Ktr H Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised
on this program. Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with Skip rictor so Smelly Shrimp.
Just watch him, so many cure a sign sun. Well, good
morning, Good Sunday morning. You're listening to garden Line, and we're here
to talk all kinds of things gardening. But this hour we're going to focus
on all kinds of things creepy crawley. All the pests around your house,
Well, let me let me limit that, not the two legged pests,
not the four legged us. But if it has six or eight legs,
we're gonna talk about it today. How about that. We're gonna welcome Scott
McGrath from McGrath Pest Control. Scott, Welcome to garden Line. So glad
to have you here. Thanks Skip, It's fun. I'm looking forward to
it. We're gonna wear you out by picking your brain. Okay, I
think we already have a call coming in here on that. Uh. You
know. When it comes to insects, people range from I am very comfortable
with insects too. I have someone in my family. Let them go unnamed
in case they're listening to other day. But I mean, if something with
six legs crawled in that door, they would be going out that window.
I mean, you know, absolute intomophobia, right, And I've got the
kids that grew up playing with insects and bugs and things, you know,
tying string to cicadas and flying them around the yard, blowing them up a
little piece of thread. I forgot who I'm talking, dude. This is
a guy armed with a can of AquaNet hairspray, a big lighter. Yeah,
man, after my own heart. My weapon of choice was a magnifying
glass. But you know, compcious is the same thing, you know,
sunshine right right? Oh yeah, there's many ways. It's funny talking about,
you know, people having phobias of different insects. I talk to people
all the time that it's funny. Someone some of them are great with roaches,
and ants are fine, and then spiders just freak them out, yeah,
you know. Or some of them are okay with spiders, but if
they see a roach, oh my gosh, they're, like you said,
they're jumping out the window. So it's funny. You deal with so many
different people in this industry, right, Yeah. I usually get called I
when I had young kids, raised them up. They're all out of the
house now, but I could tell by the pitch of the scream in the
back bedroom about what size the little thing was that they saw. Usually it
was a jumping spider in the window, and I would explain, look,
they're fuzzy, they got a little monkey face, and they're catching flies for
you, and you know, none of that matter. Just just bring the
heel of your shoe, dad, Let's get this over with. Yes,
exactly, yes. I mean I've actually had customers say, okay, I'll
ask him, so, how bad is the is your infestation? Well?
Is he? Um? My daughter screamed four times this morning, so it's
really really bad. Like I understand, Okay, I'm on it all right,
bring in a professional. Speaking of that, what are some of the
common insect issues that are kind of floating to the top of the list during
this hot summer season. Well, you know, Houston is good for for
bucks. You know, we always laugh and say in this industry we have
job security. There's always gonna be bugs here, you know, so every
season's kind of something else kind of pulls up. You know, we can
and we can kind of tell every month what's going to be different. You
know, right right now during the summertime, it's it's hot and we're not
having a whole lot of rain, and so we get the normal. We
get the roaches and the ants and the spiders. The mosquitoes are always always
prevalent. Termites are always going to be there. So just kind of the
general insects that you get. Earwig you see earwigs a lot, silverfish,
springtails, all kinds of little thing just kind of occur around the house and
inside the house. Yeah, that's true, and silverfish can really spoil the
party. We had some family books that were very old. They were stuffed
in a box. I'm on a shelf somewhere. I don't know how the
silverfish found them, but when they found them, they ruined them. Oh,
they do that. And that's usually where we see the nest because silverfish
are attracted to glue and paper products. So a lot of times you'll see
them in boxes or around like I said, books, Um, they'll they'll
nest in addicts a lot, or in garages, comes down the walls and
uh and I mean also too, they'll they'll even get into your clothes and
they'll they'll make little holes in your clothes as well. So that's something that
official will do that. Yeah. No, I've seen silverfish do that as
well. Yeah, so another reason to not like them, yes, and
and so that's why we say, you know, if you've got that,
you know, especially in addicts, get rid of boxes, you know,
get rid of of different things, or storm in in tupeware containers, you
know, plastic containers that'll help you know the minutes that that popular. Well,
I'm always amazed, you know, insects. They're incredible creatures. I
mean, fascinating, the way they've adapted, the way they survived, just
all aspects of entomology as you get into it are just really I think they're
really cool. Stuck, but I'm always getting amazed. You know, we
lived in a house I lived over in Lockhart, Texas from all and we
had a garage. But there's a crack through the foundation garage and I'd set
a bunch of boxes on the floor of that garage and when I came out,
there were termites in the paper of the box that had gone under the
slab come through. I never in a million years thought about if I set
a box in a crack in the foundation. You know, I'm gonna get
termites. Well, so the key with termites is all they need is one
sixty fourth of vintache to get in somewhere. That's it. How big?
