensation on a pipe. Again, the point he brings up about metabolic water, it's important to understand on a higher level, if you really get into rodent control and biology, is it. Now mice particularly can get enough water from the foodstuffs and that's why mice don't always have to room as far or from their nesting area, they can nest close to the food. Rats typically though will usually need some freestanding water of some sort because they are bigger animals. Lastly, look our final video in the series for shelter. Perhaps the most difficult requirement to address for rodent control is shelter. This is because rodents are capable of building a nest in any protected, undisturbed site. Where possible nests are built near a heat source such as a hot water heater, in oven, or even an engine motor. Nests can be found within the voids of concrete hollow block, drains basins, and even in unchecked rodent bait stations. In addition, rats will create burrows in the soil. Broken sidewalks and other structural problems can result in areas of high rat infestations. Eliminating voids or preventing access to these open spaces will reduce potential nesting sites for rodents and is vital in rodent control efforts. All right, you can see there again nesting areas are pretty variable, and if you watch your pre-work video, then just keep in mind that, that it does depend somewhat on the species, Norway rats in burrows, roof rats up high, house mice typically in voids and cavities behind walls and appliances. But with any habit, I always like to make a good point, and this is whether it's rodents or roaches or ants. Habits are not hard and fast rules. That means that there are always exceptions. It's like you could make generalizations about human beings but you'll have humans that will do the opposite of what that generalization might be. And so same thing with rodents like with mice typically being curious, they are examples of cautious mice. Rats being cautious, they are examples of curious rats, and same thing here with the nesting, yeah, where Norway rats typically nest in burrows but they can do other things. Roof rats typically are up in attics, but they can do other things as well. And so just keep in mind that it's a good place to start... But you still need to look at the situation, and be open to the possibility. As with anything in life being really rigid in your way of thinking is not a good thing. You need to be able to be flexible and look at that situation. And the next one on page seven, there is not a video to show. So we'll just kind of take a look at it and go through it here. We look at it entry points, cracks and crevices can be a sufficient opening but remember it has to be that minimum of a quarter or a half an inch, quarter for a mouse, half an inch for a rat. Minimum meaning that it usually needs something bigger than that, but the small juveniles can use the smaller openings and a larger rat or mouse will chew those openings and make them bigger if necessary. Also know that a lot of times that rodents will take advantage of gaps that are existing around the building, so gaps on your door, around windows, around utility lines, if doors are propped open. They can also go hitchhike in on shipments and pallets. And I think this one shocks people sometimes because we don't, we know bugs can get in shipments, we don't realize, yeah, rodents can, too. You know, and so all of these are possible entryways, and I would add a final point that the openings are not always visible from the exterior, you know, they are oftentimes behind things. And so, if the room can slip behind something like vinyl siding or some kind of the structural element, slipping behind there and then get into the opening, they will, and those openings can be up high, not just down low. And so don't always assume that rodents have to chew a keyhole-looking thing like you see in the cartoons down at ground level. They can certainly enter up high as well. Another thing I'd like to bring out and discuss is when I was doing my services, I noticed that some of my customers had more pest issues than others and it didn't have to do necessarily with the building itself inside. It seemed like I noticed certain common themes on the exterior. And I would encourage you to be aware of these. And so on the slide and in your books page seven. When you're walking the exterior of the building or you're driving up to the account, pay attention to see if the property is next to landfills, wooded areas, streams, rivers, waste water plants, railroad tracks, grain elevators, or abandoned structures. The reason being these things provide an abundance of resources for not only rodents but all kinds of pests. And since these areas typically are not treated per say, you could have a massive population build up in it. The best way of putting it is, let's say, I have a glass and I start pouring water, once it reaches capacity at the top of the glass and I keep pouring, what happens? The water runs out the sides. That same thing happens in these environments. The pests or the population will grow to capacity for that area but they don't just suddenly stop. They'll keep breeding and making more and that spills over into your neighboring areas, that's why that customer sees more issues. And a final and very important point... Let's say take that glass of water that's full and shatter it with a hammer. What happens to the water? It doesn't just disappear, it runs everywhere. The same thing happens if you go into these environments and disturb it. So let's say it's a condemned building that they're gonna knock down and rebuild a new one in its place. Or it's a grassy field that they've bulldozed to make a new subdivision. Well, if that's next to your customer when that area gets disturbed, the pest don't just simply die, they get displaced. And all of a sudden, you'll have an immediate up spike in calls because they've got to go somewhere and they're gonna be pushed out into the properties next to it. And so just watch for that. People often ask me, "Well, what do I do about it?" I mean, "Can I go next door and treat that pasture? Can I go next door and treat that landfill?" The answer is no. In those cases what we would have to do is work at the property edge of the customer to put up things that maybe intercept the pests, also work with the customer to do things at the property edge to make it less attractive to pests. And then at the building level, I need to work really hard to seal up that building with the customer, and maybe put out traps or interception type things at that building level. And again, if you can be mindful of this, that lets you be more proactive, and hopefully, the customer doesn't get a lot more issues. In addition to discovering the food, water, shelter, and entry points, on the next page, some other things, on page nine that we need to hunt for. What species are we dealing with? Is it one of the commensal that you learned about in the pre-work, like Norway rat, roof rat, house mouse? Or is it something else? Is it bats? Is it squirrels? Be aware, folks, that those other animals that are the other rodents or other types of things are often considered wildlife. And we may or may not be able to do a whole lot for those like we do for the commensal rodents. And in fact, your branch may not even service wildlife, and if that's the case, then we will have to be able to pass that job along to someone like Trutech or Critter Control in the area to take care of it. And so, I would encourage you to make sure you can distinguish the three commensals from all of these other animals. And you need to work with your branch level to know what are those other animals you're likely to see and how do you tell them apart. Catherine, why railroad tracks? I know that one comes up, a lot of people wonder why? Well, if you think about it, the rodents like to nest particularly Norway rats in areas where it's conducive for their digging. And along railroad track areas all of them go off to the side that's usually nice and maintained, it's a perfect digging area. Oftentimes, these