Harpoon Pest Solutions Exterminator Landsdown PA

Hello everybody, it’s the Harpoon Pest Solution Podcast, I’m your host Mike Stewart. Harpoon Pest Solutions, the pest experts in the Philadelphia area, and I’m here with pest expert Quincy Jones today and we have a very relevant, interesting question. Quincy, rats, what are they doing now because of this quarantine? I know they’re probably hungry cause the restaurants are not putting out as much food in the dumpsters, and there’s all kinds of reasons. What are these rats doing to people’s homes now in this quarantine during the COVID-19 pandemic?

You know what, Mike, that’s exactly what’s happening. The fact that you have closure of restaurants and public schools, hotels, tourist attractions, and other public places because they’re closed now you have all these, the rats, and they’re extremely hungry. They don’t have the overflowing trash receptacles that existed in these places. So they’re looking for food sources, and unfortunately, what’s happening in large cities like Philadelphia, New York, New Orleans, and a few other places that have been hit by the COVID-19 pandemic is that the rats have been come displaced. They’re looking for other food sources, and that means people’s homes and people are home. People are home and they’re putting their trash out, they’re creating more trash, and so now we will get a few calls about… We’re getting a lot of calls about rodent activity or increasing rodent activity even from our existing customers.

Well, so what you’re telling me now is because rats are going to want to survive, that’s only natural, their food source has been displaced and their food source now is you were home in Philadelphia and because people are home, even if they were having these problems, they’re around it 24 hours a day and they’re seeing it. So let me ask you, what can you do to help in the midst of all of this when a Philadelphia homeowner sees a rodent or a rat, can you help us? Can you help us protect ourselves and what are the things that you do differently and safely to make sure that it’s not a problem anymore?

Absolutely. So one way to help rat proof your home is to seal any areas like cracks and holes around the foundation, or the utility lines, or pipelines where rodents can get in around your home. And sometimes you see that around plumbing lines, the air conditioning lines that maybe run into the house. If there’s areas where foundation walls that are made of brick, if some of the mortar is missing, it may be a wise to have some brick pointing done or something like that to prevent rodents from entering that way. Indoors, we want to make sure there are few places where they can hide, we keep areas free from clutter and keep food in rodent proof containers, that’s very important. I’ve seen situations where there was just a person was just storing a lot of items, he just had a lot of clutter inside of a house. And when that stuff doesn’t move, the rats and mice, they create homes in that stuff. And so it was important for people to keep their homes clutter-free and keep their food protected, especially pet food, anything that could be laying out, normally out in the open floor and keep that stuff in containers where rodents can’t get in. And those are some of the basic things.

But okay, I made the mistake and now I can see evidence that these vermin are in my home. What can Harpoon Pest Solutions do to get rid of them, exterminate them, and get me back to the point where I can protect myself?

Good question. So what happens at that point if that is the case, you have rodents in your home, it would be good to have a professional come and take care of it. And so at that point we, we’d be looking to implement many things, many control measures to remove whatever’s running around that house....

It’s another episode of the Harpoon Pest Solutions Pest Control Podcast with your host Mike Stewart and the pest expert Quincy Jones at harpoonpestsolutions.com. Now, today’s question is very relevant to today, where this is May of 2020. We’re hopefully on the downside of the coronavirus, COVID-19 pandemic. And one of the biggest concerns of homeowners, really all over the world, but especially in the Philadelphia area where Quincy works, is that pest control is an essential service. It has been the whole time and it will continue to be, and it’s actually being more of an essential service because of the increase of all kinds of pests and vermin that are attacking people’s homes out of survival. And then more importantly, people are home and they’re seeing problems that that maybe they’ve ignored for quite some time.

So when you need pest services, Quincy, how effective and how safe is just doing external pest control? Because I know folks really are nervous about having anyone come in their home for fear of the COVID-19. Can you effectively take care of my home and can you safely take care of my home from the outside or from exterior pest service?

