Found in garage next to door that leads into the house.

I messed up BIG time 3 weeks ago. A friend reached out asking if I could keep their friend’s cats at my place for a few hours because their apartment isn’t pet friendly & they needed maintenance done.

Unknown to me, their cats had fleas. They tried to deny it, but they 100% did. That same day, we found 2 adult fleas. I obviously cleaned, tried to put it behind me.

This week, I’ve found 2 more adults. Both our pets have horrendous allergies that have been flared up this summer (really bad pollen), but now I’m terrified they have fleas on top of this. I have yet to see one on me or have any bites myself.

Preventatives kill fleas after they bite, but it doesn’t stop them from invading your home. Every “pet safe” spray is made from essential oils, which isn’t pet safe, especially for cats.

My couch is entirely fabric (doesn’t come apart). My armchair as well. My mattress. I thankfully have hardwood floors, but I have two massive area rugs. I have an open concept closet, so my clothes are exposed. I have an unfinished basement and a backyard that stays permanently damp.

I’m screwed. Royally screwed.

I’ve already started putting all my washable linen in garbage bags. My laundry is in my basement though, which I will in no way be attempting to clean or treat.

I’m vacuuming. I’m mopping. I’m spraying everything with warm vinegar.

I don’t have a carpet cleaner or floor steamer. I don’t know how to tackle this.

I have a dog and a cat, multiple rooms, and no effective way to clean every corner of my apartment. Pet beds. Cat tree. Floor to ceiling curtains. Etc.

Hello! I recently moved in with my boyfriend and I temporarily left most of my stuff at my old apartment. While I was staying with my boyfriend, apparently a huge flea infestation started and went out of control. I went back to get my stuff and all of my things and my car are now infested with fleas. I know i need to treat all of my clothing and stuffed animals and what not with heat and pesticide but im not sure what to do about all of the things I have that aren't soft or plush material. Will fleas be inside of my books and art supplies?

I lived alone at a friend's cottage for several months starting in January and have been dealing with respiratory issues ever since. Upon my arrival, I noticed an opening to the subfloor and (what I believed to be) a pile of rodent droppings. Unaware of the health risk, I vacuumed the mess...

Later, I learned this was a big "no-no". I also learned that my friend had spread "rat poison" in an attempt to prevent a rodent infestation. Now, I worry that my respiratory issues are related to vacuuming the droppings and/or pest control products and causing pathogens and/or toxins to become airborne.

I see my doctor tomorrow, but she may not be able to identify everything in the photos and I can only identify mouse droppings. Can you identify any other rodent droppings or pest control products?

Of note, the "rat poison" used may be very old as my friend's family has owned the cottage since the 1970s. I asked my friend on the phone for details about the "rat poison", but she avoided answering my question.

I would really appreciate your help. Thank you in advance!

an exterminator has recently placed poison boxes in the apartment, but i’m supposed to wait two weeks to see results.

i believe i’ve been exposed to salmonella as a result, and i’ve been feeling very reluctant to eat anything from my kitchen. i have disinfected everything in the kitchen a few times, but it didn’t feel like it made a difference and it feels so useless to do so knowing i could wake up the next day and find mouse poop on the counter.

i don’t have anywhere else to go, i cant afford staying in a hotel, and i can’t afford eating out/ordering food for every meal. what should i do to avoid getting sick? am i supposed to disinfect everything before every meal?

Hey all

I had the council in this summer, and they laid poison for a few weeks. We found 2 pretty large dead rats, but no more.

They were nesting underneath, and they had chewed a hole in a rotten board at the bottom of the shed. There were rat droppings in the shed. I don't know if they just go in for a mooch or live in there.

Anyway, there is a new hole and they are definitely back in the shed because it stinks and there are rat droppings. It's only a 10 x 8 shed

I want to replace the rotten boards and rat-proof the shed, but it is full right now, and the weather is awful.

I guess my question is: would it make much difference if I put this project off until next spring?

It will be so much easier to do it then.

I was thinking of maybe arming some traps in and around the shed in the meantime. I dislike the idea of dealing with dead rats because I have a heart issue and I'm a bit nervous of breathing any germs in etc, and not sure where to put them. In the UK the advice used to be to put them in the waste bin, but now we have small "food waste" bins and it feels very wrong to put them in those.