railroad tracks stuff will fall off of the trains and so there's possible sources there. A lot of times they are near streams or near other areas would provide resources for the rodents. And then a lot of times as well the rodents will hitchhike and ride along on these trains or along with the shipments, and again you could have situations where, you know, they're falling off. And it's a perfect avenue, a highway they can run down those tracks back and forth traveling, and that's why like in metro stations and other areas, you often see them doing that. Some other things that we want to determine besides the species is the severity of the infestation. You know, are we talking one or two or we talking hundreds? We also want to understand the hot spots, the primary areas where the rodents are nesting, feeding, you know, that way, we know where to target our treatments. To help us, as we've already established, the rodents aren't usually out exposed. You know, when we come in, they're gonna hide. What we're left with then is their signs. By the way, if you do see rodents exposed in plain sight of you and the customers, it's not good. It usually means they've run out of places to hide just like with German roaches, and you're in a pretty large problem. Well, let's say, it's not that bad, what we're gonna then look at on page nine are these four signs. I freely acknowledge there are other signs besides these four but I don't want to talk about those other signs because they can be tricky. Unless you have some pest control experience under your belt and someone's work with you to distinguish some of those other signs, they can be very misleading. I want you to stick to these four. Droppings, burrows, gnaw marks, and rub marks. Let's think just for a moment, at the end of the bottom of page nine, what sorts of things they can tell me. Pick droppings for instance. If I look at droppings, could they tell me what rodent it is I have? Can I look at the droppings and tell whether it's a new or old infestation? Can I look at the droppings and tell something about the size of the infestation? Select all the answers you think are correct. Looks like a lot of us are hitting most of the choices here and it is all of them. Species we can tell based on the shape and appearance of the dropping, and I can tell these droppings apart from let's say birds or lizards or bats or squirrels. And so yes, droppings can help you. The other thing to mention would be new or old infestation. And if the droppings dry and turning to dust and crumbling, that's old, versus shiny and moist is probably fresh. And if you're really in doubt, you can kind of take a little nibble and see if it tastes fresh or not if it taste stale. Please don't, by the way, that's just a little side joke for you. And by the way, too, I do want to add one catch though to that whole drying out thing. If you're in a very dry arid part of the country and these are droppings, let's say, in an attic space or up in a very hot part, now they won't stay shiny moist for very long. And so just know that, that still can dry out pretty quickly. And then the size of the infestation, if I just see one or two droppings versus the Mount St. Helens of droppings, you know, clearly that tells me a lot more about, you know, which one of those has more rodent activity. And a fourth point you could even tell is a little bit about how long they've had the problem. You know, if I go in and there's a mixture of new and old droppings in large numbers, then that tells me they've been here long and have to produce enough droppings of all that age range, it is been pretty well established for a while. Let's now take a look at some of those signs. I have one more Cornell video to do this, and it's about three or four minutes long. Again, don't pay attention to the things he talks about as much as what he shows you. And he'll have this whole calculation about burrows, he'll even say himself it's not reliable. So it's not important the message as much as it is the images. So let's watch the video. Rodents are nocturnal animals with peak levels of activity just after sundown and just before sunrise. They have relatively poor vision, and therefore, rely on other senses and signals to navigate within their environment. Fortunately, we're able to see some of these sites and can use them to identify which rodent pest we have, determine their activity patterns, and estimate their population size. The first sign of a rodent infestation is poop. Rodent droppings are nasty, but they're also quite informative. First, the size and shape of droppings can help you determine which species of rodent is present in your home or office. Pictorial keys are available from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention with the CDC and help to differentiate between several types of droppings. For example, droppings with blunt ends that are larger than 1/3rd of an inch belong to adult Norway rats, where a smooth droppings about a quarter of an inch in length with at least one pointed and from the house mouse. Droppings let by other pest species can sometimes be confused with rodent poop. For instance, cockroach droppings are about the same size and shape as a mouse poop. However, striations that re present on the droppings of cockroaches are used to differentiate the two. In modern control programs, the bait that is used can often change the color of rodent droppings. In this case, green droppings indicate that the bait has been consumed, and chances are this rodent is already dead. In addition to pest identification, droppings tell us where rodents have been and are considered by some experts to be the road map of rodent activity. As rodents navigate from their nest to food source, they defecate or poop also leaving tiny droplets of urine and a second sign called grease marks. Together, these clues tell other rodents where to find food or shelter with commonly used trails having more droppings and thicker grease marks. Following droppings or grease marks can lead you to where rodents have entered the building, where they are nesting, or potential food and water sources. Where these marks are absent, inspections can sometimes reveal the presence of footprints in the dust. As we will see in subsequent modules, trails left by rodents provide an optimal place for rodent control devices. A third sign left by rodent populations are gnaw marks from chewing. Rodents may chew on objects for a number of reasons, but typically do so to obtain actual or perceived resources. It is hypothesized that rodents chew on wires because these mimic twigs which can provide insect food items or fluids for drinking. In other instances, rodents will make commonly used openings larger for easier access to their nest or food source. Rats in particular can chew tubes thick, plastic of dumpster lids to obtain food sources. This chewing wears down their teeth which can grow up to 0.4 millimeters per day. Like droppings, gnaw marks can be used to identify your pest. If marks left by a pair of teeth are one to two millimeters wide, you likely have mice. Whereas pairs of teeth that are 3.5 to 4 millimeters wide, they're probably from rats. In suburban areas or urban parks, rodents burrows constitute a fourth indicator of an infestation. Norway rat burrows have a typical structure including the main entrance and one or two bolt or escape poles. Burrow openings that are 1.5 to 3 inches in diameter with a smooth appearance are likely to be active. By stuffing burrows with paper or collapsing the opening, you can confirm that a burrow is active by rechecking the next day. Hopefully, you enjoyed there seeing a lot of the signs of rodent activity and help you realize what they look like. I think the droppings and some of the signs we may be familiar with already, but the one I think that's really a little tricky until you've seen them in the flesh are those grease marks and rub marks. And I don't think people always know to look for them. But I have personally found them extremely informative, especially for finding entry points of rodents