By now, most people are familiar with Pizza Rat, a rat who rose to fame thanks to a 2015 viral video that showed the rodent dragging a piece of pizza down a flight of New York City subway stairs.

As CNN.com noted at the time, “It can be argued that there are fewer things more New York than a slice, the subway and a rat. Combine the three, and it’s magic.”

As of December 2020, the video had amassed 11 million YouTube hits.

The Pizza Rat was back in the news recently thanks to viral video from performance artist Jonothon Lyons (a.k.a. Buddy the Rat), who re-created the Pizza Rat’s infamous subway incident.

Lyons created Buddy the Rat 11 years ago and brought him out of retirement recently. In addition to his subway performance, Buddy the Rat has been spotted around NYC pouncing on the Brooklyn Bridge; wooing Minnie Mouse at Times Square; and playfully grabbing pedestrians’ food bags. And with COVID shutting down theaters, New Yorkers have been seeing a lot more of Buddy the Rat.

CNN’s Jeanne Moos recently profiled Lyons, who said New Yorkers usually have one of three reactions to Buddy the Rat, “Joy, fear or radical indifference.”

While NYC’s transit probably was not happy that Lyons sparked interest in the 2015 Pizza Rat incident, according to Moos they recently thanked Lyons for equipping Buddy with a COVID mask.

Are Mealworms a Possible Sustainable Food Source?

With global food demands rising at an alarming rate, a study led by Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) scientists has found new evidence that an insect shows promise as an alternative protein source: the yellow mealworm.

The research is based upon a new analysis of the genome of the mealworm species Tenebrio molitor led by Christine Picard, associate professor of biology and director in Forensic and Investigative Sciences program at the School of Science at IUPUI. The work was published in the Journal of Insects as Food and Feed on Aug. 31.

“Human populations are continuing to increase and the stress on protein production is increasing at an unsustainable rate, not even considering climate change,” said Picard, whose lab focuses on the use of insects to address global food demand.

The research, conducted in partnership with Beta Hatch, has found the yellow mealworm — historically a pest — can provide benefit in a wide range of agriculture applications. Not only can it be used as an alternative source of protein for animals including fish, but its waste is also ideal as organic fertilizer.

IUPUI

Picard and her team sequenced the yellow mealworm’s genome using 10X Chromium linked-read technology. The results will help those who want to use the DNA and optimize the yellow mealworm for mass production and consumption. This new technology integrates the best of two sequencing methods to produce a reliable genome sequence.

“Insect genomes are challenging, and the longer sequence of DNA you can generate, the better genome you can assemble,” said Picard.

Picard added the mealworm has — and will have — a wide variety uses. “Mealworms, being insects, are a part of the natural diet of many organisms,” said Picard. “Fish enjoy mealworms, for example. They could also be really useful in the pet food industry as an alternative protein source, chickens like insects — and maybe one day humans, too, because it’s an alternative source of protein.”

Next, Picard said the researchers plan to look at what governs some of the biological processes of yellow mealworms in order to harness information useful for the commercialization of these insects. Source: IUPUI

Control Solutions

Control Solutions introduced Tekko Trio, a triple-action Insect Growth Regulator (IGR). This first-ever triple IGR product is powered by hydroprene, pyriproxyfen and novaluron. Tekko Trio, a concentrated formulation works by disrupting the life cycle of listed pests, stopping normal development and inhibiting egg production. This means the population cannot grow. Tekko Trio provides the power of Tekko Pro, plus the advantage of hydroprene, which translocates from the application site, penetrating deep into voids, cracks and crevices, the company says.

J.F. Oakes

J.F. Oakes announced it is now the master dis-tributor of Sniper Hospital Disinfectant, Odor Eliminator, Cleaner.

Sniper Hospital Disinfectant, Odor Eliminator, Cleaner complies with VOC laws, is non-corrosive and mild enough to wash your hands with, the company says. The product sanitizes food surfaces in 60 seconds, with no rinsing required. There is no fragrance added.

Sniper will be available in 32-ounce spray bottles, 1-gallon jugs, 5-gallon pails and 55-gallon drums, from local distributors.