Cheers

Found dead a few feet from my garage door. I have perimeter pest control done every other month, and I haven’t seen any roaches inside my home despite thoroughly checking. I saw one at my job that looked similar, and it was identified as a field roach. I live in Central Texas, where I’ve heard they’re common. Unfortunately, I could only get a picture from the side rather than the back, but I could see the dark, wide stripes. They looked a little different from the stripes on a German cockroach, but I’m not completely sure. Just need to know if I should panic and get my pest control guy out.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been noticing these tiny moths around my house. Today I found about 10 of them on the walls and ceiling near a light on the top floor.
They’re much smaller than pantry moths, with narrow, dark brown wings and a wavy golden stripe down the middle when their wings are folded.
I suspect they might be diamondback moths (Plutella xylostella), but I’m not sure.
All my windows are closed, and I have four houseplants: an aloe vera, asparagus fern, dracaena and fiddle-leaf fig.
I’m located in the Netherlands.
Does anyone recognize these? Could they be breeding indoors, or are they somehow getting in from outside? Should I be worried about an infestation?
Any help would be appreciated!

I smushed it pretty hard but overall it was this roundish shape when alive. I’m terrified of bugs and I’m hoping it was a one time accidental wanderer and not infesting type of bug? Southern California.

Moving from a roach infested apartment. What can I do to make sure the cockroaches don’t come with me other than washing all my clothes?

I’ll try to keep this concise.

Found mouse leavings by the oven, in its insulation, and in multiple bedrooms.

Wood shavings surrounding furniture in the kitchen.

No bite marks in bags, but my friend assumes they’re taking dirty dishes and crumbs as bait instead.

We have a giant hole in the wall under the kitchen sink for the plumbing.

I had a gut feeling for roughly a month due to a potential sighting early one morning as well as what’s listed above, so I had snap traps laid out. Literally less than 24 hours, one caught by the oven.

We live in an old building, with our private owner landlord living upstairs. She’s from New York, hates mice, I voiced concerns during my initial potential sighting. She responded that if we have them to lay out poison but said nothing further than that. No mention of calling pest control, nothing. Seemed to lean towards blaming tenant clutter.

I’m stuck thinking to myself, am I capable of recovering from this? I can’t even afford to move.

I plan to do basic cleaning, toss any open food, anything good will go in a plastic bin. I’ll lay out more snap traps. I wonder what the best covering for openings is, and if I am capable of doing it or need my landlords help. I wonder if I need to kill any potential mice inside before blocking it off.

I plan to tell our landlord I confirmed we have mice but I’m so scared of her reaction, especially because she is currently evicting a tenant who got on her bad side.

I’m a bit messy and cluttered at times but I have a feeling I’m not at fault and that they came in through the plumbing opening.

Ep. 228. Adam Holt, BCE: Smarter Pest Management, From IPM to AI

Hi there. I found this guy dead when I was vacuuming under my couch. Could anyone help me positively identify him so I know what I’m dealing with? Thanks!

In the old mice\rat removal reddit I read the below part about replacing insulation as an up charge. How do you measure at what point should you remove insulation from the attic and replace because you had rats? Thanks

Insulation Replacement in Attics

This is a recent 'up-sell' by many large companies. Replacing the insulation for a few droppings is totally unnecessary, but brings good profits for these companies. What happens if rats get in the attic again... another $10k for new insulation? Have the rats treated by a small, local company, and let the droppings degrade in the attic heat.

Hello all, pest control just recently sprayed my kitchen with Onslaught (and something else I'm forgetting the name of) and the tech told me it was pet safe once dried but I wanted to be 100% sure. I'm keeping my cat in a separate room for several hours and have the windows open/a fan on, but had anyone had experience with this before? Does anyone else have cats and has had onslaught without issues? Thank you!

PLEASE HELP IM TERRIFIED. I have never thought we would have roaches but here they are. Contacted the building management this morning and they had us fill a form. Haven't heard back yet. I live on the 9th floor on a highrise.

I have 3 different problems.

1. Roaches in the kitchen, saw 1-2 on multiple nights (I wake at 5am, go and turn on the lights). I believe there is an infestation nearby.