into the building, as well as a good spot to put out our traps that we're gonna look at in the next hour. And so just keep in mind, these are all good signs to rely on. The urine glowing in the black light thing that people always like to bring up is not a reliable one that I want to use now. Now that's because other human produce things in these environments can also fluoresce with the black light, and then also other ammonia-based cleaners and other things will glow too. And so I really want you to shy away from those for now, stick to these four. I think you'll be a lot more successful with them. Let's ask a quick review question and then I'll open up the floor to any questions for me about anything from the first hour of this lesson. Tell me burrows are typically the sign of who, Norway rat, house mouse, or roof rat? Correct answer seems to be, we agreed Norway, and it is indeed. All right, folks, are there any questions about this first hour? If not, we'll get ready to take a seven-minute break and then we'll come back and dial through rodent control. Well, it looks like no questions are rolling in, hopefully, we're good. Take that short break like always with these two-hour lessons. We'll put up the seven-minute countdown clock. You don't have to back out or log out of the session, just get up stretch your legs, cup of coffee, bathroom, whatever you need, and then when the seven minutes is up, we'll be back live, and we'll finish this lesson. So see you in seven. You may have heard the expression like people don't give a rat's behind, well, here the cats giving you one. And clearly this is a type of rodent control, not one we are going to use, it would be considered biological though. Welcome back as we continue on with our second part of a rodent discussion looking at how do we manage or how do we control these rodents. And again, just as a reminder, the differences between residential and commercial can be quite huge here and that a home may not a lot of times have a rodent problem, you know, your ants and occasional invaders and spiders and those types of things, I think, are far more common in residential than they would be with rodents. Versus commercial on the other hand rodents can be a major ongoing continuous pests and you will spend a lot of time in commercial servicing for them. Regardless though, whether it's a home or business, there are some basics that we can cover here now in the first half an hour of this rodent control strategy that works. And so, if you're with me on page 12, let's go through them. Principle one is always with our IPM control solutions is to work with customers to reduce food, water, and shelter. To show you kind of what I mean, here we have another quick video clip with Bradley Cooper and I think Anjelica Houston, and he's pointing out to her that she had this woodpile stacked up against her home but that's not good for rodents 'cause certainly the rodents could mess down in that, and that brings them right up against her house. Therefore, he could make that then as a possible cultural recommendation. I would like you to call in, besides removing a woodpile, what are some other things customers could do whether it's a home or business inside or out to reduce food, water, and shelter. And so to that point, you know, stay away from exclusion for the moment but food, water, and shelter. Call in. Bret's calling in over. Make sure that trashcans are kept clean and away from the house. Sometimes, people keep trashcans right next door to the house which provides both food and harborage. Yep, so definitely trashcans and the equivalent for that in commercial will be the dumpster. Let's go to Joseph in Central New Jersey. Make sure there's no debris underneath... Excessive debris because then they attract harboring, harborging you know, and rodents to come and harbor underneath. Right, good. So keep up all that debris, let's go to Greg in Greensboro. Just clean up after they eat or anything like that, make sure you remove the water and food bowls and stuff like that from outside, trying to keep it tidy. Yes, so with pet food and water, you know, keep that under control, and we'll take one last caller, Michele in Columbus. I would say if you have a compost bin, make sure it's not up close to your house. Yep, so compost 'cause there could be food sources in that. There's lots of things, folks, inside and out. I think as a general rule of them sanitation's important inside and outside of a building. You know, keeping food and things cleaned up in sealed container, spills picked up and cleaned up. As far as moisture goes inside leaky pipes, plumbing issues, roof leaks, on the outside sprinkler, spigot, garden hoses, gutters, downspouts, containers containing water, and as far as shelter, beside woodpiles, stacks of cement blocks, rocks, inside could be boxes, unused items stored in attics or warehouses, all of these things are just attracting the rodents in. So recommending customers reduce it. The second principle then on page 13 would be to keep the rodents out with exclusion. And then when we think about exclusion, there are things customers can do like simply keeping windows and doors closed, pruning back vegetation to keep them from touching the building. And if they have other structural problems like gaps around the building or things that they need to be repaired, excuse me, fix any of those major structural issues. Now normally, we discuss the idea of corking. But for rodents, that's probably not going to be all that feasible. 'Cause if you think about it, a crack, a rodent can't fit through a crack, and so we're looking at things a quarter or half an inch bigger, you know, you're not gonna kind of fill that all up with cork and expect it to keep the rodent out. You know, they can go through that like a hot knife through butter. Instead, we have a couple of tools that I want to teach you about. And if we go here to my Elmo, I have on it the products Stuf-Fit and excluder. So Stuf-Fit's the one here the copper looking one and excluder is the grey looking one. These are the two products we want you to do use for rodent exclusion. And it needs to be one or the other. I know some of these things like this one particularly looks like this SOS Pot Scrubber pad, you scrub your grill or pots and pans. These two things are designed specifically to keep out rodents. Those other items though they may look similar are not. And so, you are not to use those other items, it needs to be one or the other of these two. The concept or science behind the why with them... Is despite the fact that the rodents teeth are very durable, their gums are not. And so if we go here and look at, let's say, they picked this Stuf-Fit. What you do is you'd unravel some of this, cut off a section, and then fold it over like there's kind of get several layers of it going and then you're gonna cram this in around a plumbing penetration or some opening. When that rodent goes up to chew on it, let's say this pointer is a rodent's tooth, and the actual rodent teeth are bigger. So it'd be even easier for that, look what happens. Goes through it. Their teeth wouldn't be impacted but it would ride up to the gum level and as they chew on it, it'll cut their gums. It's like you taking a piece of razor wire in trying to floss your teeth with it. Please do not tell the customer though that the rodent will bleed to death because of this. That is not what happens with this. That's someone that's confused these with an entirely different tool that we'll talk about at the very end of the lesson. And so, this is just simply a discomforting thing, they wouldn't want to chew on it. Few other points to mention, when you use these, this material Stuf-Fit is not itchy to my skin. I can really give it a good go in there with my hands and it doesn't bother them. I would not do that same movement with it. The excluder is very prickly. And if you're installing this like you'll need to, you'll need to wear some kind of leather utility gloves to protect your hands, the regular latex gloves or nitro gloves will not do it. Additional