STORM MEANS NO CALLBACKS

Melbourne pest manager Con Ispoglou shares his experience of using Storm Rodenticide in a challenging commercial account.

Pest managers have a wide range of rodenticide brands and bait formulations to choose from. But not all rodenticides work in the same way, and some bait formulations are more effective than others.

Rodenticide choice and effectiveness often depends on the type of situation where the rodents are located. Food availability, rodent type and baiting history are just some of the factors that affect rodent control and influence rodenticide choice.

Many rodenticides only work well in specific situations, and don’t have the ability to produce consistent results in the wide-ranging scenarios that pest managers face. And pest managers don’t want to carry multiple types of rodenticides – they would prefer to use one product that can produce results in a wide range of scenarios.

Such was the situation faced by Con Ispoglou, senior technician at Fumapest Termite and Pest Control (main picture, above). Mr Ispoglou services a range of residential and food service accounts in Melbourne. With over 17 years of experience in pest management he has attended many rodent jobs and used a wide range of rodenticide products and formulations.

“No two rodents jobs are the same,” said Mr Ispoglou, “and you have to take into account many factors before deciding which bait to use and to where to place them.

“Rodent pressure has been very high this year and the number of customer calls for rodent control is more than we would normally expect.

“These situations of high challenge can really test rodenticides. One particular site I was servicing was a fast food outlet where rodents were prolific and had been consistently difficult to control.

“On the site we had used several different types of baits – both blocks and soft paste formulations. They were all products from major manufacturers but none had done the job. Either they weren’t effective or the rats found them unpalatable.

Mr Ispoglou happened to attend a technical meeting where he met Leigh Pronk, southern sales manager, Professional and Specialty Solutions for BASF. Mr Pronk suggested to Mr Ispoglou that he use Storm Rodenticide at the problem situation in the fast food outlet.

Storm Rodenticide is a ready-to-use, compressed, cereal block rodenticide with high palatability. Its active ingredient, flocoumafen, delivers a lethal dose in a single feed. Storm Rodenticide also contains an antifungal compound. This means the blocks retain their integrity and durability, extending their palatability and attractiveness to rodents.

Mr Pronk advised, “Only a very small amount of Storm Rodenticide is needed to kill a rat or mouse. This, coupled with Storm’s highly palatable low wax, high cereal content formulation ensures quick control is achieved in the most difficult situations.”

Following the advice provided by BASF, Mr Ispoglou decided to use Storm blocks in the fast food outlet where the persistent rodent problem existed.

“Within a few days of laying the blocks I could see that Storm was working. Rodent numbers were decreasing and you could see there had been a lot of feeding activity in the bait stations. The rats obviously found Storm very palatable.

“After a short while we had the rodent situation under control. It was quite incredible. The Storm blocks gave us amazingly quick results on what had previously been a real problem site.

“What was also beneficial was the cost effectiveness of Storm. Because it is a single feed rodenticide, the rodents don’t need to keep returning to feed. It means the Storm blocks last much longer than the other baits we had used. Storm was very economical, so for us, that is another good reason to continue using it.”

For Mr Ispoglou, using Storm Rodenticide meant he had a satisfied and happy customer. “There will be no more callbacks now that we are using Storm. Not only will we continue to get repeat business from this customer but we will get increased referrals as well. Using Storm gave us a great result all round!”

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