May 18, 2024 • 39 mins
On this week's episode, we explore a wide range of home improvement topics.It all starts with a new designer Q&A segment with Andy Yates of Andy Yates Design, discussing inspiration sources for design, the role of travel, and leveraging social media and publications for fresh ideas. The conversation shifts to how designers charge, distinguishing between flat fee and hourly models, and the specifics of working with commissions. The segment on high gloss paint usage across different surfaces provides practical advice and considerations for homeowners. The episode concludes with David Popp from Rose Pest Solutions, addressing seasonal concerns with ants, mosquitoes, ticks, and earwigs, offering expert advice on prevention, identification, and professional treatment solutions.00:00 Welcome to the RepcoLite Home Improvement Show!00:25 Launching a New Design Q&A Segment01:24 Design Inspiration: How to Stay Fresh and Creative06:57 Understanding Designer Fees and Charges11:15 The Glossy Finish Debate: High Gloss Paint on Ceilings and More16:41 Introducing Benjamin Moore's Premium Ceiling Paint18:42 Transitioning to Pest Control: Preparing for Summer Bugs21:55 Identifying Carpenter Ants: A Closer Look22:11 The Mystery of Big Black Ants in Your Home22:27 Frass: The Telltale Sign of Carpenter Ants23:23 Ant Infestations: Baiting and Prevention Strategies24:05 Seasonal Pests: Mosquitoes, Ticks, and Earwigs24:54 Mosquito Management: Tips for a Bite-Free Summer28:10 Ticks: Precautions and Effective Repellents35:09 Earwigs: Managing These Unwelcome Guests36:06 Comprehensive Pest Solutions with Rose Pest Solutions38:02 Wrapping Up: Contacting Rose Pest Solutions
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Well, good morning everybody. You'relistening to the repcoll Light Home improvement show
sponsored by Benjamin Moore, and todaywe've got a bugs and design episode.
Of course, we're going to tacklethose things separately. At the end of
the show, I'm going to bein the studio with David Pop from Rose
Pest Solutions talking about the bugs thatwe're going to be seeing around our homes
this summer late spring, and howwe're going to deal with them, what
(00:24):
we need to know. And rightnow, I'm really excited to launch a
new recurring segment. I'm here inthe studio joined by Andy Yates from Andy
Yates Design. Andy, thanks forbeing here. Thank you very much.
Dan, good morning. Yeah,we're excited. Good morning to you as
well. We're excited to start thissegment. It's something that you kind of
pitched to us. What if wedid a Q and A a designer Q
(00:47):
and A and just kind of throwthe nets out there on social media and
on different platforms asking for questions.If people have any questions for an interior
designer, we'll gather those, we'llbring them to you, and then we'll
air those segments from time to timeas we get the questions. While we
did that, throw them out thereon social media. I throw through some
things on the radio, and Igot a number of emails. I think
(01:10):
I've got eight or nine. I'mnot sure how many we'll get through.
But we've got these questions. We'regonna just jump right in. Some of
them are deep, they're gonna needjust all the brain you've got. Some
of them you're gonna just know theanswers immediately. So let's see what we
get. The first one I have, the first question comes from Laurel from
the Metro Detroit area. And firstoff, Andy, you don't know what
(01:32):
these questions are to you. No, I am coming in blind, so
hopefully off the cuff, I haveenough expertise and caffeine answer them coherently and
to the satisfaction of these very loyaland generous listeners. Well, even that
there is more intelligent than anything I'veput together so far, So I think
we'll be fine. But anyway,you don't know the questions, let's just
(01:53):
find out how this goes. Thisfirst one, like I said, is
from Laurel from the Metro Detroit area, and it's this, where do you
as a designer go for inspiration,How do you keep your vision fresh and
what are the sources you generally goto to help with that. Hey,
thanks Laurel. That's a really greatquestion, and I think it's probably a
multifaceted approach that I take. Sowhen I travel, first and foremost,
(02:17):
I love to travel globally, soI'm always inspired and taking photos with my
phone of architecture, art, localdesign nature. I feel like that inspiration
for me is very powerful because Ilike to imbuew interiors with a sense of
travel and wonder and I feel likemost of my clients love to reflect that
(02:42):
in themselves, So when I'm tellingtheir narrative and their story, what's really
important to me is to find inspirationfrom them and for me to keep my
own vision fresh, that is veryimportant. So I like to look at
travel, and I also love tovisit the work of other designers that I
(03:05):
find influential and very talented, bothat the local and national and global level.
So I often review a variety ofdesign magazines, from Architectural Digests to
the World of Interiors, so publicationsthat span different market segments, and I
look to those to inspire me tosee what really is cutting edge and kind
(03:29):
of avant garde in the design world, and how I can distill some of
those elements into the interiors that Icraft for my clients. So if we're
at home looking for ways to findinspiration, I mean, all of that
works for us too. Dig intothose publications and then just touring around with
an eye towards gathering that inspiration andrecording it. You know, we've got
(03:50):
the phones and we're snapping pictures allthe time. Maybe we snap a few
pictures with that focus in mind.Yeah, it's the approach for general inspiration
and design education, so that I'malways enhancing my vocabulary as a designer.
That visual vocabulary is anything in theworld. You know, if I see
a really cool outfit or a storefront, if I see, you know,
(04:14):
a building or an interior that Ilove, a piece of furniture, a
piece of jewelry, and that oftenweaves its way into the end result for
clients. One other thing you mentionedthat I do think is really powerful is
to also find that inspiration really simplyfrom Google searches. I'm a huge fan
of Google image searching, and veryoften I will experiment with different keywords when
(04:38):
I'm trying to find specific images thatmight help materialize the concept I have in
my mind. So whether that's acolor or a style, a combination thereof,
and a room type or a businesstype. I find that really helpful
and kind of creating a nice,large, oversized collage then editing it down
(04:59):
and stilling it into what I thinkare the most powerful few inspiration images or
elements for any particular design. Yeah. The thing I love about that,
I mean two different things you mentioned. You're constantly educating yourself in your field.
You know, sometimes I think wethink, maybe not everybody and maybe
not with all things, but Iknow there are things that I do that
(05:21):
I feel I've figured it out,I've got it now. I'm just gonna
live in that zone. But it'snot about that with you, and it
shouldn't be about that with any ofus. It's just constantly learning. You
know, teachers have to keep goingback to school to stay fresh. You're
doing that same thing. I lovethat. And the other thing that I
love is the idea that you're gatheringinspiration from things that aren't necessarily even connected
(05:46):
to what you're doing. You know, you're finding jewelry, but it's colors
and it's combinations of colors, andit's materials that are getting used that perhaps
you can mimic something like that.At least I'm assuming that's where you're going.
You're finding inspiration from everything, notjust architecture or good colors somewhere.
I mean, like on a wall. It could be colors anywhere. Yeah,
(06:06):
exactly, shape, scale, form, all of the sort of basic
elements of art you know that welearn in art school one oh one.
Those elements of design. They're intrinsicto everything that we create. And part
of the creative process with art isthat it's always evolving and sometimes it's cyclical
(06:26):
and referential to the past, butwe're always looking for new and fresh perspectives
that can excite us and engage usand our clients. So that's how I
stay, you know, passionate andtry to keep visions coherence and focused on
the work at hand, but alsojust to play and to have fun.
So thanks, Laurel. Yeah,that's a great question, great answer,
(06:47):
Andy, you're going to get anA on that one. I'm going to
grade you, by the way,Oh, thank you. Yeah, I
want to be a great student foryou. Let's find out how well you
do here's the next one. Thisis from Sue and Grand Rapids really shortened
to the point, how do designerscharge for your services? Thanks Sue.
That's a really great question and actuallyfairly common when I have initial conversations with
(07:08):
potential clients. So I can tellyou that it varies from firm to firm,
but there are some basic ground rulesto charging and to entering into agreements
that I think most firms have incommon. So designers and architects alike,
(07:29):
and i'll use the term kind ofinterchangeably, are going to charge in two
ways, either with a flat fixedfee model or an hourly services model.
