Helping Hands

Sometimes the fable of the Good Samaritan takes on real-world proportions with interesting results. Such was the case for Western Pest Services, Parsippany, N.J., and BASF, Research Triangle Park, N.C., when they collaborated on a cockroach treatment program for Beverly Turner, adoptive mom to 13 special-needs children. Some of the children are blind, some have neurological disorders and one is wheelchair bound.

Turner and the children live in a single-family home in Irvington, N.J. The home was infested with cockroaches — and had been for years.

"The cockroaches frightened all of us," Turner said. "There was not one place in this 9-bedroom house where you didn’t see them. I don’t know where they came from, but it was a major problem, especially considering the health issues that my children face."

Western Pest Services learned that Turner’s home was infested with cockroaches and her prior efforts to eradicate them had failed through a local newspaper article. Tony Ramirez, branch manager of the local Western Pest Services office, reacted immediately. "We took one look at Ms. Turner’s problem and knew we had to help," he said.

Ramirez quickly found out how serious the infestation was. During his first inspection visit, he estimated that the home had in excess of 100,000 cockroaches in closets, cabinets and crevices. At one point, when looking down the basement steps, there appeared to be a "shimmering" effect on the floor. It was a layer of cockroaches moving in great masses. He immediately offered to take on the treatment challenge free of charge. He contacted BASF and was given enough SIEGE® gel insecticide to manage the entire project.

"One benefit to us," said Ramirez, "was that we had never used SIEGE before. This was an ideal opportunity to see just how effective the product would be, especially under such extremely challenging circumstances."

SIEGE gel contains hydramethylnon, an active ingredient that inhibits the production of energy. It results in the death of the insect within 24 to 72 hours and starts working immediately — and there are no documented cases of resistance or repellency, according to BASF.

Ramirez knew from the outset that this project would require more than one treatment. After the initial application, he reported eliminating 50 to 60 percent of the cockroaches. The Western Pest Services team had applied SIEGE gel insecticide in strategic areas around the home, using the XACTA-DOSE® precision baiting system. XACTADOSE applies SIEGE in pre-measured doses into cracks and crevices where roaches spend 85 percent of their time.

"When we made our first follow-up visit, we found dead roaches lying in piles almost everywhere," Ramirez said. "There were tens of thousands of them. We used a vacuum backpack with a two-and-a-half gallon container to collect them. When we had finished, the container was more than half filled."

On the second visit the following week, Ramirez and his team estimated they had achieved 75 percent elimination. On their third visit one week later, the roach infestations on the second and third floors were completely gone, leaving only the kitchen and pantry as areas in need of follow-up treatment.

"At first I was skeptical about how quickly we might overcome this massive infestation, but I was really impressed with the success we had," Ramirez said. "We’re confident that the problem is resolved. Most of the time spent in the last visit was not on bait application, but vacuuming up the dead roaches. This was a huge infestation."

Ramirez added that the last step of his program was to tell Turner how to clear out certain areas of the house that would be most prone to reinfestation. "We wanted to make sure that our efforts and the contributions by BASF would have a long-term effect," he said. "Plus, when you consider the needs of those children, we needed to walk away knowing that we accomplished everything possible on their behalf."