Monitoring: an essential part of IPM

What’s the process when you go to your doctor for an annual checkup?

A nurse always weighs you, listens to your breathing, and takes your blood pressure. Then the nurse writes the results down on your chart so that the doctor has some numbers to back up your story and better inform his or her prescription. If your numbers have improved from last year—great, keep up the good work. If not, the doctor will probably investigate further, diagnose the problem, and prescribe a treatment.

Now imagine if you went to the doctor and the nurse didn't take your measurements. There was no medical history chart. The doctor just took a good look at you and gave you a prescription.  Would you feel confident in the diagnosis and course of action? Not likely. You want a doctor that monitors your health.

Record keeping and monitoring the trends in the records is essential for keeping tabs on the health of a person. It’s also an essential part of an IPM program. The basic measurements you need to take, at least annually, in each unit and in every common area in your building are the levels of:

• Cockroaches (note which kinds),
• Mice,
• Bed bugs,
• Rats (note which kind),
• Any other insects (identify them) that the person inspecting encounters, and
• Food, water, and shelter available to pests in the unit/area (aka housekeeping and maintenance).

For the past two weeks I’ve been traveling around placing and picking up sticky trap monitors at housing authorities. Working with a maintenance person, in each of 40 randomly chosen units, we put six traps down: behind a refrigerator, next to the stove, under the kitchen sink, behind the toilet, behind a couch, and behind a bed. While we’re placing the traps we make note of any maintenance needs, talk to the residents, and give the unit a housekeeping score of Good, Fair, or Poor. At the end of the day I submit work orders for the maintenance problems (mostly leaky pipes or dripping faucets) and report the units with poor housekeeping to the property manager.

Three days later we go back and pick up all the traps, along with whatever stuck to them during the two nights. I am using this data to evaluate the impact the Northeastern IPM Center’s training program has on cockroach infestation levels. But I also give the data to the property manager so that he or she can get the in-house or contracted pest management professional (PMP) to focus efforts where infestations exist.

Every IPM program should begin with a property-wide (every unit) inspection. A PMP should place the monitors, inspect, re-visit all units to check monitors, and record all findings (even if the finding is that there is no problem). If there are no pests on the monitor, leave it in place.

  Anyone who has had basic IPM training can inspect and monitor because no pesticide application is needed. In fact, I recommend you have maintenance put a dated sticky trap monitor with the work order number written on it under the sink in every turned over unit. During the new resident orientation, use the empty monitor to start a discussion about the property’s pest control program.

Once the property-wide assessment is complete, the PMP should sit down with someone who knows the property and identify the trends. Units or areas where infestation exists should be marked as “focus units/areas” and these locations should receive the majority of the PMP’s time. Units without infestation still have monitors at this point, so the residents and staff can just check the monitors at their convenience. If there is a pest on the trap, add the unit to the focus list and the PMP can inspect further.

That’s right… no routine pesticide application. Monitoring allows the IPM team to focus their time and resources where the problem actually exists and also tracks improvement. Units without infestation probably only need inspection and monitoring.

At least once a year re-do the property-wide inspection and monitoring—change out the traps, inspect, and record the findings. Then meet with property staff again and reevaluate the property-wide IPM plan. With this focused approach and cooperation from maintenance staff, property management, residents, and the PMP any infestation should be eliminated within a few months. If monitoring shows that the IPM team’s efforts are not successful, try a different approach. If not, try a new integrated approach. That’s the beauty of IPM—there are many control options! 

As a side note, I used to work in veterinary entomology—IPM on farms. We had a way of monitoring house flies. Monitoring results were used as evidence in lawsuits to show whether the farmer was managing his or her fly population. I can imagine something similar for bed bugs…

Analyzing the monitor catches and inspection findings is where PMPs can really be an asset to you. They’ll know common trends and solutions that prevent reoccurring problems. For example:

• Are units surrounding a compactor room all infested with mice? Perhaps the compactor room door needs a door sweep. 
• Were cockroaches only trapped in the living room of a unit? Maybe the PMP has only been treating the kitchen and the residents eat dinner in front of the TV. (Side note: despite popular belief, cockroaches don’t travel very far to find food and water…there can be an infestation in only one room.) 
• Were American Cockroaches trapped in every unit in one row of homes? Maybe a PMP should look into the shared basement.