So when you're working with a firm, especially commercially, if this is for
a business or a contract project,we almost always exclusively use a flat fee
model, and we're going to lookat in those instances, whether it is
(07:51):
contract or residential, residential or resomercial, which I often say, you know,
the blending of our sure work lifebalance. In any of those instances,
we're going to look really critically atthe scope of the work, try
to tighten that up and keep itvery clear what that fee encompasses and what
(08:11):
it doesn't encompass, and that canbe on a square footage basis or an
estimate based on hours. Much likea contractor would come and give you a
quote for a job. We know, based on our experience and expertise,
how much time this is really goingto take. We use that and factor
in all the hours we and ourstaff are going to apply and in that
(08:33):
vein as well as for the hourlythere's also the element of commissions or markups,
so mess designers in the residential worldalso operate as retail businesses essentially,
so because we have access to exclusiveproducts, we can buy them at wholesale
rates for clients. We add ourmarkup onto that, which is what I
(08:56):
call a kind of purchase management fee, and then we sell you those products
much as you would walk into anyretail establishment and buy. However, what
I find is great about designers iswe have exclusivity for you, and we
manage the process kind of soup tonuts on our end, and we can
give you really great pricing on itemsthat are unique and special that you can't
(09:18):
just find available to the general public. And in that model, some designers
only work on a cost plus,So what they really do is build in
all of the hours they're going tohelp you design and shop for products and
find them, and they're going tobuild in all of that to their profit
in their sales on the hourly end. That's a looser format for working,
(09:41):
and it's the way I work mostof the time because it's difficult to define
sometimes at the beginning of a projectwhat the scope will be. So I
create an estimate based on what wefeel the appropriate scope is at the beginning
of a project for a client,and then we just let it. So
I'm constantly checking in with budget andinvestment for clients through the process, and
(10:07):
I find that it really is helpfulto have that conversation immediately when speaking with
a potential client, so you knowwhat they're comfortable investing and how they would
prefer to work. All right,perfect, Andy, I've got to take
a break. I've got to playcommercials. But I'm wondering, can you
hang with me over a break andwe'll get to more questions on the other
side. Absolutely, all right,I'll be back in the studio with Andy
(10:28):
Yates getting more answers to your questionsin just a minute. Stick around,
we're back. You're listening to theRepco Light Home Improvement Show. Sponsored by
Benjamin Moore. I'm in the studiowith Andy Yates from Andy Yates Design,
(10:52):
talking about basically the questions we gotfrom you from our listeners. We're getting
answers from Andy. We've got aQ and A with a designer segment that
we're going to be doing from timeto time. Andy kind of pitched the
idea to me. Thought it waspretty smart, maybe brilliant Andy, So
they took you up on that,and yeah, we're getting those answers.
(11:13):
So we've gone through a couple let'sjust jump right in. I've got another
question, and this one is fromHeather in Grand Rapids, and she wants
to know what do you think aboutthe growing trend of using high gloss paint
on various surfaces, including the ceiling. Have you done that yet in any
of your projects? Heather? Thankyou for this loaded question. It can
(11:33):
be a very polarizing finish. AndI'll tell you from a personal and professional
perspective. First, Professionally, right, sheen and reflectivity are so specific to
every room and every project and everyfunction. So with high gloss paints as
(11:56):
well as you know, polished metals, right, anything highly reflective, you
have to think very critically about howit's applied, what percentage of surfaces in
that space are going to reflect lightat that level, and what are the
functions that have to happen in there. So when there's a lot of glam
and a lot of reflectivity on surfaces, it can be a little overwhelming,
(12:20):
right, especially because it can addto fatigue in your vision. It can
cause issues with sort of focused work. So I tend to approach high gloss
finishes in places where the activity wouldsupport that and not places where you want
to feel more calm or relaxed.Because they are very energizing, they bounce
(12:43):
light around, they catch your eye, and they catch any small amount of
movement, and because our brains arehardwired, it's kind of focus on movement
when we see it. They canbe distracting in an area where you don't
necessarily need that. So you know, like dining rooms are fun because you
think about how they reflect candlelight andyou have dinner parties and exciting moments in
(13:05):
there. It can be really lovelyto use those kind of glamorous finishes in
areas of circulation where I also sayit's good to have a lot of pattern
and color and interest. You canbe more bold in hallways, foyers,
powder rooms because you're not spending alot of time in those areas and your
focus is really about movement or small, limited activities. When I think about
(13:33):
it personally, and again, youknow, my opinion only matters and where
I live, right, I createfor clients what they need and want.
It's never been a go to forme to want to have a lot of
reflective finishes. And I think becauseof the reasons I espoused, I do
enjoy moments of gloss and I doenjoy like trim in certain rooms. For
(14:00):
example, I have had clients therewas one on Little Traverse Bay where we
wanted gloss on all of their trim. They loved that look, and to
combine that with more matte walls anda lot of textures that were more matt
it was really an interesting juxtaposition.I think about those in terms of ceilings.
(14:22):
I love papering a ceiling. Ilove painting a ceiling with a gloss.
The thing about those finishes, especiallywith paint, is you have to
be very very certain and fastidious thatthe surfaces are perfectly prepared, because the
more gloss you add to a finish, the more flaws and imperfections that it
will show, so every nail popevery instance where it might have not been
(14:46):
sanded smoothly. And so when youuse lackers in that way on furniture or
ceilings or walls or trim, theydo have to be impeccably prepared. MATT
finishes then obviously are much more forgiving, which is why we often use MATT
and flat on ceilings because they canbe a challenge where you know, architecture
(15:07):
and buildings might settle. Similarly formoldings, that can be where you have
issues at joints and cocked seams.So I would say, if you're going
to approach them, maybe it isn'tthe easiest DIY project, and I would
definitely recommend hiring a professional painter forgloss finishes. Yeah, that's kind of
(15:28):
where we land. You know,I don't even know how I feel about
it personally or from a design pointof view, because I really never get
to that part of the conversation inmy head. I'm thinking about it practically,
and I just know there are likeyou mentioned, every little thing is
going to show up, every imperfectionis going to be just so magnified because
of that gloss finish, and there'sso many things that have to go perfectly
(15:52):
with the application that from a DIYpoint of view, I do think it's
it's certainly not impossible. It's justa little scary and for me, I
know, I don't have a spacein the home that is that perfectly prepared.
I do like it on trim andstuff like that. I like,
you know, maybe not a highgloss, but definitely a semi gloss something
like that. I like to seethat, but definitely i'd be afraid of
(16:15):
it on a ceiling. So no, I like that. It's something that
we're seeing more of getting questions about, obviously, And that's a great answer.
And before we kind of close thissegment out, I want to mention
a couple of things. During thecourse of that answer, we talked about
using a flat finish and how that'smore commonly used because it hides everything,
It hides imperfections just a lot more. It's just a lot easier to work
(16:37):
with, especially on a ceiling that'soften kind of complicated to paint. I
want to make sure that I highlightBenjamin Morri's Premium water Born ceiling paint because
it's a dead flat, ultra flatproduct that can be tinted to any color.
So if you do want to kindof push boundaries a little bit,
you can go to any color withthis Benjamin Moore waterborne ceiling paint and it
will remain dead flat. Most times, when we tint a product, especially
(17:00):
if we add a lot of tintto it to get to a darker color,
that tint is going to actually increasethe sheen of the product. So
you could get a flat paint,tint it up to a darker color and
it's not going to be a deadflat anymore. The Benjamin war waterborne ceiling
paint will remain dead flat, whichmeans you can get any color up there
and it's crazy easy to work with. So keep that in mind if you're
(17:22):
going to go with a color onthe ceiling and you're thinking you might want
to just go towards a flat.Another thing we mentioned if you are going
to go with a high gloss ona ceiling, it might be something that
you don't want to tackle yourself.You might want to hire that done.
Well. We've got on the Repcolitewebsite. You can go there and we've
got a form find a contractor form. Basically head to repcolit dot com and
then right on the top menu you'llsee find a Painter, find a contractor
(17:47):
tab. Just click that and thenthere's a quick form. Just fill out
the form, let us know whereyou're at and a little bit of an
idea of what your project is,and then hit submit and we'll get you
some names. All right, Andy, that's all the time, we gott
Thanks so much for hanging out withus today. If our listeners want more
information, they want to find yourwebsite, check you out there. How's
the best way for them to findyou online? If anyone wants to explore
(18:10):
the portfolio that we have or learnmore about our firm or me, you
can go to Andy Yatesdesign dot com. You can also find us on Instagram
and Facebook and Twitter and Pinterest allat Andy Yates Design and we try to
keep those all current with fresh workand work in progress, so hopefully anyone
who visits can find inspiration and learnmore about how to work with us or
(18:33):
designers in general. Perfect we'll putlinks in the show notes you can check
it out. Andy, thanks forhanging out with me today. Absolutely,
thank you, Dan all right,we're gonna take a break. When we
come back, I'm in the studiowith David Pop from Rosepest Solutions talking about
bugs. Stick around for that.You're not gonna want to miss it.
