Santa Clarita’s Most Invasive Rat And How To Identify It
Most of us at one point have asked or been asked by a friend “if you could go back in time and change one thing, what would it be?”.
Most people make jokes about not eating a certain burrito, or lament not having asked out that special person in college, but, as a pest control professional, if I had the opportunity to go back in time, I would wait on the Californian waterfronts in the late 1700’s to stop the first Roof Rat from coming off the ships from Asia! Continue reading
Orange Oil, The Most Natural Way To Get Rid Of Termites
As a pest control company here in Santa Clarita, one of the best parts of our job is the satisfaction that comes from having a job where we get to help people.
People call us because they are distressed that they have bed bugs, or they found termites, or they have ants and spiders and we get to see them go from distressed to seeing them very happy and relieved. Continue reading
Escrow Termite Inspections and Repair
Most lending organizations don’t want to loan on a property unless they are assured that the property doesn’t have any “Wood Destroying Organism” that threaten its structural integrity.
These infamous “Section One” items must be eliminated in most transactions before a home can go through escrow and fortunately, Unipest is a full-service Escrow Inspection, treatments, and construction repair company.
We work with all the local companies, United America Realty, HSB Realty, Realty Executives, Realty One, Re-Max, Keller Williams, etc. and have an efficient pipeline for termite identification, elimination, and certification.
Our State-Certified Termite and WDO Inspectors will come to your house, identify what types of termites, dry rot, fungus, or section one items are present and prepare a plan for their speedy removal or remedy so you can get your “clearance” and move through escrow…generally within less than a week.
You don’t have to go far to find customers, real estate agents, and escrow professionals who would recommend our services.
As Santa Clarita’s only Factory Certified XT-2000 Orange Oil company we can give you a clearance without tenants having to leave the home, and as a strategic partner with Vikane Gas we can tent the home completely if it is vacant or if your unique escrow situation demands it. Either way, if you are a realtor looking for a termite inspection partner or a homeowner looking to list soon, call us immediately at 661-284-7575 for a free inspection.
Bird Barrier
Birds are beautiful and they occupy a very important niche in the local ecosystem of Santa Clarita, but….64 different diseases! Can you believe it!?
Pigeons carry 64 different diseases! So gross! And its not just pigeons causing problems. Non pest species of birds like swallows will cause significant amounts of property damage as they nest during the summers and raise their young and you cannot remove them until they leave on their own so preventing them from nesting on your property and pooping everywhere is serious business.
Fortunately, Eco Friendly pigeon and bird control options for your home in Santa Clarita are plentiful at Unipest. We Santa Clarita’s only “Bird Barrier Certified” company and have helped hundreds of homeowners and homeowner associations keep the pigeons, starlings, and other pest birds away using organic, eco-friendly, and EPA approved products and methods.
If the birds are getting a little “Alfred Hitchcock” on you, call us today and we will give you a free inspection.
Beehive Removal
Bees are serious business. Just their buzzing sound is enough to make a grown man wince in fear. And for good reason. Depending on the stats and the year, bees, especially “Killer” Africanized Bees rank in the top 3 of North Americas most dangerous animals. THOUSANDS of people, pets, and livestock have died or been injured from stepping into the wrong territory of an Africanized beehive.
Fortunately, eco-friendly beehive removal options are our specialty. Whether it’s a live removal of a new European Honeybee Hive or the extermination of an Africanized Beehive, Unipest has the tools and talent to help you stay safe.
Because about 80-90% of the feral hives in the Santa Clarita valley are Africanized, let’s talk a little bit about removing an Africanized beehive. As you can see in the videos below, there is a lot more to eco-friendly beehive removal than just showing up and spraying or removing the hive.
First you must identify where the hive material is. If you smoke a hive with pine needle smoke, it may calm down temporarily. If you spray an aggressive hive with pesticide, it may kill the adults and calm down in activity for a couple of days, but unless you remove the hive material itself, the honey on the hive material will protect the queen and the young from exterior smoke and pesticides and when the new young reaches adulthood in a week, the hive will return just as strong and as vibrant as it was the week before. So… the name of the game is hive removal and locating the exact area the hive is in.
To do this we have all kinds of tools at our disposal. Often times with a simple visual inspection or with a visual scope we can identify where a hive is. If the hive is behind a wall, thermal imaging scopes are an effective way to pinpoint where a hive is. Once locates, we will cut the stucco or the drywall around the hive, remove it, and then patch the area back together so you couldn’t even tell we were there! It is really that simple!
If you suspect your Santa Clarita home has bees, call us today for a free beehive removal inspection at 661-284-7575.
Tree Injections
We all love trees. They are what give life to our cities and beauty to our homes and neighborhoods. Declared a “Tree City, USA”, Santa Clarita is home to literally hundreds of thousands of trees, and if you want to keep your beautiful trees healthy you need tree injections!
Unfortunately for the California Sycamores and Oak trees in Santa Clarita, there’s a new invasive, non-native pest in town, the Polyphagous Shot-hole borer, a deadly bark beetle that can kill a 60 foot tree in less than six months. Fortunately, if caught earlier enough, there’s a good chance that your trees can survive this lethal menace, and most trees can be treated preventively against the polyphagous shot hole borer, and his evil cousins, the flat-headed borer, and other bark-beetles.
