Armor Pest Control of Texas

• Millipedes         Class Diplopoda

  Appearance:

•         1/2 to 1-1/2 inch long, and tend to coil up when resting. They are brownish, oval, elongate animals with two pair of legs attached to most segments.
• Habitat:
•         Millipedes normally live outdoors in damp places such as under decaying leaves and in mulch around outdoor plantings. In wooded areas millipedes live in piles of leaf litter. In dry weather they will migrate out of the litter piles as the leaves dry, and may enter buildings in large numbers.
• Food:

        They feed on damp and decaying vegetable matter as well as new roots and green leaves.

Millipede Management:

A more thorough outdoor treatment is often necessary for millipede control with pesticides. Residual sprays must be applied in a 5 to 20 foot wide barrier around the structure. The treatment should be done in such a way as to assure the insecticide gets down to the soil surface. Since millipedes feed and reproduce in decaying organic matter, it may be necessary to remove plant mulch and leaves, (etc.) Around the foundation in order to obtain complete control.

• House Flies          Family Muscidae       

  Appearance:

•         1/8-1/4 inch. Gray with 4 black lengthwise stripes on thorax. Abdomen is grey or yellowish with dark midline and irregular dark markings on sides. The eyes are reddish. The mouthparts are of the sponging type, suitable for sponging up food.
• Habitat:
•         Near animal manure, garbage, or exposed food.
• Food:
•         Adults suck liquids containing sweet or decaying substances. Larva feeds on moist food rich in organic matter. Although they are attracted to a variety of food material, house flies have mouthparts which enable them to ingest only liquid materials. Solid food materials are liquefied by means of regurgitated saliva. This liquefied food is then drawn up by the mouthparts and passed into the digestive tract.
• Life Cycle:
•         Female lays 5-6 batches of 75-120 oval, white eggs on moist manure or garbage. Eggs hatch in 10-24 hours. Larvae reach full size in 5 days emerging as adults about 5 days latter. They are ready to mate within a few hours after emerging. During warm weather two or more generations may be completed in a month. Males live for 15 days, females up to 26 if they have access to milk, sugar, and water.
• General Information:

        98 percent or more of the flies caught in houses are house flies. Because they can transmit typhoid fever, cholera, dysentery, pinworm, hookworms, and some tapeworms, house flies are regarded as a grater threat to human health than most other insects. Pathogenic organisms are picked up by flies from garbage, sewage and other sources of filth, and then transferred on their mouthparts and other body parts, through their vomitus or through their feces to human and animal food. The larger and darker face fly (M. Autumnalis), 1/4-3/8 inch resembles the house fly but settles on cows rather than manure from other animals. It creeps into the nostrils and eyes of cattle and into horse fly wounds.

• A man was driving along the highway and saw a rabbit hopping across the
  middle of the road. He swerved to avoid hitting the rabbit, but unfortunately the rabbit jumped in front of the car and was hit. The driver, being a sensitive man as well as an animal lover, pulled over to the side of the road and got out to see what had become of the rabbit. Much to his dismay, the rabbit was dead. The driver felt so awful that he began to cry.
  A woman driving down the highway saw the man crying on the side of the road and pulled over. She stepped out of her car and asked the man what was wrong.
  “I feel terrible,” he explained. “I accidentally hit this rabbit and killed it.”
  The blonde told the man not to worry. She knew what to do. She went to her car trunk and pulled out a spray can. She walked over to the limp, dead rabbit, and sprayed the contents of the can onto the rabbit.
  Miraculously, the rabbit came to life, jumped up, waved its paw at the two humans and hopped down the road. Fifty feet away the rabbit stopped, turned around, waved at the two again, hopped down the road another 50 feet, turned, waved, and hopped another 50 feet.
  The man was astonished. He couldn’t figure out what substance could be in the woman’s spray can! He ran over to the woman and demanded, “What was in your spray can? What did you spray onto that rabbit?”
  The woman turned the can around so that the man could read the label.
• It said: “Hair Spray – Restores Life to Dead Hair. Adds Permanent Wave.”