(19:00):
Well, it's spring and we're headinginto summer, and that means a ton
of great outdoor activities in Michigan.But it also means that bugs and other
pests are kicking into gear. You'relistening to the Repco Light Home Improvement Show
sponsored by Benjamin Moore, and rightnow I'm joined by David Pop, district
manager in the Grand Rapids office forRose Pest Solutions. David, thanks for
(19:21):
being here. You're welcome. Dan. Yeah, you've been on the show
before. We were talking just beforewe went on air that we can't remember
five or six times. Yeah,easy, something like that. Yeah,
we've covered all kinds of everybody's favoritetopics. You know, bed bugs,
ticks, bats, and murder hornets. Yes, ghost just spring to mind.
You know, everybody loves talking aboutwhat you deal with. So anyway,
(19:44):
how long have you been working withRose Pest Solutions and dealing with bugs?
Then with Rose for this is goingon my twenty seventh year, but
I've been in the industry now forforty one years. Forty one years of
dealing with bugs and pasts and allkinds of things. Well, that's a
life well lived. Yes, yeah, all right, let's get to the
issue at hand. You know,weather's getting beautiful out there, We're almost
(20:04):
to summer, and at this timeof year, I guess I'm just curious,
what are we going to be dealingwith? What are we going to
be seeing a lot of in termsof bugs and pasts, And I guess,
more importantly, what can we doabout them? Well, I think
right now the number one pest isgoing to be ants, either pavement ants
or carpenter ants. So there's alsoacrobatic ants. There's a number of different
(20:27):
ants that we do. Whoa,whoa, whoa acrobatic ants. I need
to know more about those. Wellthey are they will actually nest in like
a cavity. They'll usually take oversomebody else's area. The way, it's
real simple to identify them. Theirabdomen or their rear end looks like a
heart, and that's what the acrobaticant looks. Why are they called acrobatic
(20:48):
ants? Do they do really coolthings? Yeah? I think so.
At the trapeze act like a fleacircuits. Right, that was the thing,
only now you could do it withants. Yes, okay, so
I interrupted you, but you hadto know that was coming. That was
very intriguing. I got to lookthem up. I don't want them,
but maybe somebody who lives nearby couldget them and I could check them out
that way, Yes, and you'llbe able to tell acrobatic ants. Carpenter.
(21:12):
Did you mention those? I did? Carpenter aants? Wouldich are wood
destroying insect? They are definitely aneconomic concern because they do do wood damage.
Generally with a carpenter ant, they'reactually nesting on the outside, but
they will have like a subcolony ornest on the inside, but they will
(21:32):
do substantial damage, just like atermite would. Are these identifiable by sight?
I mean like, can we theyou know, regular people them out
by sight or do we have tolook for evidence of what they're doing before?
Well? I would say definitely evidencefor sure. But they in most
cases a lot of people think they'rea large ant, but they also have
we call it a major worker ora minor worker. The easiest way to
(21:56):
identify a carpentrant again, you're lookingat a body part is their thorax.
It's a smooth even thorax, whichis that middle section of their body,
and you have to look at itclosely, but it is a a it's
real smooth and rounded. Okay,so just because I have big black ants
in my home, that doesn't meanthat I've got carpenter an. That's correct.
(22:17):
You could have field ants. Therecould be a couple of different other
species that enter in. Citronella ants, which is kind of like what we
call is an odorous house ant.Those can enter in, so there's a
number of different ones, but generallyyou're what you're gonna see is when you
talked about the visible evidence, that'swhat we call frasts. That's where they
actually are boring out an area anddumping the sawdust, if you will,
(22:41):
along with different body parts of theants that they're they're cleaning. They're doing
like a house cleaning. And ifwe find that that means carpenter ain could
be that's frast. But it's thekey is looking into the frast to see
if you see body parts and Tenna'slegs, you know, the thorax,
the head because they're they're cleaning outthat cavity. It's important to do so
(23:03):
because a lot of times people say, we'll call us up and say,
you know, i've got sawdust.I know about the carpentryant. Well,
what it was was the electrician actuallyboring a hole through the floor joist okay,
and it got into a spider web, and people thought that, you
know, they thought that it mighthave been a carpentry problem. All right,
So answer a big deal, Alot of things to look at.
If I'm looking at them, Iguess let's talk about me. I've got
(23:26):
that is one of the things I'mdealing with right now. A ton of
ants in the house. Normally Iput out little bait traps and then usually
usually in a few days, theproblem kind of goes away and I don't
notice them anymore. This year it'sbeen different. They're they're clinging, they're
not either they're not taking the baitor they're immune to the bait. They
may not be taken to the baitas far as because it's not paddable to
(23:48):
them at this point. Okay,okay, So I've got to have the
right bait for the right time ofyear, for the for the ants.
Yes, this is way more complicatedthan I anticipated it being. So we're
looking at ants. If we seeissues, have concerns, we can give
you a call and you can kindof walk us through that. What other
things might we be looking at thistime of year? Well, Mosquitos.
(24:10):
Big part of this time of theyear coming up is mosquitoes, and that's
definitely a concern for most people.Ticks are another pest, earwigs or another
that ocurve ground beetles will get inside. Those are your major major pests that
you're going to end up seeing.Some are occasional invaders where they're not that
big of a concern even though theyappear to be a nuisance. Okay,
(24:34):
So I'm in the studio with DavidPop from Rose Pest Solutions talking about all
the nasty, little creepy crawleys thatwe could be dealing with over the course
of summer, late spring and intosummer. You mentioned a number of them
right off the bat, we talkedabout ants. Let's talk about let's hear
the second one you mentioned, Mosquitos. Mosquitos. Let's talk about that.
(24:56):
What can I do? I mean, you see all these places that will
missed my yard. What do youthink about that. What are my solutions
so I can enjoy some time outsidea little bit better. Well, the
biggest thing to do is to takecare of any areas that might become a
breeding source. They look for stagnantwater, stuff that's not water, that's
not moving, that can be rainwater that's been in a piece of playground
(25:19):
equipment for a while, that isnot going anywhere, and that's where they
like to place. There. Whatwe cause an egg graft that then turns
into where they then become a larvae, into a pupa, into an adult
all in the water. Now,so you've told us before, I believe
it was you. You have areally horrific number in just a small amount
(25:41):
of water, how many mosquitoes thousands, thousands can breed. I've seen literally
walking around some people's property and I'veseen just an old paint can. Wasn't
a Repkolite or a Benjamin More,but it was a paint can that literally
was probably about three three quarters ofthe way full of water that was just
(26:02):
brewing. Thousands, had thousands oflarva in in the pupa. In the
mosquito world, those are called wrig'larsand tumblers. And the reason that is
is because of their action that theydo because they have they have to breathe
through a breathing tube, so they'llactually go up to the surface of the
water and then they'll tumble down ifyou will, or wriggle down as you
will, you know, for themto get back into the water. Well,
(26:26):
they sound acrobatic as well, likethe acrobatic ants that we talked about.
So get rid of all these areasof staining water. I've got a
or a water bucket for the flowersthat I've noticed, yeah, ever since,
I mean this was years ago thatyou mentioned this to me. So
I'm pretty good at this. Igo around the yard and dump all these
things over. But man, justthat little bit of water it can So
(26:49):
you want to look for those sources. The other thing that you want to
do is is you know, cutdown, you know, any tall grass
that might be in the area,and keeping your lawn mode is a big
part of it. The one theone thing that's that's difficult is that you
can do everything you can. Youknow, you can have your yard treated,
but the problem is is you're notputting up a dome around your house.
(27:10):
You know, there there is peoplethat may not be doing the same
thing that you're doing. That thoseadult mosquitos can come and still come on
to your if you're enjoying your deckat night, and they'll still you know,
they'll still seek you out. Sobut what you can do, and
then if you can talk to yourparents, your neighbors as well, that
only helps you. Okay, allright, So what about this like centronella
(27:33):
candles things like that. How'm effective? How they smell nice? Okay,
you don't find that fairly effective forthe They may a little bit, but
again it's not going to cover theentire area, so you're still going to
get The biggest thing you can doin reality is to do the items that
I talked about, and then somethingas simple as putting a fan out on
your deck. Mosquitoes do not liketo be where there's a movement in the
(27:57):
wind. Okay, so you're producingat your own wind there, all right.
By putting a fan out that helps. Okay, so we can produce
our own wind. Yeah, thatwill help alleviate some of the mosquito problems.
Yes, all right. We're inthe studio with David Pop from Rose
Pest Solutions, and I want totalk about ticks. I attract a lot
(28:17):
of ticks, David. I hesitateto say that I'm a tick magnet because
that's a really bad, bad joke, but it's the truth. I want
to talk about those. I wantto talk about earwigs. I hate them.
