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Hello, Ben here with Ben’s pest control. And it’s time for another one of our Ben’s pest control podcast. And today I want to talk about something that I consider close as far as my interests. So I want to discuss toys, what I call toys. So when it comes to toys, as we become adults, most of us our toys get bigger. And the bigger the toys, the more space they take up. So why don’t I be more specific when I say toys? I guess what I’m referring to is living here in Florida. There are a lot of people who have boats. And there are a lot of people who have campers. And there are a lot of people who have classic cars. And there are a lot of people who have trailers. There’s just a lot of interests that people can have here in Florida that are outdoor related. And almost every one of those interests involves having something that takes up some space. Now, you might be asking yourself, well, how does that relate to pest control? And you’re in luck, because I’m going to tell you. And anyways, so just yesterday, we got a call, one of our clients who lives out in the country has a camper. And when I went out to take a look at his camper. He said, I have bs in my camper, I can’t get into my camper, I can’t even open the door, they attacked me. And they’re very bad. So I went out to take a look. And we get out to the house. And the first thing I asked him was, Well, how long have you had the camper? And the gentleman says, Well, I’ve had the camper for 22 years. I’m like, Oh, okay. And I asked, I said, Well, how long has the camper been where it’s at. And the customer informed me that the camper has probably been parked where it’s at for 20 years, they bought the camper. They initially used the camper, they enjoyed the camper. But after a couple of years, they kind of got tired of the camper, and they parked it and never really did anything with it. Well, in this case, the camper has a vent on the side where there’s a pilot light for warming up hot water. And the pilot light is near the back of this specific camper. And anyways, where the event is they had put a garbage bag over it and they had duct taped it to the camper, but the garbage bag had come off. And the bees were going in and out of there. Just constantly and when I asked him I said Well, how long have you had the bees, he said he figured for probably about five years.
So we got our gear on and we started to treat the camper. And there was inside the camper, there was a shelf and a closet that is screwed together screwed on a lid. And you can open that shelf and you can see the hot water tank. So we started by treating outside and getting the bees taken care of from outside. And after about 20 minutes after the bees really started to calm down, we went in the camper and there were bees coming out all over in the camper. And so we went into there and on the other side of the closet or that little shelf where the hot water heater is was the sink. And it seems that the cabinet from where the hot water tank was into that sink was wide open. So the bees were able to come out from under there and get into the cabinet. And then the cabinet was ajar. So they were able to come out in the camper. And so there were a lot of bees in the camper. And we did remove the top of the shelf where the cubby is for the hot water tank. And there were just large amounts of Honeycomb large amount of bees. And we had to go in and we had to remove the honeycomb finish treating the bees and go through that process. Now, the reason we’re talking about toys today is that’s not an isolated incident. I have probably in 20 some years experience at least six of those where I have had calls to go out the campers and treat them for BS. And in some cases, the camper may just have a small hole in it someplace. It might be a light fixture that’s one of the side lights for when they’re driving at night the light lights up so people can see the camper and maybe that fixture is broken off and now there’s a hole in the signing. And bees have gotten into the to the camper through there. And in those situations you run into very specialized issues because you can’t necessarily just rip the side of the camper off unless somebody knows what they’re doing to put the camper back together. The siding is usually some kind of plastic and and you just start cutting in, you’re going to have some real problems. So while I’ve had them in the sidelights, I’ve had them build nests where the gray water tank is the black water tank underneath. Campers make great places for, for insects that come up from underneath. And to kind of get away from the bees, my wife and I, we had a camper ourselves for years. And we found that in summer when we didn’t use it as much, because maybe it was too hot to take it out. We would go to get into our camper after some time and we would find roaches we would finance. It was amazing, you know, they found a dry space to kind of to hide and live in it. So it’s, it’s a very inviting circumstance for them. It makes a great harborage. And so now let’s talk about boats. Boats are somewhat similar. A lot of people in Florida will buy boats, and they’ll use the boat a couple times. And then they realize boats are a lot of work. Nothing wrong with boats. I like boats. But then they park the boat and it sits on the side of their house. And next thing you know, maybe it has a cover over it if the cover rips. I mean, you can have ants in them. You can have roaches, rats like to get in them. I’ve had people have raccoons of raccoons thought, hey, it makes a great nesting spot. I can go in there and I can have babies. And so they take advantage of that. People in Florida as we discussed have trailers, I used to have a neighbor, the gentleman loved to do drag racing, and he had a drag racing trailer. And he parked his trailer with his drag equipment on the side of his house. And here in Port St. Lucie, that’s if you live in the actual city, not in a private community that’s allowed and I had no problem with it. But that trailer itself as it sat there, and especially for extended periods of time, I mean, you just don’t know what you’re gonna get inside the trailer, anything that can take advantage of that opening, or that protected space goes in and makes a makes a house. Now you’re dealing with a problem. So
I would tell you this, if if you have toys, and you’ve gotten to the point where you don’t use them, or you don’t think you’re going to use them, your best bet is to sell them, get them off your property, leaving them just sit there for more and more things can become a problem. The gentleman yesterday that will take the BS out was a fine example. He had saved some stuff in his camper he couldn’t get in the camper without risk of being attacked. And so it’s, it’s great. They’re fun to use. You just got to get out there, use them, take care of them, keep them sealed up, keep them closed up to keep the insects, the wildlife. The things that you don’t want to go in there and maybe come face to face and be trapped inside with. I mean, I can’t think of anything worse than potentially going into a camper and heaven forbid you found a raccoon and you the raccoon was between you and the door. If the raccoon didn’t go out the door, you might have a real problem because getting out may not be as simple as just getting by the raccoon without a fight. So protect your toys, protect them from the insects protect them from the animals. Now this is Ben with Ben’s pest control. If you are interested in one of our free inspections or analysis, you can give us a call at 772-878-1972 or you can check out our website at WWW dot Ben’s pest up is and we’ll be happy to give you one of our free 58 Point pest surveys and analysis and tell you what we see going on at your house and make whatever recommendations we can make to help protect your home and or your toys. All right. I hope you have a great day.
