Summer heat and dryness bringing change and challenges to pest control

Alpeco managing director Heiko Kaiser with a rat trap. Photo / File

It has been a hot and dry summer and a number of Rotorua pest controllers say they have been feeling the heat and noticing a few changes.

Alpeco managing director Heiko Kaiser said since this summer was very dry there were different issues and problems.

He said there had been fewer flies because of the dryness - the flies did not breed as much as usual.

Cockroaches and fleas were pretty bad at the moment because the temperatures helped them breed faster, he said.

Kaiser said they were getting callouts every day and were doing night shifts too.

He said cleanliness and hygiene were the best ways to help avoid pests.

He said people had been asking for non-toxic treatments, especially for interior work.

It could get hot in the full suits they wore for jobs such as wasp nests.

"We do a lot of night shifts and early mornings to get out of the heat."

Positive Pest Control owner-operator Murray Avery said he had found this season the Gisborne cockroach had been invading homes for some reason.

"I've had a really busy time treating a lot of those houses and have been treating a lot of wasp nests."

He said normally the flies were around at this time of year, but he had not actually been doing a lot of fly spraying because there were not as many around as normal.

"I reckon it's our climate. It's all changing.

"Normally with the Gisborne cockroach the odd one might pop up and wander around, but they aren't normally found much inside. Whether it's too hot out there and they are coming in for shade, I don't know."

Avery said over the summer season he had been trying to do 90 per cent of his work first thing in the morning because it was so hot in the afternoon.

"You've got to be careful when working in those conditions outside. It's not good conditions for spraying outside."

Chris Brunel in his protective suit while removing a wasp nest. Photo / File

Bay Pest Services owner-operator Chris Brunel said this was normally a busy time of year as bugs would have started to become quite active.

"For the next probably two months we will be really busy."

Brunel said at Bay Pest Services they had been trying to limit the exterior spraying activity to before lunch or later in the afternoon to avoid working out in the heat of the day.

"It gets very hot under the respirator masks when working in heat a lot. It has almost become a health and safety issue for our staff, it has been so hot.

"I would say in 32 years of working in the industry in Rotorua this is one of the hottest periods we've struck."

He said Kiwis did not tend to screen their windows like other countries, and some people would go to sleep with windows and doors wide open to allow the air to circulate.

This meant that insects found relatively easy access and could end up on the bed and on pillows, he said.

"Because the environment is so dry a lot of insects come into houses because they are trying to get water, so consequently they tend to turn up in bathrooms and toilets."

Brunel said one client had a cockroach floating in her glass of water when she woke up and one lady had a cockroach on the pillow when she woke.

"The other thing is insects are attracted by the carbon dioxide we breathe out when sleeping."

He recommended screening windows if people wanted to keep them open.

The highest temperature recorded by MetService at Rotorua Airport in December was 25.5C and in January 28.9C. The historical average for December is 24.2C and for January is 26.7C.

The rainfall recorded by MetService at Rotorua Airport in December was 158.2mm and in January was 10.0mm. The historical average for December is 134.8mm and for February is 82.4mm.

The highest recorded temperature in February so far is 30.2C and the total rainfall recorded so far is 2.6mm.