House wash experiences and spider infestation best practices

aaronb said:

Thankfully my route area is mainly high end areas and are mostly vacation homes that I might see the customers once a year during the summer months. I' have a couple celebrities, athletes, musicians and some ceo's of some big companies that I take care of.
The car and motor cycle collections, and just seeing the monster homes that only a few can afford is cool to see.
As for more bed bugs, I love when the people with money think they only go after the poor.
Most of them travel alot and they don't understand that we call them hitch hikers for a reason.
They get into their clothes or on their luggage and they bring them home.
I've treated a couple 10k +square foot homes for the damn things.
Like you know, the treatments are a pain in the ass and its not a quick spray and you are done.
We have to go through everything.
Furniture, clothes, pulling up carpet, removing wall plates so we can get into the wall voids to get product into those areas they bunker down in.

Click to expand...

would you be able to tent fumigate a house and kill them or is it more detailed than that even?

Its more detailed than that.
Tinting a home or a building is very expensive.
The other issue, depending on the state laws.
Nevada you have to have a license just for fumigation and it isn't cheap.
We have a couple people here that we will call for fumigation not just for bed bugs, but with shipping companies that their trailers will get infested with rodents, or other pests in the products that are being shipped in from all over.
Alot of the weekly **** hole motels in Reno have been condemned by the city and are being torn down due the infestations.
There are companies that will bring in heaters to cook the homes, But that only works if the bed bugs are out in the open and in the furniture.
You still need to put down a pesticide for a residual that will take care of them as they come out of their hiding places.
The big thing I tell people, especially if they travel.
Do not put your clothes in the drawers or leave them laying around in a room. Leave them in your luggage and if there is a bath tub in the room. Put your luggage in that at night. They can't climb a slick surface. When yiu get home.
Take all your clothes and then put them in your dryer on high for atleast 90 minutes.
It will cook any of the bugs or eggs that may have got onto your clothes.

Years ago an ex-Marine taught me a trick for preventing/eliminating bed bugs. Get medicated foot powder - the stuff in the blue bottle, not the yellow bottle. Peel back the sheets and mattress cover and sprinkle the powder over the mattress from head to toe. Put the cover and sheets back on. You will smell like mentholatum, but you won't have any trouble with bed bugs. Marines of that era always carried foot powder for their feet, but they also never knew where they were going to bunk, so they always practiced that trick.

A tale too nasty to tell.
But Im gonna share it anyway.
Years ago a friend moves in with his "dream girl"
Just room mates but hes figuring thats the first step right?
He goes out of town for a couple of weeks and when he gets back there is a line of ants from the front door to her bedroom door.
Being an Eagle scout he goes in to investigate.
He found a couple of hundred empty bottles of Dr. Pepper and the ants were swarming on a,pile of her dirty panties on the floor.
He showed up on my door at about 4am and was so screwed up that my ex kept checking his blood pressure.
She thought he was having a siezure.
And now you know one of the things I wish I didnt know.
Sorry

I was surprised to see so many 8k square foot and up homes in my area. The largest home I took care of was 18,900 square feet and occupied by a husband, wife, and 12 year old son. I can't imagine what utility would be for something that big. It had a lot of cool features, but I'd rather have a modest home and ridiculous garage, lol! I can dream.

thinger2 said:

I have nothing too add, except a story.
Im from Seattle, we have rats and mice but no bugs worth worrying about.
I also lived in Arizona for several years and was not used to this type of thing.
Well, one morning at about 4 friggen am, my ex wakes me up screaming "Theres a scorpion in the kitchen"
"Get up, do something!!!!
So I put on the steel toe Redwings and went out in my boxers ready to battle the little *******.
No sign of him, Im concentrating and peeking and peering into little spaces..
And the cat walked behind me and brushed the back of my leg with his tail.
I screamed like a little girl, "eeeehh!!!
and jumped so high I took out the florescent light fixture in the ceiling.
Not my proudest moment

Click to expand...

Your story is just what I needed today. Thank you for a really good laugh. I'm laughing with you NOT at you. Maybe this is why you and your ex aren't together anymore.

drewcrew said:

Your story is just what I needed today. Thank you for a really good laugh. I'm laughing with you NOT at you. Maybe this is why you and your ex aren't together anymore.

Click to expand...

Ha! It probably didnt help!
Its kinda funny, us Western Washington boys dont give a **** about bears or cougers or 6 gill sharks or orca whales either
But bugs?
Eeeeehhh!

1ton-o-fun said:

I was surprised to see so many 8k square foot and up homes in my area. The largest home I took care of was 18,900 square feet and occupied by a husband, wife, and 12 year old son. I can't imagine what utility would be for something that big. It had a lot of cool features, but I'd rather have a modest home and ridiculous garage, lol! I can dream.

Click to expand...

It's crazy, big ass house and only a couple people live in them part time.
I call them trophy's.
This is one of the homes I go out to a couple times a year.
They only want $39 mill
https://www.teamblairtahoe.com/home...ULEVARD-INCLINE-VILLAGE-NV-89450/1008156/350/

Wow $39 mil that’s incredible, Imagine the maintenance costs are a $ million a year easy

BonestockK1500 said:

Wow $39 mil that’s incredible, Imagine the maintenance costs are a $ million a year easy

Click to expand...

Probably not quite that high but I'm sure it's still ridiculous. I have a weird fascination with large residential properties, both in-use and abandoned. IIRC the Evander Holyfield mansion was something like 40K square ft and I think it's maintenance costs were around $1mil annually.

EDIT - Yeah just Googled it. 54K square ft, $1mil upkeep annually, $17K electric bill every month.