One sixty fourth vinach? So huge? No, it's a very very small
area. So for us, it's all about identification when it comes to termites.
You know, we have to be able to see the foundation, we
have to be able to see the tunnel. We have to know, you
know, we can see where they're coming from to figure out how they're getting
in. They're attracting a moisture and fungus. So a garage area like that,
you get a little crack. I mean, it's it's gonna be dark
and probably human in there at some point. And then you put a box
over it, which is made of paper, which is trees, which is
wood. You know they now they don't eat the wood. They eat the
cellulos inside the wood. Okay, and that's what they do. And so
but that's that's a perfect area. And we see so many areas well.
We'll say, okay, you have termites in this area, Well how do
they get there? And then we kind of deduct and move things around and
put our Sherlock Holmes hat on and look, and sure enough there's a small
little crack that's hidden in some far corner of the house or the slab or
the garage or something. You're like, oh, there it is. Well
and this is your business and you know what to look for. So when
you go to a home, you have you know all the insects deepest secrets,
and you're able to hopefully get ahead out of the well the game where
we hope, so we hope. So I will say this, and I
tell all my staff all the time, is I said, you know,
we learned something new every year when it comes to this, and you know,
a new way that they're coming in or how they're getting in or why
they're getting in, and you know, and kind of my new slogan is
we think like a bug. And that's kind of it's it's kind of a
joke, but it's true. Is that you need to figure out you have
to think like a bug. If you were a roach, how would you
get in this little area right here? That's it, you know, get
in tune with your inner exactly. You meditate, We meditate that good inn
insect. We can have some fun for that. Well, that's good.
We're we're talking to Scott mcgraf mcgraf pest Control on all things insects. We're
about to take a little break here. If you will give us a call
seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four, you can ask Scott
a question and Jarrett out in Delago you will be first up when we come
back. Awesome, spot does whatever Spotty can spins a weathering handy size good
just thieds just like flies. Cow Well, good Sunday morning. You're listening
to garden Line and we are here to talk about things that interest you in
this morning at during this eight o'clock hour, we're talking with Scott McGrath and
McGraph Pest Control about all things insects. I think everybody probably has a few
creepy crawleys that they have some questions about, and now would be a good
time to call seven one three two and two fifty eight seventy four. We're
gonna start by going out to del Logo and talking to Jarrett. Hello,
Jarrett, what's up? Good morning, Good morning everyone. I've got something
maybe I will but looked or couldn't see the pants or maybe it's not a
pant at all, but kind an ornamental pepper plant. Um. It's probably
about twelve minutes, just tall or so now, and the lower leaves are
getting me swirthly brown lines on them. It looks like maybe something was in
the leaf or eating it. I don't I don't know it. It's not
like this jump through. I got you, I got you, Jarrett.
I'm just gonna answer thistion right quick. That is it's called a leaf miner,
a serpentine leaf miner, and they attack tomatoes, they attack peppers,
They take a lot of plants, and there's even a type that attacks your
citrus trees. The leaf miner there, it's a little insect that's tunneling between
the top and bottom surfaces of the leaf. It's inside the leaf, so
a surface spray doesn't kill it. But if you will use a product that
contains spinosaid in your garden. You mentioned this is ornamental that especially with you
know, a pepper you're gonna eat, if you'd rather not put a pesticide
in general on spinosa, it soaks into the tissue and it'll kill the insect
inside. And so that would be what I would recommend all right, and
okay, and what place would sell that? Bottom? Almost everywhere, every
mom and pop garden center, we talk about ACE hardware stores, thirty nine
of them all over town sell it. Even feed stores are often going to
have a spinosid based insecticide for you. Okay, thank you very much.
