Cable TV has taken us into the heaving northern Pacific to experience the harrowing life of crab fisherman in search of the Deadliest Catch. We’ve followed the Ice Road Truckers on their perilous journey across the frozen lakes of northern Canada. We’ve cringed and flinched as the Ax Men wield the dangerous tools of their trade in remote forests. TV’s next amazing reality show targets the creepy, crawly world of the dedicated pest exterminator. Yes, it’s finally our turn to shine! Watch this fall when A&E debuts Billy the Exterminator. (Yeah, we’re a little disappointed by the name too. We were hoping for something more macho like Terminator Exterminators.)

Patterned after Dog the Bounty Hunter, the new show will feature fellow pest control expert Billy Bretherton, 37, an 11-year industry veteran. You may have seen Billy on the Discovery Channel’s Dirty Jobs this past year. The new show will follow Billy and as-yet uncast sidekicks as they battle insect invasions and combat out-of-control wildlife to keep America safe and pest-free! If our own experiences at Stern Environmental Group are any indication, the show should be entertaining. Pest control certainly has its share of comic blooper and icky gross moments. Should make for riveting TV. Tune in this fall!

Insects are at their most active during the spring and summer. Warmer winters have contributed to an even bigger bug population than usual, meaning more bugs to bedevil you this summer. You may need the expertise of a pest control company to fight back.

Here’s what to look for when hiring a pest control company:

• Ask to see their license. Find out how their technicians are trained and screened. Ask how long the firm has been in the community. Check with the Better Business Bureau and ask for references from customers. When hiring a pest control company look for an honest firm you can trust. Their staff will be coming into your home, opening drawers and looking under the beds in their search for pests. You don’t want to give just anyone that kind of access to your home, family and possessions.
• Discuss the company’s approach to pest control. Look for a firm that practices Integrated Pest Management which uses an analytical approach to minimize the use of pesticides. Determining entry points and sealing them up so that pests can’t return is as important as killing the pests currently crawling around.
• Find out what is included in the services. Some pest problems can be cleared up with a single application; others require follow-up treatment. In many instances, pest management services — periodic inspections and applications — will best serve your needs.

How do you know when to hire a pest control company? Some pests can present a health threat or property damage risk that demands the immediate attention of a pest control professional. It helps if you can identify the cause of the problem.

If you hear scurrying across the ceiling at night or hear scratching or high pitched cries coming from the attic, chances are squirrels or a raccoon have moved into your attic. Little black pellets on the floor or shelves of your garage or basement are likely to be mouse or rat droppings. The sight of a trail of ants across the kitchen floor, a cockroach scurrying under the stove, a beetle or two on the carpet are all signs of a potential infestation.

Sometimes a problem is first noticed by the effects the insect’s presence. If you wake up with itchy welts on your body, bed bugs could be the culprit. If you discover round holes in the fascia of your house, be on the lookout for carpenter bees. If you find dirt tunnels on the side of your home, it’s time for a termite inspection. The discovery of mounds of sawdust along your foundation could indicate carpenter ants.

If you see signs of a pest problem, contact a pest control professional. He can tell you what your treatment options are and take care of the problem before more damage occurs.

Squirrels are seemingly harmless. They’re cute, fluffy, and playful when gallivanting around one’s front yard, picking up acorns and playing tag with one another. One wouldn’t expect a darker side to them, but if you let your guard down for even just one second, they’ll attack! Not really, but they do love to throw nuts at parked vehicles or unsuspecting hikers. Funnily enough, squirrels can be quite the nuisance to homeowners in many ways, including nut chucking. Just don’t judge a book by it’s cover. You might find out how sinister these pests can be.

Squirrels like to nest in your walls. It’s a harsh reality of life; your walls are not safe from these little buggers. Many a person has woken up to the pitter-patter of a squirrel making its nest from bits of insulation and dry wall. They also can be a threat to your electrical wiring. They have been known to chew right through them, which can leave you with two problems: lights out, and dead carcass. Not fun. Another problem is that squirrels are family pests and love to invite thier kin to stay at the free (your name here) motel. Imagine an orchestra of squirrel feet playing just for you.

There are ways to rid you of your squirrel issue. One popular way is to use strobe lights as a way to off set their sense of comfort in your home. This will cause them to leave on their own, and not leave thier bodies laying around. Another way is to seal up thier doors to get in and out. This will ensure that you won’t have a Best Nestern that is open 24/7. Or gee, you could just have an exterminator come in a nuke them. Whatever you do, do it fast before they start checking in and not checking out.

