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SPP can feed on more than just the food in your customers’ pantries. The hardest problems to solve are when a pantry pest infests carcasses of dead animals like rats, mice or birds that are dead in inaccessible areas.
Another difficult scenario is when SPP are in a wall void where mice have cached their food. We need to consider things like this before jumping the gun and doing a treatment.
You can eliminate most SPP infestations by locating and removing the infested product(s), vacuuming cracks and crevices, using pheromone traps and/or spot treating infested areas. Here are three more tips:
• Ask your customer about any recent or previous rodent or bird infestations, or about the use of rodenticides. Include these in your inspection.
• Protect your pheromone glue traps in high-traffic areas by placing pheromones on glue boards in multiple-catch devices.
• Once the insect is identified, have a protocol for temporary containment of stored food (plastic sheathing or plastic tubs, for example), so you can determine the level of infestation and pinpoint the source.
