10 Most Unwanted : Whatever’s Bugging You, Experts Have Advice to Relocate Common Household Insects

Bugs.

They’re about as welcome as relatives who scuttle through our homes way past the holidays.

They invade our food and infect our cats and dogs. They bite, and even drink our blood. They’re no fun: Just listen to Keith Willingham, safety manager and an entomologist for Western Exterminator Co. in Irvine. During an 18-year career, Willingham’s walked into some of the buggiest houses in the county.

He’s seen flea infestations so thick that thousands jumped onboard, blackening his uniform. He’s discovered cat carcasses on roofs, serving as maggot motels. He’s opened kitchen cabinets and stepped back as piles of insects dropped onto counters. He’s seen tiny pharaoh ants feeding off patients’ IV tubes at a local hospital.

Queasy yet? Let Willingham tell you about the times he’s sprayed cockroaches on ceilings and watched as they fell “like rain” on the floor. He had to wear a hat and tie his pants with rubber bands to keep them from crawling up his legs.

Willingham may not find much to love when it comes to bugs, but they have ardent fans as well.

Chirag Shah, a graduate student in the department of biological sciences at Cal State Fullerton, is one. His emphasis is on botany, but he says he’s always admired insects. Shah’s especially proud of the bee tattoo decorating his shoulder.

Entomologist Nick Nisson is another. He spends long, happy days identifying all sorts of insects for the agriculture commissioners’ office in Orange County.

“An important component of control is knowing what bug you’re dealing with,” says Nisson, who recommends capturing a sample and bringing it to a nursery, pest control company or an entomologist for proper identification.

With the help of Willingham, Shah and Nisson, we’ve compiled this list of 10 most common household insects and what we can do to boot them outside:

ANTS (Order: Hymenoptera)

There are a lot of different species of ants, but the little black variety you see everywhere are known as Argentine ants. They march into our house when it’s hot outside, seeking water, food and a cool place. In the wintertime, they bury themselves underground to stay warm.

They invade in large numbers and tend to overwhelm us. We can fight hard against an ant colony with sprays, but half an hour later, they’re marching up the kitchen counter again.

Ants, honeybees and wasps are part of the same order: Hymenoptera. Most have chewing mouth parts, and some bite, releasing a stinging formic acid. More reasons to hate them.

Ants play havoc in the garden because they will “farm” aphids, mealy bug and white flies in order to harvest their honeydew-sugar water.

Exterminator Willingham says the biggest mistake we make in trying to combat ants is to attack them from the inside, not the outside.

“To get proper control, go outside, find the nest and put insecticides to good use,” he says. “Another treatment is to dust boric acid inside a hole. But keep these and all chemicals out of the reach of children. If you’re opposed to using pesticides, pour soapy water on the nest to either kill them or [make them angry].”

To best way to combat ants is to know what kind of ant you’re dealing with to determine its nest--in soil, wallboards, hollow doors, window sills.

Nisson of the agriculture commissioners’ office recommends that you eliminate the food source that’s attracting them. Use pesticides or ant baits, and clean up the area with a sponge.

Some pesticides won’t work on pharaoh ants, however. These small, pale-colored insects will split up the nest when attacked (it’s called budding).

“Instead of one nest, you now have three, each with its own queen,” says Willingham. “It makes it hard to control them because they keep spreading to different places and they’re so small they can nest between two pieces of paper.”

Check out the canister’s or bait’s label first to ensure it will stop pharaoh ants.

BEETLES (Coleoptera)

Beetles are the largest order of insects--there are more than 250,000 types--and they vary in length from less than a millimeter up to 75 millimeters (3 inches) in the U.S. In the tropics, some beetles grow up to 5 inches long.

The good news: Ladybugs are beetles, and they eat aphids.

All beetles have a horny- or leather-like covering (the elytra) over a second pair of wings that protects the wings. When the wings come out, the elytra folds back like wheels on a plane.

The fig beetle emits a sound like a propeller plane. It has a hard, green shell. The June beetles--those little brown things that stick to the screen during the summer--are so dumb they fly into a wall, or your head, and bounce off.

Beetles make trouble for bug collectors who preserve specimens. They feast on plants and insects--especially those that are pinned down. An entomologist can tell if a collection has been infested with beetles because there’s a powdery material below the specimens. That means beetles have eaten the insides.