points with this material, don't just lay this over the opening 'cause if you just lay it over the opening, the rodent will just push it out of the way. Also what they can do is if you tightly secured over the opening like a single sheet, they'll make enough links in it to make a hole they could spread and then still get through. So you're gonna have to have layers, and in situations where it's a larger rodent, they may be able to still pull it loose, you may need to use some type of adhesive to secure it. And so like for instance here in this picture, you see this plumbing penetration where they've crammed that Stuf-Fit product in there. If we were dealing with large rats, we may even need to put some adhesive. Please talk to your branch about though what adhesives you should use. Be careful not to use anything that's on its own a concern for flammability reasons because we are putting this in areas that may be hot and it could be a fire hazard. Are there any questions about Stuf-Fit or excluder? Anthony in Glandorf. Oh, looks like we lost Anthony. The reason by the way why those other materials as SOS Pot Scrubber Pads are not advised for exclusion of rodents. If you've ever used one got it wet to the suds and clean things up, there's all that foam in it and detergent. And so there's an issue. Secondly, after you've used them, if you come back let's say several days later, pick it up, underneath there's this rust stain and the thing just falls apart in your hands. That's again because those cleaning tools are not designed to last. They're designed to be used and then thrown away. They won't hold up, and so with using them for rodents, they won't hold up, and they'll stain the surface you put them on and guess who has to fix it and it ain't the customer. Now that we've done principles one and two, let's move to principle three. And that's where we're gonna get into actually catching the rodent, getting rid of it. And this is the treatment side. And again this is for residential and commercial both. When we discuss trapping, the first one we're gonna look at is going to be on page 14, and that's glue boards. Hopefully, all of you at this point in your field day training have seen glue boards and have seen them in action. Now for instance, the first point to mention is there's lots of choices that come in all kinds of different styles, but they all work under this basic principle... And the science behind the why... That the rodent dies of hypothermia. And so, as they run along, they get caught in the glue board, can't keep moving and freeze to death. And so, when we talk about this, people often like to think they are or tell customers that they starve to death or the die afraid, that's not typically it. If you get into physics as well as animal physiology, there's a concept known as surface area to volume ratio. And so the way this works is, let's say, you take a bowling ball and a marble. Put them in boiling water, raise the entire temperature of that object to the standard level. So whatever it is, you set it out and then monitor which one of those two cools down the fastest. If you had to guess which one do you think it would be, the marble or the bowling ball? So you can put B or M. So write either one in your chat, which do you think cools faster, the bowling ball or the marble? Okay, most of you're saying the marble and the reason the marble is when you look at the bowling ball, the volume is so much greater compared to the covering that it's able to hold on to that heat longer. Versus the marble has relative to the volume more covering it radiates heat more quickly and it's gonna cool down faster. The same thing applies to animals. When you have a little tiny animal, it's gonna lose heat more quickly than a great big one. And so like for instance elephants are large animals, can just stand very still not moving a whole lot for long periods of time. Versus something like a chipmunk or a mouse has to constantly fidgeting, running around feeding itself to keep that fuel that engine going. And that's why when they sleep at night, they will pack that that nest area with insulating material to keep that body warm. And so, stuck on a glue board, they're not able to do that. And so, just keep in mind that's usually what kills them now. To that point, some customers will come right out and say, "I don't like glue boards because it doesn't kill them immediately." And I'm not going to get into a debate with the customer about what's humane and what's not, that's entirely a personal preference. So if they say no glue boards, they mean no glue boards and we won't use them. The other points to mention with the glue boards is we're typically only ever going to use them... Inside. If we ever go outside, we have to containerize it. Can someone call in tell me why? All right, let's go to Donald in Eureka. Donald, what will be the issue here? - Hello. - Got you. Yeah, I guess it's being exposed to the elements, it's gonna make them ineffective. All right, so the elements, the dirt, the leaves the debris will crowd them up. And the other issues if you look on the materials, on bottom of page 14... It is that, non-targets. So if I'm putting out a glue board, just laying it on the ground outside who knows what'll get caught. Birds, pets and these are not an approved babysitting device. And so these would not be a good idea. If you do containerize them, we're gonna look at this rodent bait station here in a little bit, when we get to commercial, but these are not good for glue boards. That's because we use these for other tools and commercial. If the rodent comes in here and realize there's something sticky and bad, they'll associate the whole thing with something bad and so that's not something we want. So talk to your branch about what to use instead. I will tell you, in my own personal experience, is glue boards even containerized, don't hold up very well in the elements, and so I don't like them outside but that's a personal thing. If I ever used them, it was always on the inside. Next thing to mention and, folks, I can tell you, I can spend an hour on glue boards alone, and an hour and snap traps alone, and still not hit at all. Some I'm gonna try to go through at a basic level, some of the key points but you really need to, and I can't emphasize enough, work with your CFT on the job. 'Cause a lot of these things are better learn hands on and have them show you how to place them, how to orient them, all those considerations. Couple of points to mention is when handling traps, if I smoke, if I handle other things that have very toxic or chemically smelling things, and then touch the glue board, that will make it repellent to the rodent. And the whole point is you want them on it. Now people like to say, "Well, it smells like human." Our whole environment stinks of us and so that's not the real issue. The real issue is the smell of the cigarette, the smell of the pesticide, the smell of something else, it's kind of foreign chemical smelling to them. Now, we place them. Now we want to put them out with the right size and so size does matter. You know, if I'm trying to catch a little teeny house mouse with this, that's a bit overkill. Versus I'm trying to use a little thin strip line for a Norway rat, that's just going to give it a bikini wax and so you need to pick the right size of glue board for the job. Likewise, when you put them out, I don't just go out there and throw it on the floor any away. I've got to position it in a certain way. And so here on the slide is what we would consider to be correct placement. The idea is you want to increase the distance the rodent has to go past it to get free. So if you can picture in your mind a rodent running along that baseboard and at the last second it may jump, you wanted to have to vault really long distance to escape. And to help make sure they can't do that, that's why we turn the long edge against the surface. So like if this is the baseboard, that's the edge that goes against it, not this. Likewise, you notice in the picture we had two glue boards end on end, please make