Living with pests, or “unwanted guests” as some put it, can take a physical, mental and economic toll. For people living in multi-family unit housing, like an apartment complex where everyone lives under one roof, a single infestation of insects or rodents can expose all residents.
Using integrated pest management, or IPM, residents and property managers can detect infestations early and control severe ones and protect people. IPM programs can also save money. IPM saved a 75-unit complex in Contra Costa County $11,121 annually. Similarly, in Santa Clara County, a 59-unit complex saved $1,321 on pest control annually after implementing a proactive IPM program.
This summer, regional directors, property managers, residential service coordinators, maintenance managers and groundskeepers of Mercy Housing – a nonprofit organization that provides affordable, low-income housing – gathered in Long Beach to learn about in-home IPM. The session was led by Siavash Taravati, University of California Cooperative Extension area IPM advisor for Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino Counties, and
Josh Shoemaker, an entomologist and private consultant.
Taravati and Shoemaker collaborated with StopPests in Housing, a national program out of Cornell University's Northeastern IPM Center, which seeks to improve pest control in affordable housing and teach management practices for cockroaches, bed bugs and rodents within and around the home.
During their presentation, Taravati introduced participants to the IPM principles and emphasized the importance of monitoring pests.
“IPM is all about making informed decisions which requires knowing the latest status of an infestation,” explained Taravati. “That's where monitoring comes into play. It can help us to identify the exact species we are dealing with as well as telling us if an infestation is growing or shrinking.”
“Monitoring is foundational,” agreed Shoemaker. “If a program does not include monitoring, it's not an IPM program.”
According to Shoemaker, the benefit of partnering with UC IPM is their sharp focus on general IPM, which includes monitoring. “It's real IPM, that prioritizes the well-being of the public,” said Shoemaker, who's eager to continue working with Cooperative Extension and Taravati to ensure that children are growing up in safe environments.
Pest control treatments commonly take place following a serious infestation or several complaints, but IPM promotes constant monitoring to prevent heavy infestations from ever happening. It's a proactive approach rather than a reactive or emergency-response. For many attendees, the training revealed a need to engage with pest management operators more closely.
Training prompts changes that improve safety for residents
Pest management operators commonly use pesticide sprays to control pests. Besides inconveniencing residents, forcing them to do extensive preparations and evacuate their unit until it's safe to return, sprays increase exposure risk to pesticides since the aerosols can linger and land on surfaces.
Instead, Taravati and Shoemaker recommend using gel baits, which are much safer to apply and can target a specific area of a home, including crevices, instead of along all the walls.
“Now that I'm more informed, I'll be speaking to my contractor to discuss how we can switch their approach from a bug spray to a gel,” said Leonardo Pinuelas, a maintenance manager for Mercy Housing.
Pinuelas is not the only one wanting to modify their program, however. According to feedback from staff members at the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles who experienced the same training earlier this year, they prompted their team to amend their pest extermination to include dusting, or applying insecticidal dusts, against roaches, and to review and update their existing IPM plan and practices where appropriate.
Cindy Wise, area director of operations for Mercy Housing, said that in her 35 years, this was one of the few trainings that engaged her staff so actively. “I couldn't help but text my regional vice president to say that our managers were actively participating and asking questions. That doesn't happen often, not even in our own meetings,” said Wise.
Many of the attendees, with their new understanding of how cockroaches move through a structure, shared that they are eager to return to work to meet with residents and support them.
“If you've got roaches in one unit, you've got them in the entire building,” Wise said.
Shoemaker recalls the words of Judy Black, senior technical entomologist for Orkin, and Dini Miller, entomologist at Virginia Tech, who urge the importance of inspections and documentation as IPM best practices.
Although reporting pests in the home can make one feel embarrassed, Wise said she is more interested in making residents feel empowered to not only report signs of infestation to the staff, but to their neighbors.
Training residents is certainly beneficial, but as experts such as Black and Miller have pointed out, housing managers must do their part, instead of scapegoating tenants for their cleaning habits.
StopPests provides free IPM training and technical assistance to Housing and Urban Development assisted properties. If you are interested in the training provided by Taravati and Shoemaker, in collaboration with StopPests, visit StopPests.org for more information.
Posted on
Wednesday, September 13, 2023 at
4:02 PM
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Focus Area Tags: Environment, Family, Health, Pest Management
Multi-unit housing (MUH), such as apartment complexes and single-room occupancy (SRO) buildings,...
Posted on
Tuesday, June 20, 2023 at
3:14 PM
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Focus Area Tags: Health, Pest Management
Reposted from UC ANR news
A team of California and Nevada fire scientists have produced a booklet with step-by-step guidance on retrofitting an existing home to be more resilient to fire.
