PHOENIX — Anything that crawls and flies is having a moment across our Valley.
Winter weather helped create the fuel on the ground for plenty of bugs.
As Cave Creek resident Bill prepares for pool season, the tarantula he found – is way ahead of him.
With the pest control company on the way, he found frogs in the pool filter and plenty of active bugs all around his property surrounded by rolling hills.
“I don’t think toads are a nuisance, they are prevalent,” he said.
However you feel about bugs and critters, Urban Desert pest control is having a spring bloom of its own.
”The amount of scorpions, the amount of ants, it feels like it’s been magnified. We’re running into them a lot more than usual,” said pest control technician, Jordan Sharp.
The historic amount of rain we saw over winter provided a buffet of vegetation for grasshoppers, crickets, and all other things for pests to feed off of.
We ran into Tanner Price, a pool service tech who wiped a cricket off his arm before he described pulling and opening a pool filter cover.
“Smells like crap, like quite literally. Smells really rancid,” he said.
To try and mitigate some of these pests, pest control companies suggest limiting moisture and water use, picking up dead leaves which could be a nesting ground for bugs, turning off lights that attract bugs at night and if you want to pay for your home to be treated – it’s still a challenge to keep bugs away.
“It’s a different ball game when it comes to flying insects, that definitely makes things a lot more difficult,” said Sharp.
Some of these bugs can be prey to the well-known Arizona predator – the scorpion.
“When you have more crickets and grasshoppers, you have more of a spike in scorpions. So it plays a domino effect,” said Sharp.