note, glue boards and snap traps are always placed in sets of twos and threes, never alone. The idea is if I lay just one, that rodent may get past it. And so you always need to have them in sets of twos and threes, and that's a common mistake that's made in the field, and we have customers that go to cancel because we didn't catch the rodent, manager goes in to see why not, and find that's what we were doing. And so please, these are not that expensive, we should be able to use enough to do the job. That's why this next slide would all be considered incorrect or either individuals. They're not touching the surface, it's the shortage. The other one I want to just note is the one on the top right. Don't put glue boards typically in a corner. Rodents are not bumper cars, nobody requires them, nobody puts the rodent in a corner so to speak, and so they can cut corners and often will. And if that's where you put it, they'll just go right past it. I know someone brought up so wildlife, yep, good point, Tom, over there. All right, let's go ahead then and talk a little bit more about glue boards. The other things to mention rats are afraid of new things in their environment and that includes this. I've seen hidden cameras in situations where the rodent will come up, sniff at it, and run away because it's new. And then, they'll come back eventually, they'll sniff and maybe touch their nose or their vibrissae on it a little bit and then run away. And they'll come back again and they'll start pushing at it with their paw and then they run away. And you can see where they'll go back and forth, back and forth until they realize nothing bad is gonna happen to them. And if that doesn't happen, then they'll go across it. Well, to help that then, you may not want to expose the glue like with these you peel them apart, these you peel the thing back. You may want to not expose the glue for seven to ten days. That helps them touch it, not have a bad experience, they'll walk on it, and get their smell on it, and then you expose the glue. And that helps increase your chances of potentially catching them. And, Charlie, we'll talk about your question here in just a moment. Some additional points with glue boards, particularly the ones that have the paper backing, be careful at putting those in wet areas because the cardboard will disintegrate and you'll end up with the glue stuck to the floor which is a nightmare for you to clean. Also be careful with temperatures, extreme heat will liquefy the glue and it won't work, and extreme cold would calls it to harden. On page 16, we can also put things to lure the rodents in to the glue board. They can come in the form of food based, and they can come in nesting, and they can come in commercial grade rodent attractants. Food base can include everything from, you know, bit of starburst candy to a little bit of oatmeal, to dried fruit chips. Never use though anything that's oily or greasy because how you get something stuck on the glue board free, use grease and oil. And if that's what I'm putting on to attract them. It will seep under the surface of the glue, make it slick and it won't even work. Also do not use peanut butter. Humans have allergies to peanuts and there is a potential risk the company's concerned about with using peanut butter then with that being a liability. And so we choose as a company not to use peanut butter, also on a glue board, it's oil and greasy anyway. Nesting material could be a little bit of string, a little bit of yarn. And as far as commercial grade rodent attractants, there is Provoke and Pro-Pest Lure which are manufactured with the purpose of attracting rodents. All of those are options, I would say, folks, don't look for one thing to use on all accounts. When I go into a rodent account, I look to see what are they nibbling, what are the chewing in, what are they gathering. And let that lead me to the then or the type of stuff that I can possibly put on those traps. And, Christopher, we'll talk about tin cats in just a moment as well. Final points with glue boards even inside we may need to containerized them and we have these cardboard boxes that you can use to protect them from dust and debris, also it helps in hiding the dead rodent and helps it be easier for you to dispose off. Our Tech Services Department doesn't want me to make sure to warn you though these are not to be contained with bait. If we do catch a rodent and the customer calls us, yes, we will normally come collect it. No, we will not throw it away at the customer's house or business. No one wants to lift the lid and see sitting there with fly maggots all in it and it being very disgusting. Like wise, don't run if you catch one of the customers say, "Look, what I caught, here it is." No, they don't want to see it, be discreet. And another point, if you do have a rodent still alive on the glue board... Talk to your branch about how to euthanize it. Please be discreet. Don't step on it in front of the customer or don't make some gory nasty mess out of it. Talk to your branch, and I don't want people getting into the chat on how to do it, just talk to your branch, they can work with you. All right, let's go ahead then and move to our last trap and then we'll finish this lesson with talking about the commercial side of it. The last trap to discuss are snap traps or Jordan traps. And here's two old tiny ones, the old wooden ones, like with glue boards, they come in sizes. This is for mouse, this is for rat. There are other shapes and styles, like for this is rat, this is mouse of these other forms, check with your branch, see which ones they stock. They all work but each one can have its unique way of arming it. For instance, these, it takes a little practice and cause you got to bend the bar back, get the little catch in the right slot... And then once you get it armed, there you go. Versus these, you just kind of push and it locks. Regardless which style never put your fingers in front of the spring or in front, anywhere where the trigger is present because that can happen. And this may just sting a little, this will can possibly break your finger. And so you got to be careful to always when you arm hold it from behind, never anywhere near the business end. These work differently than a glue board. These the idea is this comes down and cracks them on the back of the neck and kills them. And so this is often a more quick death and because that customers who don't like glue boards will be okay with this. When we use these, there's lots I can say about them, like glue boards, we encourage you to put them along pathways, the rodents are frequently traveling because the science is we know that's their habit. They like to travel a repeated pathway. We can put them then along that area. And by the way, when you put these out, lock with glue boards, you can put them out unarmed with rats to help them get over the fear... And lock with, you know, lock with glue boards with it so that they get caught. The other things is you can put attractive material like you can with glue boards. Again, no peanut butter, you can use food, nesting, Pro-Pest Lure. Like with glue boards, these always need to be set out in sets of twos and threes, but this time, instead of long wise, we want to trigger facing the edge. And, folks, you can put some a half an inch or an inch or so between the traps, don't think they have to be budded against each other, but you do want the trigger facing the edge. So that's why these pictures here will be considered incorrect placement because they are facing the wrong way, there singly, there in a corner. Other points to mention about traps and particularly those plastic ones that may have a slot in the base of them, you can not only just put them on the floor, you can put them up high as well, like on plumbing. And in a businesses where rodents often will use these utility lines to travel around, it can be very advantageous to get up there and put them. Now will say though they have to be fully secured. The last thing you would want is one of these to slip off and land on someone's