But I don't have any more timefor this segment. Can you wait
with me over a break? Sure? All right, we'll pick it up
on the other side. I'll beback with David Pop from Rose Pest Solutions
in just a minute. Stick aroundand we're back. You're listening to the
(28:41):
Repcolite Home improvement Show sponsored by BenjaminMoore, and I am in the studio
with David Pop from Rose Pest Solutions. You're the district manager in the Grand
Rapids area, right, and youguys Rose past you cover all kinds of
area right, Yes, all overthe place, So our listeners, wherever
you are, there's a Rose PestSolutions near you. If we're speaking your
(29:03):
language right now, if we're talkingabout bugs or things that are really getting
on your nerves or you don't wantthem to get on your nerves, there
is an answer out there. Andwe've talked about ants. Answer the big
thing, right now, not thegood kind like our ants who come by
with baked goods and things like that. For us, these are little pesty
ants that want our baked goods andthings like that, and different things we
(29:26):
can do for those. Then wejust were talking about mosquitoes. Of course,
that's big. Get rid of allthat standing stagnant water, that's a
big thing you can do. Geta fan on your deck. They don't
like moving the air movement and that'llmaybe give you a little bit of a
break. Now let's talk about let'sjust get straight to ticks. I do
want to hit earwigs because those arereally gross. But ticks. How bad
(29:48):
do you think it's going to bethis year? And what kind of things
do we need to look at?What kind of precautions can we take?
Well, I think that's the bigpart as far as how bad it's going
to be for this year. Theone thing I know is that with all
pasts. Right now we had areal mild winter, and anytime you have
a real mild winter, the pestactivity definitely increases. With ticks. What
(30:11):
you can do that, again,the best thing is prevention. Making sure
that the lawn is cut around youryard. You can have like a tick
free zone where you could put likegravel or river rock, that type of
thing. They don't want to bethere. There's no reason for them to
be there. They want to bein the tall grass because it's just they're
(30:33):
characteristic on how they get onto ananimal or person's where they actually, for
the lack of a better word,prostrate themselves on a long piece of grass
and then what takes place is assomething goes by and movement, they latch
on. So if you can keepthat grass mode down or the weeds back
a little bit further, it helpsalong with that tick free zone. If
(30:56):
you're going to enjoy hiking, ifyou're out in some of the parts work,
the best thing to do is stayon the trails. Just stay in
the trails, don't venture off.If you are going to venture off,
you know, having you know,proper clothing on that's going to prevent ticks
from from coming on, you know, sliding down into your shoes and things
like this, and also utilizing arepellent such as date. I think like
(31:21):
a thirty percent deed is probably whatyou want. And then just that the
other thing is when you're done,when you come back in, make sure
you have somebody to check each otherout, especially in an area that you
know that there's been ticks, becauseticks are definitely a medical concern. The
of course, the black legged tickor the deer tick contains limes disease or
(31:41):
could transferred limes disease, as wellas different diseases like rocky a mounted spoted
fever. It's definitely a concern andit's not something that you really want to
mess with. You do have timeif a tick is on you, you
do have anywhere from twenty four toI believe twenty four to thirty six hours
before the bacterium in the mid gutgets transferred down into your bloodstream, So
(32:04):
there is time still. You don'thave to freak out, especially if you're
coming right from the trail, buttake precautions in getting the ticks off.
That's yeah, definitely take the precautions, dress appropriately, use the repellents.
In fact, last year I rana test. I brought my kids with
me and they were my test subjects. We bought every tick repellent that we
(32:28):
could find. You know, wehad four of them, I think from
whatever store we stopped at. Theyhad four different kinds and all natural kind
and whatever. However many we hadI think it was for everybody got coated
with a different one. And thenwe wandered through what we knew where tick
infested regions. And I will putlinks to the results in the show notes
because a couple of them really stoodout as incredibly effective. We noticed that
(32:52):
the all natural ones did not workterribly well. It felt good, we
felt like we were doing the rightthing and not using chemicals, but they
didn't do anything either. And wehad a number of other ones that just
worked really well, and we wouldsee the ticks. We'd get the ticks
on us and they'd start to crawlup, but then they look like they
got confused and they just turn aroundand go away again. And then they'd
(33:14):
almost jump off of us, andthat was great. So I'll put links
in the show notes to that.You are a brave man, That's what
I'll say. Yeah, I know, I know, I am. I'm
going to play that over and overagain for my children to hear. But
yeah, we did. And mydaughter Hannah was not so brave until she
saw how well her tick repellent wasworking. And then we got her to
(33:37):
the point where we could actually putthem on her and she would not freak
out about it. But we knewthat these tick repellents, they weren't waving
out this area like I anticipated,like two feet around me was going to
be just tick free zone. Itwas going to just push them away.
No, they still came on tous, but they just didn't like being
there. So take care with allof that. Do I have to wear
(33:59):
my socks over my open my pants? I would do so. Yeah,
and then you can even tape.I mean, it all depends on how
crazy you want to be. Youcertainly don't want to be pandemic crazy.
We're had the different types of costumes. If you will on, but you
want to you definitely want to makesure that you're protecting the best thing Again,
inspection, take a look at eachother and make sure you don't have
(34:20):
an a on. Yeah, wehad a very recent walk. I guess
it was probably a month or twoago. Nice weather we had, like
you said, mild winter. Niceweather brought the dogs out. We went
off the main trail because it wasso muddy. I was not anticipating ticks,
and we didn't even check for ticksbecause it was so close to winter
at that point This was a whileback, and I noticed at the end
(34:43):
of the day the dogs walking throughthe house. What is that? Oh
man? And they were tiny ticks. They were super tiny at that point.
Pretty sad. Yeah, So getout there. You still can have
fun, still can enjoy it.Check out the different repellents they do work.
I'll have a link in the shownotes for that information. Just take
the precautions that you need to soyou can get outside and enjoy the hiking,
(35:04):
enjoy all of that. Ticks.Hate them, hate them, hate
them. Earwigs. I'm not abig fan of those either. I get
a ton of those around the house. What can we do about those?
Well, it depends on what whatdo you have on the outside of the
home. As far as do youhave a lot of mulch. I do.
I have a pheromonomult shots that multchis designed to obviously to contain moisture
(35:25):
and so forth. What happens isearwigs love that. So where are they
going to go for more? They'regoing to go all right up out in
your siding underneath it, and that'show they're going to enter in the best
thing you can do is to isagain, is to if you will to
have an earwig free zone, ifyou know, I know that's not a
great thing because of aesthetics around ahouse, but sure they're after the moisture
(35:46):
and they're going to be you know, within the mulch like that. You
can even rake it up and moveit around and so forth. But the
best thing to do is to havea treatment, have an exterior treatment in
that area. That's going to eliminatethe the chances of the earwigs entering inside
of the home. So you guyscome out of that, all right.
So let's talk about some of thatin the last little bit that we've got
(36:08):
with all these different things. Mosquitos, what do you have that you can
do for mosquitos, for ants,for all these things. What we do
is, for instance, with mosquitoes, we will actually treat the property.
We'll use a mister treatment, andwe'll treat any foliage that is where mosquitoes
can get up underneath leaves and thingsof this nature. We will not treat
(36:31):
any type of plant that is flowering. The reason that, of course,
is that our labels don't allow usto do so because of the pollinators.
Sure, and so we will stayaway from that. But we're going to
treat up any any long grass areathat, like I said, the bushes
or trees that have the adult mosquitoeson them, because that's what that's going
(36:53):
to do, is they're resting atthat point when we're treating there, and
that'll take care of the adult mosquitWe'll also point out areas such as what
we talked about earlier, where there'sstagnant water, uh to, we'll dump
it for you. If we seesomething a bucket, we're gonna dump it,
but it will actually point out anyareas that could possibly have water,
(37:15):
such as eaves that are clogged up. They contain a lot of it.
It's a big breeding site for mosquitoes. Okay, so you'll you'll kind of
get eyes on the whole situation andyou've got some solutions to help with that.
Same thing with ants, same thingwith earwigs. Yep. Yeah,
we'll do what we call is ourhome service program, where we'll do a
treatment three times a year. Wecan also do what we call is an
(37:37):
omit treatment, which is just youknow, exclusively doing around on the exterior.
These these will help and it's it'sa very successful program. All right.
So basically, you guys come out. I'll tell you what I'm dealing
with. You'll probably find six otherthings that I'm dealing with that I either
forgot about or hadn't even figured outyet. And you've got some solutions for
(37:58):
me. You're all over the stateand beyond. Right. So for our
listeners have questions, they want toget in touch, they want to figure
out what you could do to helpthem out. How's the best way to
do that. Well, they caneither give us a call a eight hundred
ninety six to six Rose, whichis I believe seven six seventy three,
or they can contact us through ourwebsite, which is Rosepessolutions dot com.
