NHT Day 04 03 Flies

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome back as we continue on with our pest control lessons as we look at the subject of flies. Hope everyone had a good hour break there and are ready, raring to go. Remember, if you have a technical issue, you can call 1800-826-2492. Well, we did ants, and that was one of our major pests. Now we're gonna look at flies, which is another one of our bigger pests. But you're going to notice some differences here with this pest lesson as it'll be a little unique compared to what we looked at in ants and cockroaches. And this is also probably a good time of day to have this conversation because most of us have or at least a lot of us, I should say, have eaten lunch and food's kind of sliding down our digestive system. Well, let's imagine it's, flash forward to May, Memorial Day, you're grilling, cooking out outdoors, got your plate of food, you're about to eat and you realize you've forgot your drink. So you get up and run over to the cooler nearby, rummage around, find what you want to drink and come back. And in that mere, you know, 15, 30 seconds it took to do that, this is what you find on your food. Phone call in. What would you do if roaches got to your food? Starr in Anderson, what would you do with that sandwich? I'd throw it away. I think most of us would feel the same way, Starr. Looks like our folks are saying similar things in the chat. I think... Burn it. I think most of us would be pretty upset if those roaches got to our food because it's kind of nasty and, you know, wouldn't be appetizing. Same scenario, we get up, walked off, come back, but instead of roaches this time, this is what we have discovered. A few flies have buzzed in on that food. Phone call in. What would you do this time? Would you do the same thing? Or think about it. If you were the average person in the public, what might you do? Randy in Milwaukee. - I'd just wave the files away. - Yeah. So most people in the public, if you think about it, and if we're honest with ourselves, we've had that experience where you're outside with a beverage or a food item, and zoom in, one fly lands on it briefly and we swat at it, shoo at it, and then we continue drinking or eating whatever it is. Why is it we're more lenient on flies and not a roach? And I think it goes to the ways that we encounter them. If you think about cockroaches, how often do you encounter them in your daily lives? Probably not ever. Or if you do, it's that light out experience where you flip on a light in the garage and one scurries away or you're out on the city street and you see one crawl out of a manhole, look over right out of a storm drain. And so it's that kind of odd scary kind of experience. Versus flies, if you've ever been outside in the summer months, warm months, they're everywhere. And you've had those experiences, I'm sure, where they've come inside your home and then beaten themselves silly against the window, trying to get back out. And so we encounter them more, we get less concerned about them, let's say. Now having done your pre-work though, you should know now that actually if you can believe it, flies are more filthy and nasty than even a roach. And so to that point, one of the major damages that concern the flies is the disease. Flies crawl through filthy, nasty materials just like that roach. It's crawling in manure, sewage, carcasses, all kinds of good stuff. And every time that fly lands and walks around, it's tracking that stuff on its body. Now if you've ever just sat back and watched a fly, just kind of stare at it for a few minutes, it's constantly doing this and then rubbing its back and its wings. Why it does that is it crawls in this wet gooky stuff, it gets it all over it. And if it gets so gummed up, it can't move or it weighs it down, then that's not good for the fly and that's why they're constantly grooming and scraping themselves. And if that's your counter, that's your food they're on, and the last thing they just got off of was a big pile of manure or some rodent kill, then the particles from those things are getting scraped off onto those other surfaces. And it may not be visible things you can actually see with the naked eye but those bacteria are getting deposited nonetheless. And so that's where there is that disease issue. Then there's social stigma. And I know we said that we're more tolerant of flies than roaches but I still think most of us in the public if we went into a restaurant with flies or we went into a person's home with flies, that would not be a good thing to us, that would give us the image that there's something going on. They're also a nuisance. As I mentioned, if you get them inside, even if they're not spreading disease or causing other issues, they're just aggravating, they're buzzing around, beating themselves against the window, and I know with my home, I have a cat, the cat goes berserk, tears down half the house if there's a fly and they're trying to get it. And so it's a nuisance, an aggravation. And then the last thing there was contamination. We talk about contamination, you may wonder, "Well, what's the difference between disease and contamination?" And the difference is disease is specifically some health consequence like with the bacteria versus contamination is simply a foreign object where it doesn't belong. And if I clean and sterilize the outside of that fly but dropped it in your food, that's still a form of contamination. And it's not just foodstuffs, by the way, too, when it comes to this. You know, you could have, let's say, a plastics manufacturer where the flies are getting stuck in the plastic, that's contamination as well. Now one point, Jeremiah, if you think you'll never eat again, let me add one more interesting, disgusting fact to flies. Not only are they tracking filth and disease on their outside of their body, flies as adults can only consume liquid. And so if they are on a solid food material, they will regurgitate up digestive juices onto it and then let it kind of start to break it down a little bit and slurp it back up. And if the last thing it was slurping up off of was manure or carcass, guess what? When it vomits up, some of that comes up with it. And so that's just one more fun way that flies can spread filth. And so all of these are all really fun things about flies and reasons why we don't want them, but I share these with you just so that you can be more knowledgeable about it and then to be able to interact with the customer. 'Cause again, sometimes customers are more tolerant of flies and may not be as eager to jump into certain situations or do certain actions that we may ask. And we need to make sure we can communicate these points to them to make sure they see the need. You know, it's important that you take out the trash, cover the lids, clean these things up because if you don't, this is the stuff that could be happening. Here's a thought provoking question. Which type of account do you think deals with flies more? A business or a home? Which one you do think deals with them more? And the survey says A. And it is A, commercial. For those of you that marked residential, let's really think about, you know, what's going on here and why is it commercial? And before we do that though, Pablo has asked, "Do flies cause diarrhea?" Well, I mean there are lots of sources for diarrhea, but certainly bacteria, certain types of bacteria can cause it as well. And again, flies, if they're transmitting diseases, it's usually in the form of bacteria or things like that they've pick up on their body. And if it's crawling around in things like poultry, where it's got, you know, you can pick up salmonella, E. coli, you know, there's all kinds of bacteria that they can get on their bodies and some of the symptoms could be diarrhea if you got exposed. Going back to the difference with residential and commercial, if we think about the scope of attractant... Meaning, what's the thing that draws them in, you've got a dumpster, let's say, at a restaurant or a garbage can at a home. You know, clearly, the dumpster has far more in it to draw the flies. There's more to attract them, there's more for them to breed in, and so to that point number two, you're going to have a greater frequency of the threat. And the frequency of the threat also has to do with the fact that at a business think how many times those doors are opening and shutting, how many gaps there are around businesses that are wide open versus a home, and so again, more opportunity. Impact of the infestation. If you think of that restaurant that's got a filth spreading fly problem, how many people could get exposed versus a single family home, clearly, there's more in commercial. And then lastly, treatment. And for those of you that will service both residential and commercial stops, I want you to understand that with certain pests like roaches or flies today and rodents on Friday, there are big differences in treatment. Meaning, what you will typically use and do at a home can be very different than what you will do at business. And since flies are a bigger pest problem in a business, we're going to have a lot more tools in our arsenal when we service commercial accounts than we do at a home. And you'll see that again tomorrow with rodents. Now when we get to next week, we're going to talk about fleas. Fleas are a bigger pest to residential. And so to that point, we'll be often more doing flea jobs and we do it well in a home. And so it does vary a little bit depending on the type of account. How high can flies fly? Antonio, to be honest, I have no clue of what the exact limit is. It would depend on I guess the fly itself, the lifecycle and the nature of its habits and what it's doing. Flies typically like to stay down lower. But certainly, some flies can get some little bit altitude. But again, that's one of those kind of odd trivia things that I just, I'd be honest, I don't know. You'd have to maybe do a Google search and see what comes up. All right, well, let's talk about then the objectives now that we understand why flies are so important and why this is such a big topic for us. The objectives are by end to identify critical inspection areas for flies, list types of treatments to control them, we're going to walk through a Customized IPM Service, and then talk about how to review the service with the customer. Let's go through now and review the pre-work. And remember, I asked you to do that before coming to this lesson. Which of these are characteristics of pest flies? Select all that apply. They have one pair of functional wings, undergo complete metamorphosis, thrive in cooler temperatures, attracted to light, odor, and moisture, fly great distances without landing. And yes, Antonio, flies do have a really good sense of smell, probably one of their keener senses. Do all maggots become flies? Well, not if they die but certainly if they continue to survive on. Yes, maggots will usually. That's the adult stage, and the maggots, the immature. And we're largely agreeing that it's A, B, and D, and those are the correct answers. Flies do only have