head. You can use jawed or snap traps outside, it is okay to put them in a station. Just know that the style of station matters to the style of trap. For instance, these don't fit. This fits perfectly. And so, the model station will pair oftentimes on specific versions of these traps. If you do catch a rodent, the traps are somewhat reusable if there's like gut hanging off of it, then certainly that's not reusable. Wood by the way is less reusable than the plastic because once it gets soaked up with gore, you'll have flies and others things attracted to it versus these can be potentially hosed. Like wise, with the snap traps and as well as the glue boards, don't touch them again with bare hands. Again, we'll come collect dead rodents, we won't throw them at the count, the only time we do not collect dead rodents with a glue board or a snap trap... Is if it dies in an inaccessible area. So if it kind of crawls off and drops down into a wall void or gets under some commercial piece of equipment that can't get moved, then we will have to explain to the customer there could be an odor for several days, few weeks even, three or four weeks even, depending on the size of the rodent and the environment and finishes decomposing. Any quick questions then for me about snap traps or glue boards? All right. Let's finish this time we have remaining looking at rodent control in commercial settings. And if you go to page 24, as I already told you at the beginning of the lesson, there is a difference. Just like there was with flies, it's typically more of a commercial pest than residential. In addition, I have a disclaimer here for those of you that service home. Even if you service businesses, too, you are not, when you go home, allowed according to company policy to use rodenticides, the rodent baits that kill the rodents. We have a company policy against it. The only way you're ever allowed to do that is if you get special permission from the branch. The reason, folks, we have this is because we as well as a lot of wildlife as well as a lot of pets are mammals. The rodent baits work on mammals, and that means there is a potential of non-target concern. That's why we as a company choose not to do it. And if you come to us from another company like I did, you know, you may have been allowed there to do it, here you are not. And even if your field days or your CFT, your technicians are showing you bating at a home, they're not supposed to. The only time you're ever allowed to do it is if you basically say, "This stuff isn't going to do it." Meaning I can't get the job done with this, and that shouldn't really happen at all in my opinion. And if it does, then you need to go to your manager and say, "Here's the deal. Here's what's, the reasoning why I think I need it." And your manager will have to weigh all of that out, the risk, the benefits. And if they agree they can get permission for you but it's only at that account. It doesn't mean that now I can just do it wherever I want, it's only that account. And it's only for as long as there is rodent activity. Meaning as soon as the problems are resolved, the bait comes back. And so if you take over a route and you go to these homes and you see bait stations plopped out there with bait in it and it's our stations and it's our technicians putting it out, you better go back to your manager column and say, "Did we have permission?" If no, that stuff comes back right away. And so it's not supposed to be done in residential. In fact, this lesson I'm not going to teach residential how to do it because it's done even differently. We even have special stations a lot of times that we'll use, that I'm not going to show you and so residential, just kind of leave that part behind. Before we get more into commercial though, I would like on page 24 to ask a question. I warned you, I was gonna bring it up, so let's see who is paying attention. What are the documents found in the log book? So I've riddled off a bunch of them. You should have also learned this in your reporting and documentation video for commercial, call in someone and give me some documents that are in that log book. Dash in your answers. Copies of the DC sheets. So maybe we can have some regulatory things in there. Let's go to Christopher in Raleigh. You could have a map of the facility, you could have, like you said, the licenses, the chemicals that you're using, the inspection report. Great, so all of the above and so scopes and service would be another one. As you mentioned, here is the floor level inspection report, the graph, service tickets, all of these things including the pest siding log will be in there, too, great. Remember, folks, if you service commercial accounts, you always want to consult that log book, look at all those documents because a scope will tell you what you have to do, the floor level will tell you what issues they've had, the graph will tell you where things are placed and how things are laid out. Service tickets tell you what was done most recently, pest siding log, what issues they've been experiencing, you need to go through all of that first before you do anything at the account because then you know what's going on, what you needed to look at. Once we've done that, let's get into then the control strategies that are specific to commercial. And so the traps, the glue boards all that applies to commercial. From an exclusion standpoint, we have door sweeps in commercial, and this one specifically for rodents. If you put those brush-looking ones on the door, we've seen that rats can just like go along the line and just sheer off the brush and still get in. That's why we have this particular door sweep, which in here aligning this whole thing is excluder. Now these door sweeps cost more than your regular door sweep. But for a customer that's having a rat problem, now getting in this could be a really good option to keep not only rats out but also keep out of their general pests. We also have additional trapping tools in the form of what we call multi-catch, multi meaning it catches multiple rodents. And these are primarily for mice, it's not really normally for rats. And the main one that I want to focus on is the Tin Cat. Folks, there are others besides the Tin Cats, there's Corner Cats, there's or Catchalls. Because of time constraints, this is the one I'm gonna look at, and it's also probably the more common one you'll see out there in the field. Tin Cats are these sort of rectangular boxes with a hole on either end. And then what you'd do is you would put this edge along the baseboard or whatever it is in the building. And as the mouse runs down the baseboard, it's gonna run into the tunnel. And if you have Superman's X-ray visions, there's a little ramp that kind of goes up at an angle. There's another one that goes up at an angle this side. You crack open the Tin Cat, inside, there's this gap. So what happens is it's gonna walk up that ramp, step off in here, and in front of it, there's another ramp that if it tries to push on it, it lifts that up. And if it tries the back pedal on the one it's already standing on, it'll kind of pull it and raise it up, kind of like those finger puzzles that when you pull it tightens. So the mouse is forced into this crawl. Typically, with Tin Cats, you would always have... This type of glue board placed in here, so that the mouse will be caught and will be killed. Some accounts like I've said won't let you use glue boards and that applies then to this as well. If you put glue boards in here, remember, you're going to want to take and document on the edge your initials and the date that it was put out, that way you can keep track of it. And you're going to put it in here and there's a little thing here, little tab right here that the glue board edge slips under. And, folks, you want to slide it under that little catch because if not, something bumps the Tin Cat, it can fly up, and the glue board stuck to the lid, and this is not a lot of fun to kind of the pry that sticky mess off, and now it's all gunked up and it's pretty much ruin the Tin Cat. And so you