All right, thank you, Jared. I appreciate that. Yes, Scott,
So, I kind of am curious about like when you go out to
a house, someone calls you and says, hey, I got some paths,
but I just kind of want you to come around and do a general
treatment. What what what are you looking for when you're out there, and
kind of what's the approach to that kind of first time. Hey, we're
going to help you out here and get you off to being start. So
first musically, you know, if I come out for a brand new customer,
if they're not sure what they have, then I'm you know, I'm
gonna walk around. I'll probably walk around the perimeter of the house look and
see if I see any kind of ant mounds or a guest, termites or
spiders or cracks and crevices and holes different things that insects come in, you
know, how they can get into the house as far as inside. First
of all, I want to ask them if they have, you know,
if they are they seeing something? Are you seeing evidence in anything? Is
there anything that UM you know that you're worried about. UM. I may
look underneath kitchen cabinets, UM and maybe an addicts. I'm gonna look for
droppings. I'm gonna look for smudges, you know, anything like that,
because usually, especially if you have like a like a roach issue, you're
going to see droppings in cabinets or underneath sinks, sometimes even in um in
pantries. So I'm gonna look for different things like that, and that's going
to kind of give me an idea of what we're what we're looking for.
Ok Now, if I don't really see anything, then I want to suggest,
Okay, this is what we can do for you to help prevent you
from getting insects in the future. And sometimes it could be a treatment.
Sometimes it could just be kind of a a pest prevention thing where we seal
upholes. We don't necessarily have to put insect in secticide out right, that's
good and I know that you know they can come in through the thresholds because
sometimes those little things that are supposed to seal up the threshold up you do
a really good job over time, and they can do that. I know
with gardeners, we're always telling them, hey, don't put the flower beds
up with where the soil is at the wheat poles or where there's multu over
the wheep poles, because that just gives termites an easy way in where you
can't walk by and just visually look for the mud trails. And that's that's
a big thing now, Yeah, especially if we're talking about termites, because
I can Like I said earlier, the key to term identification is visualization,
which means I have to see the tunnel to know you have it. Okay
again, termitesied one sixty fourth minutes to getting somewhere, and they're attracted to
moisture and fungus. So we have to be able to see that foundation to
see any sort of termite activity. Okay, that connection. Yes, And
you know, if we can't, then I don't know if you have termites
or when you're can get termites. And when way I'll know that is all
of a sudden you started getting little holes come out of your chi rock.
Oh boy. Yes, And then and then you think you've got an issue.
Yes, bad, Yes, you mentioned looking for insect droppings. One
the biggest surprises of my life. It was meeting a forensic entomologist at Tech
SAM and he works on all these issues. You know, somebody was found
in the woods and New Jersey or whatever, and they go in and they
look at insect droppings on the body and determine you know, no, this
was actually killed in Arizona really in the spring, and it was hauled in
New Jersey and drop. I mean, it's crazy stuff. Intomological scatology.
Yeah, that's that's a little above my pascale, I know, but it's
so cool, you know, like the caterpillars that folks bear with me.
I realized it's lunch is coming. That hang on with me for a minute.
Caterpillars like their digestive tract and rear and then everything have ridges and stuff,
and it's like those little playto things where you push playto through and it
comes out as a star or a half moon or whatever. And the bologists
can often actually look at the droppings from the insect and tell you exactly what
insect it is. I just find that to be oh yeah, like for
us for us. You know, we can we can tell because a lot
of people will mistake roaches and mice droppings and you know, or is it
an American cockroach? Is it a German cockroach? You know, the droppings
are different that way. Is it a subterranean termite or is it a drywood
termite? The dropping, Yeah, the droppings are different that way too.
So talking about lunch, it's you can always tell if a bunch of pest
control people get together because they don't care. They can be out having fine
lunch and and talking about German roaches. I don't care. I know people
that are into the deal. Well, we're visiting with the entomological, scatology
and expert scottograph this morning about all things pest control. Scott. We got
a call from Bill in spring and we're gonna find out what Bills up to.