PestWest

FlyDetect from PestWest was announced as joint winner of the Best New Product Award at the Society of Food Hygiene and Technology Virtual Awards Ceremony (SOFHT), which took place on Dec. 4.

The SOFHT Awards recognize and celebrate excellence within the food industry and its associated industries. The awards were judged by a panel of experienced food industry professionals from the society’s membership.

Fred Hurstel, PestWest business director, said, “We are so pleased that flyDetect has been recognized as a best new product by food industry experts. It has been years in the making and is the first of its kind in the pest control industry. Flying insects contaminating products remains a significant issue for many food companies and early identification of potential flying insect problems is a huge benefit in areas such as food production, where zero tolerance of insects is required.”

He added, “During the current pandemic, it is especially important that food manufacturers have the peace of mind that insect detection is being taken care of whilst keeping their staff safe, and flyDetect allows them to do this via remote monitoring.”

Lytx

Lytx, a leading provider of machine vision- and artificial intelligence-powered video telematics, analytics, safety and productivity solutions for commercial, public sector and field service fleets, recently announced several new technology capabilities that build upon its ability to quickly, comprehensively and accurately identify driving risk.

Using precise, cutting-edge technology, this new driver-powered approach to safety is a simple, but powerful way for drivers to be more proactive and accountable for their own improvement, while giving management the necessary visibility and data to effectively monitor and intervene if needed, the company said.

Lytx is adding a number of new capabilities to its safety offerings in support of this driver-powered approach, including:

• “Inattentive” trigger, which uses proprietary machine vision and artificial intelligence (MV+AI) to detect when the driver’s attention may be unfocused or the driver may be experiencing a condition such as fatigue or drowsiness without the reliance on an accelerometer event.
• Real-time in-cab alerts for five different risky driving behaviors: cell phone use, eating and drinking, smoking, no seatbelt, speeding, and inattentiveness.
• Behavior duration reporting, which uses MV+AI to track and quantify both the duration and percentage of drive time a driver was engaged in a risky driving behavior, providing a more holistic view of persistent risk.

With these new MV+AI-powered updates, when an event is detected, the DriveCam Event Recorder will issue a real-time in-cab alert to help drivers recognize and address their own risky behaviors and self-correct in the moment. Depending on the behavior, the alert will include a light and/or spoken phrase.

Drivers also will have access to new check-in tools allowing them to review their own video and performance after the fact, including behavior duration. This gives a new perspective on past events and supports long-term retention on lessons learned during a drive. If desired, managers can stay informed by subscribing to push notifications and reports on pertinent information.

Germinator

Germinator Mobile Sanitizing and Disinfecting announced the addition of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) monitoring to its service offerings as part of a now patent-pending methodology. ATP monitoring allows Germinator to test surfaces for the potential presence of living microorganisms in as little as 15 seconds.

ATP is an energy molecule found in all living organisms — including bacteria, mold and other microorganisms. When activated, ATP gives off a bright bioluminescent light, which is measured in relative light units (RLU). Upon entering a business or residence, Germinator will take samples from surfaces using swabs, which are then inserted into a luminometer. The luminometer gives a rapid and accurate reading of ATP on a surface. The higher the light output, the greater the indication of the need for proper cleaning.

Germinator will offer ATP monitoring before and after its sanitizing and disinfecting process. Once the initial ATP test has been completed, Germinator applies its Genesis surface treatment. Genesis is a one-step cleaner and broad-spectrum sanitizer and disinfectant treatment that harnesses the power of hypochlorous acid (HOCI). Derived from naturally occurring minerals, Genesis meets the Association of Official Agricultural Chemists (AOAC) germicidal spray standards for Hospital Grade Disinfection and is on the EPA N List of products determined to meet the criteria for use against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

Whether it’s happened to you once or many times, we have all faced a time where a customer has called with some sort of sensation of biting or itching and there is no pest to be found. What must be determined is the presence or absence of a pest. If a pest is present and causing a reaction to the client then our job is easy. If a pest cannot be located, this is where our job gets a little sticky.

