Trivia Night Prep

January through March seem to be the time in St. Louis when trivia nights start kicking up all over the St. Louis area. Want to brush up on some fun facts in the bug world before your next trivia night? We got your back!

Is there something you still want to know? Give us a call at 636-343-7900 and “bug” our experts with your questions.

January Newbies & Oldies (But Goodies!)

We’d love to extend a special welcome to Blue Chip’s January new hires for 2020 — Dave B, James, Tori & Miranda — as well give a shout out to our past January newbies who are celebrating anniversaries this month!

Happy Squirrel Appreciation Day!

Today is Squirrel Appreciation Day!

While they may look cute while they’re outside, once they gain entry into your house or attic, they’re anything but cute…and can even be downright dangerous. They have been known to gnaw on boards and electrical wires, causing potential fire hazards.

Luckily, Blue Chip has an outstanding wildlife control program that includes raccoons, snakes, moles, rodents (mice & rats)…and, yes, SQUIRRELS!

Number Twenty Eight in Twenty Twenty

St. Louis was recently ranked 28th in the list of the top 50 most bed bug infested cities. This list was based on the number of residential and commercial bed bug treatments in metro areas. The top 5 cities on the list were:

  1. Washington D.C.
  2. Baltimore
  3. Chicago
  4. Los Angeles
  5. Columbus

This info graphic, while from the summer, remains a very good reminder of areas to check in your hotel room after you check into the hotel. Bed bugs are not picky — they are just as likely to be found in an upscale 5-star hotel as they are in a cheap 1-star motel.

January Celebrations

Let’s kick off the month (umm…AND the new year AND a new decade!) with some fun Blue Chip celebrations!

It’s What We Do, Boo!

You expect a car wash to remove dirt from your car, right? Of course! That’s the point of a car wash — to clean your car. Drive in dirty, drive out sparkly clean. Car wash expectations met.
The same goes for us at Blue Chip. You expect a pest control company to eliminate and/or prevent pest problems at your home or business, right?One of our primary goals is to offer great customer service. We believe that begins & ends with a knowledgeable staff who can solve and prevent real pest problems. Solving or preventing a pest  problem is why you originally contacted us so when we do this, pest control expectation met! Thanks, Matt, for noticing!
And, celebrating another major accomplishment in the pest control industry, others have noticed this as well since the National Pest Management Association (NPMA) named Blue Chip one of the top 100 pest control companies in the country for the third year in a row! With over 27,000 pest control companies in the United States, you can easily see why this is such a big deal for us as we’re constantly working to meet expectations on a national level as well as local level.

 

Fun Facts: Mysterious Mouse

Mice and rodents will cozy up this winter inside 21 million homes in the United States alone. Yikes! Here are some there “fun” facts about these unwanted visitors.

  • Most rodents will enter sometime between October and February.
  • They are in search of warmth, food and water. (Although, truth be told, who isn’t constantly in search of this each winter? #Busted)
  • Mice eat 15-20 times EVERY. SINGLE. DAY! (How do they stay so tiny? I digress…)
  • Mice are little athletes! They are excellent climbers and swimmers…and can even jump one foot high into the air! (Olympics2020?)
  • In the wild, mice and rodents have many predators which causes their lifespan to average about 5 months. (In a no-foxes, n0-cats and no-snakes lab environment, they can live up to 2 years.)
  • Consider yourself warned: This one is gonna get gross. Mice produce 40-100 droppings every single day AND are constantly giving off micr0-droplets of urine. (Hey, don’t say I never warned you!)
  • A female mouse can birth up to a dozen babies every 3 months. Let’s do the math here — that’s as many as 150 babies in a single year!

Most importantly, did you know Blue Chip offers a rodent control program that will keep mice and other rodents out of your house year-round? Find more info on it here:

https://www.bluechipexterminating.com/wildlife-control-st-louis/mice-rodent-control/

Let’s “BUG” a Vet: Can My Pets Get Fleas in Winter?

Spoiler alert: YES! Temps are dropping and we’ve still got snow on the ground St. Louis so it’s a fair, yet incorrect, assumption to think Fido and Rover are home-free when it comes to fleas for awhile. Fleas actually spend most of their lifespan ON your pet, cozying up to their warm skin or under their coat of fur so colder weather doesn’t seem to bother them.
In order to understand why fleas are a year-round issue for our pets, we have to take a little deep-dive into the lifespan of a flea. Enter Blue Chip’s Flea 101: Fleas bite your pets to take a blood meal and to reproduce by laying eggs. When the eggs hatch, the larvae feed on digested blood that’s been excreted by the adult fleas. This digested blood could be found on your pets; however, it can also have fallen off your pet and be found in carpet, bedding and/or furniture. Good times, huh? (Dear Santa, I’d really love a Dyson vacuum for Christmas. Love, Me) Low, humid conditions inside our houses in the winter present the perfect conditions for the larvae to enter the pupae phase where they can basically chill out for months at a time. All of a sudden…BAM! A slight temperature change (even something as simplistic as carbon dioxide from your pet’s breath) or an environmental change (could be a new light or slight vibration) and, before you know it, the pupae have emerged and are already maturing into adult fleas to start this cycle all over again. (Ready for your midterm exam, now?)
The bottom line remains: If you pet is scratching themselves or biting at their lower half in these winter months, don’t be so quick to assume it’s the same dry skin all the rest of us are experiencing. Fleas can be hard to detect until the number of fleas, eggs and larvae on your pet is in the thousands. To help eliminate this problem, here are a few easy steps to take:
  • Take your pet to your vet as soon as possible for effective treatments that will eliminate fleas as well as treat any medical conditions or infections that have been caused by the itching.
  • Wash your pet’s bedding (or yours if you share a bed) a few times in hot water.
  • Vacuum! Vacuum! Vacuum! Use a vacuum with a bag and throw away the bag promptly each time you vacuum.
  • Don’t waste your time with over-the-counter flea foggers. Not only do they make a mess but they only kill adult fleas, leaving unhatched egg and pupae cases untouched. These eggs and pupae cases will hatch within a 2-week time frame, starting the cycle (and your problems) all over again. Let us know if you have issues with fleas and we’ll come tackle them with our two-step system. This system not only kills the adults but also acts as a growth regulator for any unhatched eggs, breaking the flea life cycle and leaving your home good as new.
Yay! You’ve successfully completed Blue Chip’s unofficial Guide to Fleas in the Winter. Wanna move on to Fleas 201? Click here for Everything Else You Ever Wanted To Know About Fleas! Or give us a call anytime at 636-343-7900. Disclaimer: No official vets on staff but we are experts in fleas…as well as parents to many adorable fur-babies!

Raccoons As Pets? Not If You Like Sleep!

While we might all easily be able to relate to raccoons (ha!), this doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to keep one as a pet. Their cute, masked faces make them look a lot more cuddly than they actually are. Raccoons are wild animals that are not easily trained. They are notorious biters and present a very high medical and insurance liability. They can carry diseases like rabies. Got questions about raccoons? Let us know!