News Briefs

NOTICE OF TRANSFER OF EMPLOYMENT

In accordance with section 8567 of the Structural Pest Control Act, when a field representative or applicator changes his/her employment or an operator enters the employ of a registered company, the licensee shall notify the Structural Pest Control Board within 10 days of such change. This is done using a Notice of Transfer Form. There is no fee.

Notifying the board is important for employers when a licensee leaves your company. This releases the licensee's name from your company; however, the licensee must sign the form. That is why employers should have every new hire sign this form in case they leave on bad terms or just quit with no notice.

Notifying the board is also important for the licensee because if the board does not have their current information, they won't send the license renewal form or other information to the correct address. I have heard of more than one licensee losing their license because they did not realize their renewal was coming and did not receive notice from the Structural Pest Control Board because the board sent the form to their previous employer. The licensee never informed the board of a transfer of employment.

FRUIT BATS AND EBOLA

The Ebola virus causes an acute, serious illness which is often fatal if untreated. Ebola virus disease (EVD) first appeared in 1976 in two simultaneous outbreaks, one in Nzara, Sudan, and the other in Yambuku, Democratic Republic of Congo. The latter occurred in a village near the Ebola River, from which the disease takes its name.

It is thought that fruit bats of the Pteropodidae family are natural Ebola virus hosts. Ebola is introduced into the human population through close contact with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected animals, such as chimpanzees, gorillas, fruit bats, monkeys, forest antelope and porcupines found ill or dead or in the rainforest.

Ebola then spreads through human-to-human transmission via direct contact (through broken skin or mucous membranes) with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected people, and with surfaces and materials (e.g. bedding, clothing) contaminated with these fluids. People who have recovered from the illness can still spread the disease for up to 7 weeks.

The largest-ever outbreak of Ebola was triggered by a toddler's chance contact with a single infected bat, a team of international researchers revealed, after a major investigation of the origins of the deadly disease now ravaging Guinea, Liberia, Ivory Coast and Nigeria.

A group of 17 European and African tropical disease researchers, ecologists and anthropologists spent three weeks talking to people and capturing bats and other animals near the village of Meliandoua in remote eastern Guinea, where the present epidemic appeared in December 2013. They have concluded that the disease was spread by colonies of migratory fruit bats.

BAT BUGS AND BED BUGS

Are you sure you have Bed Bugs and not Bat Bugs? You better find out before you start the extermination process or you could end up re-infested.

We usually treat an infested area with insecticides, believing that will end the infestation. Many a landlord has hired a professional pest control company, only to have his tenants complain of re-infestation within a short time after the treatment was applied. These landlords have found out the hard way that, if so-called "bed bugs" return, it is quite likely that those "bed bugs" are actually bat bugs.

As the name would suggest, bat bugs are tiny little parasites that feed on bats. Bat bugs, like their hosts (especially brown bats that roost in colonies), love to live in dark, protected areas and narrow retreats where it is difficult to find and get rid of them. They live a relatively long time for such little creatures — up to a year in cool areas.

Property owners will sometimes use aerosol bombs or other insecticide treatments, hoping to drive the bats away or kill any nesting bats while killing the insects. However, this is not a good course of action. Assuming that the bats are driven out by the aerosol, they will soon return. And a new infestation of bugs, carried in on the returning bats, will soon replace any bugs killed by the aerosol. The only effective way to get rid of the bugs is to get rid of the bats first, making sure they cannot return. Only then will any bat bug control be effective.

Even if all the bats have been excluded and the site is now officially "bat-free," there is still a likelihood that bat bugs are lurking in the corners, behind the wallpaper, in the carpets, or possibly in bedding — searching for a new source of food. This source may end up being human tenants or their pets, so steps should be taken to get rid of the bugs.

SPCB TESTING WORKSHOP

The Structural Pest Control Board staff has been working with the Office of Professional Examination Services (OPES) on improving the Field Representative exams and has removed a number of questions that performed poorly.

To help further improve the exams, the SPCB will be conducting a Field Rep branch 3 workshop on December 10, 2014 and a Field Rep branch 2 workshop on December 11, 2014 in Sacramento. Individuals that attend exam workshops receive: Continuing Education Credit; $125 per day; reimbursement of hotel stay, meals, mileage, tolls and parking; and airfare and rental car, if you live in Southern California. Workshops typically go from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Interested industry members can contact Dave Skelton at 916-561-8700 as soon as possible. Dave will start gathering a list of interested licensees.