You know what’s the worst? Going to bed and dreaming sweet dreams of your lovely home, but being woken up at about three A.M. to the unmistakable sound of something getting into your garbage. It’s an awful feeling. You know who the culprit is; the sneeky raccoon. That little fella has been throwing your garbage all over your lawn since you moved in, and quite frankly, you’re fed up with it. Come on, how many times have you been sleeping and you were shaken awake by the sound of what seemed like a rock climbing through your garbage cans? How many mornings have you gone out in your bath robe to pick up mold covered bread and other filthy articles of trash? How many raccoons have you seen smiling at you while you do this back-breaking labor? Well, maybe not that extreme, but it could happen. The point is that enough is enough!

Do you usually keep your garbage cans outside? If there is some way to bring them into a closed area inside, then the raccoons won’t have easy access to it. As well, do you have lids on your trash cans? Make sure they are fastened tightly on, and if you could get a trash can with a locking lid, that would be choice. You probably also have pets that you don’t really want to let out all the time, so you installed a pet door for them. This is a great way for raccoons to get into your house and eat your food, or go into your pantry. If you can’t possibly live without the pet door, get one that you can lock eventually, maybe at night time when the pets are inside.

It’s not hard to get rid of raccoons. You just have to manage your trash and lock up your house. Raccoons are like any other pest; don’t give them any reason to hang around, and they won’t. Do everything to keep them out, and you’ll notice that you are the one smiling, not them.

Whenever anyone thinks of a scary bug, what does he or she usually think of first? Could it be the eight-legged menace that haunts the cracks and crevices of our homes? Some are tiny, some are gigantic, some are beautifully colored, and some are just plain yucky ; Spiders are the target of a lot of fear among the average person, but can you blame them? They could be above your head right now, or even underneath the toilet seat… scary. The point is that they can be anywhere, and the fact that some (not all) are poisonous and deadly is enough to put a tingle in the spine when one is in the box of corn flakes. Calm down. There really is no reason to fret. Spiders are like any other bug; they can be taken care of.

The thing about spiders is that the amount of other bugs you have lying around directly effects how many spiders there are murdering them. This brings up another point–if you actually don’t mind spiders, and you really don’t want to invest any money in their prevention, having them around will greatly reduce your other bug infestation, but this is not a pro-spider blog, so let’s get back to business. Cut off their food supply, and you’ll find that your spider problem will miraculously go away. See? Not hard. Better hurry, I think I see one on your shoulder… Just kidding.

You see it all over the television and hear it all over the radio: how to get rid of your pest problem, just call your local pest professional. Apparently, all over the nation, people have been listening attentively and definitely want something done about it. Each year, more pest control professionals are being commissioned to rid people of their pest problem, which is making exterminators very happy, and bugs very sad.

In accordance with a relatively new study directed by the National Pest Management Association (NPMA), 26% of American households have used the services of an exterminator in the last year. This is six percent higher since 2004 when the first study was taken. Due to this percentage growth, it has added roughly 6.5 million costumers, according to Cindy Mannes, Vice President of NPMA.

Because of this demand for pest professionals, the business will surely grow accordingly. Not only that, but the need for pest professional will thusly be defended and kept around to assure people won’t wake up with uninvited guests.

If you’re in the hotel business, a significant portion of your inventory is tied up in beds. A good night’s sleep is what your guests are paying for. Comfortable beds mean return business. In fact, a few hotels are so well known for the superior quality of their beds — and the extraordinary good night’s sleep they provide — that you can actually buy the bed you sleep in and take it home!

With bed bugs invading America coast-to-coast, the hospitality industry is frantically searching for ways to protect their extensive investment in mattresses and box springs. A few bed bugs carried in on the clothing or luggage of a single guest can spell doom for a hotel or motel. To a bed bug, a hotel bed is a virtual smorgasbord. The menu changes every night! Bed bugs are tiny and prolific. Since not everyone reacts to their bites, you might not even know you have bed bugs in your facility until they start to spread. And spread they will — through wall voids, plumbing and electrical pass throughs, inside ducts, on guests’ and maids’ clothing, on linens trundled down the hall to housekeeping. It only takes one unfortunate night to trigger a disaster. Before you know it you have frightened, irate guests mobbing your front desk, demanding instant check outs and full refunds.

The problem has become so huge that bed bug infestations regularly make the news. If you own a hospitality business, this is negative publicity of the worst kind. Bed bug victims regularly post the names and addresses of infected hotels on high-traffic websites. If your facility becomes infected and the word gets out (and it will, bed bugs are just too gross to be kept secret), you might as well lock your doors and shut down. Even after successful extermination, many guests will refuse to return, so abhorrent are bed bugs to the American public.

Smart hospitality managers are taking pro-active measures to protect their facilities — and their beds. They are purchasing and installing specially designed bed bug-proof mattress and box springs encasements. At Stern Environmental Group we have received numerous inquiries from worried hotel and housekeeping managers about our superior professional-grade mattress encasements. We sell the only encasement product specifically designed by bed bug extermination professionals to solve the bed bug problem.