• 50 Fun Things to Do in an Elevator
• 1. Make race car noises when anyone gets on or off.
  2. Blow your nose and offer to show the contents of your kleenex to other passengers.
  3. Grimace painfully while smacking your forehead and muttering, “Shut up, dammit, all of you just shut UP!”
  4. Whistle the first seven notes of “It’s a Small World” incessantly.
  5. Sell Girl Scout cookies.
  6. On a long ride, sway side to side at the natural frequency of the elevator.
  7. Shave.
  8. Crack open your briefcase or purse, and while peering inside ask: “Got enough air in there?”
  9. Offer name tags to everyone getting on the elevator. Wear yours upside-down.
  10. Stand silent and motionless in the corner, facing the wall, without getting off.
  11. When arriving at your floor, grunt and strain to yank the doors open, then act embarrassed when they open by themselves. 12. Lean over to another passenger and whisper: “Noogie patrol coming!”
  13. Greet everyone getting on the elevator with a warm handshake and ask them to call you Admiral.
  14. One word: Flatulants!
  15. On the highest floor, hold the door open and demand that it stay open until you hear the penny you dropped down the shaft go “plink” at the bottom.
  16. Do Tai Chi exercises.
  17. Stare, grinning, at another passenger for a while, and then announce: “I’ve got new socks on!”
  18. When at least 8 people have boarded, moan from the back, “Oh, not now, damn motion sickness!”
  19. Give religious tracts to each passenger.
  20. Meow occasionally.
  21. Bet the other passengers you can fit a quarter in your nose.
  22. Frown and mutter “gotta go, gotta go” then sigh and say “oops!”
  23. Show other passengers a wound and ask if it looks infected.
  24. Sing “Mary had a little lamb” while continually pushing buttons.
  25. Holler “Chutes away!” whenever the elevator descends.
  26. Walk on with a cooler that says “human head” on the side.
  27. Stare at another passenger for a while, then announce, “You’re one of THEM!” and move to the far corner of the elevator. 28. Burp, and then say “mmmm…tasty!”
  29. Leave a box between the doors.
  30. Ask each passenger getting on if you can push the button for them.
  31. Wear a puppet on your hand and talk to other passengers “through” it.
  32. Start a sing-along. 33. When the elevator is silent, look around and ask “is that your beeper?”
  34. Play the harmonica.
  35. Shadow box.
  36. Say “Ding!” at each floor.
  37. Lean against the button panel.
  38. Say “I wonder what all these do” and push the red buttons.
  39. Listen to the elevator walls with a stethoscope.
  40. Draw a little square on the floor with chalk and announce to the other passengers that this is your “personal space.”
  41. Bring a chair along.
  42. Take a bite of a sandwich and ask another passenger: “Wanna see wha in muh mouf?”
  43. Blow spit bubbles.
  44. Pull your gum out of your mouth in long strings.
  45. Announce in a demonic voice: “I must find a more suitable host body.”
  46. Carry a blanket and clutch it protectively.
  47. Make explosion noises when anyone presses a button.
  48. Wear “X-Ray Specs” and leer suggestively at other passengers.
  49. Stare at your thumb and say “I think it’s getting larger.”
  50. If anyone brushes against you, recoil and holler “Bad touch!”

• A man was sitting in his house when he heard a tapping on the door. He went to see who it was. He opened the door and looked around he then heard a tiny voice, “Hey mister, could you lend me 10 bucks?” The man looked down and saw a snail sitting on his porch. He said, “What do you want?” The snail said, “Could you lend me 10 bucks?” The man yelled, “get out of here!” and then kicked him off the porch. About a year later the man hears a tapping on his door again. He goes out to see who it is. He looks around and he finally heard a tiny voice say, “What did you do that for?”

