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A year in review – 2020 was one giant pest, according to experts at Rambo Total Pest Control:

As we close out a year that will surely be remembered as one giant pest, we thought it would be worth revisiting the year from a pest controller’s perspective. After all, when TP supplies are disrupted and the Tiger King infests all our TVs, you know things are getting strange. And strange is a pest controller’s normal!

When the initial quarantine period started in March and April, the rodent populations in commercial settings across the country reacted in very unusual ways. For generations and generations of rats, they had been frequenting the same dumpsters and working their way into commercial kitchens to find food sources and sustain their populations. When all these restaurants and other commercial businesses shut down, those food sources dried up. This resulted in significant changes in rat behavior across the country and globally as well.

We’ll spare you the gory details of how they treated each other as a result of their food supplies drying up, but it is important to understand that many rat populations actually shifted into the neighborhoods surrounding these commercial settings. A rat will usually travel no more than a couple hundred feet or so between their nest and their food sources, but in the absence of food they were forced to uproot and go exploring. This resulted in many new calls for rodent control in places where they had never previously had any issues. If you noticed new pest behavior this year, this could be another issue to blame on Covid-19.

Then in May we started hearing about “Murder Hornets” in the news. Those of us who are entomologically-minded call them Asian Giant Hornets, or Vespa Mandarinia. Our Washington State Department of Agriculture sprung into action with trapping methods all over the place, and they even trained an “army” of citizens to craft and set their own DIY traps to monitor for these invasive pests. This is a scary insect for several reasons, the worst part of their presence is the threat they pose to our honeybee populations. The work done by WSDA will help to slow the spread of these insects, but in all likelihood they will become a part of our ecosystem in the coming years. One more thing to thank 2020 for!

Overall this year in Pest Control has been a busy one for us. As Essential Service providers, helping to protect public health, we remained operational throughout all the shutdowns. We modified our approach, invested in lots of PPE and training, and continue to put our best efforts toward protecting our clients where they live and work from the dangers and threats of all sorts of pests. We are here for you if you need anything.

Check out our website here:

www.rambopest.com

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Scott Schaefer

Founder/Publisher/Editor. Three-time National Emmy Award winning Writer (“Bill Nye the Science Guy”), Director, Producer, Journalist and more...