Watch out for that larval stage!

This is sort of related, even if the thread is old.

I was trying to visit Terminix for Pycnoscelus research and came across this:

The first one appears to be a silkworm female, and the second one is definitely a moth fly.

I will no longer visit them for researching.

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So much for "90 yrs of experience" and "expertly trained technicians"....

:lol:

 
You can never trust pest control websites to give you credible information, their businesses thrive off of your average entomophobes! :lol:  They often post images of completely harmless non-pest species and label them as pest species that look somewhat similar. A moth is a moth to the average Joe.

 
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It is reasonable to assume that pest control people distort information slightly to improve business...

But seeing a large, famous company fail to tell the difference between a clothesmoth and an adult Bombyx mori is just terrifying, especially if they truly can tell the difference and are just posting random pictures out of self-interest/laziness. Imagine the possibilities.

Soon, they'll try to brainwash us into being afraid of poor madagascar hissers! 

 
And despite my poor-planning induced doublepost, I am serious about such threats, despite all the jokes. We might not find ourselves swamped with anti-hisser propaganda in real life, but they might try to convince us that some introduced but mostly harmless species will "threaten ecosystems and livelihoods".

I will now dream of six-armed exterminators eating roaches from the inside out.

 
Guest AlexW said:
It is reasonable to assume that pest control people distort information slightly to improve business...

But seeing a large, famous company fail to tell the difference between a clothesmoth and an adult Bombyx mori is just terrifying, especially if they truly can tell the difference and are just posting random pictures out of self-interest/laziness. Imagine the possibilities.

Soon, they'll try to brainwash us into being afraid of poor madagascar hissers! 
Click to expand...
Orkin actually has a page specifically for Madagascan hissers in their "Pest Library". :lol: Doesn't say anywhere that they are actually pests though, and some the information they provide is actually pretty accurate. Of course, some of the information is pretty inaccurate as well, like when they say that nymphs molt 6 times before becoming adults, they definitely go through more molts than that to reach maturity!

 
Unfortunately this is most of the guys in the business. They would not know the differance between a oriental cockroach and a ground beetle if their job depended on it.....because it doesn’t. No matter what words they use, pest control uses cookie cutter approaches. There are only a few molds, roach baiting, crack and crevice, spot treatment sprays....yeah that’s it. One sprayer in his truck with what ever concentrate his boss could find on sale. He is not mixing up something special for your individual  problem. This is an entry level job. You take a certification test and they hand you a sprayer, some glue boards, roach, ant and mice bait and an aerosol can or two.  Now some of us are unique. I have 5 years of college biology degree education (yeah I’m 18 hours short if non related courses) and I use that along with my personal research to help people reduce and maybe eradicate true pest problems. If you are seeing woodroaches, I don’t care. Turn off the porch light. Never seen a female parcoblatta in a house. Asian lady beetles or brown stink bug? Leave them alone they just want to rest in the corner until spring. Carpet beetles on your boxspring? Vacuum up the cat hair. Other pet peeves, “we have a wasp in a newborn room window come spray room and ceiling in the NICU immediately. What!?!  They were quite mad when I came in with my IPM-HED. Integrated Pest Management Hymenoptera Erradication Device...or fly swatter. Or perhaps the restaurant that wants you to “bomb” for their “gnat” problem. Then you take pictures of all the food, fruit, trash, refuse, leaking disposals and other filth pushed under the sinks by the help. Tell them it’s a sanitation problem and hand them a bill. Yeah it was a rough week at work lol. You get some wild looks when walker over and pick up a jumping spider and throw it out the door. I carry a pill bottle in my pocket to collect all the innocent “occasional invaders” I find. Really you label a lone spider or pillbug an occasional invader? What in the crap kind of invading is a Rolly Polly going to do at room temp and 40% humidity? For you guys that don’t speak normal talk, woodroach= Parcoblatta, carpet beetle=Dermestids and rolly Polly= Isopods...wasp....I think you got it....hahaha. (Sorry I got tired of the common name/scientific name trolls on arachnoboards)

 
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Yes, @Matttoadman , I know. Same problem occurs with actual "pests" as well. I hate being chased by nonnative Aedes, but I respect them greatly (after all, they are not deliberately malicious) and enormously prefer removing stinky breeding puddles to actually attacking them. And don't worry about the scientific names; even though I prefer them, roachforum is a very non-hostile place.

Fooling him with a Parcoblatta is not a big deal, considering the state of affairs. It did get me thinking, though. I am now executing my plan to punch holes in all the major "dumb extermination companies" and drink their liquefied innards.

Guest AlexW said:
Soon, they'll try to brainwash us into being afraid of poor madagascar hissers! 
Click to expand...
https://sp-uns.blogspot.com/2017/11/exterminators-for-breakfast.html

Unfortunately, it turns out that my joke was a prophecy.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

 
Haha. Green widows nice. One of the problem is these chat guys are call center folks. No offense to anyone but I bet they are from India. I don’t gamble but I’d put money on this lol.

 
In case anyone hasn't seen it...

https://sp-uns.blogspot.com/2017/12/exterminators-for-breakfast-2.html

I know it's a spider, but the same ideas apply to roaches and other organisms which annoy humans. My old hisser jokes seem to be truer than ever now. The Terminix thing was not truly a hisser extermination campaign; it was just plain ignorance and the worst case scenario would probably be some shocked parent killing a single pet hisser.

But there is plenty of actual propaganda directed against harmless insects, including the hissing roach itself. Ever heard of hisser-eating contests? The implied message is generally not "entomophagy for a sustainable future". It is "EWW nasty cockroaches, let's see if you dare to eat one".

 
I've been neglecting Public (Ex)terminator Humiliation for a while because many of the examples across various companies were all similar-looking and thus not noteworthy, even though some of them were pretty cringe-worthy ("Roaches have wings, but can't fly". This may be true of some spp, but just wait til Panchlora, Gyna, and friends head home... :o ;) )

Of course, even though I'm kind of monopolizing the thread here, I just couldn't resist posting this particular one. If you thought the green widows were bad, take a look. I actually waved several metaphorical red flags in his face, and he continued spouting all sorts of lies obliviously until the very end. Too bad he "defeated" me with a free inspection offer, I could almost have kept on going and going...

Anybody want to vote on what ludicrous things I should do to them next, in order to raise some stakes?

;)

Note: Whoops, forgot to sign in

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To be fair, I have seen homes in India that hissers could live in.  I am curious about those dreaded diseases though, I'd like to know which ones!  Also, think about the mentality of some of their potential customers; my step sister moved into a home that had spiders... exterminator convinced her that because her house was at the bottom of the hill, the rain washed all the spiders downhill and that's why they infest her house, so she decided they had to get a different house.  She also thought her dirty younger (mentally challenged) brother should be avoided because he might have "bacteria".  Her father concluded "My daughter is an idiot".   I assume they get idiots contacting them all the time declaring all kinds of nonsense.  So, how do we have fun with them?  

 
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