Hey Bill, good morning, Welcome to Gardenline. Hey Bill, you're
on, Yeah, yeah, I'm good. Into station. And for the
last couple of weeks, a little small flying bugs they land on the wall
and they're about an eighth of an inch wall and it looked like they're asleep
or something, and you touch them, they'll start flying offs well, seeing
them before they just showed up. I don't know what they are, how
to get rid of them. You know that it could be a couple of
different things. It sounds like to me you could just be ants. I
mean this time of year you get a lot of a lot of flying ants
that will come in, especially kind of during nighttime. They're attracted to light.
Um, you know they could be doing that now. It could also
it could be it could be turn my swarmers. Um, this this time
of year, drywood turn my swarmers or are active. I saw my first
infestation the other day of the year, and um, so it could be
that. It could be it could be nats. It's it's kind of hard
to tell. It could be a couple of different things. I probably suggest
one thing I to a lot of customers is trying to take a picture of
it. You can take a picture of it. You can email it to
me, you could, you know, you could text it to us.
We can kind of let you know what it is. Um, you know,
if it's if it's a fly, or if it's a gnat or something
like that. That's more of a sanitation issue that then we want to dress
on the outside, or there's other issues that we need to dress. If
it's just a little a little flying ant um, like I said, they'll
come into the during the u the nighttime, they'll try to light you know,
turn off outside lights, or we can maybe we can treat the outside
area for you. Hopefully that may help, all right, ant No,
it's more like a little well, it could be a moth then, you
know, it could be it could be a pantry moth. A lot of
people you'll get maybe go look in the pantry and see if you see like
little cocoons, uh like kind of forming on the corners of the pantry,
or see if you've got little little black little bugs um in your pantry.
A lot of times you'll get that. And then they'll they'll molt into into
moths and then and then they'll fly out everywhere. And if and if it
is a moth, then we need to address that pretty quickly because they'll they'll
spur everywhere and it's really really hard to get rid of them. So Bill,
I guess starting with a good close up photo and a good sharp focus
would be probably the best thing. And you can if you want to send
me that picture. If I can't. If I can't identify it, I
can certainly pass it along and have Scott or somebody doing identification. But I
tell you, the closer and the sharper the focus, the better. Otherwise
it's just going to be Yeah, you're right, that's some kind of an
insect. Okay, I could certainly do that, Thank you very much.
All Right, I'm gonna put you on hold and Josh, my producer,
is gonna give you an email. All right. I appreciate that call.
You know that this is a season for a lot of different things, and
of course it always seems like it's a roach season around here, and people
get concerned and we have a lot of different kinds of roaches that that is
one of the things that I think most people are concerned about because they see
them in the house. They feel like, oh my gosh, it's it's
it's disease, filth, it's all that kind of stuff, right. Uh.
Actually, cockroaches are kind of clean. They're grimming themselves all the time.
So I don't know, if you know, i'd want one crawling across
my sandwich. They still no, you don't, you don't, but yeah,
it's kind of funny. You can you can always tell people who just
moved here to Houston, because if they haven't experienced a July, August,
September and Houston, they have no idea about about the big the roaches we
call them bombers or water bugs or something, you know, and they're they're
huge and they fly. Uh. Yes, see, the American cockroach is
always going to be here. Um. Just because you see them inside or
or dead off out somewhere, it doesn't mean it's not a cleanliness thing.
Doesn't mean you're dirty. It just means you live in Houston. And so
then we just got to figure out how they're getting in and eliminate them from
coming in and stop that. So do you do look at things like dusts,
cracks and crevices or sprays or do you use a bait or all the
above? All the above? Yes, there's there's a bunch of different things
that we can use. We basically we'll try and specialize what we do base
on the house itself and what the infestation is. You know, sometimes sometimes
it's as easy as just sealing up these areas to keep them from coming in.
Okay, good, Well, we've got a bunch of calls coming in,
so let's you jump to those. I'm going to start off and go
to let's see, we're gonna go to Carl and Beaumont, and Carl has
a termite question. I believe. Awesome, Carl, we got about one
minute, so let's see if we can get that done. Okay, mine's
more of a readerational. Scot's been talking about about the termites find their own
way, and they're smart little creatures. Years ago had no knowledge of termites.
