For almost a decade, Livingston County, Michigan has been trying to put a freeway interchange off of I-96 between the cities of Howell and Brighton. The area has an existing off ramp, but it only goes one way and was not built to handle the modern levels of traffic the area experiences. After years of planning and discussion, the county had finally gotten the project off the ground, started purchasing land and drawing up blueprints when a new and unexpected obstacle cropped up: the presence of the endangered Indiana bat in some dead ash trees on the property slated to be developed. 

Indiana bats are tiny brown bat that are on the federal endangered species list. They are migratory, spending the winter in the cast caves of Indiana but coming up to Michigan during the spring and summer to breed in our forests. The presence of a colony of these bats in the dead ash trees on the project site means that the schematics for the whole project will most likely have to be altered in such a way that the project does not disrupt the habitat of the bats during their breeding season.

The Indiana bat populations are especially delicate because they have already been ravaged by the deadly disease known as White nose syndrome (WNS). White-nose syndrome takes its name from the white fungus that appears on the noses or wings of infected bats. Once a bat contracts WNS, it is almost always fatal. All common species of hibernating bats in Michigan are susceptible to the fungus, but especially those that hibernate in damp, humid areas, such as the Indiana bat.

Livingston County officials still have some time before construction begins and are looking at ways to work around the bat problem, or perhaps relocate the bats.

Click here to read more about WNS.
Click here for more information on bats and Creature Control's bat exclusion process.

The litigious nature of Americans is legendary. We will sue each other over almost anything. A cup of coffee that is too hot. A neighbor's tree branch hanging over our property line. A sleeping student once sued his teacher for waking him up during class. The most recent case of bizarre lawsuits comes from the Charlotte, N.C., which reports that the airline Air Tran is being sued for over $100,000 because some passengers saw cock roaches on the plane.

According to the report, a North Carolina couple was sickened after they witnessed cock roaches crawling in and out of the air vents and storage areas. The couple notified the flight attendants, but the attendants apparently did not think the problem was very pressing and did nothing to relieve the couple's anxiety; eventually, the continued sight of the roaches made the woman nauseous. The couple are now suing Air Trans for $100,000, plus the cost of their tickets, claiming mental and emotional distress.

I don't know what immediate steps the couple expected the flight attendant to do; cock roaches are not the type of insect you can just come in and spray some pesticide on and get rid of them permanently. Any roach treatment needs to be wholistic, taking into account where the roaches came from, the center of the infestation, and potential food and water sources. It's not as easy as just smashing a spider.

Roaches can come into a home (or a plane) in a variety of ways, but once they are spotted in the home, environmental factors become a key determinant in whether the roaches will thrive or not. In a majority of the roach cases we deal with, cock roaches in the house indicate a problem with moisture (this is usually the case when there are cock roaches under the sink or roaches in the laundry room).

If you have roaches, the first thing is to schedule a cock roach inspection with a professional pest control company that has experience dealing with roaches. Each approach to roaches needs to be customized for every situation, much like bed bugs. Once it is determined where the roaches are congregating and how serious the infestation is, a variety of cock roach extermination reatments may be proposed, some more involved than others.

Call Creature Control at 1-800-441-1519 to speak to one of our professionals about roaches.

Click here to read the original story about the roaches on the plane  from WCNC news out of Charlotte.

A home is brought up to 122 degrees with the use of portable (and costly) heating devices

With the continued spread of the bed bug epidemic, many exterminators and pest control comapnies are trying to hop on the bed big bandwagon and offer bed big control services to their customers. Unfortunately, bed bug control is a highly specialized field; proper, effective control of bed bugs requires patience, experience and customized treatments for each individual. Too many people are out there trying to offer quick fixes that, unfortunately, leave the customer disappointed.

Case in point: Residents at a Nahant, MA. apartment complex have repeatedly complained about an ongoing bed bug problem that some say has lasted the better part of a decade. Apparently shopping based on price alone, the apartments brought in a local exterminator who used what was touted as a "bed bug sniffing dog" to find bed bug infestations. Bed bugs were treated with "heat treatments," which essentially means they jack up the temperature in every affected unit to over 122 degrees. These methods proved ineffective, however. The apartment still has bed bugs and residents are extremely upset at the management's apparent inability to solve a longstanding problem (see here for original story).

