Arthropodcast - A Pest Control Podcast for Industry Professionals. We Cover Pest Control News, Pest Control Topics, Pest Control Products
Arthropodcast is a weekly pest control podcast that promotes professionalism and industry expertise to business owners, pest control operators, sales reps, and inspectors.

I hope everyone’s holiday season is going well. For me, things have been a bit hectic, not in a bad way, but I’ve found it extremely difficult to set aside the hours needed to put together a podcast episode worth publishing. Because of this, I’ve decided to re-broadcast the first Arthropodcast episode Bryan and I produced as co-hosts. I hope you enjoy.

Direct download: celebrityedition4.mp3
Category:Pest Control Podcast -- posted at: 9:24pm CDT

Congratulations to Miller Pest and Termite in Des Moines , Iowa for winning this weeks contest. They have an awesome website at www.millerthekiller.com. We'd like to thank JoelM222 for the iTunes review. For episode 40 of the Arthropodcast show, Steve brings up a rather odd study that recently took place on the rove beetle. You actually have to see the article to believe it.

Direct download: EP40.mp3
Category:Pest Control Podcast -- posted at: 8:07pm CDT

Huge thanks to Aaron Veal of Phoenix Pest Control for the intro and congrats to Bug-Man Pest Services for winning this week's game show. For episode 39, Bryan shares some start up tips, we discuss DowDuPont, and Steve shares some of the advancements in spider silk production.

Direct download: EP39.mp3
Category:Pest Control Podcast -- posted at: 5:55am CDT

First off, We'd like to wish Larry Wise a Happy Birthday and congratulate Responsible Pest Control of Mesa, AZ for winning our first game show. This episode, we talk about Chagas Disease, a couple great products from the Nisus Corporation and a toy that is made up mostly of boric acid.

Direct download: EP38b.mp3
Category:Pest Control Podcast -- posted at: 8:36am CDT

This week, Shawn Payne of Lakewood Plant and Pest asks the team what actions they take when they don't get paid, Steve tells a story of how he profits from crawlspaces with raw sewage leaks, and Bryan gives a shout out to Harry Bryan and Charlene Mertz of the Nisus Corporation. 

Direct download: Ep37.mp3
Category:Pest Control Podcast -- posted at: 12:14pm CDT

Happy Thanksgiving to all! We are so thankful for all of your support over the past eleven months!

"What's up" to Aaron Veal ACE, Pest Control Peacekeeper, and JShoup02 for the iTunes reviews. 

This week we discuss the Cockroach Combat Manual, Gorilla Desk vs PestPac, the Bombardier Beetle, and a few ways people use insects to predict the severity and length of the Winter.

Direct download: Ep36.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 12:54pm CDT

On Episode 35, we congratulate Luke Guy for his Pest Pro App's recent feature in LifeHacker.com. Bryan gives us a follow up review on the new product "Fuse". Bryan tells us about Pest Management University, a hands-on training course for pest management professionals and he shares his "tale of two businesses". What is the biggest advantage small business have over larger ones? Check out the podcast and find out. 

Direct download: Ep35.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:31pm CDT

For episode 34, Bryan talks about an article discussing bed bugs and multi unit housing. We give shout outs to Jessy with Midwest Pest Control, Greg Stephens of Ultra Pest Control, and Frank Hernandez. In addition, Steve uncovers the mystery of haunted houses and both fellas chime in on the difference between driving marked and unmarked vehicles.

Direct download: Ep34.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:21pm CDT

For Episode 33, we’ll find out why Bryan doesn’t like Tom Petty, we rant about reputations and also share a way to write off beer as a chemical expense.

Direct download: Ep33b.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:24pm CDT

As usual, we go off topic and talk about haunted houses, express opinions on Glamour Magazine's "Woman of the Year", give you advice on how to rent a castle and mention possible bills that attempt to make meat eating illegal. We also talk about gender specific rat baits, an interesting (and fairly new product) from Syngenta called Arilon.

Direct download: episode32.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:06pm CDT

Let's just get this out of the way- Death Wish Coffee rocks! This week, Steve gives some follow up on how well InVict Xpress works on earwigs. In addition, Bryan and Steve get into a conversation about comedy.

