Found something unfamiliar? Compare its shape and size with the specimen collection, then decide whether an inspection would help.
Every plate on this site is a correctly identified photograph with the species, the size and the photographer on the label. Not clip art, and not a cartoon with a red cross through it.
Excavates galleries in damp or previously wet wood — it does not eat it. The tell is coarse sawdust with insect parts in it under a sill or a window. Big, black, and out at night.
Original uploader was Muéro at en.wikipedia · Public domain · sourceFlat and oval when unfed, rounder and darker after a meal. Six legs, no wings, and it does not jump or fly. Found in seams, not in carpet. Never a hygiene problem — it is a travel problem.
Content Providers(s): CDC/ Harvard University, Dr. Gary Alpert; Dr. Harold Harlan; Richard · Public domain · source
Fifteen pairs of long legs and genuine speed. The most alarming thing most people ever see indoors and one of the least harmful — it hunts the things you would rather not have. It means the basement is damp.
Didier Descouens · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Bright yellow and black, hairless, and aggressive near the nest — which is usually underground or inside a wall void. Peaks in August and September. Do not seal the entrance with the nest still active.
jonsense · CC BY 4.0 · sourcePests are not distributed randomly through a house. They follow moisture, warmth and a way in — which means the room you found it in already narrows the answer a long way.
Applying pesticides for hire in Michigan requires a Pesticide Application Business License from MDARD. In the state’s own words, holding an applicator certification “does not allow you to legally operate a business to apply pesticides for hire.” Two different things, and companies blur them.
MDARD publishes a searchable list of every licensed business in Michigan. If the company at your door is not on it, they are not licensed to be at your door.
MDARD, Pesticide Application Businesses. Search the licensed-business list →Michigan licenses by category. 7A is general pest management in dwellings. 7B is wood-destroying pests — termites, powder post beetles, carpenter ants. 7D is vertebrates: rats, mice, birds.
So a company licensed 7A only, quoting you for carpenter ants in a sill plate, is quoting outside its own license. That is checkable in the same minute, and almost nobody knows to check it.
Integrated pest management is a real discipline with a real order of operations, and the chemical sits near the end of it rather than at the start.
Before anybody drives anywhere. A phone photo of the animal, the damage or the droppings answers the question maybe half the time, and we will tell you so for free.
Where it is getting in, what is keeping it there, and what it actually is. You get that in writing whether or not you hire us.
Sealing, screening, door sweeps, grading, a dehumidifier. Unglamorous, permanent, and the part most companies skip because there is no recurring revenue in it.
Baits and crack-and-crevice placements rather than a perimeter of spray. You get the product name and its EPA registration number on the invoice — recording that is a legal requirement, and you are entitled to a copy.
Read, not guessed at. If it did not work we say so and change the approach rather than repeating the same visit monthly forever.