Ridesco to the Rescue

When Alec Shelby, president of B&S Pest Management in Clatskanie, Ore., first learned about Ridesco^® WG Insecticide, he was skeptical.

Shelby already had a tried-and-true arsenal of pest control products, but he decided to give Ridesco WG a shot after a particularly tricky cockroach job that kept resulting in callbacks.

His doubts about the product vanished when he saw dead cockroaches already littering the floor of a unit he had treated just moments before.

The newest formulation from BASF, Ridesco WG Insecticide zeroes in on speed and impact. It’s powered by two active ingredients with a quick-release formulation: dinotefuran and alpha-cypermethrin.

Shelby now uses the product almost exclusively for his interior pest control treatments.

Since implementing Ridesco in February, B&S Pest Management, which provides pest control and wildlife management to a 60 percent residential and 40 percent commercial clientele, has received zero callbacks, making it Shelby’s new “ride-or-die” product.

“My biggest selling point was not having to go back and retreat units or schedule additional inspections,” Shelby says. “Instead, I can book a whole other treatment in that same time frame.”

Fewer overall callbacks also have resulted in a better bottom line for B&S. “If you’re having to send technicians back every 14 days to retreat the same unit, you’re talking wear and tear on vehicles and higher fuel costs, chemical costs and labor costs,” Shelby says. “With Ridesco, I can send a technician there, knock pests out with one treatment and not have to go back.”

Overall, Shelby lauds Ridesco’s quick results, especially because B&S Pest Management services many vacation rental units that allow only a short time window for pest control treatments between flips. Plus, he adds that the quick knockdown of insects ensures they don’t become a problem in nearby untreated units.

“I usually have only a small gap to knock that treatment out in about an hour,” Shelby says. “But, with Ridesco, when the new guests come in, they don’t even know that the previous guests reported a problem. People don’t want to wait three weeks for these issues to go away.”

The product’s flexible label allows it to be used for many pests inside and outside the home and, thus far, Shelby has targeted fleas, cockroaches, ants (but not carpenter ants), Asian lady beetles, spiders and pill bugs.

Ridesco is available in a dry formulation with one-use rate for easy handling.

Shelby says he also appreciates that Ridesco can be applied using different pieces of equipment such as a gallon sprayer, fogger or mister and that the water-soluble granular quickly dissolves so technicians can get to work right away.

With the pest control industry consistently innovating to contend with resistance issues and new technologies, Shelby says this product allows him to keep up due to its quick-acting effects.

“We have all sorts of tools in our toolbox, and this is a pretty darn good tool,” Shelby says.