Carpet beetles annoy us by getting into our rugs, upholstery, and if you have them, fur coats, mounted birds and mammals. Nisson says carpet beetles are the culprits that put the hole in your wool coat. Willingham says beetles love to live in the lint left behind in the clothes dryer.

Vacuum and use soapy water or insecticides on baseboards, floors or inside closets.

Grain beetles, in the family Tenebrionidae, are the most common pests of store owners and homeowners with large pantries. They are brown and really small, but visible to the eye. If you see them, it’s usually after you’ve poured milk on your cereal and they are there, floating on top.

Nisson says that heavily infested products are rare in modern grocery stores, but to ensure that your food is beetle-free, sift through the container to check for live things. Store the product in an insect-proof container.

Some people put grains and cereals in the freezer or refrigerator to protect them from being infested. “Many beetles will die in the freezer, but that won’t kill everything,” Nisson says.

If you happen to eat a grain beetle, don’t panic. “You’re just eating protein,” says Cal State Fullerton’s Shah. “In some parts of the world, people eat something like a Nestles Crunch, but instead of Rice Krispies inside, there are beetles.”

COCKROACHES (Blattoidea)

They make us gulp because they’re ugly, smell bad, run fast, breed quickly and because we associate them with living in filthy, rundown areas. Since we know they enjoy debris or garbage, the sight of them insults our sense of cleanliness.

The good news: Cockroaches seldom, if ever, fly, even though they have wings.

They feed at night and shy away from the light--”so they don’t get caught, I guess,” says Shah.

The bad news: They are everywhere, and there is no way to get rid of them completely. “People joke that cockroaches could survive nuclear bombs,” Shah adds.

Cockroach heaven is a moist, humid area. Think: refrigerator. Now, take a look underneath yours.

The most common types found in Orange County are the German, American and Oriental cockroaches. They differ in size and morphology--the way they look--but only entomologists seem to care about the differences.

The German cockroaches, which account for 95% of restaurant sightings, are a formidable enemy because the female carries her egg capsule with her, and if attacked, she can scamper away with 30 to 40 babies, says Willingham.

He’s calculated that since an egg grows to maturity in three months, and figuring in a 50% mortality rate, one pair could produce 14,000 cockroaches a year if there’s food, water and shelter. “I’ve seen that many in houses,” he says.

In the heat of summer ‘95, one frustrated Santa Ana homeowner set off 57 pesticide bombs in his four-bedroom house to eradicate the roaches that were making him nuts. The canisters’ directions called for three to six bombs for the 1,300 square foot home.

Too many foggers and a flickering stove pilot light triggered an explosion, causing $125,000 in damage. Parts of the roof were blown away, two walls dislocated, windows shattered . . . and the cockroaches stayed put.

Willingham doesn’t recommend foggers that shoot in every direction and leave chemical residue. “Go to an area where there are insects and treat it properly with the minimum amount of chemicals as possible to be effective,” he says.

Even industrial-strength insecticides won’t kill the whole colony. And eventually, all insects develop a resistance to sprays. That’s a fact of evolution.

If there’s a small infestation, baits work well, says Willingham. “But for a place that’s scuzzy, you’ll need a liquid-type insecticide. Wear gloves when applying insecticides and respirator protectors and wash afterward.”

Shah says the best way to prevent an invasion is to keep food covered, mop up water drops and eliminate them, one by one if necessary, whenever you see them.

Final note: Cockroaches don’t die on the spot. It could take days for them to keel over after a pesticide attack.

CRICKETS (Orthoptera)

The cricket “song” is created by rubbing its sharp-edged “scraper” on one of its front wings over a ridge-like “file” on the underside of its other front wing. Males do the singing to attract females, who reproduce soft noises. Each species of crickets has a distinctive song.

Although they are in the same order as the grasshopper, most people don’t mind crickets because they usually stay outside.

If one does sneak into your house and keeps you awake, catch it and toss it outside. “They aren’t that big of a problem,” says Shah, unless they start breeding, and then they smell bad. “If you pass a tank of them in a pet store, hold your nose.”

Willingham says you can catch crickets with yellow cornmeal sprinkled on a glue board. Granular pesticides or liquids work for crickets nesting in slab or patio cracks.