one pair of functional wings. And so if you look at flies up close, you'll only count two total wings. If the adult insect has wings at all, 'cause some insects don't, like fleas, but if they have wings like a moth, a beetle, any of those other flying insects, they'll always have four wings. And so with flies, it's only a single pair and that's one of the things that helps us group flies together. Incidentally, mosquitoes only have one pair of wings and belong technically to the same scientific group as the true flies. We won't be looking at mosquito during your new hire training but if you're servicing for mosquito, there is additional correspondence course you can take to learn more about mosquito. Since they only have one pair of functional wings, the E answer is not true. They tire out more easily. And so flies, when they're flying, will only go a certain distance and then have to land. And on a downside, every time they're landing, they're possibly spreading the filth. They do not like cooler temperatures. If you think about the times of year you see flies the most common, it's usually in the warmer months. In fact, flies usually prefer temperatures above 70 degrees. They are often attracted to light, odor, and moisture. So those are good things to look for during your inspection but I do want to caution you, not all flies will be attracted to all three of these things equally. A good example, our fruit flies are not strongly attracted as adults to light. And so when we get into light traps and things later in this lesson, you won't usually get fruit flies on that 'cause they're not attracted to it as much. Al is calling in Columbus. Al, do you have a question? Al, you called in. No, I didn't. You must have accidentally hit it. Not a big deal. Jeremiah, you've seen lots of spiders where flies are. Is that normal or just chance? Nope, the spiders go where the food is just like we do and so they're trying to grab a meal. Pablo. Do flies migrate? Well, I mean if you're talking monarch butterfly migration, you know, many, many miles across, you know, many states to go to like Mexico, for instance. No, typically, flies that I'm aware of do not do that. But there are flies like we'll talk about next week, cluster fly more and you learned about that one incidentally in your pre-work, do over winter. But I don't know if I would call that a true migration. It's not like geese or monarchs that will travel many, many miles. All right, the last point that was on those questions was complete metamorphosis. And that's what flies have. Now let's just quickly refresh ourselves on gradual 'cause those are the two main types we deal with in pest control. Gradual is like with roaches, that was egg, nymph, adult. And remember, the nymph cockroaches looked a lot like the adult, the only big difference is the nymphs never had wings and the nymphs couldn't have sex. But that's about it. And so nymphs and adults would live in similar areas, eat similar things, and if I tried to control them like with a roach bait, I could kill nymphs and adults both. Let's now go to complete. That's four stages not three, and it's egg, larva, pupa, adult. The eggs are laid by the adult in or near the food source of the larvae. So like the garbage, the rotting fruit, the animal carcass, and out of it, the larvae hatch, and it is appropriate to call fly larvae maggots. And the job of any larva, whether it's for flies, for beetles, for moths, is to eat. They're little eating machines, think like a caterpillar on a plant, all they do is gobble up food. And so what will happen is the larvae bores into whatever the food stuff is and eats. Larvae are not extremely mobile. You know, that larva is not going to get up and get out of there really quickly. You know, if they move, it's going to be a slow crawl. And there will be several larval stages, they'll continue to shed their skin and get bigger and bigger until they're ready to turn into the pupa. And this is really different, you know, than gradual. So the larva, by the way, looks nothing like the adult. The larva is a worm. The adult is a legged, winged thing. And so they're very different looking and have different mobilities. And they're also living in different areas. The adults are hanging around windows and lights. The larvae is down in the sewage and the carcass. When the larvae migrate out, if we go to my laptop computer, I have a picture to show you this. Here on the screen, you'll see a dumpster with trash bags. And here, you see these maggots. These maggots are ready to pupae. And that's probably why they're crawling out. The reason I show you this is it's not as common, but on occasion, you might run into a situation where a customer sees maggots out exposed. And that usually means they're breeding somewhere nearby. My personal encounters with this on my route where often where there is a dead animal somewhere like in an attic space or a drop ceiling and these crawl out and drop around a light fixture or a ceiling tile into the room below. Once they get to the whatever they are going to crawl nearby, they're going to turn into pupa and that outer skin of the larva will harden into a shell, and inside, the guts and the internal organs all break down into this soup and then it reforms itself into what we know as the adult. That's a pretty cool process. It'd be kind of like a snake crawling into a sleeping bag and coming out a bald eagle. I mean, it's going to be a very different looking organism. The whole take home for this is not to be just trivial stuff. We're not trying to turn you into an entomologist. I share this for several reasons. Number one, the eggs and pupae are well protected and our treatments will not as easily penetrate it. That usually means there's going to be multiple visits here to get the problem under control. The other component is, since the larvae are down in some decaying material and the adults are buzzing around near lights and windows and counters, they're in two deferent areas. And so when I inspect for them, I have to have two different inspection processes. And then you can imagine, if they're in different areas, what works on one, treatment wise, won't work on the other. And so, for instance, if you try to target one half and not the other half, the problem will continue. And if you had to chat, which stage do you think the customer is most concerned about? You know, which one do you think the pest control professional is most likely to focus on of these stages? So I'll put the slide back up. Of these four stages, which do you think the homeowner, business owner, the technician is most likely focusing on? Now, a few of you are saying some of the other answers but a lot of you are agreeing it's the adult. And that's true 'cause that's the moving visible stage. Most of us maybe have never even seen fly maggots in much of anything. But I'll tell you a pest control secret. If you want to be successful in fly control, you've got to address the other half as well. 'Cause if all you do is worry about the adults, the problem will continue. And we'll come back to that concept more later but that's probably one of the most critical points in this whole lesson. Now I've noticed a few chats, people are asking about are flies immune to disease? Well, no, they're not immune to disease as a general rule but some of the things that affect us don't necessarily always affect flies in the same way. And so that's where you may have that illusion that they're immune but they're not. Is a botfly a fly or a bee? Well, count the wings next time and you'll know the answer. It should only have two. So it's technically a fly. And yes, Ben, that's where we, to your point, we want to make sure we're not just focusing on one, to your point, the technician needs to understand all of it. Are there any questions for me then about the bio and habits to this point before I give you some identification quizzes? All right, so Richard does. We see the adults but where would you find the larvae? Well, we're going to get into that. That's going to be an important exercise we'll do here in this lesson, so hold onto that. All right, let's go ahead then and do some identification. And in you pre-work, I presented the flies to you in two buckets. One was large, the other was small. In larger, bigger, and smaller, smaller. Looking at these five flies on the screen, and you can use your Pest ID Guide to help you, first identify all five of them. And what once you've identified them, remember which category we had them in. I want you to select only the ones that we labeled large. About half of us got it right, the other half maybe got a few of them but not all of them. The correct answers are A, B, and C. A was the housefly, B was the blowfly, and C was cluster fly. Those were all called large. D and E, D was the fungus gnat and E was the moth AKA drain fly. Those are small. If you've seen some of our older training, 'cause some of you may have worked for us in the past, you may have remembered, we used to teach these in the concept of filth versus nuisance. And when we were redesigning this lesson, I asked to move away from that because when I taught this lesson, it was hard to divide them that way because a lot of flies are both filth and nuisance flies at the same time and so it was confusing. From my own experiences on a route, when I went into a customer with a fly problem, you know, and you do your interview, you ask what are you seeing, the first thing they would say is I've got these large flies or I've got these small flies. And that was helpful to me on my route to start automatically, you know, sort of figuring out these are the possible suspects. Let's now get into the actual species and tell me which fly am I looking at on the screen. And again, your Pest ID Guide can be helpful with this. Is this the fungus gnat? The phorid fly, the moth fly, the fruit fly? And, Antonio, the number of eggs the fly lays, life a lot of these things are variable depending upon species but they can lay quite a few, you know, up to a hundred or more and depends on the species. And it looks like we're torn between the phorid and the fruit. And the correct answer is this was a phorid fly. Let's understand why. If you look at the head, it's got little black beady eyes. And if you follow the outline over the silhouette of the body, notice the big hump on it, the hump on the back, it's part of the reason why they're called humpback flies, they're like the Quasimodo of flies. Also notice, if you look at the legs where they attach to the body, particularly the pair, look how thick those legs are. They're kind of muscular looking. And if you've ever seen this fly moving around, oftentimes you find them running instead of flying. They are scurrying around on the counter, hence part of the reason why they're also called the scuttle fly. And so their body reflects that ability to run. Who is this thing on the picture? Fruit, cluster, drain, fungus gnat? And we agree it's the fruit. And it is. And this is the textbook picture of a fruit fly, bright red eyes, light tanned body. But notice the difference, 'cause some