want to make sure you get that on to that tab. Once you get it under here and you push it down in there, make sure you've got your barcode scanner for your scanner. And some areas will also have a little peel label, you'll put on the underside of the lid with your initial that you've serviced it. Also you'll number them sequentially, so the first one is number one, the next one is number two, three, four, you get the idea. Lastly, in some areas, not all areas, some areas will also require you use a punch card. And so you have to have a hole puncher to punch, and you'll kind of slide that in on one of the sides here. You'll close it. Now it's ready to go. And you're gonna put it against the edge. Also we will put placards, this is the outdoor ones, the inside for Tin Cat's a little bit smaller but it'll look similar. We can stick these on the wall that says down here is where that trap is and you could write the trap number and that it's a trap. Now some customers don't like visible indications of pest control, and so when you look at that scope if they've not permitted this, then you won't have them. But some places will allow us. And so you'll go along, setting out these Tin Cats, and by the end, your scope will tell you how many and how far apart, you'll end up with something that looks like this. When it comes time to service them, you're gonna come back, and by the way, too, when you put these out, the graph of the building, if you put in Tin Cat number one in this spot, you need to write on the graph correspondingly where that one was. That way, like if you take over an account for someone, you can pull out that graph, look at it and go to where those Tin Cat should be. Or if let's say an inspector or someone else had to come in behind you, they could find the devices. When you come back, you're gonna need to have a paint brush or a little hand-held swish broom, dust and clean it up, so it looks clean and professional. If there is no glue board in here, you're gonna want to make sure you look inside and make sure there's no mice live. And if they are, your branch is gonna have to help you to know what to do with them. And then you're gonna open it. For me, I always open traps like this away from me. In case something is in it and it jumps, this kind of protects me, I don't have that alien's facehugger moment like in the horror movie. You are gonna look inside of here and say, "Okay, what's going on? What if I caught?" You know, if you caught something and by the way something means rodent, roach, spider, cricket, millipede, anything... You're going to have to pay attention to that. You will have to change your glue board if you catch anything. Put a fresh one in and initial it. Now if you didn't catch anything and the glue board still looks good, it's not dusted and covered up with anything, you can still leave it. But I would say again, if you catch anything, it has to be replaced. The reason is if I don't replace it, how do I know with if that bug that's on here was from last time or 20 times ago? And so I have to keep an eye on it and so replace these every time if there's something caught. You'll scan your barcode, put in what your findings were, initial that you serviced it. If you got your punch card, punch it. Close your lid, on to the next one. Now, Brits asks, "Do you ask the customer if glue boards are allowed? Or how do you address that question?" Brit, that would normally be handled when the job was sold by the account manager and so they would go through with the customer, what the treatment control strategies are, what the types of devices are. And then and if the customer at that point would come right out and say usually if they have that sort of preference. And if the, and they would be disclosed in the scope that would be putting out X number of glue boards and that's when the customer would say to the account manager, "No, I don't want them." Now if a customer comes to you later on after the fact, after we've already started the service and says, "I've changed my mind, I don't want glue boards, " then you need to let your manager know, we need to make sure that it get reflected in the scope to service update, and then we would take them back. But it wouldn't normally be something that you would have to open up as a specialist, unless the customer brings it up. All right, final points about Tin Cats. When we put these out, we hope they stay exactly like we placed them. And unfortunately, sometimes the employees get bored and they'll hockey with these, with the switch brooms or other things happen to them, forklifts back over them, someone picks one up and throws in a trash can, and so they disappear or move. Whenever that happens, we want to discourage the customer from letting that go on. If it does get moved, they need to call us so we can come back and put it back in place. If it get destroyed or disappears, your account managers when you sell the job or building to the scope of service it charge. Because these things are not nearly as inexpensive as these. And so to replace one of these would not be cheap, and so that's why we want to make sure that if it's getting destroyed by the customer, there's a charge for it. And you, specialist, then would have to build them back if that's happening. If that's a recurring problem, we also can upgrade with these metal plates, Tin Cat covers. And the idea is you can sell them this, it's weighted, so it helps that from not getting knocked around and it's just kind of slides in here and protects it. But again, this would be an upcharge. Jeremy, I can never give prices, I wish I could. It is so variable across the company that if I gave you a number that applies to here in Atlanta, it wouldn't necessarily apply to your area, and I wouldn't want to mislead you. All right, so that's Tin Cats. Let's finish the lesson then with rodenticides. And, folks, I'm gonna go quickly through this. I acknowledge that. The point is this is something you really need to practice on the job if you're going to do it. I just want to give you the basic groundwork here of what a bait station is and what's going on with it. But you need to see this on the job. When we talk about baits, on page 27, not all baits kill the rodent. We do have nontoxic baits like Detex is just one example. The reason we would use these would be if I have an account that does not have current activity, so there's no rodents in the business right now. I could put these in because there's no pesticide, so it's better for the environment. And all I need is one in each station. I don't need to fill it up like I would if I was actually trying to kill the rodents. What you do then is leave that one block, come back and check it. And if it's been chewed on, then I can switch to the toxins. But if not or it's molded and just gone bad, that's one block that has to be replaced versus replacing lots. When it comes to the toxic ones, like I had mentioned earlier, in residential, we do not use these unless branch permission is granted. And again, I'm not even going to teach you how to do it because I don't think you need to be doing it in the first place. With the baits that we primarily use, there are others, but as you see on page 29, the typical style is what we call Single-Feed Anticoagulant. Single-feed meaning, the rodent just has to eat enough of it once, and anticoagulant meaning it kills it by causing it to bleed to death internally. With an anticoagulant, the manufacturer says it could take on average three to five days to kill the rodent. Please, please, do not tell the customer that it will die outside. You have no control over it. In three to five days, you don't know where that rodent is gonna go. It can go in and out multiple times, and eventually, it just dies wherever it dies. And so if you've set the expectation that it gets thirsty and dies outside, and then it dies inside, they're gonna be pretty mad at us. And so that's why we never promise that. You know, we don't know where it's gonna go. And if they ask that question, that's the answer. We can't control where it dies, it could die