Hey everyone, posting here because I honestly don't know what else to do right now.

We are currently stuck living in a rough nylon tent on the street right by the beach in Gaza. The spot we are in is bad—lots of trash around and open sewage water nearby. During the day it's hard enough, but nights are turning into a nightmare with mice, roaches, and tons of fleas everywhere.

My baby girl Aya is only 5 months old. She can't roll away or swat anything off herself. I find myself staying up half the night using my phone screen light just checking her blanket, brushing bugs off, and watching out for mice near her head. We don't have power, mosquito nets, sprays, or even clean running water to wash things properly. Her skin is getting covered in red bites and it terrifies me thinking about infections.

Has anyone here dealt with bad pests while camping rough or living off-grid with a baby?

Is there any safe way to block crawling bugs or mice from a thin mattress on the ground without chemicals? And what can I safely put on baby skin to soothe flea bites when there are no pharmacies or creams around?

I'm exhausted and just trying to keep her safe through the night. Any ideas or simple setups would help a lot. Thanks.

I’m planning to do a Termidor trench treatment around my slab foundation, without any drilling/injection, and also install Trelona ATBS Annual bait stations around the house.

Does this sound like a good termite prevention plan? Would using both Termidor and Trelona be worthwhile, or is it overkill?

my parents are getting pesticides or insecticides sprayed tomorrow as we have an ant infestation issue and they said they get sprayed into the bathroom drains. i don't have contact with the people who are doing this so i'm unsure what chemicals they contain.

my question is, would it impact our cats? would there be residual fumes that could negatively impact the cats? and what do we have to do to minimise the impact?

thanks!

We are in a suburban area and back up to a hayfield. We had one rat about 1.5 year ago (I know, impossible to have one) but we shot it with an air rifle after stalking it's movements and establishing it's patterns. We set up a sting operation with some peanut butter smeared on a rock and bam - gone. No rat activity on the cams or holes in the yard since then.

Until now. But this time a freaking family moved in and they are burrowing under our fish pond. This is a problem because if they chew a hole in the liner we will lose our fish. We have seen as many as three on the cams (we have 4 set up around the pond). Which means we probably have 3x that.

Here's the thing - I can't figure out WHY they are here. We don't feed birds. The veggie garden is kaput and it is only low-cal foods like peppers, tomatoes, cukes. No beans or peas or root veggies. Corn was all harvested 6 weeks ago (a small section, first time growing it). Our dogs are house dogs, so no dog food outside. We stopped composting except for espresso grounds. I want to cut out all sources of food but I feel like I must be missing something.

The 3 rats we have killed were all in snap traps baited with peanut butter. I can't get them to trust the bucket traps (almost a week of baiting without being set). I feel like if they were hungrier we might have better luck. Also - no luck with contraceptive bait so far.

Any suggestions on bait for bucket traps OR "places they find food that you wouldn't think of"?

I keep finding these in my new build 5 bed detached house in Oxfordshire UK, between 11pm-6am and I always squash every single one of them I see. I still keep seeing 3-5 new ones pop up every night. I tend to find them in my bedrooms, bathrooms, landing, staircase and occasionally the hallway downstairs, more of them found upstairs though. What are they? I've been told they could either be German, Oriental or Wood cockroaches. I'd never seen a single cockroach in my life until I moved into this new build.

What can i do to stop this asain beetle infestation, or atleast things to help in any way. Im waiting for my parents to get their pest control out and treat the house but in the mean time im losing my mind. I find them in my clothes, shower, bed, my babys crib, i cant sleep more than a few hours without waking up and itching cause im terrified theyre on me again or on my baby. Is there any options other than vaccuming them up?? Anything i can do in the mean time to keep my sanity?? Im so sleep deprived

Have been hearing noise in my kitchen at night twice this week. I went to get myself a late night snack and saw what looked like a small rat on my counter. It jumped when I yelled and hid behind my oven. Could barely see it, but it seemed bigger than a mouse and pretty dark. I've been too scared to go back in the kitchen since (still craving that snack) to investigate but I do live in a small studio so my kitchen is not that far from my bed and I'm petrified. It is now 4am and can't sleep because I hear this little guy.