All right, so dig into that, check them out wherever you are in
(38:21):
the state. Let's figure out asolution to some of these bugs. We
can enjoy our outdoor time a littlebetter. David Pop from Rose Pest Solutions,
thanks for being here, you bet, thank you. All right,
that's all the time we've got.We're going to wrap it up. Another
episode in the books, another brilliantepisode, I should say, in the
books. If you want to revisitthis one, catch it again or maybe
any of its other brothers and sisters. All three hundred and fifty seven other
(38:45):
episodes of the Repcolite Home Improvement Show. You can find them all online at
repco light dot com. Just clickthe on the radio tab on the homepage,
or wherever you get your podcasts,you should be able to find the
Repcolite Home Improvement Show. Check itout. Whatever you do today, make
sure paints a part of it.I'm Dan Hanson, Thanks for listening.
Well, good morning everybody. You'relistening to the repcoll Light Home improvement show
sponsored by Benjamin Moore, and todaywe've got a bugs and design episode.
Of course, we're going to tacklethose things separately. At the end of
the show, I'm going to bein the studio with David Pop from Rose
Pest Solutions talking about the bugs thatwe're going to be seeing around our homes
this summer late spring, and howwe're going to deal with them, what
(00:24):
we need to know. And rightnow, I'm really excited to launch a
new recurring segment. I'm here inthe studio joined by Andy Yates from Andy
Yates Design. Andy, thanks forbeing here. Thank you very much.
Dan, good morning. Yeah,we're excited. Good morning to you as
well. We're excited to start thissegment. It's something that you kind of
pitched to us. What if wedid a Q and A a designer Q
(00:47):
and A and just kind of throwthe nets out there on social media and
on different platforms asking for questions.If people have any questions for an interior
designer, we'll gather those, we'llbring them to you, and then we'll
air those segments from time to timeas we get the questions. While we
did that, throw them out thereon social media. I throw through some
things on the radio, and Igot a number of emails. I think
(01:10):
I've got eight or nine. I'mnot sure how many we'll get through.
But we've got these questions. We'regonna just jump right in. Some of
them are deep, they're gonna needjust all the brain you've got. Some
of them you're gonna just know theanswers immediately. So let's see what we
get. The first one I have, the first question comes from Laurel from
the Metro Detroit area. And firstoff, Andy, you don't know what
(01:32):
these questions are to you. No, I am coming in blind, so
hopefully off the cuff, I haveenough expertise and caffeine answer them coherently and
to the satisfaction of these very loyaland generous listeners. Well, even that
there is more intelligent than anything I'veput together so far, So I think
we'll be fine. But anyway,you don't know the questions, let's just
(01:53):
find out how this goes. Thisfirst one, like I said, is
from Laurel from the Metro Detroit area, and it's this, where do you
as a designer go for inspiration,How do you keep your vision fresh and
what are the sources you generally goto to help with that. Hey,
thanks Laurel. That's a really greatquestion, and I think it's probably a
multifaceted approach that I take. Sowhen I travel, first and foremost,
(02:17):
I love to travel globally, soI'm always inspired and taking photos with my
phone of architecture, art, localdesign nature. I feel like that inspiration
for me is very powerful because Ilike to imbuew interiors with a sense of
travel and wonder and I feel likemost of my clients love to reflect that
(02:42):
in themselves, So when I'm tellingtheir narrative and their story, what's really
important to me is to find inspirationfrom them and for me to keep my
own vision fresh, that is veryimportant. So I like to look at
travel, and I also love tovisit the work of other designers that I
(03:05):
find influential and very talented, bothat the local and national and global level.
So I often review a variety ofdesign magazines, from Architectural Digests to
the World of Interiors, so publicationsthat span different market segments, and I
look to those to inspire me tosee what really is cutting edge and kind
(03:29):
of avant garde in the design world, and how I can distill some of
those elements into the interiors that Icraft for my clients. So if we're
at home looking for ways to findinspiration, I mean, all of that
works for us too. Dig intothose publications and then just touring around with
an eye towards gathering that inspiration andrecording it. You know, we've got
(03:50):
the phones and we're snapping pictures allthe time. Maybe we snap a few
pictures with that focus in mind.Yeah, it's the approach for general inspiration
and design education, so that I'malways enhancing my vocabulary as a designer.
That visual vocabulary is anything in theworld. You know, if I see
a really cool outfit or a storefront, if I see, you know,
(04:14):
a building or an interior that Ilove, a piece of furniture, a
piece of jewelry, and that oftenweaves its way into the end result for
clients. One other thing you mentionedthat I do think is really powerful is
to also find that inspiration really simplyfrom Google searches. I'm a huge fan
of Google image searching, and veryoften I will experiment with different keywords when
(04:38):
I'm trying to find specific images thatmight help materialize the concept I have in
my mind. So whether that's acolor or a style, a combination thereof,
and a room type or a businesstype. I find that really helpful
and kind of creating a nice,large, oversized collage then editing it down
(04:59):
and stilling it into what I thinkare the most powerful few inspiration images or
elements for any particular design. Yeah. The thing I love about that,
I mean two different things you mentioned. You're constantly educating yourself in your field.
You know, sometimes I think wethink, maybe not everybody and maybe
not with all things, but Iknow there are things that I do that
(05:21):
I feel I've figured it out,I've got it now. I'm just gonna
live in that zone. But it'snot about that with you, and it
shouldn't be about that with any ofus. It's just constantly learning. You
know, teachers have to keep goingback to school to stay fresh. You're
doing that same thing. I lovethat. And the other thing that I
love is the idea that you're gatheringinspiration from things that aren't necessarily even connected
(05:46):
to what you're doing. You know, you're finding jewelry, but it's colors
and it's combinations of colors, andit's materials that are getting used that perhaps
you can mimic something like that.At least I'm assuming that's where you're going.
You're finding inspiration from everything, notjust architecture or good colors somewhere.
I mean, like on a wall. It could be colors anywhere. Yeah,
(06:06):
exactly, shape, scale, form, all of the sort of basic
elements of art you know that welearn in art school one oh one.
Those elements of design. They're intrinsicto everything that we create. And part
of the creative process with art isthat it's always evolving and sometimes it's cyclical
(06:26):
and referential to the past, butwe're always looking for new and fresh perspectives
that can excite us and engage usand our clients. So that's how I
stay, you know, passionate andtry to keep visions coherence and focused on
the work at hand, but alsojust to play and to have fun.
So thanks, Laurel. Yeah,that's a great question, great answer,
(06:47):
Andy, you're going to get anA on that one. I'm going to
grade you, by the way,Oh, thank you. Yeah, I
want to be a great student foryou. Let's find out how well you
do here's the next one. Thisis from Sue and Grand Rapids really shortened
to the point, how do designerscharge for your services? Thanks Sue.
That's a really great question and actuallyfairly common when I have initial conversations with
(07:08):
potential clients. So I can tellyou that it varies from firm to firm,
but there are some basic ground rulesto charging and to entering into agreements
that I think most firms have incommon. So designers and architects alike,
(07:29):
and i'll use the term kind ofinterchangeably, are going to charge in two
ways, either with a flat fixedfee model or an hourly services model.
So when you're working with a firm, especially commercially, if this is for
a business or a contract project,we almost always exclusively use a flat fee
model, and we're going to lookat in those instances, whether it is
(07:51):
contract or residential, residential or resomercial, which I often say, you know,
the blending of our sure work lifebalance. In any of those instances,
we're going to look really critically atthe scope of the work, try
to tighten that up and keep itvery clear what that fee encompasses and what
(08:11):
it doesn't encompass, and that canbe on a square footage basis or an
estimate based on hours. Much likea contractor would come and give you a
quote for a job. We know, based on our experience and expertise,
how much time this is really goingto take. We use that and factor
in all the hours we and ourstaff are going to apply and in that
(08:33):
vein as well as for the hourlythere's also the element of commissions or markups,
so mess designers in the residential worldalso operate as retail businesses essentially,
so because we have access to exclusiveproducts, we can buy them at wholesale
rates for clients. We add ourmarkup onto that, which is what I
(08:56):
call a kind of purchase management fee, and then we sell you those products
much as you would walk into anyretail establishment and buy. However, what
I find is great about designers iswe have exclusivity for you, and we
manage the process kind of soup tonuts on our end, and we can
give you really great pricing on itemsthat are unique and special that you can't
(09:18):
just find available to the general public. And in that model, some designers
only work on a cost plus,So what they really do is build in
all of the hours they're going tohelp you design and shop for products and
find them, and they're going tobuild in all of that to their profit
in their sales on the hourly end. That's a looser format for working,
(09:41):
and it's the way I work mostof the time because it's difficult to define
sometimes at the beginning of a projectwhat the scope will be. So I
create an estimate based on what wefeel the appropriate scope is at the beginning
of a project for a client,and then we just let it. So
I'm constantly checking in with budget andinvestment for clients through the process, and
(10:07):
I find that it really is helpfulto have that conversation immediately when speaking with
a potential client, so you knowwhat they're comfortable investing and how they would
prefer to work. All right,perfect, Andy, I've got to take
a break. I've got to playcommercials. But I'm wondering, can you
hang with me over a break andwe'll get to more questions on the other
side. Absolutely, all right,I'll be back in the studio with Andy
(10:28):
Yates getting more answers to your questionsin just a minute. Stick around,
we're back. You're listening to theRepco Light Home Improvement Show. Sponsored by
Benjamin Moore. I'm in the studiowith Andy Yates from Andy Yates Design,
(10:52):
talking about basically the questions we gotfrom you from our listeners. We're getting
answers from Andy. We've got aQ and A with a designer segment that
we're going to be doing from timeto time. Andy kind of pitched the
idea to me. Thought it waspretty smart, maybe brilliant Andy, So
they took you up on that,and yeah, we're getting those answers.
