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Hello, this is Ben with Ben’s pest control podcast. And today we’re bringing you another episode. And today’s episode, we’re going to talk about Psocids. No, for most people, Psocids are going to be a name that’s pretty unfamiliar to them, I would think the more common name for them is booklice. And not that people really necessarily know what booklice are. But they occur in foods, and they incur in places that usually can train contain moisture. Some cases, mold. They’re very commonly found in bindings of book as books as you got the name that the book lice name. Now, they’re, they’re an interesting little creature. And I guess what I should do is maybe start by explaining that the reason for this podcast is that going back about two months ago, I got a call from a gentleman who lived in a condo in Fort Pierce. And he said to me, he said, Ben, I’ve, I’ve got these spots on my walls, and there’s these little bugs that are moving. And I said, Okay, so we went out to take a look. And after getting to his house, I shined my flashlight on his walls, and, and I noticed there were all these spots of paint on the wall. And the gentleman told me, Well, when I bought the condo, there were all of these areas that the guy had just used touch up paint, and I wasn’t sure why he had touched up the wall so much. And after shining the flashlight from the walls to the ceiling. I mean, we just found large numbers of these tiny, tiny bugs. And booklice are actually one to two millimeters, just the tiniest little things. And we were seeing them on the ceiling, sometimes 1020 of them, seeing them on the wall, seeing them on his counters, and they were all over and I told the gentlemen when I was there that day, I said sir, I said I believe that these are Psocids. I said, but I want to make sure because I had never seen a house so infested with booklice. And I took some samples, I brought it back, I looked at them under the microscope, I said again, I think there are Psocids or booklice. And just to be on the safe side, I sent them to the lab and I had them identified and they came back and said, yes, they are so Psocids
or booklice. So I had to call the gentleman I said, you know based on what we’re researching, the gentleman had quite the library of books. But in saying that we knew that they had been there from the homeowner before. So because book lice are also a species that are drawn to fungus or mold. We had a feeling that there could be mold in his condo. And so what I want to do is read you an excerpt of something that I got from a website it’s from. It’s from England, it’s called pesty m.uk. And they have a website that discusses the book lice. It is not uncommon to see loose or torn wings to be distributed among the booklice in the products they infest the indoor booklice preferred damp dark place in our most common in basements, attics and damp walls. This among other factors due to the fact they do not tolerate dehydration they feed on the molds that thrive in moist conditions on walls. The same fungi that cannot be seen with the naked eye is also available along with booklice in damp furniture or damp paper and especially damp hay and straw. In new buildings are usually many booklice in the first two to three years, but their numbers decrease as the building becomes dry over time. So the gentleman had to call and have a Mold Test and I believe he had a Mold Test and I would be shocked to find out if he didn’t find that he had mold going on in his unit and had to do something to treat the mold. Because it was it was pretty bad. They were all over in the house. Now the other reason I mentioned book lice is this is the holiday season and book lice are also very commonly found in flower. Flower can be absolutely infested to the point when you open a bag of flour. You can literally see hundreds of 1000s of these tiny little bugs
just running around and now what’s interesting is the book like They’re going to usually stay on the surface of the flower and not really go down deep because they they need to have moisture. And so what happens a lot of times is people will be like, Well, can we just scoop off the top surface and I would say to them no, because in my experience, it’s not necessarily that the book lice are, it’s not that the flower isn’t unsavable but the book lice are usually a sign that some kind of moisture has gotten to the flower and it’s created this moist environment with the flower that could have possibly even damaged your flower or caused it to be you know, inappropriate more because of the the moisture or the mold that could be there, or the fungus that could be present based on the the moisture. So I’ll read you an excerpt again from from the same website says booklice. And flower bakes is often led to discussions between consumers and sellers. So in other words, obviously people find the book lice, they return their flour to the store booklice are quite harmless. And since they cannot dig into flour, they only exist on the surface. Flour with many booklice should be discarded not because of the presence of booklice themselves, but because the presence indicates the item may be slightly moldy. And with an unfamiliar fungi that is therefore not worth the risk to eat. And the reason I mentioned in this was as I said, it’s the holiday season. And just this weekend, my wife went to do her baking. And she had bought a large bag of flour from her discount warehouse store that she loves. And she started making her batches of dough for her sugar cookies that she makes. And she went in to make her third batch. And notice that there was something moving on the flour and all these booklice were just crawling around the bag. So needless to say the the two batches of dough she made ended up in the trash, the bag of flour ended up in the trash, we had another bag of flour she had bought, and that ended up in the trash. So it was extremely frustrating and then involved the trip to the grocery store to buy even more flour. And so that was that was quite the frustrating little experience. And so I’m just thankful she found it obviously before if she ended up serving that, or baking the cookies or serving that anybody not that anybody would have gotten sick, but just kind of crazy thought to think that that would have been in the food at some point in time or another. So anyways, what I usually tell people, This just my belief is that any of these stored product pests, you have to be very careful with the flower type products. Flower biscuit mix in Florida, even grains like rice or pastas. The longer that they sit for a period of time, the more these stored product pests can hatch out and become numerous in your food and your food can go to waste. And you’re ended up wasting money, which is is extremely frustrating on food that’s infested with bugs. So as I’ve told her many times, and my wife would tell you that I probably drive her a little crazy. I I sounded off and said, did you buy this from your discount? Store? Hope, you know your discount whole store? And she said yes, yes, I did. And I was like, Okay, well, if it sits and it’s on sale, because they got a bulk discount, that could be your problem. And that could be the issue. So, of course, as a husband, she wasn’t very happy with me. But she understood what I’m getting at and not that anything will change. But at least we came to a resolution that maybe we shouldn’t buy certain things from from the discount stores or the bulk stores. Anyways, I think I’ve cleared that part up for you. But just keep an eye out and know that booklice are quite numerous there in stored products. If you think you have them I suggest throwing out whatever you’ve got them in and buying new food and and replacing that. And if you have any questions or if you feel that you need us to come out and take a look, please check out our website at stop is or give our office a call at 772-878-1972 and we’ll be happy to provide you with a free 50 Point pest survey and analysis of your home. So thank you and have a great day.