And the perimeter visualizing the perimeter of the house is so huge, as
you've said, I had a visual on the entire slab except for where a
Fawcett came out of the ground next to the slab of the house, of
course, and you've gotten I don't know, a half inch between in the
slab the pipe in the slab, and he even put some insulation behind that
around around the pipe. And Carl, I hate to interrupt that we've got
about twenty seconds or fifteen seconds here? Do we need to hold you over
pass break? Sure? Go ahead, all right, Sorry about that.
We're about to take a break for the news. We're talking about Scott McGrath,
about all things insects. McGrath Pest Control. If you got insect questions,
give us a call. We'll get you on the line seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four. You're listening to Garden Line and as
always, our music comes as a surprise. We are visiting today with Scott
McGrath about all kinds of things insect related, and we're gonna just jump right
in and go back to Carl Beaumont. Carl, did you have a question
connected to that? I really didn't have a question. Mind was more of
a reiteration of what Scott was talking about about the termites being smart little critters
and going up on this on this house exactly where the only visual visual couldn't
be gotten behind the pipe. Yeah, it always happens that way. Yeah,
it always happens that way. The one area that you overlook because you
never think that some of them will get there, that's where they'll be there.
You go right exactly, Well, Carl, I appreciate that call.
Thank you very much, Carl very much. We're gonna get back. You
know, it's hard to think of termites as a beneficial insect, but when
you think about the eons and eons for us, we would be a mile
deep in tree trunks if it wasn't for the termites and fungi and a few
other things. Let's now go out to Brazoria County and we're gonna talk to
Louise. Hello, Louise, Louis or is it Lewis. It's Lewis.
Good morning, Good morning. Question about mud davers I have, I said,
come home on the coast of county that I'm prepping to sell and just
got through climate. How would you repel mud dabbs? Discourage them? Move
now I'm kidding. Um, yeah, maybe it's spray some pam non stick
sprang stick out there. Yes, yes, Um, you know I always
always heard the old old story that if you paint your the your porch roof
blue, they'll think it's a sky and they won't gone there. That's that's
not true. I'll see them do that. Yeah, okay, but they
mud dog run on the side where the white and the blue come along.
But yeah, the blue actually work. We did it about five years ago.
Hate blue okay, good good, Yeah, it's yeah. It's it's
hard. It's hard to totally get rid of them. I mean, like
any flying insect, they're going to be around. You know. That's why
we can we can do things to you know, we can spray some stuff
or some dust on there. That'll that'll that'll help it, that will discourage
them. Um. But you know again, you know they make their little
mud mud things there in the the corner, and what I use I just
knock them off or wash them off with the hose. Um. And because
they don't stay in there, all they do is they fly around, they
go get their their carcasses and they go and they put them inside the little
the little mud thing and there, so it's hard to fully get rid of
them. Yeah, I just want to always want to drop some bison or
something to you just on a discourage for the next three or four months until
it's a little taller, you know that. Yeah, that could help you.
Spray around there, Spray around your yard area, spray your bushes.
I mean we do that for for WASP all the time too. We can
spray under the bushes and around the bushes and you know, if there's a
nest something, that'll get rid of them. But um, eventually they're going
to come back. Yeah. So you know, I just want to mention
Lewis. Lewis when you're when you're doing spraying, especially up on the eaves
like that, you just want to be careful with any pesticide that doesn't drift
down into your eyes. And a lot of times when they do it yourself
job, we don't quite have the equipment, and so we try to get
a little bit more range out of our little pump up spray or something mend
up standing right underneath it. So right, be a little careful with I
always wear some PPPs. There you go. Good, good point. One
of the quick questions or comment. I think Skip claimed that pillbugs out bugs
are adable. I just want to know your no, No, I did
never. I've never said that. Where there was that once? I didn't
know? Well, they are crustations, So I guess what did we be?
Pillbugs on the half shell or something like? Good show. Thank you
for the help, Thanks a lot, Lewis. I appreciate that insult very
much. Thank you for the call. Glad you're Let's go to Parallel now
and talk to Craig. We've got a lot of calls coming in here.