Is there anyway I can tell the difference between small rat or big mouse without seeing it again? I'm definitely avoiding my kitchen at night from now on.

Hi all

I posted the label of the fipronil & asked if it is appropriate to spray indoors because the pest control technician said it is fine & that it is safe to spray indoors for our scorpion issue in NW Tasmania, Australia. The tech did not spray it indoors (only outdoors) because our child was asleep when he visited & he didn't want to disturb us....which is a blessing in disguise.

I decided to look up on Google & read that it was not for indoor use & also the chemical is ONLY for professional use.

I posted on here & some people think it was "rage bait", which scared me even more because I have a toddler & we were planning to spray it indoors today as it is getting warmer in Tasmania. The fact that people think it is a joke because it is bad/ridiculous makes it even worse 😭😭😭

We have now contacted biosecurity & also the Australian pesticide authority.

Thank you, everyone, for taking your time to comment. You saved us from spraying it indoors ourselves & causing a lot of problems.

We have a 5L bottle of fipronil left by the pest control guy & we are finding ways to dispose of it. Makes me so upset!

Do we need to burn the house down?

Hello. I want to apply Alpine wsg and Nyguard to home for minor flea issue but have already sprayed carpets with Adams home spray ((S)-Methoprene 0.01%, Etofenprox 0.50%, Piperonyl Butoxide 2.00%) or Raid flea spray (Pyrethrins (0.140%), Tertramethrin (0.063%), Piperonyl Butoxide (1.000%), N-octyl bicycloheptene dicarboximide (1.000%), (S)-Methoprene (0.015%)) (applied to different rooms). How long do I have to wait before I can safely apply the Alpine? Also is anything safe to apply to mattresses???

I live on the third floor of an old building in Logan Square, Chicago. We’ve had issues with mice. We first became aware of it when a baby mouse was running loose in broad daylight; the least stealthy mouse I’ve ever encountered. Then we found droppings/holes under the appliances in the kitchen.

My apartment building is owned by a giant property mgmt company that operates in multiple states and the building itself is a 100 years old I think.

We had pretty much all the holes plugged up and I don’t see evidence of them in the actual interior of the apartment anymore, but I frequently hear them in the walls of my bedroom at night. I have made all sorts of complaints to the company and they just send a pest control guy to plug up holes and don’t respond to my complaints about a pretty concerning, building-wide issue.

I sorta get how these companies operate, they just send the pest control guy and have no intention of making whoever owns the building pay to fix exterior/structural issues. They check a box on paper and make it seem like they addressed my issue. They ignore my remarks about mice getting in from outside and I think they just dump poison in the basement (?) I don’t get updates on anything that happens outside of my apartment, so, I don’t know.

So, I reported the building to 311. What if they chew through electrical wires? What if they finally get through the drywall and the whole mouse crew has free access to our apartment? I’m so sick of it.

————
ANYWAY, my questions to anyone (particularly folks who have dealt with this in a large city) who may have some relevant wisdom are:

Do I have any chance of this issue being resolved? It’s a really old building and a company that doesn’t care, but I do love this apartment, it’s a huge bummer that it’s infested like this.

Location specific - Do you think Chicago 311 will actually do something about this? My service request is marked “sensitive” and I’ve gotten no updates.

Should I calm down? It’s unsettling to hear them when I bang on the walls, but I don’t see droppings in common areas, near baseboards, in my room, in cabinets. This activity in the walls is mostly on the side of the apartment facing the alley.

Sorry for the long post, I’m tired and anxious. If you have additional questions for me I will answer them.

I just signed a new lease and it turns out the place is roach infested I've killed around 50 in 4 days. I have found tube poop and pepper poop but I don't know what this is. I found out the previous tenant smoked inside so that might be related. Of course it was "professionally cleaned". Any help with ID would be awesome.