• This story is about a rather strange reply for a campground reservation. It is said to be true, but you be the judge.
• A woman who was rather old-fashioned, delicate, and elegant – especially in her language – was planning a week’s vacation in Florida so she wrote to a particular campground and asked for a reservation.
• She wanted to make sure the campground was fully equipped, but didn’t quite know how to ask about the toilet facilities. She just couldn’t bring herself to write the word “TOILET” in her letter. After much deliberation, she finally came up with the old-fashioned term “BATHROOM COMMODE.” But when she wrote that down, she still thought she was being too forward. So, she started all over again, rewrote the letter and referred to the bathroom commode merely as the B.C. “Does the campground have it’s own B.C.?” is what she actually wrote.
• Well, the campground owner wasn’t old-fashioned at all and when he got the letter, he just couldn’t figure out what the woman was talking about. That B.C. business really stumped him.
• After worrying about it for a while, he showed the letter to several campers, but they couldn’t imagine what the lady meant either. So the campground owner, finally coming to the conclusion that the lady must be asking about the location of the local Baptist Church, sat down and wrote the following reply:
• “Dear Madam: Regret very much in the delay in answering you letter. I now take the pleasure in informing you that a B.C. is located nine miles north of the campground and is capable of seating 250 people atone time. I admit it is quite a distance away if you are in the habit of going regularly, but no doubt you will be pleased to know that a great number of people usually take their lunches along and make a day of it. They usually arrive early and stay late.”
• “The last time my wife and I went was six years ago and it was so crowded that we had to stand up the whole time we were there. It may interest you to know that right now, there is a supper being planned to raise money to buy more seats. They’re going to hold it in the basement of the B.C.”
• “I would like to say it pains me very much not to be able to go more regularly but it is sure no lack of desire on my part. As we grow older, it seems to be more of an effort, particularly in cold weather.”
• “If you do decide to come down to our campground, perhaps I could go with you the first time you go, sit with you, and introduce you to all the other folks.”
• “Remember, this is a friendly community.”

• In a mailing list which I subscribe to there has recently been much debate about non-toxic methods of repelling ant invasions. The Ma Kettle type remedies which were offered usually involved barriers of coffee grounds or baking soda to repel the advancing ant hordes. I felt that these quaint approaches lacked the spirit of violence which is a necessary part of dealing with these insectoidal invaders.
• So, here’s my contribution to the ant genocide debate.
• ===================
• Method A: AARDVARKS
• Application: Sprinkle Aardvarks liberally around ant nests and known ant hang-outs (seedy ant-bars, and the like).
• Pros: 100% Natural, little supervision required.
• Cons: Once having consumed their fill of ants aardvarks tend to lose motivation. Should they gain control of the TV remote they will waste entire afternoons idly lounging on your furniture, flicking between game shows and forgetting to close the fridge door when they’ve raided it for yet another six-pack.
• Method B: LARGE BOOTS
• Application: Obtain a large pair of boots (hobnailed preferably), obtain a friend and arm them with the boots. Apply boots vigorously to the ants.
• Pros: Cheap, 100% natural, good course of exercise for boot operator.
• Cons: Requires continual application, this necessitates the instilling of a “Holy War Against Ants” attitude in your boot wielding friend. Show them videos of “Them” and “The Hellstrom Chronicles”.
• Method C: NAPALM
• Application: Low level saturation bombing runs by F-111′s or similar fighter- bomber military aircraft.
• Pros: Immense emotional satisfaction, guaranteed ant genocide, visually spectacular.
• Cons: Low level saturation bombing runs tend to lower local property values. Misses can instil ill-feeling in your neighbours should you incinerate schools or houses.
• Method D: TECHNO
• Application: Arrange Net access for the ants, ensure that they subscribe to Alt.Ant and Soc.Insect. Infiltrate these newsgroups and make frequent posts along the lines of: “My pheromone operating system is better than yours”, “Evil drug companies are withholding antennae rot cures” and “Green Cards for Worker Ants Spam” – encourage flamewars to erupt. After a few days ant society will collapse in a sea of internecine warfare, ant neuroses and mass hysteria.
• Pros: Emotional satisfaction of toying with their little minds.
• Cons: Expense and difficulty of obtaining thousands of teeny-tiny-terminals.