Not that there have not been any successes with heat treatments; heat remediation has had its proponents, but the method remains controversial. One scholarly study done in 2009 found that bed bugs are often able to resist gradual heat stress, and can also resist "freezing" treatments as well.  The study also found that for heat treatments to reach an acceptable level of effectiveness in killing bed bugs, the heat needs to be hotter than is common in most commercial treatments (in the 135 range, whereas many companies are only going to 122).

Creature Control does not utilize this controversial method. We use a combination of specialized, point-specific chemical treatments and environmental modifications to eradicate bed bugs. We have a specially trained and certified bed bug specialist on staff with years of experience in residential and commercial bed bug treatment who handles all our bed bug calls.

Call Creature Control at 1-800-441-1519 for all your bed bug problems, and let us provide the solutions!

Beginning last month, Ohio is dropping 762,000 of these raccoon rabies vaccines over fourteen counties by air.
 

The Ohio Departments of Health and Natural Resources have become so concerned about the potential exposure of residents to rabid animals that they have begun a massive campaign to distribute rabies vaccines by air, according to an article by the Associated Press. Fourteen counties in northeast Ohio are the subject of the massive vaccination drop, which is aimed at reducing the state's rabid raccoon population. The state has had three confirmed rabid animals in 2011, following upon six confirmed cases in 2010.

The vaccines are contained in a fishmeal that attracts raccoons. Eacg piece of fishmeal is about the size of a packet of ketchup. Beginning last month, the state is in the process of distributing 762,000 pieces of the vaccine over the effected counties, almost all of it dropped from airplane over areas of high raccoon density. It is yet to be seen whether this unprecedented air drop will be successful or not.

Michigan has not yet had any confirmed cases of rabid raccoons in 2011, but that doesn't mean we are lacking in other rabid animals. As of September, Michigan's 2011 tally of confirmed rabid animals includes 45 bats, 2 skunks, 1 fox, 1 woodchuck,  and 1 dog.  Most of the rabid animals found are clustered in southeast Michigan, near our larger urban centers. Livingston County has the numerical highest number of confirmed rabid animals (4 bats and the state's only rabid fox), while Oakland County boats the greatest variety of rabid animals, including skunks, bats and a woodchuck.

While only a test can positively identify rabies, rabid animals usually stand out by their odd behavior. For example, a rabid skunk or raccoon will generally lose their fear of humans and may seem quite "tame", willing to come near human habitations or even draw close to people directly. They are usually slow and lethargic; some people describe them as looking "drunk" (although this may also be a sign of animal distemper). They may be out at irregular times (nocturnal animals showing up during the day - we got a call recently from a woman who had a raccoon simply sitting out her back deck in broad daylight, which was very unusual). During the latter stages of rabies, they will become unusually aggressive. Under no circumstances should you go near an animal you suspect of being rabid - rabies is transmitted by bites and has a very high percentage of fatality.

If you think you are dealing with a rabid animal, call Creature Control immediately. We have the experience and training needed to effectively trap rabid animals: raccon removal, bat removal and skunk removal are what we do best, and if it is a possible case of rabies, it is that much more important that you leave it to the professionals.

Click here for an article on rabies in Washtenaw and Livingston Counties.

Click here to see a map of all confirmed rabid animals caught in Michigan in 2011.

What's the biggest thing you have ever struck and killed with your vehicle? A deer? A very large dog? How about a black bear? Most of us have never had the experience of hitting a black bear with our car and hopefully never will. Yet this is exactly what happened on October 23rd to Craig Feenstra, who was driving a truck on I-96 in Michigan near Grand Rapids when he struck and killed a black bear that had been wandering around on the freeway. "I was coming this way, doing highway speed and all the sudden something black ran from my left to my right and I hit it with my front passenger side", Feenstra said.

The black bear was estimated to be 2 years old and weighed only 150 pounds; not too big for a black bear but large enough to cause concern. Even after it died it was still causing problems: gawkers caused two more accidents on the highway.

Why was this bear in Grand Rapids? In general, bears native to northern Michigan have been gradually making their way south over the past several years, though this is the first time to our knowledge that one has been sited this far down.