Customers will call in with all different types of stories. Those of sleepless nights, bite reactions, itches and even the truly sad stories where the pursuit of an answer has really impacted their life. Broken relationships, lost jobs and a feeling of helplessness are extreme, but not unheard of when dealing with these situations. The following process has worked for me in dealing with cases of mystery bites and itches, sometimes known as delusory parasitosis (DP), delusory infestation (DI) or Ekbom’s syndrome.

IDENTIFY. Not every DP case is the same, but they typically have a similar theme. Clients will have had multiple pest management providers that have not been able to solve the pest issue. They will believe that their body is infested with some insect or parasite. At times, this is caused by the surrounding environment, but when they have family living in the same space, they are the only one being bitten. When discussing anything but the itching, they seem completely rational. When asked, clients suffering from this typically avoid psychiatrists and consult dermatologists, microbiologists or general practitioners but often lose faith in professional medicine as they cannot seem to solve the problem either.

They will self-diagnose, self-treat and catalog specimens of the pests that are infesting them. This will result in hundreds of samples identified with times and dates organized in a chronological manner. The delusion begins to overtake their life. There are some classic patterns of a client who may be suffering from this type of situation described in the literature. First is the most prominent, a middle-aged to elderly woman with few social contacts, no psychiatric history, and normal cognitive and social function. Second is an older patient with dementia and possible vision or hearing impairment also suffering from multiple other diseases. The final is the sensations develop because of illicit drug use; “crack bugs” are an example.

INSPECT. Critical to handling a case of DP is to complete a thorough inspection of the property. It is also critical to remember that we are not, typically, medical professionals and cannot diagnose bites, skin conditions or reactions. In general, it is best to not examine a person’s body. Explain that if there is a pest in the environment then it will be your responsibility. If it is truly a pest infesting the body, it will need to be dealt with by a medical professional.

Inspect the property extremely well. Look for any evidence of pest activity that might be causing skin irritations or bites. This may be spider webbing, evidence of bed bugs, carpet beetles, fleas or lice. Ask questions about their recent activities. Did they go hiking through a meadow with tall grass or did they recently go camping? If so, they may have been exposed to chiggers. Likely, they have not traveled. They have been home…and scratching. Utilize tools to help your inspection. Clear packing tape will pick up things you may not be able to see with the naked eye. A good flashlight is a must. Even a magnifying glass can help you to find smaller pests. At a minimum, monitor boards should be placed around the property and collected later for further inspection.

DO NOT TREAT. If you cannot find evidence of a pest, do not treat. This should go without saying, but unfortunately it needs to be said. Do not spray water, do not spray product, do not spray air. As soon as you make an application to their property, you own it. You are now an accomplice to the problem. Not only have you made an application for something you have not identified (how did you decide what product to use and where to apply it?), but now you may have contributed to the sensations by introducing another chemical to the environment.

Any application for a pest in a situation where DP is a concern should be thoughtfully considered before being made, even if you find a pest. If you find and treat for an occasional invader, you may be on the hook for all the sensations that invader has caused this customer. Before any application, consider what success will look like. Explain that what you are treating for is not what is causing their sensations and make sure the customer understands that these are separate situations.

COMMUNICATE. Be honest. Tell the customer what you can and cannot do. Provide them with information. Educate them about what pests bite people, what pests infest humans and why you cannot treat for something you cannot find. Cases of DP are often filled with emotion and it is easy to get caught up in this. As service professionals, we are trained to help people. We are trained to solve problems. It is very important to remember that not every customer’s problem can be solved by us at a service visit. Not every problem is a pest issue and not every problem is solved with a spray.

We have a duty to help people. Sometimes that duty is to not treat, but to inspect and educate. Remember, often these customers get called names. They get called crazy. This could not be further from the truth. We need to remove that from our vocabulary when these situations arise. While this may be a clinical condition, it is no less a real situation that our customer is experiencing. They should be handled with respect, dignity and provided the highest level of care and respect as any of your other clients.

The author is senior technical services manager at Rollins in Atlanta.

Remote monitoring, artificial intelligence and more computing power than all the Apollo space missions combined are what we work with today. We are experiencing a renaissance in the world of pest management.

But it is all pointless.

