I started using your springtail products a month ago and it looks like I’m winning the battle. We aren’t seeing any outside on the house siding anymore but inside, we keep finding a few dead every couple of days. How often should I be treating now? I know your article says to retreat if we’re seeing them live but what if they’re dead?
Great question! There is no right or wrong answer here. In some cases when to retreat will have to do with the pest; in other cases it has to do more about where you’re treating. Another big factor is what gives you peace of mind! For many of our customers – especially the ones with springtails – they feel they can never treat too much!!
So lets start with something like treating a tree for tree borers. For this pest, we recommend a surface spray for tree bark and a systemic for soil drenching. And the recommended schedule includes two treatments the first year when addressing an active problem and after that, once a year to keep them all safe and sound.
And for termites? Once every 3-5 years as our TERMITE CONTROL article explains. The long “residual” when treating soil for termites has to do with the actives locking into the dirt and lasting a good long time. Unfortunately, for surface spraying, you’ll never get anything like this residual wise and why for many pests, you need to treat on a more regular basis.
So now lets discuss the recommended schedule for something like ANTS or LARGE ROACHES. Since both of these can be controlled with a “surface spray”, you will be fine treating baseboards and exterior siding every 2-4 weeks with an active problem and after 2 treatments, less frequently will still be effective. This can happen because the foraging pests will pick up some of your treatment and die within 1-2 days. Since they have to come out to find food, they’ll keep exposing themselves to the treatment. This means they’ll keep bringing some back to their nests too which can control all of them (assuming you sprayed thoroughly and used enough of the mixture), and the problem should be gone within 1-2 months. In many cases even faster but a longer time can be needed to insure any egg sacs have hatched. Only then will the “supply” dwindle and effectively run out so no new ones will be seen.
But for small pests like SPRINGTAILS or CLOVER MITES – who live and nest under home siding, roofing and in wall voids where they find both shelter and food – expect a more rigorous and robust treatment schedule. In fact many customers need to treat every week or so just to stay on top of the activity. This happens for a few reasons.
The main reason is that these “latent pests” are living happily out of sight. And they only come out when their numbers get too big. This means if you surface spray and don’t treat the hidden voids where they’re nesting and reproducing, you’ll keep having new ones emerging. And though your recent treatment should kill them as they “come out”, it will take 1-2 days for this to happen. This means its very easy for the migrating population to come out way faster than the affected ones will die. The net effect is that will keep seeing live activity making it seem as though the previous treatment isn’t helping. But it is actually working; its just that it now takes 1-2 days to kill them compared to 1-2 minutes when the spray is wet! So ultimately, if you don’t want to see anything alive or moving around, retreat.
So then the next typically question customers have is “will it ever be possible to totally eliminate them?” For sure! But this will only happen when you are able to directly treat their nests with the FS MP AEROSOL or better yet, our XEMPT DUST.
Of course something like Maxxthor or BITHOR sprayed on surfaces will be stopping them from spreading out. But ultimately seeing new ones on a regular basis means there are still hidden nests that are very content staying hidden and only migrating out when their numbers grow large. And so if you want to end this cycle – of seeing new one emerging all the time – you’ll need to keep treating fast enough to get ahead of the ones emerging.
Now some people get frustrated in that they don’t think they’re helping because they’re not treating any “new” places. Well in most cases, it won’t be needed. Especially if you’re finding dead ones. Remember, seeing dead ones means you have a proper treating in place. And if you are retreating the same areas, the residual strength will build up and reach deeper and deeper so that ultimately any well hidden nests can be controlled. But this process takes time and patience and staying the course.
So in summary, retreating as you want is fine assuming you’re finding some either alive or dead. True, some of our customers are “okay” waiting a bit when finding them dead but most prefer to retreat again so they’re not seeing any. Ultimately re-treating is probably the safest path to follow because if you aren’t seeing any? That means you’ve either knocked out the ones migrating from hidden nests OR, better yet, got them at their nest sites.
On the other hand, if the ones you’re finding are dead just keep coming longer than a month, it could be that dealing with these hidden spaces like ELECTRIC OUTLETS, under HOUSE SIDING or in WALL VOIDS maybe the way to go. Oh, and also UNDER CEMENT.
In the end, its your decision to make. Just remember that with these small pests like SPRINGTAILS and CLOVERMITES, its usually not possible to “solve” the problem relying on the surface spray treatments alone!
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