Hello, Craig, how are you doing this morning? Fine? Start and
thank you gentlemen taking a call. Just got a question about the status of
the crazy answer, because we don't have an infestation. But I remember several
years back there used to be in the news and you know, there were
stories of them overwhelming different parts of the city and actually knocking out power.
But I haven't seen any at all in years. And have they moved on?
Are they still around or whatever happened to crazy about those ants are actually
raspberry or tawny ants, and so they were pretty prevalent for a couple of
years or so, but yeah, they've kind of gone kind of downhill on
that. I haven't I haven't seen an infestation of them in a very long
time. Um. The thing about them, it used to be because there
were so many and they were so populous that you know, you would you
would spray something around uh the ants would would you know, walk across that
they would die, But then the other ants would walk right on top of
the dead ants and not get to the chemical and that that's what was making
them so hard to uh to uh to kill. Um. Yeah, those
tawny ants, I haven't seen those in a number of years. So,
but there's there's all kinds of different crazy ants, NUIs and ants that are
out there um right now. A lot of the rover ants, which a
lot of people see, a little small black ants, which a lot of
people call them the crazy ants. They're pretty prevalent right now. The ghost
ants um. You'll see those a lot around the outside perimeter of your house
or in bathrooms, in the kitchens because they're attracted there, attracted to moisture.
Um. So I'm not sure if you're seeing those or not. No,
No, we don't. Haven't had any issues whatsoever. I was just
I was just wondering whatever happens the state. They actually were in our neighborhood
and they the fire ants out. I mean, there were so many of
them. Oh yeah, you didn't see fire I said, anymore. But
they've just never come back. I've never seen any So I'm gonna status us.
Yeah, I'm just gonna say. McGrath's control got rid of them all
everywhere. There you go. That's why you've gotten to the bottom of it.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Appreciate that.
Call Craig, if you'd like to call and talk insects today with Scott
McGrath seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. All right,
Scott. Well, let's talk a little more about mosquitos. You mentioned them
earlier on what are the options from just a home doot yourself to a professionally
done job on the mosquitoes. So, yeah, mosquitoes are pretty bad here
in Houston. And actually, kind of funny thing is we were just talking
about people. This has kind of been a slow mosquito season, which is
good for I guess for people, but bad bad for us because of the
because of the temperatures and the lack of rain. Anytime you've got a lot
of raincome and the mosquitos are going to hatch. You know they're there,
they could say dormant and until there's a little bit of water. Um.
As far as your house, there's a bunch of different things you can do.
Um. You know, you if you keep your grass mode, if
you keep your bushes trimmed, make sure there's no standing water, make sure
there's no staggnant water anywhere. I mean they can they can lay up to
thousands of eggs in just a little bottle cap somewhere. So you want to
make sure you don't have anything like that land around the house. You know,
Gutters, checker gutters, make sure there's no leaves or anything in there
that they're they're clean. Um, you know, any kind of tires or
anything like that. Um. You know, if you're still getting them.
One thing you can do is high fans like ceiling fans or box fans.
Uh, you can you can turn those on and the mosquitoes won't. They
can't stay when there's a lot of high winds on there, they'll go away,
um, you know. And then there's there's certain plants that you can
buy that some people say that helps, you know, certain um, rosemary
and centronella plants, different things like that, UM, that will help eliminate
them. But then you know, of course with me, I own a
pest control company, So I'm gonna say getting a backpack fogger done you know
every three weeks or so was good. We have mosquito systems that I love.
That helped too. And that's something that's put on the eaves. Yes,
so mosquito system. It's it's been around for a number of years.
It's one of those you know, gets a little nozzles. You put them
on the eaves of the house around the fence line. UM. It goes
off about forty five seconds. That dust get at dawn because that's when the
mosquitoes are most active, and and it kills any kind of flying insects around.