(11:13):
So we've gone through a couple let'sjust jump right in. I've got another
question, and this one is fromHeather in Grand Rapids, and she wants
to know what do you think aboutthe growing trend of using high gloss paint
on various surfaces, including the ceiling. Have you done that yet in any
of your projects? Heather? Thankyou for this loaded question. It can
(11:33):
be a very polarizing finish. AndI'll tell you from a personal and professional
perspective. First, Professionally, right, sheen and reflectivity are so specific to
every room and every project and everyfunction. So with high gloss paints as
(11:56):
well as you know, polished metals, right, anything highly reflective, you
have to think very critically about howit's applied, what percentage of surfaces in
that space are going to reflect lightat that level, and what are the
functions that have to happen in there. So when there's a lot of glam
and a lot of reflectivity on surfaces, it can be a little overwhelming,
(12:20):
right, especially because it can addto fatigue in your vision. It can
cause issues with sort of focused work. So I tend to approach high gloss
finishes in places where the activity wouldsupport that and not places where you want
to feel more calm or relaxed.Because they are very energizing, they bounce
(12:43):
light around, they catch your eye, and they catch any small amount of
movement, and because our brains arehardwired, it's kind of focus on movement
when we see it. They canbe distracting in an area where you don't
necessarily need that. So you know, like dining rooms are fun because you
think about how they reflect candlelight andyou have dinner parties and exciting moments in
(13:05):
there. It can be really lovelyto use those kind of glamorous finishes in
areas of circulation where I also sayit's good to have a lot of pattern
and color and interest. You canbe more bold in hallways, foyers,
powder rooms because you're not spending alot of time in those areas and your
focus is really about movement or small, limited activities. When I think about
(13:33):
it personally, and again, youknow, my opinion only matters and where
I live, right, I createfor clients what they need and want.
It's never been a go to forme to want to have a lot of
reflective finishes. And I think becauseof the reasons I espoused, I do
enjoy moments of gloss and I doenjoy like trim in certain rooms. For
(14:00):
example, I have had clients therewas one on Little Traverse Bay where we
wanted gloss on all of their trim. They loved that look, and to
combine that with more matte walls anda lot of textures that were more matt
it was really an interesting juxtaposition.I think about those in terms of ceilings.
(14:22):
I love papering a ceiling. Ilove painting a ceiling with a gloss.
The thing about those finishes, especiallywith paint, is you have to
be very very certain and fastidious thatthe surfaces are perfectly prepared, because the
more gloss you add to a finish, the more flaws and imperfections that it
will show, so every nail popevery instance where it might have not been
(14:46):
sanded smoothly. And so when youuse lackers in that way on furniture or
ceilings or walls or trim, theydo have to be impeccably prepared. MATT
finishes then obviously are much more forgiving, which is why we often use MATT
and flat on ceilings because they canbe a challenge where you know, architecture
(15:07):
and buildings might settle. Similarly formoldings, that can be where you have
issues at joints and cocked seams.So I would say, if you're going
to approach them, maybe it isn'tthe easiest DIY project, and I would
definitely recommend hiring a professional painter forgloss finishes. Yeah, that's kind of
(15:28):
where we land. You know,I don't even know how I feel about
it personally or from a design pointof view, because I really never get
to that part of the conversation inmy head. I'm thinking about it practically,
and I just know there are likeyou mentioned, every little thing is
going to show up, every imperfectionis going to be just so magnified because
of that gloss finish, and there'sso many things that have to go perfectly
(15:52):
with the application that from a DIYpoint of view, I do think it's
it's certainly not impossible. It's justa little scary and for me, I
know, I don't have a spacein the home that is that perfectly prepared.
I do like it on trim andstuff like that. I like,
you know, maybe not a highgloss, but definitely a semi gloss something
like that. I like to seethat, but definitely i'd be afraid of
(16:15):
it on a ceiling. So no, I like that. It's something that
we're seeing more of getting questions about, obviously, And that's a great answer.
And before we kind of close thissegment out, I want to mention
a couple of things. During thecourse of that answer, we talked about
using a flat finish and how that'smore commonly used because it hides everything,
It hides imperfections just a lot more. It's just a lot easier to work
(16:37):
with, especially on a ceiling that'soften kind of complicated to paint. I
want to make sure that I highlightBenjamin Morri's Premium water Born ceiling paint because
it's a dead flat, ultra flatproduct that can be tinted to any color.
So if you do want to kindof push boundaries a little bit,
you can go to any color withthis Benjamin Moore waterborne ceiling paint and it
will remain dead flat. Most times, when we tint a product, especially
(17:00):
if we add a lot of tintto it to get to a darker color,
that tint is going to actually increasethe sheen of the product. So
you could get a flat paint,tint it up to a darker color and
it's not going to be a deadflat anymore. The Benjamin war waterborne ceiling
paint will remain dead flat, whichmeans you can get any color up there
and it's crazy easy to work with. So keep that in mind if you're
(17:22):
going to go with a color onthe ceiling and you're thinking you might want
to just go towards a flat.Another thing we mentioned if you are going
to go with a high gloss ona ceiling, it might be something that
you don't want to tackle yourself.You might want to hire that done.
Well. We've got on the Repcolitewebsite. You can go there and we've
got a form find a contractor form. Basically head to repcolit dot com and
then right on the top menu you'llsee find a Painter, find a contractor
(17:47):
tab. Just click that and thenthere's a quick form. Just fill out
the form, let us know whereyou're at and a little bit of an
idea of what your project is,and then hit submit and we'll get you
some names. All right, Andy, that's all the time, we gott
Thanks so much for hanging out withus today. If our listeners want more
information, they want to find yourwebsite, check you out there. How's
the best way for them to findyou online? If anyone wants to explore
(18:10):
the portfolio that we have or learnmore about our firm or me, you
can go to Andy Yatesdesign dot com. You can also find us on Instagram
and Facebook and Twitter and Pinterest allat Andy Yates Design and we try to
keep those all current with fresh workand work in progress, so hopefully anyone
who visits can find inspiration and learnmore about how to work with us or
(18:33):
designers in general. Perfect we'll putlinks in the show notes you can check
it out. Andy, thanks forhanging out with me today. Absolutely,
thank you, Dan all right,we're gonna take a break. When we
come back, I'm in the studiowith David Pop from Rosepest Solutions talking about
bugs. Stick around for that.You're not gonna want to miss it.
(19:00):
Well, it's spring and we're headinginto summer, and that means a ton
of great outdoor activities in Michigan.But it also means that bugs and other
pests are kicking into gear. You'relistening to the Repco Light Home Improvement Show
sponsored by Benjamin Moore, and rightnow I'm joined by David Pop, district
manager in the Grand Rapids office forRose Pest Solutions. David, thanks for
(19:21):
being here. You're welcome. Dan. Yeah, you've been on the show
before. We were talking just beforewe went on air that we can't remember
five or six times. Yeah,easy, something like that. Yeah,
we've covered all kinds of everybody's favoritetopics. You know, bed bugs,
ticks, bats, and murder hornets. Yes, ghost just spring to mind.
You know, everybody loves talking aboutwhat you deal with. So anyway,
(19:44):
how long have you been working withRose Pest Solutions and dealing with bugs?