You can recognize polyphagous bark beetle activity in trees because of the small holes that they burrow in the outer bark of a tree, hence the name “shot hole borer.” These holes are usually the size of about a ball point pen and spread sporadically in a vulnerable area of the tree. It does look like someone, literally, shot your tree with a shotgun.
Other bark beetles will not be so obvious, but the marks from woodpeckers trying to eat the larvae will be. If you see significant amounts of holes in nice lines on limbs of your tree then you may have the beginnings of a bark beetle infestation and the woodpeckers are going after the larvae.
The solution is simple! Water, tree injections, and then more water. Drought years, like the lengthy drought of 2015-2017 significantly weaken a trees natural defense and their ability to defend against bark beetles is minimized, so if you get bark beetles, give the tree as much water as you can, about 10 gallons for each inch of diameter of the tree. Once a tree gets infested its almost impossible to fully eliminate the infestation without chemical assistance, so we recommend the eco-friendly Arborjet products, Imijet 10 and Tree-age g4 to help eliminate tree pests and the application is simple.
As you can see below, all you have to do is drill into the tree, install a series of tree “plugs” and then inject this system of plugs with the appropriate product. This product then travels through the trees natural vascular system, repelling and eliminating the pests from the tree. Without sprays, root drenches, or loud machinery, we systemically inject the tree with life-saving product and even give it a healthy boost of phosphor-jet to increase tree health!
If you would like a FREE TREE inspection, call us today at 661-607-6767
Bed Bug Heat Treatments
If you are the kind of person who wants the best, most eco-friendly option for bed bug control, heat treatments are for you.
If you have found bed bugs in your room. You have probably “googled” bed bug control and read 50 different articles about every kind of gimmick possible, but the truth is, after combined decades of experience in the industry, there are only two sure-fire ways of eliminating bed bugs from your typical home or business in Santa Clarita, heat treatments, and fumigation. Almost anything directly applied to a bed bug can kill it but the EGGS are the problem.
Not all treatments kill eggs, thus never completely eliminating the problem. So…Let’s start talking a little bit about heat treatments. For those that don’t feel comfortable fumigating their house, or want to avoid “harsh chemical” treatments, heat treatments are an eco-friendly and VERY effective option for bed bug control.
Dr. Linford, in 1948, invented the methyl bromide fumigation, and in 1989, his son, also Dr. Linford, invented the heat treatment. In a nutshell, we drag large electric or propane heaters into the home and raise the temperature of the treatment area to at least 120 degrees Fahrenheit for at least 4 hours. If successfully exposed to such high heat (up to 140 degrees) for a sufficient period of time, the adults, the young bed bugs, and the eggs all get dehydrated to death!
Besides a whole house fumigation, bed bug heat treatments are the only service we recommend for bed bug infestations, and we have been strategic partners with the scientists and doctors behind the development of heat treatments for years!
“But what about damage to books, and pictures, and my new 100 inch television?” you may ask. Don’t sweat it. The flash point of paper is about 451 degrees (remember the book?) and your HD television will be just fine. We are raising the temperature of the house to 120-140 degrees, not 500, so your personal items will be just fine! However, as always, if you are concerned, call us anytime for more information.
There is no need to move anything out, there is no need to freak out or throw away your beds, just give Unipest a call and we will come out and give you a free bed bug inspection and help you choose the best extermination method possible.
Fumigation
Don’t be afraid of fumigation… they’re a little like Great Danes. Fumigation in Santa Clarita may look big and intimidating, but they’re actually a lot more gentle and easier than you think! Fumigation is an extremely effective way of eliminating both dry-wood termites and bedbugs, but can be used to eliminate myriad pests also.
The primary advantage of fumigation is that it has a 99.3% success rate… that’s basically 100% people, and Unipest only uses the finest fumigation products on the market, namely Vikane Gas, manufactured here in California.
There is really only one drawback to fumigation in Santa Clarita… you gotta move out of the house or the building for two days. Don’t be intimidated however because YOU DO NOT NEED TO MOVE OUT ALL OF YOUR BELONGINGS! In fact, almost everything in the house can stay. Your average family of four reports only spending about 60-90 minutes preparing for a fumigation.
The only things you really need to pack is the opened foot items, prescription drugs, people and pets, including your beloved plants.*
In most cases, you can bag the food items in specialized Nylofume Fumigation bags. We provide you bags so the only thing you leave with is your pets and family. It’s really that simple!
The electricity stays on. We organize the gas shut-off and restoration. You just go have fun with the family for two days and come back to a 100% termite free home. There’s NO cleaning, no dusting, no sanitation afterwards… you literally walk right back into the house!
“But how is this possible?”
Just think of Vikane gas like it were Carbon Dioxide. If we tented your house and filled it with Carbon Dioxide for two days, the second we un-tented the house and allowed people to move back in the house, there would be no contamination, residue, or sanitation we would need to perform because GAS DOES NOT LEAVE ANY RESIDUE. It literally just comes and disappears. Well, much like Carbon Dioxide, Vikane gas is a stable, inert gas that just comes and goes without leaving a trace, so no sweat!
If you have any questions or suspect you may have bed bugs or drywood termites, call us for a free inspection at 661-284-7575!
Footnotes.
*Obviously we have a comprehensive list we will give you. These are just the basics.