Direct download: ep31b.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 12:57pm CDT

For our 30th Episode of the Arthropodcast Show, Bryan tells us a story of one DIY guy's bed bug challenges, he talks about his brief stint in the fast food industry, and Steve tells us an unbelievable (yet true) story involving Allen Funt - the original host of Candid Camera.

Direct download: Episode30.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 5:31pm CDT

For episode 29 of the Arthropodcast, Steve brings up a concern with the growing popularity of dog cloning, Bryan discusses an outstanding blog post by Aaron Veal on Ultrasonic Pest Repellents, and Steve goes on a major rant about flaws found in a bed bug study that was recently published.

This time we had a minor "on air" accident that proved to be too funny to edit out.  

We hope you enjoy the show!

Direct download: Episode29c.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00pm CDT

For Episode 28, Bryan talks about the rat extermination that took place on South Georgia Island, Steve discusses a "thought experiment" that considers which animal is best positioned to take over the Earth if humans become extinct, Steve also mentions a global warming "hack" that would cool the planet, and Bryan looks at the Termidor HP injector system.

Why does Bryan mention robots and zombies?

What is the best why to avoid a talkative customer? 

Stay tuned and find out.

Direct download: EP28mp3.mp3
Category:Pest Control Podcast -- posted at: 7:15pm CDT

On Episode 27 of the Arthropodcast, Steve gives his opinion on why he feels the entries of Amazon and Uber into the home services realm will not drive pest control prices down. In addition, Scott Ballard gives us three tips that will help build the confidence of new sales reps.

Direct download: episode27b.mp3
Category:Pest Control Podcast -- posted at: 11:00am CDT

On Episode 26, Bryan discusses a great book titled Zero to a Million, Built a Better Business by Jeff Annis, our opinions of the DIY pest control segment of the industry, and a growing problem in commercial beekeeping - colony theft.

Direct download: Episode26.mp3
Category:Pest Control Podcast -- posted at: 4:25pm CDT

On episode 25 of the Arthropodcast, Bryan gives us a quick history lesson on CCD, we discuss differences between wild bee colonies from 1977 and 2010, Luke Guy joins us to talk about SEO and his new website/app named called PestProAPP.com

Direct download: episode25.mp3
Category:Pest Control Podcast -- posted at: 3:46pm CDT

 

This week we’re going to get the final word on roaches shaking while they ingest maxforce impact. We’ll talk about InVict Xpress Granular Bait, and also name a winner for our latest the Facebook question. We ran into some sound quality issues near the end of our call so we decided to cut the episode short and just cover the remaining topics next week.

Direct download: Episode24e.mp3
Category:Pest Control Podcast -- posted at: 11:13pm CDT

Hello and welcome to episode 23 of the Arthropodcast. I’m your co-host Steve Jackson. Along with the hilarious Bryan Baird, we bring you your pest info on the go.

 

On this episode, Bryan gives you a preview of next week’s Facebook question, we both chime in on some of the challenges we always seem to have in August, and I share my findings on the lifting of the neonicotinoids ban in the UK. Why couldn’t farmers just revert to the way they did things before neonics were invented. Seems easy enough, right?

 

We’ll explain why that option isn’t quite as easy as it sounds. Come ride with us for about 30 minutes, you might be a little surprised on this one.

Direct download: EP23mp3.mp3
Category:Pest Control Podcast -- posted at: 6:19pm CDT

This week Bryan gives us a brief review of Nisus Magnetic roach bait. He shares contact information for Paul Bello’s pest relief international. And we also discuss a controversial article titled “Call Off the Bee-Pocalypse” written by Christopher Ingraham. According to the USDA’s honey report, the pollinator situation might not be as grim as most of us thought. Stick around and we’ll share some numbers that I personally found very surprising.

Direct download: Episode22.mp3
Category:Pest Control Podcast -- posted at: 11:49am CDT

On episode 21 of the Arthropodcast, we discuss the Facebook Question of the Week with Wendi Baird and talk sales with Scott Ballard. Bryan also had an interesting observation while using Maxforce Impact: Have you noticed roaches shaking while they ingest the product? Leave us a voicemail with your findings and if we use your comment on the show, we'll mail you your very own Arthropodcast T-shirt. So if you use Maxforce Impact, tell us what you're seeing. We look forward to hearing from you!