2. My mom is a mild hoarder. When I ask her to throw things out it leads to tears and name calling. When I clean she'll make me give her the trash bag and then in the end nothing is thrown out. We have a clothing pile just sitting in one of the bedrooms giving me the creeps. The pile is her room and I'm not allowed to go in there.

3. I just graduated from college. I considered moving away but with my budget idk if I'll just be moving into another hell w similar problems. Just got a job still on probation. Idk what to do. I have decent income but it will significantly stress me financially.

I'm in canada GTA area.

I'm doing my best just ordered traps and gel bait and idk what else to do.

My mother is getting in my way and I found out that she noticed roaches 2 days before I did but DID NOT SAY ANYTHING. She also told me stfu and called me useless saying that it's not a big deal and roaches are everywhere and she grew up w them, she will not let me do anything like cleaning or organizing because it's her place and I cannot tell her what to do.

Is there anything I can actually do??? To save me from this hell. I'm so scared of bugs and never had to really deal with them until recently.

I'm going to put gel bait as soon they get here today and I'm back from work.

Will they go into bedrooms? So far I haven't seen any outside of the kitchen but I'm so scared. Can't even sleep soundly at night. Lived in this building for the last 10 years and never had a problem... Now suddenly, all this. 😭

Hi all!

We have mice coming into our 1910s townhome through our soffit we think. We can hear them in the ceiling between our first and second floors. We had our roof done which left a vulnerable opening into our soffit and a squirrel was up there in the summer. We filled that hole but there are many small ones in our soffit. Is this a plausible area for mice to come in? Are there usually holes leading into the house/can we take the soffit down to close a hole? We are new homeowners and unsure of how the soffit is constructed. And the home is 100 years old.

I caught this bug running around my basement this morning. Is it a cockroach? I haven’t seen any others like it in my house before. i tried to get a better photo, but it was skittering away.

Accidentally throw the diatomea earth in a sofa and was no the alimentary grade, yeah stupid me... Tips to clean up totally, I use first a damp cloth today so it will not spread more, I'm going to buy a vacuum cleaner with HEPA filter, but I don't know what model is the right or what is the minimal specs: suction power, filtration system (HEPA is right), or something else? Or I have to ask in other subreddit?

Or I have to just throw away the sofa, don't really know...

We bought rice and flour a while ago and we hsve airtight containers. But not all the rice and flour fit in it so some was closed up but still in the original packaging. When we wanted to make pancakes we saw the flour had tiny bugs in it and we instantly threw it out.

Today I wanted to cook rice and again these bugs. Only in the original packaging not in my airtight containers. So I again I threw it out. When I was doing dishes a few hours later I noticed a bunch of small white dots on my black cabinets which confused me because I keep them very clean so I thought weird for sooo much dust to settle until I looked closer and saw those tiny dots moving.

What could it be ? I cleaned out everything now and checked if anything else was effected. I don't have many pictures since we instantly threw out the packages. It was in the packaging tiny black bugs and on my cabinets they seemed white and very very tiny

Does someone know what these insects are and if they are something I should worry about?

I’ve recently bought a flat and had a look at this ancient drain where I see tiny white insects crawling around in there. I’m not sure whether these have simply grown a home for themselves from the surrounding area being dryer than the middle, or if these are a sign of a bigger problem.

I’m mainly wondering as I have a buyer’s protection insurance and I am wondering if I should call them up, however I need to know what these intruders are and if it’s worth it!

I live in Central BC, Canada and have developed a rat (possibly pack rat) problem in my crawl space. Unfortunately, I only have mouse traps and the two stores that would carry pest control products with 45 minutes of me are all sold out and professional exterminators are even further.

I have ordered a variety of rat appropriate traps and they should arrive Thursday but is there anything I can make at home that will work until then?

help identifying these in a laundry room? This is a zoomed in photo because they’re so tiny. I tried to blow wind on them a few times to see if they jumped, but they just blew a distance away, then just crawled normally on the floor (one of them did hop once but then just kept crawling, wondering if it was just from the gust of air). Hoping they’re not fleas as idk if i can mentally handle a second flea infestation 😭

They seem to be two separate types of bugs?