Then with Rose for this is goingon my twenty seventh year, but
I've been in the industry now forforty one years. Forty one years of
dealing with bugs and pasts and allkinds of things. Well, that's a
life well lived. Yes, yeah, all right, let's get to the
issue at hand. You know,weather's getting beautiful out there, We're almost
(20:04):
to summer, and at this timeof year, I guess I'm just curious,
what are we going to be dealingwith? What are we going to
be seeing a lot of in termsof bugs and pasts, And I guess,
more importantly, what can we doabout them? Well, I think
right now the number one pest isgoing to be ants, either pavement ants
or carpenter ants. So there's alsoacrobatic ants. There's a number of different
(20:27):
ants that we do. Whoa,whoa, whoa acrobatic ants. I need
to know more about those. Wellthey are they will actually nest in like
a cavity. They'll usually take oversomebody else's area. The way, it's
real simple to identify them. Theirabdomen or their rear end looks like a
heart, and that's what the acrobaticant looks. Why are they called acrobatic
(20:48):
ants? Do they do really coolthings? Yeah? I think so.
At the trapeze act like a fleacircuits. Right, that was the thing,
only now you could do it withants. Yes, okay, so
I interrupted you, but you hadto know that was coming. That was
very intriguing. I got to lookthem up. I don't want them,
but maybe somebody who lives nearby couldget them and I could check them out
that way, Yes, and you'llbe able to tell acrobatic ants. Carpenter.
(21:12):
Did you mention those? I did? Carpenter aants? Wouldich are wood
destroying insect? They are definitely aneconomic concern because they do do wood damage.
Generally with a carpenter ant, they'reactually nesting on the outside, but
they will have like a subcolony ornest on the inside, but they will
(21:32):
do substantial damage, just like atermite would. Are these identifiable by sight?
I mean like, can we theyou know, regular people them out
by sight or do we have tolook for evidence of what they're doing before?
Well? I would say definitely evidencefor sure. But they in most
cases a lot of people think they'rea large ant, but they also have
we call it a major worker ora minor worker. The easiest way to
(21:56):
identify a carpentrant again, you're lookingat a body part is their thorax.
It's a smooth even thorax, whichis that middle section of their body,
and you have to look at itclosely, but it is a a it's
real smooth and rounded. Okay,so just because I have big black ants
in my home, that doesn't meanthat I've got carpenter an. That's correct.
(22:17):
You could have field ants. Therecould be a couple of different other
species that enter in. Citronella ants, which is kind of like what we
call is an odorous house ant.Those can enter in, so there's a
number of different ones, but generallyyou're what you're gonna see is when you
talked about the visible evidence, that'swhat we call frasts. That's where they
actually are boring out an area anddumping the sawdust, if you will,
(22:41):
along with different body parts of theants that they're they're cleaning. They're doing
like a house cleaning. And ifwe find that that means carpenter ain could
be that's frast. But it's thekey is looking into the frast to see
if you see body parts and Tenna'slegs, you know, the thorax,
the head because they're they're cleaning outthat cavity. It's important to do so
(23:03):
because a lot of times people say, we'll call us up and say,
you know, i've got sawdust.I know about the carpentryant. Well,
what it was was the electrician actuallyboring a hole through the floor joist okay,
and it got into a spider web, and people thought that, you
know, they thought that it mighthave been a carpentry problem. All right,
So answer a big deal, Alot of things to look at.
If I'm looking at them, Iguess let's talk about me. I've got
(23:26):
that is one of the things I'mdealing with right now. A ton of
ants in the house. Normally Iput out little bait traps and then usually
usually in a few days, theproblem kind of goes away and I don't
notice them anymore. This year it'sbeen different. They're they're clinging, they're
not either they're not taking the baitor they're immune to the bait. They
may not be taken to the baitas far as because it's not paddable to
(23:48):
them at this point. Okay,okay, So I've got to have the
right bait for the right time ofyear, for the for the ants.
Yes, this is way more complicatedthan I anticipated it being. So we're
looking at ants. If we seeissues, have concerns, we can give
you a call and you can kindof walk us through that. What other
things might we be looking at thistime of year? Well, Mosquitos.
(24:10):
Big part of this time of theyear coming up is mosquitoes, and that's
definitely a concern for most people.Ticks are another pest, earwigs or another
that ocurve ground beetles will get inside. Those are your major major pests that
you're going to end up seeing.Some are occasional invaders where they're not that
big of a concern even though theyappear to be a nuisance. Okay,
(24:34):
So I'm in the studio with DavidPop from Rose Pest Solutions talking about all
the nasty, little creepy crawleys thatwe could be dealing with over the course
of summer, late spring and intosummer. You mentioned a number of them
right off the bat, we talkedabout ants. Let's talk about let's hear
the second one you mentioned, Mosquitos. Mosquitos. Let's talk about that.
(24:56):
What can I do? I mean, you see all these places that will
missed my yard. What do youthink about that. What are my solutions
so I can enjoy some time outsidea little bit better. Well, the
biggest thing to do is to takecare of any areas that might become a
breeding source. They look for stagnantwater, stuff that's not water, that's
not moving, that can be rainwater that's been in a piece of playground
(25:19):
equipment for a while, that isnot going anywhere, and that's where they
like to place. There. Whatwe cause an egg graft that then turns
into where they then become a larvae, into a pupa, into an adult
all in the water. Now,so you've told us before, I believe
it was you. You have areally horrific number in just a small amount
(25:41):
of water, how many mosquitoes thousands, thousands can breed. I've seen literally
walking around some people's property and I'veseen just an old paint can. Wasn't
a Repkolite or a Benjamin More,but it was a paint can that literally
was probably about three three quarters ofthe way full of water that was just
(26:02):
brewing. Thousands, had thousands oflarva in in the pupa. In the
mosquito world, those are called wrig'larsand tumblers. And the reason that is
is because of their action that theydo because they have they have to breathe
through a breathing tube, so they'llactually go up to the surface of the
water and then they'll tumble down ifyou will, or wriggle down as you
will, you know, for themto get back into the water. Well,
(26:26):
they sound acrobatic as well, likethe acrobatic ants that we talked about.
So get rid of all these areasof staining water. I've got a
or a water bucket for the flowersthat I've noticed, yeah, ever since,
I mean this was years ago thatyou mentioned this to me. So
I'm pretty good at this. Igo around the yard and dump all these
things over. But man, justthat little bit of water it can So
(26:49):
you want to look for those sources. The other thing that you want to
do is is you know, cutdown, you know, any tall grass
that might be in the area,and keeping your lawn mode is a big
part of it. The one theone thing that's that's difficult is that you
can do everything you can. Youknow, you can have your yard treated,
but the problem is is you're notputting up a dome around your house.
(27:10):
You know, there there is peoplethat may not be doing the same
thing that you're doing. That thoseadult mosquitos can come and still come on
to your if you're enjoying your deckat night, and they'll still you know,
they'll still seek you out. Sobut what you can do, and
then if you can talk to yourparents, your neighbors as well, that
only helps you. Okay, allright, So what about this like centronella
(27:33):
candles things like that. How'm effective? How they smell nice? Okay,
you don't find that fairly effective forthe They may a little bit, but
again it's not going to cover theentire area, so you're still going to
get The biggest thing you can doin reality is to do the items that
I talked about, and then somethingas simple as putting a fan out on
your deck. Mosquitoes do not liketo be where there's a movement in the
(27:57):
wind. Okay, so you're producingat your own wind there, all right.
By putting a fan out that helps. Okay, so we can produce
our own wind. Yeah, thatwill help alleviate some of the mosquito problems.
Yes, all right. We're inthe studio with David Pop from Rose
Pest Solutions, and I want totalk about ticks. I attract a lot
(28:17):
of ticks, David. I hesitateto say that I'm a tick magnet because
that's a really bad, bad joke, but it's the truth. I want
to talk about those. I wantto talk about earwigs. I hate them.
But I don't have any more timefor this segment. Can you wait
with me over a break? Sure? All right, we'll pick it up
on the other side. I'll beback with David Pop from Rose Pest Solutions
in just a minute. Stick aroundand we're back. You're listening to the
(28:41):
Repcolite Home improvement Show sponsored by BenjaminMoore, and I am in the studio
with David Pop from Rose Pest Solutions. You're the district manager in the Grand
Rapids area, right, and youguys Rose past you cover all kinds of
area right, Yes, all overthe place, So our listeners, wherever
you are, there's a Rose PestSolutions near you. If we're speaking your
(29:03):
language right now, if we're talkingabout bugs or things that are really getting
on your nerves or you don't wantthem to get on your nerves, there
is an answer out there. Andwe've talked about ants. Answer the big
thing, right now, not thegood kind like our ants who come by
with baked goods and things like that. For us, these are little pesty
ants that want our baked goods andthings like that, and different things we
(29:26):
can do for those. Then wejust were talking about mosquitoes. Of course,
that's big. Get rid of allthat standing stagnant water, that's a
big thing you can do. Geta fan on your deck. They don't
like moving the air movement and that'llmaybe give you a little bit of a
break. Now let's talk about let'sjust get straight to ticks. I do
want to hit earwigs because those arereally gross. But ticks. How bad
(29:48):
do you think it's going to bethis year? And what kind of things
do we need to look at?What kind of precautions can we take?
