With this year’s record-breaking summer temperatures in much of the United States, the danger of heat-related road safety issues is magnified. One of the most common and most dangerous is the heat-related tire blowout. Mixing 100 degree temperatures with rubber tires and freeway speeds can add up to true danger on the roads. Here’s how to avoid tire blowout disaster—and what to do if the worst happens. Heat affects tires from multiple angles. Driving in the summer results in friction between your tires and the hot asphalt. The faster the speed, the more friction builds up and the more the temperature of the air filling your tire rises. Combine this with the fact that heat and friction cau

They’re an age-old story , but cockroaches recently made the headlines when affordable senior housing in the Sacramento area was found to be infested with pests , including cockroaches. According to UC Integrated Pest Management there are six species of cockroaches in California that can become pests. The German cockroach (though found in America, including California) is the one that most prefers indoor environments kept at an ideal 70-75 degrees, like most of our homes. A single female German cockroach can lay around 30 eggs every few weeks, causing a spread of approximately 30,000 individuals in one year, making your home into something out of a horror movie! Although cockroaches are

Yellowjackets already were making headlines a month ago, even as we head into peak season for stinging insects in our Sacramento pest control region. The San Francisco Chronicle and other NorCal newspapers reported a July 3 yellowjacket attack on more than 70 attendees of the Alameda County Fair. Apparently, the ground-dwelling yellowjackets were disturbed by a fireworks display in the fairgrounds arena. None of the victims, who ranged in age from a 6-month-old infant to a person over age 60, exhibited allergic reactions or required hospitalization, although some received multiple stings. In the Seattle area, also over the July 4th weekend, at least five people were treated for anaphylac

Spiders, long a favored subject of sci-fi movies and horror novels, seem to provoke an especially strong yuck factor in humans. Although we know on an intellectual level that they have many beneficial purposes in the eco-system, including eating other insect pests, most of us don’t want them in our kids’ bedrooms. Now that warm weather has arrived, spiders are proliferating outdoors and often making their way into our homes. Of the more than 50,000 species of spiders, only a relatively few of them are able to bite humans, for the simple reason that most have mouth parts too small to break human skin. Only one type of California spider, the Black Widow, is considered to be a serious medic

Most of the spiders we find here in our Sacramento pest control region are not capable of severely injuring we humans. But our area does host one of the most dangerous spiders in North America, the black widow, or Latrodectus hesperus. With the rain gone and warm summer weather finally here, many of us will be tackling neglected yards and gardens. Take care where you stick your hands. Black widow spiders are most commonly found outdoors, in nooks and corners of your yard that haven’t been disturbed for a while. Black widow spiders often build their webs in wood or rock piles, culverts, meter boxes, crawl spaces and sheds, but may move into basements or garages where undisturbed clutter gi