of you that were struggling between this and the phorid... Look at the legs how thin and skinny they are. This is not a fast running fly. Look at the silhouette of the body, there's no big major hump on it. And again, the eyes are different. If we go back to the earlier picture... Hopefully now you can see the difference between the two. Another point I want to mention about fruit flies is on the bottom of page five, we get into some of these pest species. Just so you know, a species is a scientific term used by one definition to describe a group of animals or organisms that cannot successfully reproduce with others and produce viable offspring. And so for instance, the German roach is a distinct species Blattella germanica. Well, with flies, fruit flies, the general term fruit fly can be applied to several different species. There's more than one in this case unlike German roaches. And so with fruit flies, the main kind that we deal with is the red eyed one you just saw. But I'd like to warn folks there are other ones. And particularly, I'd like to alert you to the dark eyed fruit flies. And there's more than one type. But overall, they're much darker, their eyes can be almost black, and notice the body coloring, how dark it is, and notice how much thicker this fly looks body wise compared to this. And the reason I show you these is because I have gotten samples over the years from folks in the field where particularly in a restaurant, they're having the dark-eyed fruit fly but they can't figure it out. It doesn't look like a regular fruit fly, but yet it doesn't look like a phorid either, and they don't have a clue and they're struggling with resolving the problem. And it may and it often ends up being this thing. The point about them is not only they're a little bit bigger and they're darker but they also can breed in other things besides what typical fruit flies breed in. This one can go for rotten potatoes and onions, not just fruit, and you can also have these breeding in sewage, which is not something we typically think of with fruit flies. And so I just let you know these things are out there. I'm not saying you'll encounter them a lot but if you're in commercial, eventually you will probably run into them. This leads me to an important point about identification. As you've already told me yourself, it's usually the adult the customer is complaining about. And to that point, when we get called in, since these things are active during the daylight, they're active flyers, they're usually visible to us. That means, when you go in, one of the first things you're going to do is identify the fly. And once you know which fly species it is, you should have a good idea of what it likes to breed in. And we learned about that in the pre-work, we taught you what a fruit fly goes for, a blowfly. For instance, blowflies typically breed in rotting meat based things like animals that are dead, rotting hamburgers or meat-based food things, that's what they target. That means if I have a blowfly problem indoors, then that tells me that's the sort of stuff I need to be looking for. Do fruit flies eat only fruit? Antonio, no, as I just mentioned, they can go for other things. And so I talked about that. Jeremiah. Would it be... Would it be... Okay, so Jeremiah is asking, "Is the dark-eyed fruit fly as long as the regular fruit fly?" I'm assuming that's what you're asking. And actually, the dark-eyed would be a little bit bigger. They're not twice as big but they're a little bit bigger than your regular red-eyed fruit fly. And, Robert, if you're having an audio issue, call the 1800 number. Well, the question was asked earlier, how do I or where do I look for the maggots. Let's do that right now and that is revolving around the breeding material. I want to show you some pictures here and I want you to select from what you read in the pre-work which species of fly may breed in that. And by breeding, I want to be clear, I'm meaning laying eggs, maggots developing, eating in the stuff. And so, Benjamin, if you're having that issue with the audio, a lot of times that may be local, specific to your area with the internet, and so that's where call the helpline and have them look into that. Our first one to look at here on the screen, we've got a commercial kitchen floor drain, who would breed down that? A cluster fly, fruit fly, moth fly, phorid fly? Select all that apply. While you're answering that, Pablo has asked if flies group together in a colony. It's not a colony like ants. The flies don't work together for each other. At the end of the day, the fly's in it for itself. So it's every fly for themselves. But flies can certainly be attracted to similar things and you can have a large number of them all gathering around the same area. And so it gives the illusion like a bee or an ant colony but it's not really a true colony. If we look here, we're hitting all of them. And it really shouldn't be all. It's just B, C, and D. Cluster flies. Someone remind us all in the audience what did cluster flies breed in. Anyone remember from the pre-work? Does anyone out there remember what cluster flies breed in? Well, maybe not. Looks like Andre remembers those. Andre, what do they breed in? Warm walls of buildings, often outdoors when temperatures decrease. No, they're not breeding those. They're coming in to escape the cold to survive, but breeding remember, A, laying eggs, and the maggots eating and developing. So that's not happening there but there are a few of you who got it in the chat. Earthworms. So cluster flies breed in earthworms. I don't know about you but I don't remember the last time I saw an earthworm down a commercial kitchen floor drain. Now that would not be a likely place to find cluster flies. The other three though could. Now I think sometimes people are shocked by fruit flies being down there. But if you think about a commercial kitchen, they're chopping and cutting produce, it falls on the floor, it gets mopped with the mop water down the floor drain. There you go. And the moth flies are called drain flies for a reason. And phorid flies similarly will be breeding in a similar location. And Richard has asked, "Could you have fungus gnats down a floor drain?" Possibly. You know, if there's fungus growing in it, that could be a possibility. Let's test our knowledge another time with this one, potted plant that's been over-watered. So what could we have breeding in this? You could say that, Pablo. I mean they do attack the earthworms. It's not a parasite of humans and I have to be careful with the word parasite. I would not say that in front of a customer because people hear the word parasite and immediately think that must mean people. And so it's not necessarily, you know, of humans. And so amongst ourselves in the profession, it's fine, but, you know, just watch that with a customer. The next thing you know, they'll be setting their yards on fire trying to burn them up. And we mostly agreed here fungus gnat. And that's really the best answer. I could make up a scenario where you could have some of these others in a potted plant, like you could have a mouse that crawled in and died in the potted plant and you could have a blowfly. But again, at the end of the day, the true essence of this picture of the potted plant itself, it's mainly fungus gnat. And as a side note, if you have fungus gnats, they're one of the simplest ones to resolve in the sense that there's usually something like that with the potted plan, where plants are involved, you need to find it, customer needs to not water it as much, let it dry out. In fact, with many plants, not all but many, it's better for the plant itself to let the soil dry a little between waterings. And if they just let it dry out, that usually kills off the larvae or if that's something they're really concerned about, just take the whole potted plant out and that takes care of it. Now the adults may live on for several more days, a week or so, but if the source is gone, that should usually dissipate. Do fungus gnats bite humans? No. In fact, Moses, I'm not even certain they even have mouth parts. You know, some of these adult flies lack even a mouth. A lot of fly species, you know, the adult stage is for one purpose only, that's to mate and they drop dead. And so it depends on the species though. Some can bite but we're not getting into those in this lesson. You know, your horse flies, deer flies are biting flies but those are typically associated with warm-blooded large animals outdoors. It would not normally be an indoor pest. Most of the ones we're talking about here in this lesson and in the pre-work would not be considered a biting fly. Who would breed in the glass of wine here? Or not maybe be breeding, maybe be attracted to, I should say. Which fly would be attracted to the glass of wine? And we mostly agree fruit fly. And it is poor sad little fruit fly. Before humans came along, if fruit was starting to rotten, they would produce carbon dioxide and alcohol as part of the fermentation, but that's what the fruit fly would smell. And when it would land, it would find this rotting piece of fruit. And the alcohol would either be evaporating or running away into the soil. Humans found out though, we liked the thing that's the byproduct of the fermentation and we didn't let it evaporate or run off and we bottled it. And so with bottles or containers open, the smell coming out of it make the fruit fly think it's finding fruit and then it falls in and drowns in the liquid. And so it's not actually breeding per se in it, but it will be attracted to it nonetheless. And that's why fruit flies are the number one pest of a bar, technically not a bar fly. Do fruit flies get drunk? Well, Moses, if they fall in that, it'd pretty much kill it. So it'll drown in the alcohol and would not be able to survive. I'm sure you could get them drunk in the scientific definition of being drunk. You could probably alter their senses but I think it probably would die long before that would even be noticed. It's not like the fly kind of comes out and flies around, weaving around, or staggering on the counter. That usually wouldn't happen. All right, here's a good question to answer. And I want you to put a yes or no on your tablet. Don't answer yet. Now looking at this picture and the question asked now answer yes or no. Are flies the problem in this picture? Most of us said no. And in this picture, the answer is no. So don't chat anything right now. I'm going to put a statement out that I want you to write down on page eight. And I'll go ahead and say it to you. You can start writing it down. Flies usually are not the problem. They are the symptom of a problem. So looking down in your chat, nobody chat for a moment so everybody can write this down. Write that statement on page eight. Flies usually are not the problem. They are the symptom of a problem. In that kitchen I was showing you, you could go in and kill flies till the end of time. But so long as that stuff that you saw was there, the problem's going to keep going. And so that's why flies are really unique amongst many of the pests