•  
  • Q. What do you get when you cross a mosquito with a mountain climber?
    A. Nothing, you can’t cross a vector and a scalar.
  • Q. What is teenier than a teeny weeny ant ?
    A. An ants teeny weeny !
  • Q.What do you call 2 fleas on top of a bald head?
    A. Homeless
  • Q.What is the last thing that goes through a bugs mind when it hits your windshield?
    A. His Butt
  • A client in a restaurant complains to the waitress:
  • “There’s cockroach in my borscht!”
  • “Eat, we have more. I’ll bring you a fork.”
  • THE GRASSHOPPER AND THE ANT
  • The Original Version:
  • The ant busts his butt in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he’s a fool and laughs and drinks and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter so he dies out in the cold.
  • The Liberal Version:
  • It starts out the same, but when winter comes, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving. CBS, NBC and ABC show up and provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to film of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.
  • America is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can it be that, in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so? Then a representative of the NAAGB (The National Association of Green Bugs) shows up on Night Line and charges the ant with “Green Bias” and makes the case that the grasshopper is the victim of 30 million years of greenism. Kermit the frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper, and everybody cries when he sings “It’s Not Easy Being Green.” Later, Barbara Streisand makes a double platinum recording of the song and banks another six million dollars.
  • Bill and Hillary Clinton make a special guest appearance on the CBS Evening News and tell a very concerned Dan Rather that they will do everything they can for the grasshopper who has been denied the prosperity he deserves by those who benefited unfairly during the Reagan summers, or as Bill refers to it, the ” Temperatures of the 80′s”. Bill reports he is sending a new draft Affirmative Discrimination Bill to the Senate and House to codify Government retaliation against sexual harassment and discrimination perpetrated by ants.
  • Finally the EEOC drafts the “Economic Equity and Anti-Greenism Act”, RETROACTIVE to the beginning of the summer. The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government. Hillary gets her old law firm to represent the grasshopper in a defamation suit against the ant, and the case is tried before a panel of federal judges that Bill appointed from a list of single-parent welfare moms who can only hear cases on Thursday afternoon between 1:30 and 3:00 PM when there are no talk shows scheduled. The ant loses the case.
  • The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant’s food while the government house he’s in which just happens to be the ant’s old house crumbles around him since he doesn’t know how to maintain it. The ant has disappeared in the snow. And on the TV, which the grasshopper bought by selling most of the ant’s food, they are showing Bill Clinton standing before a wildly applauding group of Democrats announcing that a new era of “Fairness” has dawned in America.
  • –
  • Another Modern Version:
  • The beginning is the same. Winter comes. The ant sees the grasshopper coming and shoots him dead. Government forces show up. The ant barricades himself in his house. You know the rest.

• Fleas: Adults live in hair and clothing. Larvae are found under rugs and among accumulated lint incorporating organic matter, including the contents of carpet sweepers and vacuum cleaners.
  
  Food:
•         Adult feeds on blood from humans, pigs, rodents, dogs, coyotes, cats, mules, and deer. Larva eats organic debris, scavenged from hosts.
• Life Cycle:
•         Fleas have a complete metamorphosis. Eggs are frequently laid on the host animal, but may be laid by adults which have fallen to the ground. Female fleas scatter about 500 eggs during her lifetime, which may be 18 months if well fed, 4 months if starved. These eggs will hatch in anywhere from 1 day to several weeks, and will feed for 8-32 days. They pupate in cracks for 3-35 days but may wait months to emerge, aroused by vibrations from a passing potential host. Flea larvae are rarely seen due to there size. They frequently become entwined within the carpet, and resist the pull of a vacuum. The mature larva spins a cocoon for pupation, This cocoon becomes covered with grains of sand, lint, dust, or other debris from the substrate, so will be well camouflaged in the substrate.
• Note: this is why a family may find there new home, or long visited condo infested with fleas, whether they do or do not have pets. 
• General Information:
• Fleas have powerful legs which permit them to jump as much as 7-8 inches upward and 14-16 inches horizontally. Fleas have piercing-sucking mouthparts to penetrate the skin of the host and suck blood.

        A parasite is an organism that obtains nourishment during all or part of its life upon another organism, but usually not directly causing the death of the organism upon which it feeds. Fleas are an ectoparasite, which is a parasite which feed from the external surface of the host. Diseases which fleas can carry are bacteria, protozoans, rickettsia or viruses. When parasites, such as fleas carry another disease, they are called a vector of disease.

• Earwigs         Order Dermaptera       
• Appearance:
•         Earwigs have pinchers or forcep-like appendages at the end of the abdomen. Its size can vary between to 3/4 inch long and can be a dark reddish-brown to jet black in color.
• Habitat:
•         They are active at night, and some species are attracted to lights in large numbers. During the day, they usually find shelter beneath stones, boards, and debris.
• Food:
•         Earwigs are primarily scavengers on dead animal and plant material. Plants and ground litter, and perhaps foodstuffs found in homes and grain warehouses are also attractive.
• Life Cycle:
•         Gradual metamorphosis. Nymphs, which have same appearance except smaller than adults grow to maturity in a few months and can live up to a year.
• General Information:

        Earwigs are often transported great distances in potted plants, nursery stock, or other plant material. Earwigs received there common name by early settlers “old wives tail” that an earwig will crawl into your ear and cause a person to go insane.