Any room for pest control?

There are several including Terminix but reliability & fair pricing goes a long way here. Which island? You'll have to get a business license.

Terminex
Oliver
American pest control
These would be your biggest competition on STX.

TY Pricing is always something that I set to be competitive. But competitive pricing there may be different then here. Reliability is ever so important everywhere and my record is a good one as to that quality.

Have yet to do more research as to which island would be my pick. Will be traveling to STX in the spring and checking out that island for potential.

Boats, my friend. Target the boats. I pay Professional Killers $150 for a full treatment on a Lagoon 440. Do it about 4 times a year if that helps.

Pamela

it would be nice if you could do non-toxic extermination. i lived in florida in indian rocks beach and knew of a non-toxic exterminator. so many people have pets and it would be nice if you could use something that would not be harmful to them.

Very interesting thought Pamela. I have done some boat treatments in Fla. as well. And I suspect there is a good market for that in the islands.

I have moved to a more non-toxic approach speee1dy. It is much preferred in the trade today. And proves most effective when done correctly. However each case presents different challenges. Sometimes we must still use what is considered toxic in order to address certain situations. Any pest control company that boast of never doing that is either being dishonest or not effective. I can say that throughout the many years in this trade I have not once caused harm to any pet. I have treated bird aviaries, around fish aquariums, reptiles, not to mention multitudes of cats and dogs, hamsters, ect. The trick is to apply products with consideration and care that prevents hazard of exposure. And yes usually using non-toxic treatments is the order of the day.

just read your reply, thank you.

Boats, my friend. Target the boats. I pay Professional Killers $150 for a full treatment on a Lagoon 440. Do it about 4 times a year if that helps.

Pamela

Pamela, What kinds of insect problems do people deal with on boats?

"Rat's"

Boats get termites and pretty much any other household pest, ie, ants, roaches, fleas and tick, if you have animals aboard. All the usual. Rats are usually only if tied to a dock, and they come aboard via the dock lines.

ROACHES are our problem. No matter how hard you try to not put cardboard on the boat inevitably someone will bring something in a cardboard box and the roaches just escape.

We've have no other problems but when you are chartering a yacht at $12,000 for a week roaches are not allowed. I can supply you with the resources to cull most of the USVI based boats if you want to market to them. Let me know if I can help.

Decide to do this and we will be your first STT customer.

Pamela
S/Y Catatonic

Thank you Pamela. In all honesty it will be about a year from now before we can take that plunge. Lori and I both think we want to make a move there. But we have a house to sell first and we are planning a couple of weeks to visit the islands and investigate our options before hand. But should you still have the need whenever we do decide I will be most pleased to render your vessel a bad home for pest. Especially roachs. Thus a good home for people. No one can absolutely guarantee you will never see a bug. But I am confident that if you do it will be on it's way out and unable to nest there.
The information that you have relayed is most encouraging. Situations such as yours require experienced applicators using quality products to accomplish satisfactory results. And from the sound of it the islands just may have room for such a company.
We will be traveling to STX in May. I see that you reside at STT but it would be a delight for Lori and I to meet you then if at all possible.

Thanks a million for all the support.:-)

Boats get termites and pretty much any other household pest, ie, ants, roaches, fleas and tick, if you have animals aboard. All the usual. Rats are usually only if tied to a dock, and they come aboard via the dock lines.

Your certainly right about that Juanita. I was very surprised to find a boat docked at a marina that was infested with Subterranean termites. Those are termites that come from the ground. So that was what confused me most. Drywood termites maybe but those were unheard of. Turns out the boat had been sitting on drydock for a couple of years prior to it's launching. Apparently the termites had tunneled into the boat at that time and found enough food and moisture of course to sustain the colony. We were unable to properly treat the boat in the water. So the only fix was to pull the boat and use a heat treatment to eliminate them. Only case like it I ever saw so figure it to be very rare.

The rats are as you say mostly a problem with crossing over dock lines. That is why most ships use those metal collars on dock lines to help prevent that. But still in case of shipping it is still a problem with not introducing them via cargo as well. Your best option with pets is to use a quality pet treatment like Advantage to prevent infesting the boat. Your pets will actually help eliminate the problem by attracting fleas and ticks to them where they will die.

JJ

We started using Frontline several years ago. We were getting so many ticks, it was unbelievable. We were sailing, or sitting at anchor. Our dog seldom went ashore during that particular time period, so we just couldn't figure it out. Turns out the ticks were almost microscopic and were airborn. Holding one in the palm of the hand, it looked like a tiny speck of pepper. Never heard of such a thing before. The frontline took care of the problem. Like you say, they went to the dog and the frontline took it from there.