that we deal with for this reason, you know, because it is vital and critical that we not just look at the adults. A lot of this is going to be focused on the immature. In fact, I would say, the more important part is focused on the immatures. And so that's what we're gonna build through here in the next piece of our discussion. I want to walk through what are we supposed to hunt for during the inspection. And then in the second half of the module, what are the things that are gonna be needed to do to take care of it? Are there any quick questions that you'd like me to answer about the sources or the flies that we just looked at before I move to inspection? Do they nest in homes? Well, I mean, when I hear the word nest, I'm thinking about they actually construct something like an ant or like a bird or a termite and I don't think they actually construct anything. Will they come in and survive in homes? Yes, certainly, the small flies are commonly found breeding in homes. Adults, the large flies may come in, they can possibly breed in some situations. But to your point, Robin, over winter, cluster fly, that's the big issue with them. That's their whole problem as a pest is in the fall of temperatures, they'll come in to survive as adults. These other flies are not normally necessarily over wintering per se, they'll stay active as long as they're alive, unlike the cluster fly, which kind of hibernates or goes dormant. Do different species of flies mingle together? Well, I mean in the sense that you could have multiple species all around the same thing, sure. I mean, you could have fruit flies and house flies and blowflies and all of that, all in the same dumpster, in the same trash can. You know, the adults are crawling around on it. As far as competition goes, I mean, since flies aren't necessarily, in this case, in these species, predatory, it's not necessarily as big of an issue. Now again, they're not social in the sense that like ants, there's no queen fly, there's no worker fly. You know, at the end of the day, they're all just kind of in it for themselves. Patrice. After a facility is clean and your service used, how long will it take to remove the problem? Well, if all the breeding sources are gone completely and we've got our program in place, I mean, by that point, the problem should disappear. I mean, you could have some lingering adults for several days, a week or two, but after the breeding source is gone, no more new flies should be being created. And so we're left with is whatever adults are left. And that's a matter of trapping them out or contact killing them or just waiting them out, letting them die. Why are flies attracted to light? Well, all the insects, they're attracted to light or attracted to it for this very similar reason. Before humans came along and created artificial light, you know, if insects flew at night, they were flying, flying using the moon. The moon was kind of their guiding point. And so they would orient themselves. But since the moon is way up in outer space, they could never fly to it but they used it kind of orient. When humans hung artificial moons, so to speak, down low, and now the flies can fly to it in. And so it throws them off and alters their pattern. Are butterflies a fly? I'll tell you what, I'm going to give y'all the answer of that. Now look up a picture and count the wings and you tell me. All right, let's go ahead then move to our next piece here. And I want to talk about inspections for flies. As always, we're going to interview the customer in the beginning and ask what have you seen, where, how long, how many, you know, have you treated for yourself. And then from there, we're going to look for, it says here on the slide, conditions conducive to pests as well as critical inspection areas. Conditions conducive would be the food sources which can include sanitation issues as well as the other flies attractants of light, odor, and moisture. Critical inspection areas then would be where are these things found? And remember, as we just discussed what the species are attracted to is often very specific. And so if it's a blowfly problem, you look for this, a fruit fly problem, you look for that. And then that means we know where to target. I'm going to go through now a series of commercial environments and have you think about what would be the critical inspection areas and attractants. And so as we go through these, I want you to chat as the video plays or as I show you the picture what attractants or breeding areas you spot? Now in this first video, it's going to be the commercial kitchen here at the Learning Center. Now we don't cook in it. It's not set up to actually cook in. It's the equipment though. And yes, so it'll be the cleanest one you'll ever see. Also, ignore the fly light. But otherwise, look at this video, chat what attractants or breeding areas you spot. All right, looking here at my chats, I see sink, I see pots, I see drains, dishwashing area, the racks, food debris, again, the light, ignore that because that really shouldn't have been seen there. The shelving, dishwasher, could be the food on the counter. Great. And so if we think about commercial kitchens, the attractants are often the improper drainage cleaning issues, could be grease build up or food debris as well as exposed garbage or garbage cans, open meat or produce, and standing water. The critical inspection areas then would be, as you were telling me, where those things are found. And so certainly, the drains are a big one. Floor tiles and baseboards. That's one that I don't think people fully appreciate. If you've been behind in a commercial kitchen, you'll know there's usually tile on the floor and grout. Over time, that grout will chip and chunks of it will come out and it creates these little divots there that will trap stuff as they mop the floor. And then grout itself can be somewhat porous. And if it's not properly sealed, or over time, it'll start to soak up those liquids as well. And believe it or not, flies can breed in as little as that. Likewise, even the tile itself can get cracks in it. And again, stuff gets trapped down in those cracks or sometimes the floor will settle and create these depressions where these low lying areas collect stuff. There's also baseboards. And pretend this hand here is a baseboard. So this is a baseboard or the side of a piece of commercial equipment or table leg. This fist here is a mop head. As the employees mop the floor, they're going to rub the mop against the side of those appliances or those baseboards. Well, the leading top edge of the mop stuff kind of rides up the mop a film does. And as they push it against the top here, you'll get this little film getting deposited just above the mop line. It's kind of like if you think about a lake where the high water line you can see, when the water is low, you can see where the high water mark went. That's kind of what we're talking about here. And over time, that film can get deposited enough to where the flies can even breed in it. And even if it's not enough to breed in, it'll be enough to attract them at the very least. And that's again another thing that I think people underestimate. Dishwashers are a big one particularly if they don't wash or clean off the big chunks of food. Garbage cans are certainly a big one. Refrigerator drip pans. In your own home, if you never wipe down a surface, what happens over time? Dust and debris collect on it. Well, these drip pans, the idea is as the machine's running, it's producing condensation that drips into the pan and evaporates. But since they may often never clean that pan, it gets full of crud. And then here there's water drips on it and it start stuff growing. And especially, if the drip pan's down on the floor, you can imagine all the food debris and things on the floor that can get kicked or knocked and wind up in that. And then the garbage disposals could be another. Pablo has asked, "Do fruit flies come in on the bananas already, meaning they've already laid eggs in them? It's possible. I'm not going to say that's always the case. But if you have a bad place in the fruit or rotten one there in the bag, certainly that could happen and you can bring them in that way. Now let's do the same exercise. This time, I'm going to show you a bar. A lot of the answers coming in are good ones. We're getting the liquor itself, the drains, the bottles, the syrups, the wells, the mats on the floor as well as the drink mats up on the bar, the fruit tray, the condiment tray, the bus pan. Good. If we go through the slide here, the conditions conducive to pests would be improper drainage or cleaning issues, the open alcohol and alcohol like wine, if it's left uncork over time will just eventually turn to vinegar. Drain odors could be a big issue, recycle bins, ice wells. A lot of times in businesses, they think since ice is so cold and sterile that nothing grows in those ice machines. And technically, they're supposed to clean them on a regular basis. If they don't, you'd be horrified what would grow in there, bacteria wise, algae wise, but you can even get roaches living in the motor housing next to the ice with their feces and them physically just dying in the ice. And you can even have flies, maggots breeding in the sludge there too. And so that could be something else that's considered. That's why if you've ever been with a friend that doesn't want ice in their glass, it's probably for sanitary reasons. The critical inspection areas in a bar would be the liquor storage, beer taps or fruit trays, water coolers, soda dispensers, and ice wells. With the beer taps and the soda dispensers, you know, those dispensing heads, there's lots of syrups get collected there on that nozzle and that whole thing needs to be broken down and cleaned periodically, the lines need to be cleaned periodically. And if they don't, a lot of gook builds up and you can get flies even breeding in that. And so like even in the fast food places where you put your cup and the little lever in it, dispenses the soda in, you can have flies breeding in that head dropping maggots into your drink even. And so all of those things need to be broken down and cleaned periodically. Garbage recycle bins could be another one. Sink and floor drains. Those floor mats are designed to keep the employees from slipping and falling but they do trap a lot of crud and they need to be pulled out and pressure washed on a regular basis. All right, let's put up this picture of a bathroom. And I think we would probably mostly all of us get these. So I'm just going to dial through them somewhat quickly. The obvious things in the bathroom are the sinks, the trash can under the sink, and then you've got a floor drain on the far right edge. There's the urinals here and the urinal mats. And if you look in the reflection of the mirror behind the sink, you'll see out of shot of the picture are the stalls and so you have the toilets as well as the plumbing. And so in a bathroom, your improper drainage or cleaning issues can be a problem. Odors from things that are going on in the bathroom will attract flies, drain