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And now for today’s topic a welcome to the pest geek podcast. I am Frank Hernandez your pest geek. And we’re going to be discussing Thigmotactic Insects
Thigmotaxis is the act of touching.
Now these insects include roaches, silverfish firebrats, rodents even thrips in your landscape will hide in the bark of trees during the winter to survive. Also these insects will do as in during winter months they will huddle together to stay warm. So these are many defense mechanism that insects use one to protect themselves and where they like to live.
Understanding this behavior is going to help you control insects in a better way than trying to use broadcast methods. For instance if you know that a German Roach is a Thigmotatic pest and it likes to hide in places like cracks and crevices. Now think of your kitchen. You have thousands of cracks and crevices in those cabinets. That’s where they are. And by putting foggers and using aerosols you’re not going to control that problem because they’re hiding and protecting themselves even from those pesticides even if they’re up in the air.
So what you need to do is locate nesting this is why gell bait putting them directly in the areas where they are finding those locations getting a flashlight looking for where the roaches are hiding and putting the product right there in front of their faces is going to be very effective if you understand this also about roaches.
Where do people go to go get boxes to move when they want to move.
They go dumpster diving or they go to the local store. Well what happens is since those insects have those habits cardboard has those little notches which are the corrugate and in between those two layers of paper there’s a corrogate and they love hiding in there so to silverfish so to firebrats and what happens is they go hide in there you come home you pack all your stuff you move and you’re moving roaches.
So by not doing that you’re going to go ahead and prevent a possible roach infestation in your home. Do yourself a favor buy the boxes from a reputable vendor. All right.
So now what silverfish why is this important to understand this about silverfish. Well silverfish have this habit too and they’re these little packets that they’re called Dekko packs which have boric acid in them. And what happens is since the fish loves to go in that little cardboard they go in there and they encounter the boric acid. Well if you’ve got silverfish in your cabinets in your drawers and you’re storing your clothes and you’re finding them in there you put the little silver fish packs you’re going to eliminate a major problem with silver fish in those drawers because they’re gonna find it.
Caulk and Sealing to Prevent Thigmotactic Pests
Also if you understand about caulking and sealing if you call can then you prevent those pests from having to go in there it’s much easier to caulk seal your baseboards one time in your life than to constantly have to apply a pesticide or run those areas because they’re hiding there.
Also a crack crevice spray with a little rod injecting them into those areas where the insects like to hide is going to help you control them without the need to doing a broadcast spray or a baseboard spray. So understanding all this about Thigmotatic insects is going to help you do better pest control as both as a pest control professional and as a homeowner who’s trying to prevent them in their home.