“You have to get into the cracks,” says Willingham, “blanketing doesn’t do anything. If you spray insecticide on top of the grass, its ‘kill power’ can be measured in a few days. If you get into a crevice, you get a few weeks out of it.”

EARWIGS (Dermapter)

Most of us call earwigs by another, more onerous name: pincher bugs. They have chewing mouths and large pincher-like “cerci” (long extensions) at the tail end. When disturbed, some of these scavengers eject a foul-smelling liquid from glands near the abdomen.

Nisson says that earwigs inside the house are “incidental”; for the most part, they do their wandering outdoors where it’s moist and they eat decaying organic material. When they get stuck inside, they look for something in decay, like floor molding that’s been subjected to water, such as a leak near a bathroom.

“This is not an insect that will injure clothes in the closet or pantry,” says Nisson. “They are a nuisance by their presence. We just don’t like them in there.”

If you ever care to, you can determine the sex of an earwig by the shape of its pinchers: the females’ are stout and straight, and the males’ are slender and curved--kind of the opposite of most human morphologies.

The name “earwig” comes from the superstition that insects get into people’s ears, but this is baseless, says Shah.

Willingham says a good way to collect them is to wet a rolled-up newspaper and put it outside. Earwigs will climb into it and you can throw it away. You can also trap them by pouring beer into a milk carton that has had its top cut off. The beer attracts earwigs and other insects.

FLEAS (Siphonoptera)

These teeny jumpers are small, wingless insects that live in ectoparasites--on birds or mammals. With their sucking mouth parts, adults feed on the blood of their host. They act as vectors of disease, such as bubonic plague and endemic typhus.

Fleas arrive in most homes riding dogs and cats. They jump into the carpet, then on your leg, where they suck your blood. You scratch your skin and they fall off and find another host.

The best way to reduce the amount of fleas is to use pesticides properly and treat your pet to flea powder and dips.

Nisson says that in Orange County, the most common flea is the cat flea, which annoys dogs, cats and wild animals. It will jump on a human if there’s nothing else tastier around.

Eggs are laid on animals and fall off where the animal spends most of its time, such as its bed. Nisson says, “The control effort should concentrate on these areas. Vacuuming will help pick up most of the adult fleas.”

Since fleas of various species can survive months without feeding or remain frozen for a year and then revive, treat carpets with a growth regulator.

FLIES (Pittera)

We hate flies because they buzz around our ears and in our faces. They feed on rotten food, lay eggs in decaying meat and fruit, and have iridescent eyes that radiate evil (remember “The Fly”?).

And when they land on you, they spit up saliva-like juices loaded with enzymes and use their sucking mouth like a soda straw to slurp it all back up again. Some bite, and some spread diseases.

“As a kid, we were all told that flies land on poop and then land on your arm and spit up on your arm,” says Shah. “And that’s pretty true. If you look closely at a fly, you’ll see that its tongue keeps touching the service to lap up what’s there.”

No wonder common household flies are called flesh flies.

To get rid of them, keep food covered, cover trash cans and place screens on open doors and windows. Become proficient with a fly swatter.

The big fly that we often see is the green and blue blowfly, says Willingham. It’s found around fecal matter and in dead animal or snails. If you notice hundreds of flies on your wall, you should inspect for a gas leak--gas gives off an odor similar to a dead animal, and flies from miles around are attracted to it.

Another common one is the housefly or trash fly. It hovers from house to house, but if you turn a fan on the area, it will go away, says Willingham.

Those long-legged wall hangers we call daddy long legs are actually crane flies. They enjoy the corners of our houses. One way to collect them: Suck ‘em up with a cordless Dustbuster.

INDIAN MEAL MOTHS (Lepidoptera)

Butterflies are in the same family as the moth. It’s sort of like the beautiful older sister versus the plain younger sister. But some moths are lookers. The hideous, giant green tomato worm emerges from its cocoon as a lovely moth.

Both butterflies and moths have sucking mouth parts, but a butterfly has a clubbed antenna and moths don’t.

Both, like other coldblooded insects, move very slowly when it’s chilly outside, says Shah. They don’t have the energy to move fast, so they sit in one place to warm up their muscles. This is the time they’re easy to squash, if you’re into that sort of thing.