build up, you could have leaky pipes as well as loose floor tiles. And so, William, no, these things are not all listed in your books but I think a lot of these when you're on your field days, the critical point is think about what's decaying or moisture sources for flies because what I'm even listing is not a complete exhaustive list and you'll be able to, onsite, come up with a lot of things beyond what this is. And so what I would say is on your field days, you know, be thinking about these things and asking your CFT about it some more. The outdoors, we think about flies, most often, the small flies that we learned will breed indoors. But the large flies may often breed outdoors and then come in around a window or door. And so when we think about them, we need to consider what's the source. And as you can see in this picture, an obvious one would be the dumpsters around commercial, could be a trash can at home. Other things, look at how that kind of mulch sort of pine straw shrubby thing in the back. You know, if that's real wet and damp, you might even get some flies breeding in that. We also can look at, besides garbage, you can look at feces. And you may think, "Well, wait a minute. What do you mean feces?" Human feces can happen, let's say at a restaurant, if they have a baby diaper changing station, you know, and as those diapers are being carried out to the dumpster, maybe the bag tears or some of them fall out, then there's animal feces. And this is a big one for me when I was in residential, you know, a lot of times homeowners, if they have a dog, they'll let it go poop in the backyard. And if they never pick it up, you know, then you'll get these blowflies or housefly breeding in it. We talked about the overgrown vegetation as well as other just decaying organic stuff, and so like leaf piles and stuff that's rotting, some of those can produce some other flies. Compost could. You might get some fungus gnats and things associated with a compost pile. Now fungus gnats are such wimpy little flyers. I mean, them to fly indoors would be kind of minor but you could have some issues there. The final one we're going to do and then we'll take an eight minute break is this home. And so chat in what are the issues here you see? And so we've got the trash can, we got the windows, the fruit. Dish washer, dishes in sink. Yeah, you've got a lot of the ones I was going for here. The other ones you might want to add would be the refrigerator itself could be another possibility. But all of those things are possible sources here. That brings us to the end of the inspection. Now onto the underlying thing, how are the flies getting in and what are they breeding in? And so looking for gaps for entry and then breeding sources depend on species. And from my own experience, when you're out there inspecting for these sources, sometimes it's obvious, you'll walk in, there's the open trash can. Other times, it's not obvious and you have to really be that pest control detective. You know, sometimes things get down in behind pieces of equipment. And in commercial, that's a big deal. A lot of times in commercial, these pieces of cooking equipment never get pulled out and that's a major problem for German roaches, for flies, and so we got to make sure we get back in there and look for those things. And then sometimes, too, it's in areas that we don't normally get to see. You know, it could be in a locked closet, in a drop ceiling we may not go up into. And so when you're doing this pest control detective thing, you've got to be able to really look at everything. Another experience I've even had in some situations for drains that when the building was being built made sense. But after it opened, they moved some big time piece of machinery over it. Despite the fact that the floor drain was still there and it's still connected to the plumbing. And so what could happen is that drain dries out, you can have stuff backing up or gases coming up or flies coming up from pipes and getting up in through that floor drain coming out but because you physically can't get to it, it's under this big time piece of machinery, it was hard to find. And I found situations like that where I had to get the blueprints out for the building, you know, from whoever's in charge of maintenance of the facility and start tracing lines and see if I could find and physically get to all of the drains. And if I couldn't, you know, maybe that was where it was coming from. Vents, Dillon. Vents are kind of pretty dry. And so usually it's not a good place for flies unless they are getting water running down inside the vent which will pose other problems. But usually, I wouldn't be as concerned as much with vents. We're going to take an eight minute break and then come back after that and we're going to finish this fly lesson up with fly control. So get up, stretch your legs, and I'll see you back in eight minutes. Welcome back 'cause we're about to finish up our fly lesson with the second portion looking at control. As we come back into this piece, we're always going to be looking at our IPM solution, remembering that that's cultural, physical, and chemical tools. And what we're gonna do is walk through the different tools but I want you to keep in mind as we move through these, I'm going to cover them in order of importance. Meaning, the first set of control strategies that we're going to look at are the most critical, the next set will be second, and then the third and final set will be the least. And so bear that in mind. That means this first chunk we're about to cover is most important to overall fly control success. And the reason why this first chunk is so important for that reason is it addresses the breeding material. And I'm going to ask you questions. Let's see if we're all paying attention at the end of the lesson but I'm going to ask you a question about this very thing. I'm going to give you some examples of tools and have you tell me which one addresses the breeding material. And the answer is it's only the ones in the first piece that I'm about to cover. And that's the cultural tools, the things of customers reducing food, water, and shelter. To that point, who is implementing these things? Is it us or the customer? So who physically is going to mop the floors, take out the trash? And, David, I see your call popped up in there. If you meant to call in, leave it there and I'll take it after this question. If not, you can clear it out. And most of us agree it's the customer. And yes, our responsibility in this situation is to inspect, identify these issues, and then make recommendations to the customer on ways that they can address it. And so that's why these cultural tools are so important because these are really the only ones that are addressing the food source for the maggots. You know, by taking out the trash, pitching that rotten fruit, you know, cleaning up those surfaces, that's what gets rid of it. And so that's why those are the most important. Now another component of cultural tools besides addressing the breeding materials would be what's attracting the flies in the form of light. And as we've established, flies like white colored light, but they're not as strongly attracted to yellow. And if it's a situation where customers have lights, they could just simply turn off at night, that's best. But if they can't, let's say it's a business and they need to have lighting on the exterior all night long, then we would recommend they switch it out for a yellow light, if it's attached to the building, or if they can relocate it, put it on a post or put it on something away from the building 'cause what the flies are going to do is follow the light back to the bulb, back to the source. And if that's attached to the building, then that's just drawing them like a magnet up against the building. And so if I put it on a post away from the building, it still allows there to be light in the area but the flies are going to hang around the lamp off by the post. Normally, when we go through cultural tools with other pests like we did this morning for ants and with cockroaches on Tuesday, this is it. You know, customer recommendations and we move on. This time around, we're going to have another tool that we can provide to the customer and we can even use ourselves. And so here's a little bit of culture we could do and that's Actizyme. And if you're looking in your books on page 14, you'll see some printed information. I'm going to play for you a marketing video that covers the high points of Actizyme from a customer standpoint. But I think it does a good job of giving you the basics. Let's watch the video and I'll be back to add a few additional thoughts. At Orkin, we service tens of thousands of restaurant and we know commercial kitchens are in a constant battle against grease and grime. We also know that greasy build up especially on floors and in drains is a magnet for pests. Now there is a new weapon to help you win the battle against grease and grime, Orkin Actizyme. Simply put, Orkin Actizyme is a professional cleaner and degreaser that break down organic compounds, the kind that build up on floors, drains, and other surfaces in food service facilities. What makes Orkin Actizyme stand out is the way it works. Actizyme uses a specialized blend of naturally occurring enzymes and beneficial bacteria specifically selected because they break down the type of build up found in commercial kitchen. These natural ingredients mean Actizyme does not produce the harsh fumes and odor typically associated with commercial cleaning products. This makes Actizyme an environmentally friendly solution that's also extremely effective. Use Actizyme to help remove that slippery layer of grime from your kitchen floor. It works deep into cracks and crevices where grease likes to build up. Treat dirty greasy drains with Actizyme to improve drainage and help prevent flies that congregate and breed in the drains in your kitchen. Other floor, grout, and drain cleaners only mask odors and simply spread grime around without actually eliminating the root cause. Orkin Actizyme breaks down the organic matter that odor causing bacteria feed on and flies breed in, keeping bad odors and the bacteria that cause them out of your kitchen. And because Actizyme is reactivated with water, a little goes a long way. Just 1 ounce of Orkin Actizyme will mix with an entire gallon of mop water. That helps save you time and money. Actizyme is available as concentrate in 5 gallon, 5 gallon or 55 gallon containers. Or try to dispenser system for quick convenient preparation. Remember, for commercial kitchens looking for a low-impact way to help cut grease and grime and prevent pests without harsh chemicals or fumes, Orkin Actizyme is the answer. Ask your Orkin Man to find out how you can get Orkin Actizyme in your kitchen today. There you have Actizyme floor and drain cleaner. And it's a wonderful tool. If you're in commercial and you are servicing or selling to food serving or food retail establishments, meaning grocery stores, restaurants, those types of areas, they definitely need this and this