At the beginning of every year, it seems I get a lot of questions on what’s going to be “the thing” this year for pest control. It’s really impossible to tell since I don’t control the weather or any of the other factors that will affect pests.
I made some predictions last year, you can see them all here. Basically, I said rodents and ticks would be big and training was still going to be a high priority. How did I do?
Rodents. We are STILL waiting on those rodenticide label changes. No, we still don’t have any idea of when that will happen. From the companies I work with and talked with in 2023, rodent issues were definitely up so I’m calling this one a win. I'm backed up by surveys because 60% of PMP's said they saw increases in rodent activity. (They also said they had an almost 9% callback rate. Decrease that by working with us!)
Ticks. Ticks were definitely still in the news in 2023. Mostly because of the diseases they carry. Not just Lyme, but Rocky Mountain spotted fever, a few deadly cases of hantavirus, and the continuing spread of Alpha-gal syndrome (AKA: the meat allergy). I’m calling this one a win too. Surveys said that ticks were up significantly over the past year.
Training. This one I’m considering a draw. I probably had about the same number of requests for training as I did the previous year. One super cool training I did was a four hour intensive on house mice. Due to a deep dive into actual scientific research, you are probably looking at house mouse control wrong! (Coming soon to a city near you!)
I missed the explosion of bed bugs, especially in Europe and I think mosquitoes were in the news much more than I expected.
So my prophecies for this year?
Mosquitoes. There were a few articles late last year that show we are woefully unprepared for mosquito borne diseases that are present now. If something else hits that’s new… well, we could be in very big trouble.
I’m putting bed bugs back on the list. We see continued increases in travel, both domestic and international so I think bed bugs are going to see a big resurgence this year. (PMP's were also predicting an increase.)
I’m going to go out on a limb for this one: stored product pests. Not only do people still have big stockpiles of food from their pandemic panics, but I think stored product pests will be a more prominent issue in the food processing and storage side.
Bonus prediction: wine-ing about pest control will get a record number of views and follows. And I will drink lots of wine and talk about lots of pests.
There you have it, my pest prognostications for the year 2024. Climate change will continue to throw challenges at us with extreme weather and the pests that will take advantage of that. What happens this coming year will be interesting and feel free to call me out for being wrong when we hit 2025! Of course, when you improve your service with increased resources, better training, and maybe most importantly – taking the “technical stuff” off your plate contact us.