Susie Kocher, UC Cooperative Extension forestry and natural resources advisor and co-author of the new guide, said some homeowners feel powerless to protect their homes against California's increasing wildfire threat.
“I'm happy to tell them that's not true. There are specific actions that we can all take to reduce the likelihood of our homes being burned in wildfire,” said Kocher, who lives in a forested area near Lake Tahoe. “We need to educate ourselves on the details of home construction that make homes less vulnerable to ignition.”
The free 20-page publication, How to Harden Homes against Wildfire (http://ucanr.edu/HomeRetrofitGuide) is now available online. It includes recommendations for 12 vulnerable components of homes in wildfire-prone areas, including roofs, gutters, vents, siding, windows, decks and fences.
In the past, agencies have focused on recommending changes in vegetation and establishing defensible space. However, Kocher said recent advances in wildfire science have exposed vulnerabilities of structures themselves.
“Managing vegetation and retrofitting the home are both needed to decrease wildfire risk and help our communities become more fire adapted,” she said.
CAL FIRE awarded funding to develop and publish the wildfire home retrofit guide, funding that is part of California Climate Investments, a statewide program that assigns cap-and-trade dollars to projects that aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, strengthen the economy and improve public health and the environment.
In addition to CAL FIRE, organizations that contributed to the document are University of Nevada, Reno Extension; University of California Cooperative Extension; Living with Fire, Tahoe; Tahoe Fire and Fuels Team; Tahoe Resource Conservation District; and Tahoe Network of Fire Adapted Communities.
The team also hosted three webinars to share home fire resilience information targeted to different audiences. Videos of the webinars are available on the Living with Fire YouTube Channel:
For the public: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YX114wpPwmg&t=327s
For building professionals: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccIAIg6xONs
For fire educators: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOsdyVSPxnA&t=177s
(First published Jan. 28, 2021)
UC Agriculture and Natural Resources brings the power of UC to all 58 counties. Through research and Cooperative Extension in agriculture, natural resources, nutrition, economic and youth development, our mission is to improve the lives of all Californians. Learn more at ucanr.edu.
Posted on
Tuesday, July 13, 2021 at
11:13 AM
- Author:
Jeannette Warnert
Focus Area Tags: Environment
A man helps friends recover after the 2007 Witch Fire in San Diego County destroyed their home. Californians agree that new homes should not be built in wildfire-prone areas, according to a new Berkeley IGS Poll. (FEMA Photo by Andrea Booher via Wikimedia Commons)
Almost three-quarters of California voters think limits should be imposed on new housing developments in high-risk wildfire areas, according to a new Berkeley IGS Poll.
The survey showed that 74% of voters thought building in risky areas, often called the wildland-urban interface, was a bad idea. Twenty-five percent said there should be no restrictions.
Opinions were strong across the state. Almost 80% of voters in Los Angeles County thought new, high-risk development should be limited, while 74% of San Diego-area voters and 77% of San Francisco Bay Area residents agreed.
Even in the conservative, rural areas of Northern California and the Central Valley, roughly two-thirds of voters agreed there should be limits on new buildings.
The poll comes after a series of destructive wildfires in California destroyed thousands of homes, killed more than 100 people and burned millions of acres across the state. Estimates suggest California's 2017 and 2018 wildfire seasons cost $21.5 billion.
“Support is bipartisan and includes large majorities of voters across all major regions in the state,” said Mark DiCamillo, director of the Berkeley IGS Poll, which is affiliated with UC Berkeley's Institute of Governmental Studies.
The poll, however, did not define areas where new development might be limited, which could change how voters feel about the issue.
A recent study by the state's Department of Forestry and Fire Protection estimates that nearly a quarter of Californians live in areas that could be considered high-risk for wildfires, including several areas in suburban Los Angeles and the Bay Area.
The poll also asked Californian's opinions about the housing crisis, but found no clear consensus on the issue.
Thirty-four percent of those surveyed thought offering subsidies for low- or middle-income homebuyers was a solution, while 24% agreed building new housing along transit lines in urban areas was a good idea.
Just 17% thought increasing the scope of rent control would help. Twenty-four percent said none of those ideas were good ways to make housing more affordable.
Just a bare majority—51%—said the state government “should assume a bigger role and require local communities to build more housing.” Forty-seven percent said the issue should remain in local hands.
The survey queried 4,435 registered voters in English and Spanish via email from June 4 to 10. The poll's margin of error was 2.5 percentage points.
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Posted on
Thursday, June 20, 2019 at
10:24 AM
Although the majority of the United States population consumes three meals a day, 40 to 50 percent...
Posted on
Thursday, September 27, 2018 at
10:15 AM
- Author:
Ashley Elisabeth Abrahamson
Focus Area Tags: Health