Well, I think that's the bigpart as far as how bad it's going
to be for this year. Theone thing I know is that with all
pasts. Right now we had areal mild winter, and anytime you have
a real mild winter, the pestactivity definitely increases. With ticks. What
(30:11):
you can do that, again,the best thing is prevention. Making sure
that the lawn is cut around youryard. You can have like a tick
free zone where you could put likegravel or river rock, that type of
thing. They don't want to bethere. There's no reason for them to
be there. They want to bein the tall grass because it's just they're
(30:33):
characteristic on how they get onto ananimal or person's where they actually, for
the lack of a better word,prostrate themselves on a long piece of grass
and then what takes place is assomething goes by and movement, they latch
on. So if you can keepthat grass mode down or the weeds back
a little bit further, it helpsalong with that tick free zone. If
(30:56):
you're going to enjoy hiking, ifyou're out in some of the parts work,
the best thing to do is stayon the trails. Just stay in
the trails, don't venture off.If you are going to venture off,
you know, having you know,proper clothing on that's going to prevent ticks
from from coming on, you know, sliding down into your shoes and things
like this, and also utilizing arepellent such as date. I think like
(31:21):
a thirty percent deed is probably whatyou want. And then just that the
other thing is when you're done,when you come back in, make sure
you have somebody to check each otherout, especially in an area that you
know that there's been ticks, becauseticks are definitely a medical concern. The
of course, the black legged tickor the deer tick contains limes disease or
(31:41):
could transferred limes disease, as wellas different diseases like rocky a mounted spoted
fever. It's definitely a concern andit's not something that you really want to
mess with. You do have timeif a tick is on you, you
do have anywhere from twenty four toI believe twenty four to thirty six hours
before the bacterium in the mid gutgets transferred down into your bloodstream, So
(32:04):
there is time still. You don'thave to freak out, especially if you're
coming right from the trail, buttake precautions in getting the ticks off.
That's yeah, definitely take the precautions, dress appropriately, use the repellents.
In fact, last year I rana test. I brought my kids with
me and they were my test subjects. We bought every tick repellent that we
(32:28):
could find. You know, wehad four of them, I think from
whatever store we stopped at. Theyhad four different kinds and all natural kind
and whatever. However many we hadI think it was for everybody got coated
with a different one. And thenwe wandered through what we knew where tick
infested regions. And I will putlinks to the results in the show notes
because a couple of them really stoodout as incredibly effective. We noticed that
(32:52):
the all natural ones did not workterribly well. It felt good, we
felt like we were doing the rightthing and not using chemicals, but they
didn't do anything either. And wehad a number of other ones that just
worked really well, and we wouldsee the ticks. We'd get the ticks
on us and they'd start to crawlup, but then they look like they
got confused and they just turn aroundand go away again. And then they'd
(33:14):
almost jump off of us, andthat was great. So I'll put links
in the show notes to that.You are a brave man, That's what
I'll say. Yeah, I know, I know, I am. I'm
going to play that over and overagain for my children to hear. But
yeah, we did. And mydaughter Hannah was not so brave until she
saw how well her tick repellent wasworking. And then we got her to
(33:37):
the point where we could actually putthem on her and she would not freak
out about it. But we knewthat these tick repellents, they weren't waving
out this area like I anticipated,like two feet around me was going to
be just tick free zone. Itwas going to just push them away.
No, they still came on tous, but they just didn't like being
there. So take care with allof that. Do I have to wear
(33:59):
my socks over my open my pants? I would do so. Yeah,
and then you can even tape.I mean, it all depends on how
crazy you want to be. Youcertainly don't want to be pandemic crazy.
We're had the different types of costumes. If you will on, but you
want to you definitely want to makesure that you're protecting the best thing Again,
inspection, take a look at eachother and make sure you don't have
(34:20):
an a on. Yeah, wehad a very recent walk. I guess
it was probably a month or twoago. Nice weather we had, like
you said, mild winter. Niceweather brought the dogs out. We went
off the main trail because it wasso muddy. I was not anticipating ticks,
and we didn't even check for ticksbecause it was so close to winter
at that point This was a whileback, and I noticed at the end
(34:43):
of the day the dogs walking throughthe house. What is that? Oh
man? And they were tiny ticks. They were super tiny at that point.
Pretty sad. Yeah, So getout there. You still can have
fun, still can enjoy it.Check out the different repellents they do work.
I'll have a link in the shownotes for that information. Just take
the precautions that you need to soyou can get outside and enjoy the hiking,
(35:04):
enjoy all of that. Ticks.Hate them, hate them, hate
them. Earwigs. I'm not abig fan of those either. I get
a ton of those around the house. What can we do about those?
Well, it depends on what whatdo you have on the outside of the
home. As far as do youhave a lot of mulch. I do.
I have a pheromonomult shots that multchis designed to obviously to contain moisture
(35:25):
and so forth. What happens isearwigs love that. So where are they
going to go for more? They'regoing to go all right up out in
your siding underneath it, and that'show they're going to enter in the best
thing you can do is to isagain, is to if you will to
have an earwig free zone, ifyou know, I know that's not a
great thing because of aesthetics around ahouse, but sure they're after the moisture
(35:46):
and they're going to be you know, within the mulch like that. You
can even rake it up and moveit around and so forth. But the
best thing to do is to havea treatment, have an exterior treatment in
that area. That's going to eliminatethe the chances of the earwigs entering inside
of the home. So you guyscome out of that, all right.
So let's talk about some of thatin the last little bit that we've got
(36:08):
with all these different things. Mosquitos, what do you have that you can
do for mosquitos, for ants,for all these things. What we do
is, for instance, with mosquitoes, we will actually treat the property.
We'll use a mister treatment, andwe'll treat any foliage that is where mosquitoes
can get up underneath leaves and thingsof this nature. We will not treat
(36:31):
any type of plant that is flowering. The reason that, of course,
is that our labels don't allow usto do so because of the pollinators.
Sure, and so we will stayaway from that. But we're going to
treat up any any long grass areathat, like I said, the bushes
or trees that have the adult mosquitoeson them, because that's what that's going
(36:53):
to do, is they're resting atthat point when we're treating there, and
that'll take care of the adult mosquitWe'll also point out areas such as what
we talked about earlier, where there'sstagnant water, uh to, we'll dump
it for you. If we seesomething a bucket, we're gonna dump it,
but it will actually point out anyareas that could possibly have water,
(37:15):
such as eaves that are clogged up. They contain a lot of it.
It's a big breeding site for mosquitoes. Okay, so you'll you'll kind of
get eyes on the whole situation andyou've got some solutions to help with that.
Same thing with ants, same thingwith earwigs. Yep. Yeah,
we'll do what we call is ourhome service program, where we'll do a
treatment three times a year. Wecan also do what we call is an
(37:37):
omit treatment, which is just youknow, exclusively doing around on the exterior.
These these will help and it's it'sa very successful program. All right.
So basically, you guys come out. I'll tell you what I'm dealing
with. You'll probably find six otherthings that I'm dealing with that I either
forgot about or hadn't even figured outyet. And you've got some solutions for
(37:58):
me. You're all over the stateand beyond. Right. So for our
listeners have questions, they want toget in touch, they want to figure
out what you could do to helpthem out. How's the best way to
do that. Well, they caneither give us a call a eight hundred
ninety six to six Rose, whichis I believe seven six seventy three,
or they can contact us through ourwebsite, which is Rosepessolutions dot com.
All right, so dig into that, check them out wherever you are in
(38:21):
the state. Let's figure out asolution to some of these bugs. We
can enjoy our outdoor time a littlebetter. David Pop from Rose Pest Solutions,
thanks for being here, you bet, thank you. All right,
that's all the time we've got.We're going to wrap it up. Another
episode in the books, another brilliantepisode, I should say, in the
books. If you want to revisitthis one, catch it again or maybe
any of its other brothers and sisters. All three hundred and fifty seven other
(38:45):
episodes of the Repcolite Home Improvement Show. You can find them all online at
repco light dot com. Just clickthe on the radio tab on the homepage,
or wherever you get your podcasts,you should be able to find the
Repcolite Home Improvement Show. Check itout. Whatever you do today, make
sure paints a part of it.I'm Dan Hanson, Thanks for listening.
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