Direct download: Episode_21.mp3
Category:Pest Control Podcast -- posted at: 1:19pm CDT

Last week I asked for your feedback on a situation I encountered, and did you ever respond. We’ll share your general consensus on the matter, as well as highlight one listeners comments. We’ll talk about fuse and exciting new product from Control solutions incorporated. For those interested in T-Shirts, We’ve finally got em. But there’s a catch, the only way to recieve one is to send us a voice recorded question or comment. If we feature your message on the show, we’ll send you a complementaly T-shirt.

Direct download: episode20.mp3
Category:Pest Control Podcast -- posted at: 6:20pm CDT

In episode 19, we’ll talk about Transport Mikron - what it does well, and what it doesn’t do well. We both complain about the current heatwave. Bryan shares a funny story about a re-inspection he recently performed, and I talk about an application NO NO that I encountered. As a professional, is it my duty to report the violation? We'd love your input on the matter, so drop us a line and tell us what YOU would do if you witnessed what I did.

Direct download: Episode19complete.mp3
Category:Pest Control Podcast -- posted at: 4:14pm CDT

On episode 18 of the Arthropodcast we give shout outs to Juliea Huffaker of Responsible Pest Control and Scott Ballard of S&S Termite and Pest Control, we field a question from Matt Winder from ProGuard Pest Control of Southern Utah, and Wendy Baird makes her debut on the podcast. Great job Wendy! We look forward to many more future episodes. 

Direct download: Episode18_complete.mp3
Category:Pest Control Podcast -- posted at: 8:37pm CDT

In Episode 17 of the Arthropodcast, we talk about Bryan's trip to the Georgia Pest Control Association Summer Conference in Orlando, FL. We also discuss a recent study by Anna Dornhaus (Associate professor from the University of Arizona’s ecology and evolutionary biology dept) and an article that claims American Roaches are the "fartiest animals" in Britain.

Direct download: Episode17.mp3
Category:Pest Control Podcast -- posted at: 11:03pm CDT

During our interview with Larry Wise, we had some sound quality issues that weren’t correctable. Our only option was to cut those parts out entirely.

But a lot of good information was shared after the part that required to be deleted.

Given the flow of the conversation, there was no natural way of reinserting the remainder of the interview without post production dialogue.

So in favor of making these edits on what would have been the last five minutes of the last episode, we decided to give you a mid-week bonus.

This broadcast includes what you didn’t hear from our interview with Larry Wise.

Direct download: episode16-bonus.mp3
Category:Pest Control Podcast -- posted at: 5:57pm CDT

As promised, this week we bring you Larry Wise of Jacksonville, FL. Larry is an urban entomologist, third generation pest management professional, and a partner with Bug-Man Pest Control.

Today Larry will give us some insight on what it takes to be an entomologist, he'll share some stories about what it's like to work in a lab setting, he'll talk about bed bugs, chickens, cockroach smoothies and a few other things as well. You won't want to miss this one.

Direct download: episode16.mp3
Category:Pest Control Podcast -- posted at: 9:58pm CDT

On Episode 15 of the Arthropodcast, we discuss the growth in podcasting, CimeXa, Steve's traumatic experience with a Pit Bull, future guests, and the one person Bryan does NOT want to appear on the show. It's not the most informative episode, but entertaining nonetheless.

Direct download: Episode15b.mp3
Category:Pest Control Podcast -- posted at: 11:09am CDT

On Episode 14 of the Arthropodcast we discuss Father's Day, the Termidor Supplemental Label, Larry Wise, how we got into the pest control industry, and a few crazy tales we've experienced as PCOs.

Direct download: Episode14.mp3
Category:Pest Control Podcast -- posted at: 6:48pm CDT

In this episode we discuss the Termidor label change, spider mating habits, and what Bryan would do if he were President of the United States.

Direct download: Episode_13b.mp3
Category:Pest Control Podcast -- posted at: 10:49pm CDT

I'm completely STOKED about this new format. Please help me welcome Bryan Baird to the Arthropodcast! Check out the 12th episode as we discuss the latest fruit fly study, an albino squirrel sighting, and which celebrities would make the best/worst exterminators.

Direct download: celebrityedition3.mp3
Category:Pest Control Podcast -- posted at: 5:30pm CDT

There’s been some question about Wikipedia usage for the Best Exterminator on Earth 30 day SEO challenge.  I’m not saying you can’t use the site for backlinks, visibility, or whatever, I’m saying wikipedia pages will ignored in the Search Engine Results Page.