Creature Control has handled all sorts of animal control problems in the Grand Rapids area: raccoons in attics, bat infestations, skunk removal. If this trend continues, perhaps we will have to start getting certified in bear trapping and removal!

For more information on animal removal in Grand Rapids, visit our Grand Rapids page here.

Here at Creature Control we deal with a lot of bats. Recently we performed a bat exclusion for a house that was home to over 100 bats. In our business, this is considered a very serious infestation. There have been a few jobs we have done in barns where as many as 500 bats have been evicted. On this blog we recently featured a story about an abandoned home in Georgia that was home to a colony of 20,000 bats.

This makes one wonder how big a bat colony can actually get? I mean, in a worst case scenario, how many bats could take up residence in a home, barn or other urban structure?

There only real limit to how big a bat colony can get is the limitations imposed by the size of the structure they are inhabiting. Typically, residential attics cannot hold more than one or two hundred bats; with barns, this can sometimes get into the thousands. Basically, a bat colony will grow and grow until the size of the structure limits further growth. At that time the colony might break up and form another colony somewhere else.

This means that, given a large enough structure, there is no reason, theoretically, that a single colony couldn't have hundreds of thousands or even millions of bats. The largest bat colony in the world is Bracken Cave in Austin, Texas, which has a colony of around 40 million bats that has been breeding and feeding here for some 10,000 years. The colony is so massive that it consumes 500,000 pounds of insects every single night - that's 48,750 tons of insects eaten each year by this colony alone!

But the Bracken colony is in a massive, ancient cave complex. What about urban bats, those that inhabit man-made structures? Ironically, the largest urban bat colony in the world is also found in Austin, Texas, at the Congress Avenue Bridge. Here, along the scenic bridge overlooking the Colorado River, tourists gather every evening to watch the 1.5 million bats emerge and feed. The bats came here in 1980, after a reconstruction of the bridge created gaps between the concrete component structures that provided ample roosting space for Mexican free tailed bats. Before long, the bats had taken up residence under the bridge. The bats initially caused panic and alarm among Austin residents, who petitioned to have the colony eradicated. But before long, the residents learned the benefits of the colony (20,000 pounds of insects eaten every night ). The Congress Avenue bridge bat colony now generates $10 million in revenue yearly from tourists who come to Austin just to see the bats.

"Help," a frantic woman told me one day recently on the phone, "my house is overrun by cockroaches!"

"Cockroaches?" I said. "That sound serious. Can you describe what you are seeing?"

"They are all over the walls of my house, especially around the windows!" she said. This gave me pause, because typically cockroaches do not hang out on walls, and certainly not around windows. They are nocturnal insects that prefer the darkness.

"What do they look like?" I asked.

"They are little black beetles with red lines on their backs!" As soon as she said that, I knew that the problem was certainly not roaches, but in fact box elder bugs. The woman was mildly relieved; she still wasn't happy about the swarms of bugs all over her home, but she was consoled to know that they were not cockroaches - and that the treatment for them was relatively simple.

Box elder bugs are a type of beetle that typically swarm in the fall. October is the peak month for box elder swarming. During swarming times, large numbers of box elders will cluster together on the sunny side of buildings. These clusters can be quite large - sometimes in the thousands. The swarms are actually large group mating sessions; after the swarming has ended, the box elders will typically look for a warm habitat to migrate to. Usually, this will be your house, since they can sense the heat coming from within your home in the fall.

The box elders come in through loose windows and under doors. They can come on suddenly and in great numbers, leaving the homeowner feeling overwhelmed. You ought not to worry; box elders are not dangerous, and once in the home, they do not reproduce. Their mating has already been completed outside and they only come inside after these mating sessions are over. Usually, they just sit around on your walls and windows, trying to soak up heat. Thus, box elders do not pose the same population control problems as other interior breeding insects, such as cock roaches and ants. In making a pesticide application, it is sufficient to wipe out the existing population.

Typically, box elders can be treated in a single visit with an interior spot-treatment and a perimeter treatment of the exterior. So, there is no need to be alarmed if the black beetles witht he red markings get in the home this fall! Give Creature Control a call at 1-800-441-1519 and we'd be happy to talk to you about box elder treatments (we also have some of the most competitive pricing in the state of Michigan!)