is something I would definitely offer to them. It's great to eat the grease and some of the grime. But I want to set the record straight. And Christopher has asks a point that I can kind of weave into my point I was already going to make. So he brought up, "Will it eat hair out of drains?" Let me be clear. This is not Drano. This is not some high powered drain unclogging system. If you go in and inspect and you find build up in the drains, number one, the customer needs to clean that first and they can do that themselves, they can contract someone to do it, some of your branches you can ask may do it, could be able to offer that service, but somehow, someone's got to break all of that and clean it out first. Then Actizyme can be put in to hopefully keep that from building back up 'cause the actizyme bacteria and enzyme in it is only going to eat a certain amount of grease. It's not going to be a high powered drain unclogging system. And so it's good for ongoing maintenance. But if there's an issue now, it's got to be addressed first. Likewise, with Actizyme, now this is something that we would typically not use in residential, 'cause if you think about it, a residential home kitchen is going to have far less grease and food debris on the floor and on the drains than a business would. If you take a commercial restaurant kitchen versus a home, there's no comparison. The only example of Actizyme we might use in a home would be that aerosol foaming can version, but that would be about it. For the most part in a home if there's clogs in the drain, again, like with the commercial customer, they just need to break that up, clean it up, and that takes care of it. But in commercial, since there is so much food preparation going on constantly, that's where the Actizyme is an advantage. Also, when they're using Actizyme, they should not mix it with any harsh cleaners or bleach 'cause it will destroy the enzyme. And likewise, they shouldn't mix it in boiling, scalding hot water. And in fact, the bottle itself will have the instructions on how to properly mix it and apply it. And that's something you'll want to read and then go over yourself with the customer if you're setting it up with them for the first time. Justin has asked, "Could Actizyme be sold as a cultural tool for roaches?" Wonderful, Justin. 'Cause think about it, the grease and the grime isn't just for flies. Roaches, ants, rodents, anything that feeds on that type of stuff or attracted to that type of stuff, by keeping that under control, would be helped. And so that's why I think it's such an important tool for those industries. Now you have to be careful, the EPA several years ago came down with a clear stance that things were either pesticides or cleaning agents. And a pesticide is what's killing the pest. And a sanitation product is just a cleaning product. And Actizyme is not a pesticide. And so that's where they wanted us to be very clear. When we talk to the customers or the public about it, we don't say Actizyme gets rid of flies or Actizyme gets rid of roaches. What Actizyme does is it breaks down grease and is a great sanitation product. And by reducing that grease build up, that's reducing the attractants that many pest like roaches and flies and the things it would be attracted to. But you hopefully see the difference there. "Is it considered a green product?" Charles has asked. Well, green is a very tricky word. It depends on your definition of green. And different people in different organizations have their own terminology and some things apply to certain products and not others. I would say it's certainly more environmentally friendly than say other things would be. I don't know if I would label it necessarily as green, depends on your definition. You could ask your branch about what we as a company have on our list of green products 'cause there are some areas that do have what we call a green service line. Does it have a pleasant scent? I don't recollect it ever having like a very perfumy smell to me. I mean, it's just kind of like a regular foamy cleaner. It doesn't smell bad either. I don't remember it really having a very strong, distinct, pungent smell, either pleasant or otherwise. And so I think it's just mainly a cleaning product. And so to Andre, yes, it is an Orkin product. It is an Orkin exclusive. It is something that we as a company only carry. We'll tell you there are other enzymatic cleaners out there, meaning that you can go out there and find other cleaners like it. But Actizyme itself is an Orkin or Rollins exclusive. I would not use it on hardwood floors, Pablo. I would be careful. I would look at the instructions to see what it says about that. I would think a lot of commercial kitchens in the back, where the kitchen is, would not have hardwood anyway, it would all be tiled or some kind of laminate. And so that would be fine. But as far as hardwood, I would want to look at the bottle and I don't have one in front of me to look at it. But personally, just hardwood is always making me nervous 'cause even water can stain hardwoods. And I would be concerned about the finish and it maybe doing something to that. Eric, let's talk about this. So the other things to mention is, for us, we can use Actizyme. You can mix some up in a spray bottle and squirt down sides of table legs or appliances. And then we have a piece of equipment and it's called the Foamer Simpson. Yes, that's the name, Foamer Simpson. And you can mix the foaming agent in it with Actizyme and get it to shaving cream consistency and then you can foam, yourself, the sides of table legs, appliances in these kitchens where I talked about that mop film build up. And we've seen in situations with small fly problems that we weren't getting that helped. Now talk to your branch about charging for that though because some branches may want to charge additionally because it's not a piece of equipment you usually just have on the truck and it may take more time to do. But it could be worth the investment if they're having lots of small fly problems. Vanessa has asked, "Do they need to use the product only or if it's dry then use a chemical to mop?" So normally, Vanessa, and I'm not very clear on your question. So if I don't answer it correctly then clarify it for me. But if you're asking can they just pour the Actizyme straight on the floor or down the drain, normally what they would do is it needs to be diluted with water. And as they mop the floors, that'll take care of it. And then when they're done with the mop water, they could just dump it down the drain and so the Actizyme's in that. And so they don't necessarily need to put it on dry and they're supposed to be in these environments, mopping the floors anyway. And so this is just putting in it what is already part of their normal routine. Okay. How long? I mean, it doesn't have an... I wouldn't say it doesn't last forever. It's like any cleaner. You use it, it cleans, and then it dries, and it's probably not doing much after that. And so that's why... Again, this isn't Drano. This isn't something that's designed to foam and stay really wet for a long time and break out a clog. I mean, this is going to get a little bit of the grease. It's going to have some residual activity. How long? I don't know. But it probably wouldn't, you know, you wouldn't use Actizyme once and then it keeps going for weeks and weeks. It would be needed to be every time they mop the floor reapplying it. All right, so that's all of cultural. So that's the first chunk. And remember, that's the most important chunk because between the Actizyme, the customer sanitation, those steps, that's the only stuff that's getting rid of the food source, the breeding material. Charles, the toxicity level, I'd have to look at the product bottle to see if there's anything on that. It should be fairly low toxicity to people and mammals but I don't happen to have in front of me the label to look at it and I'd have to look to see if there's an LD50 on it or anything like that. Does it contain repellents? No. Not to my knowledge. I mean, again, it's just the bacteria and the enzyme. And so that in and of itself shouldn't be repellent to the pests. Step two is the next chunk that we're going to take a look at is now moving down the importance level, physical. And there's two parts to physical. There's exclusion and then there's trapping and monitoring. From an exclusion standpoint, the customer needs to do their part to keep windows and doors closed as well as put on screens. And so this is just simply keeping the flies out. And with your large flies, this can be very important since that's often how they get in. In addition, we have some tools we can use. Now these are all for the most part, except for the last one, are going to be all commercial in nature. And so if you're following along in your books, we're on page 15. Air curtains, the science behind the why with them. If you've ever been in a business when the doors, front doors open, there's whoosh of air and it blows in your face, people get this notion that it's to cool me, the customer off, it's a comfort thing for me. It's not actually. It's designed to keep out bugs. It's pest control. With flies only having one pair of wings and them not being able to fly great distances, they tire very easily. And if you hit them with a blast of wind and they're trying to fight against that air current to get in, they're going to tire out even more easily and get blown back and deflected it. And so that's where installing these near entry points could be very useful particularly at accounts prone to flies. And so if you have food serving, food retail, you have hotel, motels, you have hospitals, anywhere where there's front main doors opening and shutting, these are a good option. And it could be used elsewhere in the building, you know, on the exterior, any major like receiving door, they could be helpful. And they could even possibly be used interior if you've got like a manufacturing plant and there's a room that needs to be kept fairly bug free, you know, some people will do an anti-chamber where there's a door you open, the fan blows, you shut the door before the interior door will even open. But there's lots of options for these but it's a wonderful non-chemical way to keep bugs out, and it's not just flies, it would be for other flying insects. Air strips would be another thing that we can use. And I have here on the laptop computer an example of what these look like. So if we can go to the laptop real quick. So laptop please. Thank you. Now here you can see what these look like. Now these are these rubberized plastic strips that are hanging down and you see the forklift is parting them. Over here's some brick indicating the outside of the building. The concept is if you didn't have this hanging here, this would be a wide open space, and birds, flies, other insects could be getting in. By hanging these, it creates a physical barrier that stops the bugs from getting in but yet does not interfere with the business being able to proceed. Andre asked earlier, "Can Actizyme be used for wiping down sink areas?" I