Just like the nurse needs a scale and stethoscope, whoever is doing the IPM inspection and monitoring will need a few tools of the trade:

• Monitors designed for the pest you wish to monitor. Label each monitor with the location, date of placement, and initials of the person placing the monitor. There are lots of monitoring options, simply Google the kind of pest and “monitor.” Your PMP will know your options too.
• A log sheet to record the numbers of pests on each trap, maintenance needs, and housekeeping scores.  Download Monitoring Note Sheet
• A good bright flashlight and an inspection mirror for seeing in nooks and crannies.
• A magnifying glass to see if that speck on the trap has six or eight legs.
• Jars for collecting specimens for identification.
• Hardware tools for getting at hard-to-reach places.
• Although not necessary for inspection or monitoring, It’s great to have a HEPA backpack vacuum to suck up any insects or signs of insects. If you remove the signs when you inspect, you'll know what's fresh when you go back. And there is nothing like a few minutes of vacuuming to get residents to believe you when you say, “We’ll do our part in pest control if you do yours.”

More of a step-by-step thinker like me? Here’s some language from the IPM plan for a PHA developed by General Pest Control Co. in Cleveland, OH:

1)    On-going and Regular Monitoring Program: 
Suites (once a year) Common Areas (monthly)

• Place, collect and interpret dated monitoring devices
• Perform treatment if and where needed within IPM guidelines
• Provide additional educational information
• Document findings on Pest Management Report (PMR)
• Identify, revise, and update Focus Unit List and Problematic Common Area(s)

2)    Follow-up Visit(s):  Focus Units and Problematic Common Area(s) 
(at one, two, or four week intervals)

• Collect and interpret dated monitoring devices
• Perform additional treatment if needed
• Provide additional education information
• Document findings on Pest Management Report (PMR)
• Inform resident of future visits by applicator (if applicable)

3)    Repeat above Follow-up Visits (if applicable)

• Document findings on Pest Management Report (PMR)

Thanks for your time today— I’ve got to get back to counting cockroaches!

 

Comments

[Sam Bryks]

Great analogy Allie!

This takes me back more than 20 years when we started to monitor for roaches in Metro Toronto Housing Authority. Our mandate was to reduce use of pesticides AND eliminate roaches. We actually only used three monitors per unit, and put one each behind or beside stove and fridge, and a third under the kitchen sink. We had started with one in bathroom as well, but quickly found that if they were in the bathroom which was fairly uncommon, they were ALWAYS in kitchen, so the bathroom one was deleted as it did not contribute much to the assessment. We didn't put into the living room or bedrooms as we rarely found them there... again, if there was one in bedroom, almost invariably they were in kitchen, and if the kitchen was severely infested, they could be anywhere!!!!

We did pre- and post- treatment monitoring. It helped reduce the number of units that needed to be treated as this identified all units that were likely free of infestation. We still put in some maxforce stations as precaution even in those units.

When we did comparisons in graphic charts of extent of infestations before and after treatment largely using non-spray tactics, it was like looking at Manhattan sky scrapers (more infestation was a higher bar) compared to a prairie field flat and narry a bar to be seen, and those were very low.

We used post treatment monitoring as the basis for follow-up. This is, unfortunately, very time consuming, and many organizations cannot spare the staff or the time to do this extensive monitoring. It does take hours to put in the traps, take them out and count the roaches. My staff used to give me looks when I set the standard of counting nymphs and adults, though we designed a trap with a grid system, and for high numbers, the counts were largely greater than figures rather than actual estimates.
Our thresholds for types of treatment were:
1. none seen
2. 1 - 4 seen,
3. 5 - 9,
4. 10 or more.

After we stopped using sprays, this was less critical, and due to limited resources, we relied more on contractor evauations, and tenant survey responses. if there is not a major extent of infestation in a site, then site staff doing annual inspections can be a pretty good evaluative process if they are trained to look in the right areas for roaches, mice, and bed bugs. Monitoring is better of course, but when this is not likely due to resource issues, then tracking service requests, and the survey process as well as training site staff to check are all great alternatives. If you have the resources, then of course, this is asbsolutely super!!!

Your comments and figures help a lot.. This is truly classical urban IPM. I wish more people practiced this...the surveys to tenants we found to be outstanding......if people are encouraged to respond and ask for help.

Sam