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 anymore but inside, 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 it has to do with the pest and in other cases, where you’re treating. And another big factor is what gives you peace of mind! For many of our customers – especially the ones with springtails – they feel they can’t treat too much!!
So for pests like springtails, who like to live and nest on a homes siding, once you aren’t seeing them outside you can fall back to the “once a month schedule” for both the granules and spray.
But for inside the home, you should be treating 2-3 times a week if you keep seeing them alive or even dead. Why? Because if you had directly treated all their nests in the first week or two, there would be no new activity and so we wouldn’t be having this discussion. But finding just a few dead every week means there are nests somewhere you haven’t reached. And failure to eliminate these means they’ll keep making public appearances. Now can you 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 XEMPT DUST.
Of course BITHOR will be stopping them from spreading. But ultimately seeing new ones means there are still hidden nests that are most likely content to stay where they are but every now and then migrate out. And so if you want to end the cycle of seeing new ones every few days, you’ll need to keep treating.
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, that’s not important. 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 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. And if it makes you feel better to take a pro-active stance, then keep at it. 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 knocked them out and so there will be little to no chance of any relocating and starting a new nest.
On the other hand, if the ones you’re finding are dead, that means your treatments are doing their job so it could just be more time is needed for the local hidden population to run out and then no more will be seen. But in the end, its your decision to make. Just remember with small pests like SPRINGTAILS and CLOVERMITES, its usually not possible to be treating too often!
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