I need you to hear me loud and clear. None of the data you collect means a thing. Your clients do not care how fast you can perform a service, how quickly you are aware that a pest entered a device or how much your multi-catch trap looks like a conversion van. It just doesn’t matter to them.

Right now, you are pausing to flip to the cover of this magazine or checking the web address to see if you have the right publication. Then, after you confirmed that you are reading Pest Control Technology magazine, you are wondering how this guy was ever allowed to publish an article in the 21st century. But hopefully you give me one chance to explain myself. Here it is…

No amount of pest management technology matters if you cannot manage pests.

The only reason you have a job is because you serve the people in your community by managing their pests. The reason that accounting has anything to take account of, the reason IT has any information to manage, the reason HR has any interviews to perform is because you serve people who have real pests that need to be managed. If we do not serve people by managing pests, then the folks in the pest control industry will need to find something else to do in order to earn a living.

By now, you really do think I’m a bit backwards, and you would be partially correct, but not because I am opposed to technology. In fact, I cut my pest management teeth in the early 2000s, during the pioneer days of data collection systems. Additionally, my team is entering its third year since piloting remote-monitoring programs. So, I’ll say it. I love technology — geo-spatial trend maps, state-of-the-art information and even multi-catch traps with a wi-fi antenna.

However, there is only one thing, or rather one person, that makes all this technology work — you!

A human being who cares about managing pests is the essential ingredient that makes technology useful. Without you and your expertise guiding the data, pests will not be managed.

Here are three human skills that prove you are essential to make the data useful:

The data does not understand when a sanitation emergency, lack of structural integrity, employee habits or any combination of problems are causing pest pressure. That is why an old-fashioned inspection with a flashlight, inspection mirror and spatula are still necessary to dig deep and discover pest-conducive conditions. This work is performed by you with some low-tech equipment.

The numbers don’t lie, but those who interpret them (your client) may be badly mistaken. This can easily happen since your client is probably buried beneath vast amounts of data. It is your job to interpret that data, otherwise, your client will think that the data is worthless or, worse yet, misinterpret it.

Your human experience and pest control expertise will help you to do just that. For instance, you can discover when intangible concerns are impacting the recorded results. In the Midwest, we know to expect elevated Asian lady beetle counts when crops are harvested. Perhaps in a facility that you serve you observe higher counts whenever maintenance performs repairs because they tend to prop doors open. Here, too, we find the low-tech solution — your interpretation. You are the one who discerns what specific findings imply as well as what they do not imply. The data cannot make those distinctions.

3. Influence. You may respond to catcalls of “Bug Gal,” “Rat Man” or “The Exterminator.” Whether those are titles you enjoy or not, you are still the most significant pest control influencer at that facility. Now, to leverage that influence, your service needs to conclude with a candid conversation between you and your client. Sit down, look your client in the eyes and recap the findings you recorded on the service report so that your client fully understands what is happening at the facility. Tell your client what you recommend in order to resolve standing issues. Remember, you are the expert. You can have fun with the “pet” names, but at least one time each service you need to have a moment to put that all aside and do your best to leverage your influence. Here’s a little quip that has helped technicians through the years: “If you don’t take yourself seriously, no one else will.”

We know that artificial intelligence will continue to grow, and we will continue to be amazed at what we can learn from the data. In fact, in 20 years, the data may be able to provide us with insights that currently only we can provide. But that isn’t today. Today, we continue to work hard to show our clients not just piles of numbers, charts and full-color maps. Today, we use our influence to communicate to our clients why following our lead is important and how to put best pest management practices in place. The technology serves us by helping us paint that picture much more vividly.

So, go ahead, look at the night sky the way they did on July 20, 1969. But instead of wondering if you can see Neal or Buzz, ask yourself, “Is that a star or our satellite telling the server another mouse just entered bait station number four?” Either way, be proud of our technological achievements while knowing that you are still the most important advancement in pest management history.

Alex Blahnik is an associate certified entomologist and the field training manager for Wil-Kil Pest Control. Wil-Kil is part of the Copesan network of local service providers.

Copesan is an alliance of pest management companies with locations throughout North America. To learn more, visit www.copesan.com.