In the warm afternoons, they can fly around and have a good old time unless it’s too hot, then they slow down to cool down.

Meal moth larvae eat stored food. If you open a jar, they will fly out and surprise you. Nisson says that the most common household dry-food infesting insect is the Indian meal moth and its relatives.

To prevent them, keep sources in insect-proof containers in the cupboard or in the freezer or refrigerator.

To combat them, Willingham says, clean the area with soapy water and throw the contaminated box away. Since they crawl away to pupate, treat cracks as well.

Clothes moths feed on sweaters and drawers, but they don’t do as much damage as the more common carpet beetle. The scent of cedar deters them.

SILVERFISH (Thaysanura)

Silverfish, sometimes called bristletails, are long, wingless insects with two or three tails. The two common types are silvery gray silverfish--the ones that love cool, damp places--and brownish firebrats, which live in warm places near furnaces.

Nisson says silverfish feed on starchy material, such as paper products and some fabrics. Occasionally they eat stored, dried grains, but they are not pantry pests.

They don’t build up and overwhelm us like cockroaches, but if they chew on a valuable document or old papers in a trunk, it’ll matter.

Since you’ll only see one or two, Shah says you can take charge by picking them up with a tissue and throwing them away. “Because of their small numbers, they aren’t as detested as others pests,” he says.

Willingham points out that most of his customers don’t think about dusting the attic, but that’s one way to prevent silverfish. “You need to get into shelves, closets, stored clothes, baseboards and kitchen cabinets with something like boric acid or baits. Don’t use those sticky mothballs because of health concerns,” he says.

TERMITES (Isoptera)

Termites are long and narrow, and at rest, their wings are held flat over their abdomens. Sounds kind of peaceful, right? Well, think Dracula. These suckers have chewing mouth parts that can damage furniture, utility poles, fence posts, buildings and other material.

“Troublesome little critters,” says Shah, shaking his head.

A bad infestation of termites can cause a tree to crumble. For that reason, termites are beneficial in a forest because they aid in recycling trees into mulch. But it’s a different experience if it’s your wood patio furniture that’s crumbling.

Termites live in highly organized colonies built in the ground or wood. There are four classes: the queen; reproductives and supplementary reproductives (backups in case the main studs die); workers; and soldiers. The four castes have specific functions, and all are needed to survive.

You can spot the soldiers because they have large heads, and their mouths have pinchers (mandibles) used to protect the colony.

The reproductives are generally dark in color, and have fully developed wings and compound eyes (it looks like one eye, but actually it’s made up of millions of eyes). They produce in large numbers and leave the colony in a swarm looking for other wood and vegetable materials.

The mating--just one time is all that’s needed for life--occurs when individual pairs establish new colonies. Reproductives shed their wings after mating, so they are stuck together after that.

The queen is a constant reproductive machine: She lays eggs and eats. Period. Compared with the tiny little worker termite, the queen looks like a fat, swollen, cream-colored slug in the middle of the colony. The queen can bloat up to 11 centimeters when she’s full of eggs. Not a pretty sight.

The workers move the queen if need be, and they bring her food. Workers are pale colored and lack compound eyes. Their job is to collect food and feed the queen, soldiers and young. Like the soldiers, they are sterile. Some life.

Termites can digest wood because they have a bacteria that lives in their gut; the bacteria breaks down the wood and what it releases is what the termite uses as a nutritional source.

In addition to the damage they do, termites aren’t popular because they’re related to the cockroach. It’s believed termites evolved from a primitive roach 200 million years ago.

Most experts agree that fumigation is the most effective way to rid your home of a large infestation. When you suspect termites, have an inspection. Clues depend on which type of termite has invaded: dry or subterranean termite.

For Western dry wood termites, search for piles of what looks like wood shavings but is actually termite feces. Pound the wood and if it breaks, a professional will drill into that to hit a cavity and squirt in an insecticide. If termites are all over and in inaccessible areas, the house will probably need to be tented.

If you have subterranean termites, you’ll see a mud paste plastered over wood--that’s what’s protecting them. Exterminators place plastic bait stations around the house that kills the colony.

But, Nisson warns, just because you see a termite fluttering outside after it rains, don’t panic. Termites are extremely common here. They live in the dead limbs of trees and buried roots. They may not be eating away at your support beams.