would not use Actizyme on food preparatory surfaces. I would think it's best on the floors or down the drains. Although, you could look at the product label to see if it has that on the label, but I would think it's mostly for floors and drains. Do we install the air current devices? Pablo asked. I would talk to your manager. I would think, in most cases, yes, we want to make sure it's installed properly but there might be some weird exception I may not know of. Yes, and so, Jeremiah, a lot of your warehouse type businesses will have air curtains and possibly even air strips, in your big box stores, let's say. Another option would be door sweeps. We've talked about those for cockroaches and ants. They work well here too. Even though flies fly in the air, they still can crawl underneath the door. And then for residential or commercial both caulking cracks and crevices would be very useful. There's another tool that I want to show you via video here, it's called Trap Guard. It originally started out creation with the intention to keep sewer gasses from backing up into the business. But as an added side bonus, it was found to have some pest control value. Let's watch this real short video and you'll see what it looks like and then I'll add a few points. The functioning of the Trap Guard is as simple as it is elegant. When waste water enters the top of the drain, it forces open the flexible material, allowing flows of up to 33 gallons per minute through the drain opening. Once flow stops, the memory properties of the material reseal the drain, preventing any sewer gases from entering the room. As we see in this test, the Trap Guard prevents the 10.4 psf pressurized smoke from backing up through the drain opening. In addition, the trap guard prevents evaporation and stops raw sewerage from backing up into habitable areas. There you saw the way the valve works. And so this is great to keep flies coming up from plumbing or from sewers, roaches, even rodents. And so any of those pests that may come up from sewers or up from plumbing pipes, this can help. And the size of the Trap Guard varies depending on the size of the drain. And so you'd have to measure that first and then go to your reference material and see, you know, which one do I need to get. But this would be a great tool to offer to customers in commercial to keep flies and other pests from coming out. So yes, Justin, we do sell those. And so ask your branch, and if they're unaware of it, they can talk to their local technical services rep, they can certainly fill them in. There's information on the MyOrkin webpage about them. The Trap Guard video I just showed you is also available on demand. If you go into On Demand and search on a computer "Trap Guard," it should come up as well, the video. All right, so that's the exclusion piece. So again, number one, most important tool is cultural, the Actizyme and sanitation. Number two, physical, one part exclusion, the next part would be trapping. And, Andre, why would you really need one of those in residential? They're very industrial looking and we don't normally have a lot of floor drains in residential. I mean, you've got your shower drain but that's about the only equivalent you might run into in a home. So I don't really think we'd ever run into a lot of floor drains in that arena anyway. Now if you did, I mean you can talk to your manager, I don't think there's any reason to prohibit it but I just don't think you'd find many cases to need it. Then next piece to talk about here then would be the trapping. And so with trapping, we're mainly looking at fly lights. And to help us understand what some of those things are going to be like, we have a doctor on here, so one of our directors of technical services here. He's going to show you on a video some of the different types of fly lights and he's going to walk you through where they're best used and what some of the ins and outs are for using them. And, Brandon, if you have basements that have floor drains in them, potentially, I mean, talk to your manager. Again, I'm not aware of anything that prohibits us using them in residential, I just can't think of a lot of cases where that's really come up. But it could be a possibility. So let's watch Ron about fly lights. So we have a couple examples over here to my right of fly lights that you could put at the front of the house in a restaurant or even a lobby area in a hotel that no-one really knows what it is. It's emitting a light, it looks attractive, and so you'd want to select a sconce that fits that situation. And if I was a sales person, I would offer two or three different scones and let a customer pick. Of course, they're all going to be from those two suppliers. Also, in an office building, we have the fly web. This thing here is kind of inconspicuous, isn't real obvious, has a glue board in the back. Not a lot of... It wouldn't be used on a high fly pressure area but in an area where flies aren't that excessive. That would be workable as well, more in an office type situation. Now we're going to move to the back of the house and you've got to decide what the fly pressure back there, in the kitchen, in the receiving area. And so you're going to use one of these other fly, something that's a little smaller, that just has two fly lights... Lights, excuse me, at the bottom of it and a glue board that you would remove. Also, you've got the 1x3, which has three lights and it's about an inch or two wide. Again, has the Orkin Diamond on the front but this is much more obvious to go out in a restaurant area or dining area but in the back. Also, you might have a big warehouse where you have lots of doors that are open at the back. Therefore, you're going to use more of an industrial fly light that could hang between the bay doors coming in as well. So you've got to assess the situation and assess actually how much the fly pressure is to be able to help a customer choose which of these fly lights, glue board situations they're going to use. Now sometimes, you have a circumstance where you really don't want to fly light or a glue board, you really want to electrocute them. And so here's an industrial electrocuter. What happens there is the flies come into it and they will kind of explode. This is definitely not a light that you would use around food because when they explode, particles could go every which way. That's why you want to use one of these over here that have a glue board, they come and get stunned, drop down on the glue board and therefore there's no disease transmission. This is one where you would be in a warehouse that certainly needs some fly control but you're not worried about particulates of the fly to be splattered every which way. So remember, find out the circumstance and the fly pressure in reference to picking a fly light. There you had a wide selection of fly lights and their different uses. Before we go through more information on the fly light, Jeremiah had asked earlier, "Can you put Actizyme in sink disposals?" And that's where that foaming can version of it might be used in some situations like that or sink drains, it would be possibly used. Going back then to the fly lights. As you saw, most of the lights function by there is bulb that the flies are drawn to. And behind it there was some sticky board or some measure that captured them. And that's the usual style and they come in small ones, like the plug-in one for walls. And those would be the only one we might use in residential, but then they scale all they way up to those big massive industrial ones. Most of the time in fly light, understand that fly lights are only for two reasons. They're for monitoring of activity, just to kind of keep an eye on what's going on at the account. And then they're useful to intercept and trap some of the adults. But I want to be extremely clear, fly lights are not a standalone fly solution. Meaning, I would never tell a customer I going to sell you some fly lights and that'll take care of your fly problem, it won't. The only thing that takes care of the fly problem is those cultural things that we looked at earlier. And so this is only going to help us keep an eye on the activity and catch a few of the adults. Now with the different sizes and styles, there's the ones that look like light fixtures called the sconce ones that he showed. Those are best used in public viewing areas where customers might see them versus behind the scenes like in the behind the scenes where the kitchen is or behind the scenes in the warehouse. That you would probably be using more of the industrial grade type ones. And the exploder ones that he talked about, as he mentioned, those are not as used as much because when the fly pops, the guts, the bacteria, all the stuff on it just sprays into the air and rains down on everything below it. Think about that the next time if you happen to having to have one of those purple bug zapper that you hang on your back porch. The whole time you're drinking your drink or eating your food, you're getting sprayed in the face with bug guts. And so it's not something that we typically use unless it's a very special situation. But when it gets into fly lights, there's a lot more I could spend time on this, I could spend a whole two hour module on them alone. But since for most of you in residential, this won't apply to you that much, what we've done is we've given you a self study guide, commercial folks, to learn more about them. You have to replace the bulbs, change the glue boards, there's a whole bunch more that goes along with this. Same with the mosquitoes. Yeah. And, Eric, it's not just flies. A lot of flying insects will be attracted to these things. There'll be wasps, moths, beetles, there's a whole host of things that are attracted to light. So just think about your porch light, you know, what variety of bugs will be attracted to a porch light overnight, you know, the same thing here. And so you'll catch a lot more than just flies. And it's important, folks, that if we install these, we don't just look for the flies, you want to pay attention to everything that's on there because it could indicate, you know, a whole bunch of different pest problems. And so, Robin, you're onto the right track there. So let's take just a side minute to step back the whole program and look at residential versus commercial. Residential flies are not as big an issue, they crop up every once in a while but it's usually a case of there's a rotten banana or some fruit in the kitchen, there's some dog poop in the backyard, there's some gap around the door, there's a garbage can that's got bags leaked that the flies are after. There's a dead animal in the attic. But it's usually a fairly confined specific thing you see. And so usually what we're doing as the professional is recommending customers to get rid of whatever it is if they can get rid of it and then just help them keep the building closed, end of story. And so that's most of residential fly control. Commercial on the other hand, because there is so much more to draw in flies, they occur so much more often, there are so many opportunities