 

The reason for this wiki ban stems from last years"World's Coolest Exterminator" competition.

 

As you probably now Wikipedia is a site with tremendous authority, so it ranks well in Google for just about everything.

 

So, I wrote an article on the site explaining the origins and rules of the World’s coolest exterminator competition. That article was crawled by web spiders, indexed and given the top position of Google within 20 minutes of the time I hit publish! Within another 20 minutes, the moderators killed the article citing, "Contest was not of significance". The search results, however, continued to give the dead article the top position for several days. When you clicked on the link, it took you to a "Page Removed" notification.

 

When this happened, I knew the site could be abused to win the contest. Simply submit an article 20-30 minutes before the competition ended and have a top ranking position. Sure the moderators would take the new "Best Exterminator on Earth" article down, but it would probably be alive at the time of the deadline.


And for someone, including myself, to employ that type of strategy would take the skill out of the contest and reduce it to an matter of timing - there’s really no fun in that. So, I hope that clarifies things.

Direct download: Best-on-earth_0001.wmv
Category:Pest Control Podcast -- posted at: 1:50pm CDT

This is a great way to let the customer know you really care about them. Thanks for the tip Northeastern Exterminating!

Direct download: Episode11.mp3
Category:Pest Control Podcast -- posted at: 8:38pm CDT

True story.

Studies in 1948 and 1995 were conducted to determine the effect drugs would have on a spider's ability to spin webs when exposed to these said drugs.  Did I mention one of these studies was conducted by NASA?

Direct download: Episode10e.mp3
Category:Pest Control Podcast -- posted at: 10:13pm CDT

I was actually going to take a whole different direction for Episode 9, but decided to change things up the day of release.  Hope you enjoy this one as much as I do.

Direct download: Episode9g.mp3
Category:Pest Control Podcast -- posted at: 9:54pm CDT

On episode 8 of the Arthropodcast, I review a movie and talk about a recent mosquito experiment by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.  If you have question, comments, suggestion, or would like to be featured on the Arthropodcast, send me a message on Arthropodalley.com or shoot me a tweet on Twitter - @stevejacksonus.

Direct download: mosquitoes-genetics.mp3
Category:Pest Control Podcast -- posted at: 6:50pm CDT

In Episode 7 of Arthropodcast, Steve Jackson discusses age limitations, urban coyotes, and what smokers and bees have in common.

Direct download: coyotesandbees2.mp3
Category:Pest Control Podcast -- posted at: 1:50pm CDT

In this episode. I discuss three freebies that have helped me in my career as a pest control professional.

Direct download: threefreebies2.mp3
Category:Pest Control Podcast -- posted at: 11:13am CDT

The pest control industry grew 3.5% in 2014, but it appears bed bug control is not the biggest contributing factor.

Direct download: 2014numbers3.mp3
Category:Pest Control Podcast -- posted at: 2:21pm CDT

Vacuuming is a great cleanout method; but is there a better, less-expensive way?  We'll take a look at an interesting option and the pros and cons that come along with it.

Direct download: steam2.mp3
Category:Pest Control Podcast -- posted at: 8:04pm CDT

Back in January of 2014, there was a bed bug study conducted by the University of Kentucky.

They took 10 strains of bed bugs from across the nation and exposed them to dry residues of Temprid SC and Transport GHP.

On my first read, I thought this study was a product face-off, which one is better.  I since then, have realized the researchers had something else in mind.

Their goal was to achieve an 80% mortality rate, they wanted some survivors. So they had to limit the time the bed bugs were exposed to the products. Reason being, they wanted to monitor the mortality rate of each strain's offspring.

Direct download: transport-temprid.mp3
Category:Pest Control Podcast -- posted at: 4:50pm CDT

Interview with Mickey Ferrell of HomePro Pest.

Direct download: mickeyferrellfull.mp3
Category:Pest Control Podcast -- posted at: 6:43pm CDT

Bed Bug Guru James Molluso talks about bed bug treatments, the use of encasements, the city's rat population and the logistical challenges pest control companies encounter while servicing customers in the "Big Apple".

Direct download: molluso-full-episode.mp3
Category:Pest Control Podcast -- posted at: 6:51pm CDT

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