in the next three or five days. It's how long it takes the baits that usually overcome. As always, it's a pesticide, and like Jim told you the label is the law that extends to this. And again because of the mammalian concern, we've got to be careful with it. And by the way, I didn't make the point with snap traps and glue boards, I know we talked about outside containerizing them. Inside, be careful not to put them where someone's gonna step on a snap trap or glue board or a pet or a person. I mean I know that should be obvious but I just have to make sure I say it. When it comes to the baits, we typically only use them at commercial on the outside. We don't normally bring the bait inside the building, it's on the exterior. And the reason is we don't want to bring the bait inside where there's a potential, you know, that it could be relocated in a non-target expose, we stick it to the outside. And we typically only use it in what we call a tamper resistant bait station, meaning it locks somehow that someone couldn't just flip the lid open. Tamper resistant is different than tamper proof. Meaning that if I take a crowbar or sledge hammer or I've got a big great dane, you know, eventually you can't get into these things. But hopefully, it's not just something you flip the lid. And by the way if the stations they seem ever breaks on one side so that it isn't secured anymore, then that station has to be replaced. That's not an option, you can't sit a brick on it, you can't just lock the front end and the back end just slopping around in the breeze. You know, you've got to replace it, it's got to be locked. Let's quickly go through how to set up a station and then have a service one. First of all, when you get the station, there's lots of choices and style, check with your branch which ones they stock. We do have ones that come pre-anchored, but if not, it has to be anchored somehow because these are lightweight and get moved around. And so you'll have to go with your branch to find out for your branch how they want you to do that. But it somehow has to be secured. Number two, like with the Tin Cats, you're going to number them sequentially, and like with the Tin Cats, you're going to put them on the graph of the building where it's found. Like with Tin Cats, we have those placards that I showed you that we can put on the exterior but only if the customer will approve it. Once you get it ready, you're gonna open the station and look inside. Now the different models will have a different layout on the interior but either way, you'll have little pegs and rods. If you have the option to do up and down vertical or horizontal, we usually prefer the vertical because horizontal, the rodent can chew on it like its ear of corn, and if it flips with gravity, it may break off. The whole point of the rodent eating it in here, it's to keep it in here. Rodents have a nasty habit of taking food back to their nest. And in those instances if they take it back inside, that's a risk. That's why we want it to stay in here. Once you get the pegs put in there, then you load the bait on it. That punch card I showed you will put the punch card in it, and you put it in the bait holding area. That means the spot where we stick the bait. And so you'd punch it like over here. And some models will even have a little card holder to further hold this into place. You'll probably have a barcode usually already on the underside of the lid. If not, you'll need to put one under it. Once you've got the bait loaded, the card is in place. You close it, lock it with your key, and then you go on and push it against the wall or the edge like in a dumpster corral or whatever it is, so this is a parallel to the surface. So that's the initial setup. When I come back to service them, again, you need your paintbrush or a little broom to swish and clean it up, so it looks professional. Again, when you approach the station, we need to have safety. You want to... Tap on it. Unfortunately, lizards and snakes and cockroaches and even rodents will potentially hide in here. And the last thing you want to do is to have that scary experience of flipping it open and it jumps out at you. Likewise when touching stations, watch where I stick my hands. Black windows are notorious for webbing in low lying protected areas like in these spots. And you don't want to stick your fingers in there and get bitten. You're going to unlock the station and open it. You're going to have your little broom with you again, you want to, want to swish out the inside, get out the leaves in the dirt and whatever it's in there. If there's shavings of bait, where the rodents have chewed, don't sweep that on to the bare ground and leave it, it's still a pesticide. And so you're going to need a bucket or container to sweep those bait shavings into to take back and dispose off according to the label. And the same thing goes for molded or partially in bait that you're disposing off. Check the bait if it needs to be replaced, meaning it's mostly eaten or it's molded or if there's something wrong with it, replace it. You're gonna punch your punch card and put that back in its slot, scan the barcode, put in your findings, secure the lid, and away you go to the next device. So, folks, that's the bait station concept at a real high level. Again, I can't stress enough working with your CFTs and field trainers on the job to look at these. If you're servicing commercial, I'm sure you've seen these stations already. The points that I think people often make a mistake with bait stations is they don't make sure that it's constantly secured. Again, if this thing's flapping and not and broken, it needs to be replaced. The other thing we don't always do is keep them clean. They need to be kept clean or else it's very unprofessional. And if you don't open these on the regular basis like the scope says, if you skip a them and leave them like that for a long time, you can even have rats nesting in it. And you want to have another company sell that job out from a new, you leave a rat nest in here and someone open it, there's not a stitch of bait in there and there's a rat nest in it. That's pretty much telling that customer, "We don't care about your pest control 'cause we are not doing our job." And so please make sure that you keep these in condition. All right, folks, again I could spend hours talking about this information but we're to the point where I think we've reached the diminishing return. And so I'm gonna stop the session. Are there any quick questions about the material I've covered? If not, we'll get ready to break. All right, what we're gonna do is we're gonna stop the session. Remember, you're gonna have an hour break, come back at 1 o'clock Eastern for spiders. Jim will be back to cover that lesson. And then he'll finish the day with the bed bug lesson. By the way, if you look at your schedules for next week, you'll notice we've got blocks of time for bed bug certification. I'm gonna warn you now that's not required, you have between now and that phase two date I gave you this morning to get it done. We just felt like if you're in the branch already, and you got time, you're better off doing it now than waiting, but just know for next week that that's just a suggestion. Jody has asked, "Should you date glue boards?" Absolutely, and I touched on that with the Tin Cat, you should always date and initial them. That helps you keep track of how long it's been there. And again, if you ever catch anything on a glue board, it always needs to be changed. But if not, if it's still in good condition, it's not dusty, you can continue to leave it out. But you would want initial that you had service it. So if there's someone comes behind, it doesn't show an old date. I've been in my place to be with you for the rodent lesson. Thank you for your patience with our technical difficulty we have this morning. Again, Jim we'll look for you this afternoon. I personally will probably see you next week as we continue on with our training next week. Until then, I hope you have a great day, and I hope you have a great weekend.