for them to get in, there's so much risk involved with like food serving, food retail. There's a lot more that's going to go on here. And so that's why you have all of these added tools and that's why we started this whole discussion in the beginning about the difference between residential and commercial is for this very reason. Justin has asked, "Do we use those fly sticky strips?" You can talk your branch. Some branches do. They are out there. I don't think they're as widely used as fly lights. I think fly lights are probably our number one most frequently used trapping technique. But you can talk to them and see what they say. And yes, Aaron, dairies, farm fly is a different beast altogether. And you noticed we're not going into farm fly here. That's a lot more involved there and that would be something your branch would have to help you with if you're going to be selling that type of industry. One final thing that I do want to talk about when it comes to fly lights is I want to talk about what we call the four rules to fly light placement. Meaning, when you're selecting where you're going to be putting a fly light out, there's four considerations. Number one, you don't want to attract more flies in. And so the science behind the why is the light is going to draw the flies to it. If I aim the light towards a window or door, you're going to make the problem worse, not better. However, number two, you want the fly to see the light pretty quickly. You don't want to put it in some back closet, out of the way. You want the fly to get caught quick. And so to make sure you fully understand what I'm saying, if let's say this hand is a door that opens and shuts to the interior of the building, I wouldn't stick the light and aim it, I wouldn't put the light on the opposing wall aimed at the door 'cause every time that door or window opens, more flies are going to come in. On the other hand, if that door opens and a fly just sort of meanders in, I would put the light on the wall with the door, aim the interior. So the light should always be facing in towards the building, not towards the exterior wall. But you want to on the wall with the exterior. So you see what I'm saying? So put it on the wall facing inward, the same wall as the window and door is but facing inside. And, Charles, if any of you have that issue where we're having that break up of the audio, contact 1800-8262-492. That's usually a network related issue and they'll have to look at it and see what's going on out there. Edwin has asks, "When auditing an account are fly lights brought into play? You mean if we have fly lights and we service the account and we're being audited, are those looked at? Absolutely. I mean, that's something your health inspectors or something, whoever it is that audits that account will be looking at. Our own internal audit QA department will look at it. Going back to our rules, there's two more rules to look at. So after those first two are considered, the third one, hanging lower is better than higher. You want to make sure that you're putting it where the flies are going to probably get to it. And if you think about it, flies are often seen resting on countertops, on walls kind of around human height 'cause that's usually where the attractants are. And so you want to put the lights lower better than higher. As far as electricity goes, we need to be able to plug them directly in, no extension cords, it's a safety concern as well as an issue for the machine because the longer the current has to travel, the harder the machine has to work and it will cause them wear out more quickly. And so no extension cords. I've had a situation in a warehouse I serviced where I had the perfect spot by a loading dock door but there was no plug-in. I was able to get the business to install a plug-in there, an electrical outlet. I'm not saying that's always an option but it was worth me having the conversation 'cause they were able to do that. Eye level is okay. I mean that's not bad. I mean, again, look at your scopes of services 'cause some of you in commercial that service national accounts, they'll have their specified locations where they want them put already. And so sometimes that'll be a variable thing but, yeah, usually, you know, human height, eye level, you know, somewhere around that area probably wouldn't be bad. Number two, all of these, Robin, are in your book, page 16, all of them are there. And so number one, the first... So number one is actually the second bullet, the number two is the third bullet on page 16 so on and so forth. How often do we come back? Pablo, that's up to your scope of service and the frequency that we service that customer. Some customers, you may be out there every other week, some may be monthly, we even have some accounts like one up in Buffalo a big pharmaceutical plant with a technician, that's all he does is service that one account. He goes in every single day all day and services that one account. And so it's highly variable depending on account. Let's practice this and the picture you see on page 16, I'm going to put on the screen, do not answer yet 'cause I want to describe it, it'll help. This restaurant has three possible places we could put a fly light but I'm only going to be able to do one of the three. A is on the wall behind the host stand and the light, the cone of light, the narrow parts coming out of the light, broadening to the direction it's facing. So on that one, it's on the host wall, faced towards the door. B is back in the customer dining area, facing into the dining area. And C is on the wall with the front door aimed inward towards the host stand. Now select with your tablet which of these three is probably the most important one to place? Most of us hit on C and it is. The only one that I would say is out right wrong is A, because A is going to draw more flies into the business, it's aimed at the door. B is not terrible but I would rather not do B if I only could do one light because the flies had to buzz all around the building to find it. C would be the best, B would probably a good second placement after I'd put out the C option. All right, we're on the homestretch here. So let's finish this lesson. The third and least important of the tools are chemical. If we do use chemical for fly, it's often in the form of baits. And the science behind the why is fly baits are stinky. They're very smelly. And so this is different than most other pest control baits like ant bait, roach bait, they didn't get drawn to it from a distance, well, fly baits, they are because of the odor. And so when you place these, you're mainly only going to use them on the exterior and you're mainly going to be using them where there's already odors, bad odors, like around dumpsters and trash cans on the outside. We do have baits that could be used at residential or commercial but I want to be clear with baits, they only have one major purpose, crashing the adult population for the moment. So if I have a dumpster with lots of flies breeding, coming off the dumpster, coming indoors into the building, I could put bait around the dumpster, crash the population, the customer gets an immediate relief. But in the long run, to control the actual fly problem, what has to happen is that dumpster has to be done, something with it. It has to be emptied, cleaned, all of that taken care of. So the fly bait is a very short term band-aid fix to the problem, but it will not get rid of the breeding population. All it's doing is killing some of the adults. We also have residuals in the form of aerosols, cracks and crevices, we could treat areas that flies might land as well as areas they may try to crawl in around the buildings, entry points, and those all could be possibilities. Christopher, I don't know how far flies can see. That's again one of those statistical things that I don't know that. You know, if I've ever had a need to know that for practical reason, I'd have to look it up. So it'd be fun research I guess. What is the name of the fly bait? There are several, Jeremiah, Maxforce makes a couple of different ones. For residential, the only one we have is Maxforce Fly Spot Bait that I'm aware of, but there are other baits potentially for commercial along with the Maxforce Fly Spot Bait. Let's do a quick review question and then we're going to wrap this lesson up. So let's see if you were paying attention to my warning earlier in the lesson. Of these choices for fly control, which ones do affect the breeding source? The fly light, like we saw with Ron in the video? Actizyme, like we talked about in the video? The chemical treatments, meaning the pesticides, like fly baits, like flying residuals? Improved sanitation, like customers taking out trash, cleaning floors? Or air curtains, those things to block the flies from coming in? While we're answering this, Pablo has asked, "How do flies communicate?" Well, I mean if you think about it, they don't really, they're not social. So they're not like ants, I guess when they want to have sex, there's probably pheromones, there are also visual cues. Some flies do dances and movements with their wings. But again, they're not social. So there's not a lot of communication going on there as much. Do we use IGRs for flies? Raymond, I didn't talk about it. It could be a possibility. Again, but the critical thing here is breaking down the breeding source but I don't see why not, just look at your labels. And I'm not really sure. I understand the question, Aaron. All right, if we look at the answers here. We struggled, some of us. The correct answers were only B and D. And so like I warned you strongly, before we started the control section, the only things that get rid of the breeding sources are the cultural ones. Fly light is physical, it's just trapping adults. Chemical treatments or pesticides, it just... Ah, I get it now. Sorry, sometimes, Aaron, I get so wrapped in the pest control stuff, it's hard for me to pull out of the pop culture sometimes, yes. Chemical treatments would be the pesticide. That doesn't do anything to the immatures. The air curtains won't, it's only the Actizyme and the improved sanitation. Just so long as you don't run away, Aaron. All right, so let's talk about reviewing the service at the end. You need to tell the customer what you saw, what you did, what the customer can do going forward, and what the customer can expect. Folks, we're gonna end the session now. If there were any questions or comments, you didn't get a chance to ask on air, feel free to shoot me an email. We'll be back tomorrow morning with rodents at 10 o'clock Eastern. Make sure all of you, as I discussed earlier this morning, watch the rodents bio and habits video, and it's located just like your week one videos. You should have already been doing those last week. Week one was in the week one folder on demand. This time, this is the week two folder. So go New Hire Training, Residential or Commercial, week two and watch the 20, 30 minute video, fill out the materials along with it and I'll be back with you tomorrow at 10 o'clock Eastern. Until then, I hope you have a good day.