Right. So that is exactly what we’ve been able to do. To my surprise, and I’m kind of a old school pest control guy. I’ve always been … from the very beginning learn how to come inside and attack problems where they are. But what I’ve learned through this crisis is that exterior pest control service is very effective. It’s highly effective. There have been several of our customers who have requested service, even some new customers that have requested service. And because of the current pandemic, we’ve limited the amount of homes that we actually go inside. So we’ll only go inside if there’s an extreme need to go inside. So everything else we’ve been doing from the outside with some fabulous products that we’ve been using. And to my surprise, the results have been outstanding.

So we’ve been getting calls for everything from … a lot of ant calls this time of year, ants, bees, and even rodents. But to be able to effectively and safely use certain products around the exterior of a home, and then for two weeks or so to pass and then to have feedback from customers to tell us their results, it’s been extremely satisfying to know that we can actually give a full service to a customer for most all our house general household pests and see satisfying results. So it’s been working out for us.

Well, it’s sad that it took a pandemic, but now you discovered that you can effectively take care of a person’s home and get results and not have to go inside. But let’s say there’s a situation today that you have to go inside. What precautions do you and your techs take to protect the homeowner’s health and protect your own health if you did have to go inside? Are you going inside even though we’ve proven that it’s effective that you don’t have to in most cases?

Good question. So yes, we are going inside because there are some situations where you just have to go inside and address the problem. And we’ve had some of those issues come up where we just had to go inside. So what we’ve been doing is this. We’ve been making the customer aware of the steps that we’re taking specifically. We’ve been telling them exactly what to expect when our technician arrives. We take the initiative first and foremost to protect ourselves, and that means wearing a N95 mask and making sure that we have our hands covered with gloves and appropriate coverings on our feet. And we’ve also taken steps to make sure that our equipment and our tools are being sanitized between each visit. Those are the steps that we’re taking before we enter inside of a home.

Now,

Hello everyone. This is Mike Stewart on behalf of the Harpoon Pest Solutions Podcast, with experts in the Philadelphia area when it comes to pest control, Quincy Jones and Vernon Brown. And guys, I want to talk about protecting my home against termites in the Philadelphia area. How is termites different in Philadelphia? What do I need to be concerned about as a homeowner and what do you guys do to help me protect my home?

There are a lot of termites in the Philadelphia area, in Philadelphia Metro area and surrounding suburbs. Some areas, a little harder hit than others, all depends on the history of the area. Some areas were formerly wooded areas, some of the neighborhoods, so they have a lot of issues with moisture underneath the foundations of some of the homes. So certain neighborhoods in the city historically have had issues. A lot of row homes, there’ll be termite activity where a lot of the older homes … Philadelphia’s a old city, historic city, so some of the neighborhoods are over a hundred years old. And what you get with that is a lot of termites that can affect multiple homes all at one time.Mike Stewart:

When is the swarming season that I need to be concerned about, and what do I look for when termites swarm?

So swarming season happens right about now. So the middle of March clear through June, July, you’ll have some termite swarms. In fact, I got a call today from a good friend who has swarmers. He found insects with two pair of wings of equal length in his house. He sent me a picture/ he asked me if this was termites or ants. I was able to take a look at it and I was able to tell him it was definitely a termite swarmer. So once the early spring comes and we have those string of days where it’s 60 degrees or greater and all those things kind of come together, barometric pressure and stuff like that, you’ll have those termites will wake up out of the ground and just explode.Well, I know that termites will do their best to come out of the ground and get and find food too, because what they’re doing is they’re literally eating people’s homes. So I assume you guys have inspection protocols, that you go in crawl spaces and look for the tunnels and everything that is involved with termites attacking your home. And obviously, when you go under there now today with cell phones, you can take pictures and let the homeowner see that there is evidence that there is problems. So talk about the inspections that you guys do to find the problems and then the steps you take to start preventing and treating the problems.Absolutely. So what happens is when we get a call, we’ll normally answer that call free of charge, and we’ll go out to do an inspection. If there’s a crawl space, if there’s a basement, no matter what the foundation is, that’s where we’ll start first. And in the case of swarmers, swarmers automatically signal that there’s a mature termite colony close by. So we’ll inspect and we’ll look for other evidence, termite shelter tubes, mud tubes, other areas where the termites may be active. We’ll look for damaged wood. And a lot of times those areas will be located in a basement or crawl space. And once we do find those things, we’ll look to see just how active it is, if it’s currently active. And we’ll do photo documentation. We’ll take pictures, show those things to the homeowner and then provide them with information as to how we could treat it and how we could help them with it.