It's also great for june bugs and spiders and flies, anything that's flying
around. Now, the good thing about it too is it doesn't it doesn't
like have a residual. It doesn't stay on the grounds. It dissipates after
so many minutes. So it's safe for kids and dogs and toys. And
we can even be out there. Um. In fact, I laugh and
say, I'm out there with mine. If I forget it's going off,
I'm just gonna cover up my drink and I move out of the way and
I'll be good to go. That's sound like at pirethrun or what's what what
I means. Yeah, it's a promethrin based chemical, Yeah, that we
use persistent. Yeah, And promethean is a very popular active ingredient. It's
in a lot of flea and tick meds and and soon any certain repellents things
like that, you know. And then we also offer of some the pyrethrum
chemicals to the rip ties and the natural stuff. Okay, good, Hey,
you're listening to garden Line. We're talking to Scott mcgraffin and we're gonna
take a break and we'll be right back if you'd like to get on the
boards called Josh seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four A pant
and the need to day come on day and the pants, Well that on
tell you something number one. You're listening to guard line number two. We're
talking bugs entomology today. We've got Scott McGrath with McGrath Pest Control here with
us. Hey, we've talked about different products and things like that, and
I just wanted to mention if you're looking for the one source where you're going
to have the best selection of all kinds of things like herbicides and secticides,
fungicides. If you're an organic gardener you want organic products, you're not going
to find a better selection than Southwest Fertilizer. You know, Bob Patterson and
his team, they know what they're talking about. And if you walk in
there with a picture or a sample, they're going to be able to identify
it. They're gonna be able to tell you what works and what doesn't work.
They're not going to say you something you don't need. They'll sell you
something's effective and tell you how to use it, and that in and of
itself is well worth the price of admission. They have lots of garden tools.
They are sharpen you mower blades and even fix your small engines there in
the shop. It's easy to find Southwest Fertilizer there on the corner of Bissonette
and Runwick, or just go online to Southwest Fertilizer dot com. And trust
me, when you go in there, you will be very impressed and you
will come home with a quality product that is specifically designed for the issue you're
trying to deal with. Well, we're talking to Scott McGrath today and Scott,
i'd like you to tell a little bit about maybe the history of the
company, how you got started, and just kind of give people an overview
of what McGrath Pest Control is today. Sir, so McGrath Pest Control was
started in nineteen seventy four by my dad, Doug. He was a school
teacher out in the Cyprus area did it for a number of years. I
didn't want to get out and do something customer oriented, and you know,
back then it was this was a great customer service thing, and I kind
of allow because I kind of grew up with it, and I remember him
working out an oldsmobile with a hand tank in the trunk and just kind of
group them there, you know, and he kind of still just the old
fashioned customer service, very honest type, you know what I'm gonna do to
take care of the company. And so I've kind of grown up with this
business and I've been doing it full time for about twenty four years. I've
owned the company for fourteen years now. He's he's retired, and they didn't
want to hear the word bug anymore because you're doing it so long. But
but it's been a great just a honest, family, family run business that
we've had, and I'm hoping it'll keep going for another couple of you know,
another couple decades. Oh yeah, I mean you grew up witnessing from
your dad the concepts of hard work and honesty and taking care of the customers
and the value of that, and that is so important today. Nothing turns
me off faster than to go into a store or to you know, hire
a service, and it's just like they could care less that you're there,
give me your money, I'm going to my next job, and instead of
you know, really communicating and respecting the customers, showing up when you're say
you're going to show up, all those kind of things that that in and
of itself is worth a lot. Oh it is. And you know,
and that's when that we try and pride ourselves onto this company is you know,
I tell a lot of my technicians don't sell services. Let's help the
customer. Let's help figure out what the problem is, because maybe there's something
that we can't do or we don't need to do that they can do on
their own as long as it solves a problem. And I want to make
sure that we give good value to you know, to our customers, and
we make them proud to have us, you know, in their house.
