As a child, the practice seemed odd to me. How could you expect to kill a pest by simply applying a pesticide to an area, letting it dry, and then waiting for pests to crawl through it?
Hello? It’s dry! How’s the pest going to get any of the stuff on it?
Sometimes, I felt like I was the only person close to the matter that had any common sense. My opinion was only validated, at least in my own mind, by the fact that the store-bought pesticide my dad was using was not getting the job done. Time and time again, after he applied the chemical, we would still have bugs.
It was only after some “Pest Control 101″ during my first days in the industry that I realized error in my dad’s ways. It had more to do with the misapplication, location, product selection, and severity of infestation than anything else- but that’s another story. Truth be told, he would have seen much better results if he had just read the pesticides’ instructions.
So…just how do pesticides work?
The answer to the above question can be very complicated and depends on the type of pesticide used. For sake of simplicity, however, we’ll focus on the most common reason for death, caused by the most common method of application – “spraying”.
As a youth, I would look at a treated surface with my naked eye and just assume there was nothing there. What I didn’t understand was that, even dry, a treated surface has millions of bug-killing microns.
Microns are a unit of measurement; they’re approximately 1/100th the diameter of a human hair, which is to say they are REALLY small.
As a pest walks through a treated surface, microns of the killing agent (called the active ingredient) get picked up by the insect’s pads, antenna, or hairs. It only takes about three of these active ingredient microns to prove lethal to our six-legged nuisance.
What do the active ingredients do?
Insects have a nervous system similar to mammals. Their nervous system is made up of nerve cells that pass an impulse from one point, to the brain, then illicit a response back to that sensory point. Many pesticides exploit the system’s “shut off valve”, meaning the impulses continue to fire over and over (or in some cases never start).
Imagine feeling pain never stops, hunger pains that don’t go away, or even the smallest sensations that just compile and compile and compile on top of each other. Eventually, the pest becomes over loaded and dies because their organs and nervous system shut down.
In some cases, as mentioned above, the pesticide’s active ingredients may keep nerve impulses from ever firing. This includes the impulses that are vital to keep organs working (triggering the heart beat for example).
So now that you know how most pesticides work, pull out those cans of “rid-a-bug” and give them another chance. This time, however, know their limitations and, by all means, READ THE INSTRUCTIONS.
Steven is Co-founder of Titus Pest Control. For more of his writings, visit his Pest Control Articles page.