BugOff from Protect-A-Bed is uniquely designed to be impervious to tiny bed bugs. They can’t crawl through it, bite through it or maneuver through the zipper teeth. If you already have bed bugs in the mattress, they are trapped forever and eventually die. The cover is designed to remain on the mattress for its full lifetime. You never need to remove it. If your facility is bed bug free, BugOff keeps bed bugs from getting into your mattresses, protecting your considerable investment. Should the nasty pests invade your facility in the future, your mattresses and box springs are fully protected and bed bugs will be easier to exterminate because they can’t harbor in the mattresses.

Smart hospitality managers are calling Stern Environmental Group to find out more about our unique bed bug-proof mattress and box springs encasements; just click the post title. To learn more about bed bugs and Stern’s guaranteed professional pest eradication method, visit the Stern Environmental Group website. Protect your bedding investment, protect your guests, install bed bug-proof encasements on all the mattresses and box springs in your facility. You — and your guests — will sleep well tonight when you get “Stern” with your pests.

My daughter called in a panic last night. She just moved to North Carolina and her apartment has been invaded by ants. And we’re not talking about a couple of ants meandering about near the kitchen trashcan. There are trails of them marching out of the wall under the bathroom sink. With gravity defying precision, they climb the kitchen cabinets to swarm over the boxes of food inside.

She has spent hours over the last few days emptying her cupboards and sealing everything in plastic. She has scrubbed down the cabinets, counters and floors with vinegar and detergent (did I mention she’s in her 20s and into natural solutions?). The ants just detour around the freshly scrubbed areas and keep marching along. My daughter is at her wit’s end! She can’t figure out where the ants are coming from or what they could possibly be eating (if they’re carpenter ants, maybe the cupboards!). Time to call in the pros from Dover, I advised her.

Ants are among Earth’s most successful species. They have been around for more than 100 million years, come in an amazing 20,000 different species, and can be found nearly everywhere in the world. Social insects, ants live in colonies sometimes numbering in the millions. As the scouts forage for food, they lay down a pheromone trail for their buddies to follow. The workaholics of the insect world, hundreds and even thousands of ants will follow the scent, marching to the new food source day and night until they’ve carried it all away.

It’s likely that there is a massive ant nest hidden somewhere in or abutting my daughter’s new apartment. There is no way she is going to be able to solve this problem on her own. In order to make and keep her apartment free of ants, the nest will have to be found and destroyed. This is a job for a professional pest control company like Stern Environmental Group.

Unfortunately, we don’t send our pest control experts that far afield, but if you have an ant or pest problem in New York City, Long Island, New Jersey or parts of New York State and Connecticut, you’re in luck. Give Stern Environmental Group a call. We’ll send our crack team of pest control professionals out to your home or business to get rid of the beasties so your life can return to normal. Click the post title to learn more about our complete range of residential and commercial pest control and pest management services. You’ll sleep well tonight when you get “Stern” with your pests.

Connecticut recently passed a bill banning chemical pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and insecticides on elementary and middle school grounds. Expanding a 2005 law that prohibited the use of lawn care chemicals on school grounds, the new law goes into effect in October.

“This law will help protect the health of more than 100,000 Connecticut middle school students,” Governor M. Jodi Rell said. “While pesticides are known to be detrimental to people of all ages, we must take extra precautions to ensure that our young people are protected from potential harm. Today, we take another step toward better protection of our children by reducing unnecessary exposure to harmful chemicals.”

Critics charge that the bill was based on the highly charged emotional rhetoric of a few citizens without regard for scientific fact.

“This bill imposes on the people of Connecticut the wishes of a very vocal and intimidating few,” said Dick Tice, executive director of the Connecticut Grounds Keepers Association. “All discussion on scientific data has been ignored. Rather than banning pesticides, the more workable and better option would have been to institute mandatory IPM (Integrated Pest Management) programs on school grounds.”

No one wants to put your children at risk. At Stern Environmental Group, safeguarding the health of your children, family, customers and employees, even your pets, is of paramount importance. We use the safest, most effective pest control products and techniques on the market. Stern’s state-of-the-art low-toxicity chemicals offer you an environmentally conscious alternative when you need pest control. Stern employs responsible Integrated Pest Management (IPM) techniques to guarantee results and your safety.

No matter which side of the chemical safety argument you favor, if you live in Connecticut, New York or New Jersey, Stern Environmental Group can solve your pest problems without posing any risk to health and safety. Click the post title for answers to the questions most frequently asked by new customers.

Visit our website for complete information on our pest control and pest management services. Call us to discuss your concerns. Unwanted pests can pose a significant health and safety threat to your family. Don’t let a fear of chemicals keep you from protecting your family from nasty pests. Stern Environmental Group can solve your pest problems and protect the safety of your family. You’ll sleep well tonight when you get “Stern” with your pests.