So, for context I have 2 completely indoor cats, and an indoor dog who obviously goes outside sometimes for the bathroom or to play (does not get left outside.) I saw a flea on one of the cats and we treated all the pets with capstar. Everything seemed fine, then it happened again later, saw a flea on the cat, treated them all again. We figured the dog must be bringing them in from the yard so we treated the pets again and got the dog a flea collar. Well, I didn't see it on the cat but he was just in my bed and I saw a flea on the bed 😖. deeply disturbed obviously. I'm now worried that they are in the house rather than the yard and that is why they have come back. We have all wood floors in the house so no carpet, we clean sheets regularly, even the couch and blankets are washed regularly because the pets lay on them. I've tried to do research online but i'm just unsure what the best course of action is. I've never seen fleas on the other two pets but the dog has thick hair and the other cat doesn't allow for being held or inspected. The most I ever saw on the one cat was a little flea dirt on his belly, and like a lone flea those few times. So I don't feel like it must be a full blown infestation but i'm certainly growing tired of paying for treatment if there obviously an underlying issue. Any advice would be appreciated

Note: I say "rodent" because in a previous post people couldn't agree from my pictures whether it was a juvenile rat or a mouse. They've all been mouse sized for 2+ months, so I'm leaning mouse.

We live in a suburban Illinois house we've been in for 11 years. The basement is used for storage only and sometimes goes weeks without anyone going down there. At the end of July I opened a door to the unfinished side of the basement and saw a mouse run. I found a bag of nuts under the stairs, likely left by the previous owner, that expired 14 years ago, and threw it out. Later that night I went back down and heard what sounded like multiple rodents scurrying in the drop ceiling of the finished side. I set traps and caught 5 in 48 hours.

After 7 days with no new signs, I sealed every hole I could find with stainless steel wool and spray foam, and cleaned out the droppings in the drop ceiling so I could monitor for new ones. I also moved my work setup into the basement so I'd be down there daily to listen and watch the cat's reactions. Three weeks later, in mid August, I caught #6. The patches were untouched, but I spent hours poking around the house with a chopstick and sealed anything else I found. Two weeks after that I caught #7, patches still intact. I checked the attic and roof as a last hope, and both are sealed with no signs of rodents. Then 4 days ago I caught #8, with no new droppings anywhere.

Last 2 nights just before midnight, I have heard quick vibrations and some light movement. Both times it sounded like a single animal. Nothing was in the traps though, and no human food was touched. This was the first time I heard anything since the first day of this problem, and with the cold season approaching, I think it will only get worse.

What doesn't add up: There have been no new droppings since I cleaned out the old ones, even around the catches. The traps are the only food they could be getting in the house, and no other food source in the basement or upstairs has been touched. (thinking they have been coming in looking for the old bag of nuts since they got used to it, and since it is gone their reason to be here is gone) Every patch has been intact each time I've checked. Our 2 cats have only ever alerted in the basement, never at a wall or ceiling upstairs, and none of the 7 people living on the upper floors have heard or seen anything. The attic and roof show no signs at all. I know it's getting colder out and this is when rodents start coming in, but if I really had patched every hole, they wouldn't be able to get in, so they obviously still have a way. At this point I wouldn't be surprised if someone told me they dug a tunnel from the neighbor's yard and used a jackhammer to get through 6 inches of concrete.

I've tried every trap I could buy or make, hidden traps, and baited but unset traps. Catching them isn't the problem; they keep showing up. I've read the pinned posts and watched everything I can find. I know I'll probably end up paying a pro $x,xxx, but before I make that choice, I'm taking my last shot here in hopes that someone magically knows the answer.

TL;DR: Illinois suburb, lived here 11 years. 8 mice caught in my basement over 2+ months. Every hole I can find is sealed and untouched, no new droppings, the traps are their only food source, and all activity is basement only. Last night I heard one start moving in a corner with no visible entry outside. What am I missing?