What kind of treatment programs do you guys utilize at Harpoon?

Three basic kinds. We do the full conventional treatments where we … There’s a lot of concrete and a lot of asphalt here in the city, so in that case we would have to drill and apply a liquid barrier into the ground that way. And then you have your borates,

Hello everyone. This is Mike Stewart for Harpoon Pest Solutions. And today I’m here with Vernon Brown and Quincy Jones, the pest experts in Philadelphia. And we’ve got a question, guys. How bad are bed bugs, and what can you guys do to help folks get rid of them?

Bed bugs in Philadelphia are really bad.

Why?

Because of the joint houses, houses that are connected to one another. Bedbugs have a way of traveling from door to door. And so what we do is we not only do heat treatments, which kills bedbugs very effectively.

We also do other treatments that help prevent bedbugs, such as quarterly inspections and things of that nature. So we’re very, very experienced in killing the bed bugs.

So what kind of problems do bed bugs cause for homeowners in Philadelphia?

It causes a number of problems. For one, those who have allergies suffer very severe bites, discoloration of the skin. They have trouble sleeping because of the stinging and biting that’s happening  while they’re trying to sleep.

Another thing is, bedbugs gets in their clothes, and they unfortunately commute bedbugs to their place of employment, to their children and friend’s homes. Children taking them to school, those types of things. It’s just a real hassle.

Well, I can tell you…no one wants to be sleeping with bugs. So what would you recommend I do as a homeowner to verify that I do have this problem?

Do I need a magnifying glass or can I see them with the naked eye?

 

Tell me what I need to do.

Yeah, they have a tendency to be under the tags of your mattress. If you have tags on your mattress, behind your picture frames that over your bed, or next to your bed. You’d like to check behind those. But the real thing is before you come in the door, especially if you have children, you really want to inspect your children, especially the book bag, and the lower parts of the pants, or skirt for the girls, just to make sure that they didn’t bring none from the school bus, or from school. It really starts right there.

But if you want to inspect them, you don’t need a magnifying glass. Bed bugs are small, but they’re not so minute that you can’t see them with the naked eye. They’re reddish in color, particularly if they have blood in them, maybe they’ve already bitten you, you’ll see them on the edges of the bed. You want to flip the box spring and check the box spring. They do move when you try to touch them, but they’re not hard to inspect as some might think.

Is this a tremendously expensive proposition for a business to get rid of them and get the infestation out of your house?

Is this something that it’s affordable, that most people can take care of?

It has become more affordable because of the quantity of people that have bedbugs. So the key to keeping the costs down for bedbugs is to get them early on. If you see one get on top of it, call us and we’ll come out, do a full inspection. That way you might not qualify for the most expensive treatment. We have cheaper treatments, just as effective, as long as you don’t have heavy bedbug activity. We also break payments up. We have payment plans. We understand that this is a problem. Bedbugs normally scare people to think that it’s costly, but we’ve been able to work with our customers to keep the cost down, because we know it’s an unexpected problem, and people just don’t have the money. Many people in Philadelphia don’t have the money to tackle these hard, crazy pests.

Well, it sounds like you guys know what to do and you’re the experts to take care of it. So thanks for your information and folks, remember Harpoon Pest Solutions. All you got to do is Google that and you can get in touch with Quincy or Vernon and they will take care of that problem.