Visit our box elder page on our website for more information!

If you are going to the greater Chicago area anytime soon, there is a great likelihood that you might have a run in with a skunk. According to Illinois Department of Natural Resources, the state's skunk population is out of control. From 2009 to 2010, Illinois' skunk population has increased by 46% (this number is arrived at by making estimates based on the number of skunk roadkill). It's too soon to tell the rate of increase for 2010-2011, but it will most likely be even higher. One local animal control company says that they have trapped 687 skunks this year already, 200 more than the total for 2010. The Illinois Department of Natural Resources says that 8,700 skunks have been trapped by wildlife control companies in 2011.

Why are there so many skunks in Illinois?

Two reasons are put forward. First, the skunk has no natural predators, other than the state's motorists. Therefore, left to themselves, there is no natural competitor that feeds on skunks and keeps their populations in check.

Combine this with reason number two: Midwest skunks are especially prone to rabies, which traditionally has kept their population at manageable levels. But Illinois has not had a major rabies outbreak. in about 25 years, which has given ample time for the state's skunk population to reach critical levels.

In rural areas, it is common to shoot nuisance skunks. In the city, live trapping of skunks is the way to go. Please, don't try to live trap a skunk yourself unless you are prepared to release it. We get a lot of calls from folks who successfully trap skunks, but then are too fearful of handling the cage in order to release them that we have to come do it for them!

Check out our skunk page for more information on skunk trapping, skunk removal and everything to do with the skunk!

You can get more info on the greater Chicago area's skunk problem at this link.

Carpenter ants, commonly known as "big black ants," are a common pest in many Michigan homes. They forage into homes from the outside and chew out wood that might be rotten or wet. The wood is removed to create a complex series of tunnels that will become their colony. Once inside the home, they forage for crumbs and other food sources and drink from leaky or sweating pipes. Sometimes colonies can remain in place for three years before they fully mature (i.e., before you realize there is a big problem). How many carpenter ants can live in a mature colony? Sometimes up to 10,000. At that point, the ants will start to thrust out the excess population in order to start a new colony - that's when you start seeing them all over the home.

Unfortunately, by the time you start seeing them all over, it can often mean that the colony is already quite large. That is why it is very important to call a pest control professional at the first sign of carpenter ants. The ants always forage in from the outside before they set up a colony inside, so whether or not you see a colony, the presence of a carpenter ant in the home means at the very least that the home is being scouted.

Here is a story I saw today on a home repair forum from an individual who knew his mother had a carpenter ant problem but didn't take any action on it until it got out of hand. This person posts:

"My parents have a two-story house in Michigan. They have had a carpenter ant problem in-between the first and second floor. A couple weeks ago a plumber was in the second floor bath to replace a leaking toilet seal. When the toilet was removed, a very large mass of ants fell out from under the toilet. Evidently, they had crawled up through the rotted area around the toilet drainpipe. A lethal dose of RAID was administered. The problem – carpenter ants continue to appear on the first floor. Any suggestions on how to extract all the ants without a full house fumigation or removing the first floor ceiling drywall? A small section of drywall on the first floor below the leaking toilet was removed (water damaged), but there are no signs of ants here."

Had a pest control company, like Creature Control, been called as soon as the first sign of ants was detected, this unfortunate scenario could have been avoided. RAID might have worked for killing the immediate mass of ants that fell out of the toilet, but to destroy the rest of the colony, typically a pest control company that specializes in carpenter ant extermination needs to come in, do a thorough inspection and develop a customized treatment. This may not necessitate removing drywall, but it may involve drilling small holes strategically in the drywall to administer targeted pesticide applications to knock out the ant colony.

Please note, you cannot "fumigate" the house for carpeneter ants; carpenter ant treatments need to be very targeted and focused on treating the specific colony.

If you see "big black ants" in the home, you ought to call a pest control professional right away and at least get an inspection. A treatment for a carpenter ant invasion in the initial stages is not expensive or involved, but treating and removing a full-blown colony in the advanced stages of maturity is a bit more so. When it comes to carpenter ants, it pays to be proactive!

Call Creature Control's carpenter ant experts at 1-800-441-1519 for a free phone consultation, or click here to read more about carpenter ants.