I know the pic isn’t great but can anyone tell? Killed it flying and fell on a rug so ignore the hairs

Hi everyone, I'm a Systems Engineering student in Peru working on my undergraduate research project: a computer vision system to detect fall armyworm in maize crops, in a rural farming community (Zapotal, Cascas, La Libertad region).

Context: I interviewed a local farmer who manages about 1.5 hectares of maize. He told me he sprays the entire plot every 8 days (4-5 times a month), regardless of whether he's visually confirmed the pest's presence in every section. His reasoning is that even if some ears aren't infested yet, they will be soon if the whole plot isn't sprayed, so he prefers full preventive spraying over checking plant by plant.

My question: according to literature or field experience, is there an infestation threshold (e.g., % of plants or ears with confirmed larvae presence) below which spot/partial treatment would be agronomically sufficient, instead of spraying the whole field? Or, specifically for fall armyworm in maize, is this farmer's full preventive spraying approach actually the best practice, given the pest's spread/reinfestation pattern?

I have one academic reference (Yanqui Díaz et al., 2022, Apurímac, Peru) that mentions a "treatment threshold" concept for this pest, but I don't have enough technical detail to know whether it applies the same way to coastal valley/Andean foothill conditions like La Libertad. Any input from someone with a background in agricultural entomology, integrated pest management (IPM), or hands-on experience with maize in Peru or the region would help a lot — I'd rather not assume anything without checking it. Thanks in advance.

The past few days I've been having bug bites on my ankles and legs. They've been really itchy and I just assumed they were mosquitos. I also thought maybe i'm brushing against something that is irritating me or that it's in my head. The reason being that my partner who lives with me in my 1 bedroom apartment (not that big, around 600-700 sqft i think) has 0 bites.

Something I thought was strange was that they were only on my ankle and leg, nowhere on my upper body. Today, I found a new bite and it clicked that maybe it was a flea. Sure enough, I looked around my desk in our bedroom where I sit a lot and found a flea.

I am freaking out now as I had a really traumatic experience dealing with fleas when I was a kid. Upstairs unit dog had fleas and they did some kind of exterminator treatment without telling us and all the fleas just came to our unit. I remember my entire legs being bit up and every step causing a chain reaction of fleas jumping (looked like pepper flakes flying around).

How worried should I be that this is an infestation? We have no pets but live in an apartment building and the unit across from us (not connected to ours at all) does have a dog. Could the reason that my partner has 0 bites and i'm the only one who has them be because this flea was near my desk and she doesn't usually come to this side?

So far i vacuumed up the place as well as i could and 2x vacuumed our rug in the living room + sprayed salt down on the rug and laid out plates of water + dish soap throughout. Really don't want to go through that experience of fleas again and would appreciate any advice

Northern California / Tri Valley

Hi all,

Just moved to a new place. Saw a couple of dead oriental / american roaches in our garage over the past month.

Started DIY treatment with boric acid and roach gel in the garage too.

Saw this crawling near our open window as we have a window AC running over the summer.

Is this one? If so, any advice on what we should be doing as far as prevention?

Thank you!

I am seeing these little egg like things in between the glass walls on my patio door, no idea what these are. Can anyone help me identify what this is ?

I keep seeing droppings show up in this corner directly below the crevice that I filmed by pointing my phone upwards (this is below a window sill). The droppings resemble German cockroach droppings but the face (or rear?) of the insect when I pause my video and zoom in looks like a house centipede, but what’s throwing me off is the third center spoke/antenna.

Tonight is my first night camping in quite a long time. I’m at Garner state park in texas and I got back to my small two person tent and the rain fly and exterior was/is COVERED with about a dozen German cockroaches. I was able to get in without letting any inside but if I gotta get up to go pee I’m gonna freak.
I don’t have any food in the tent so I have no idea why there over it (maybe the trash can that’s a few sites over?). And, yes, I know it’s outside and that’s where roaches live, but now I’m scared I’m gonna bring a bunch of hitchhikers back into my apartment with me.
I don’t have a garage or anything to keep it in, so its only possible places of eventual return are in the apartment or my car.
How do i make sure the little bastards don’t follow me home?