That's good. That is good. Hey, we're going to go out to
Cleveland. Robert has a question for us, and so Robert, how can
we help today? Yes, good morning, Scott, thank you for being
there and asking questions. My wife has a sunflower plants and we have a
twofold problem. We have small dogs and we have what appears to be small
snails on the sunflower eating the leaves and the point snails. Well, I'm
going to take that at face value. If you've got snails, you know,
the best thing you can do out in the garden is to get a
bait for them, bait product. You want to get it fresh, and
you want to put out enough of it. You don't want them to get
a little sick and then not eat it anymore. That bait shyness thing can
happen with snails. But there's a number of them. There's a Slugo out
there, I believe. I believe there's an organic one. I can't think
of what it is now, but Slugo has iron phosphate which gives them a
terminal case of constipation, which if you don't like snails, that's a happy
thought. But anyway, and that's usually what we suggest, is you just
get some that slugo stuff. Yeah, that works great, all right,
Robert. Do you know if that's safe for dogs as well? Or I'm
sure it is. Yes, I think it would be, because it's not
like, you know, a chemical pesticide type thing. It's more just an
iron phosphate based bait. There are some other baits out there. I would
put them in some kind of a structure where the dogs can't get to them.
If you're worried about it, but just remember that when you put them
out, you want fresh bait, and you want to get it out there
and have plenty of access for them to eat all that they can. All
right, all righty, thank you so much, you bet, thank you,
Robert. I appreciate that call. Let's go to Lake Jackson now and
we're gonna talk to Danny. I believe Danny's got an entomology question. Yep,
good morning, I do. My question is, uh, is there
you know we have a lawn schedule. Is there a schedule for pest control?
Is it in the spring, maybe before winter? I have a I
have a rental property enrichment and I want to the rent as happy. Yes,
so so yeah. I mean the good thing about Houston is that you
know, we have we have we have slow winters. You know, we
have warm winters pretty much, so you can pretty much our schedules are usually
every three months, every ninety days. That will come out of what tree
to house. UM. Now, if you're not looking to getting on any
kind of set schedule or anything like that, UM, we used to say,
let's just start something in the early spring. If you can get something
done to early spring, tweet the house, treat the yard. That should
last you for the majority of the summer. But if you're looking for some
sort of a schedule, yes, well, use you do every ninety days.
I used suggest getting the yard done probably twice a year, which would
be every other every other quarter. If you get that done, you keep
on a regular basis, and you know and you keep you keep everything kind
of clean and sanitation free. You shouldn't have any issues, at least not
even major issues. Good do you, guys? Service Richmond. We do
every day, all day, every day you'll be hearing from me. I
appreciate that. Thank you so much. Thank you, Denny. I appreciate
that very much. Appreciate that call. By the way, if you want
to get a hold of Scott, you can call two eight one four six
nine eighty two forty or just go to MacGrath pest Control dot com and you
can learn a lot more and get in touch with them. Well, we
got about about a one minute or less, but I'd like you, if
you would to just talk a little bit about the rodent issues, some of
the four legged creatures that we deal with. So here in Houston, the
rodents are everywhere you're you're going to have them. People get disgusted when they
see them in a yard and I say, you don't worry about They're always
here, okay, we just don't want to get them inside the house.
So that that's a big it's a big issue um using the winter months when
it gets colder, because squirrels and rodents have like to come inside. So
we have to be able to seal up around around the area to keep them
from coming in. There's things we can do on the outside to that to
help eliminate and determine, you know, and reduce it. But if we
if we can keep it from coming in, that's the major problem. And
again that's something that we do on a daily basis. We would love to
help someone out with that. You know what to look for when you walk
around the house and you look up in there and you know, yeah,
that's that's where they're coming in. That's one of them. We see it
every day. I bet well, Scott, I so appreciate you coming into
Thank you Great sex. A lot of interest from callers as well. If
you're interested in getting in touch with Scott McGrath Pest Control, go to MacGrath
Pest control dot com or give m a call to eight one four six nine
eighty two forty. We'll be back for our last hour this morning of in
fact, last hour this weekend of garden Line. Remember that if you miss
garden Line, you can listen to us by podcast. You can catch up
with an old show or maybe maybe you heard Scott or I say something and
you like, what was it they said? What product did they talk about?
Well, go back and listen to the past shows and on your podcast,
and that's a great way to do it. I appreciate all the folks
from all over the country really that listen to garden Line by listening live on
the computer as well. It's just great to be able to help folks.
And again, Scott, thank you so much. You were quite welcold,
great time.