Pestology Blog
Municipal Rodent Management, Multifamily Resident Perception of Cockroach Infestations, and Tick Survival
Fairfax, VA – July 1, 2026
The team dives into new survey data exploring how prepared municipalities are to respond to rodent outbreaks, the how multifamily residents feel about German cockroach infestations and efforts to control them, and a new study assessing if two medically important tick species can survive indoors. We're joined by special guest, Breanna Neerland, ACE with Quick Kill Pest Control!
Featured Article Summaries
Municipal Rodent Management
A Mixed-methods National Study Assessing Municipal Rodent Control Infrastructure, Surveillance Capacity and Disaster Readiness in the United States
How humans handle disasters is a well-studied field. We have lots of research on outcomes like infectious disease outbreaks, infrastructure failure, and even ecological displacement. But the role of urban rodents surrounding disasters had been until recently, overlooked.
Rodents can spread a wide variety of diseases, but rodent preparedness has kept falling through the cracks. Looking back at the COVID pandemic, the change in waste systems, human behavior, and sanitation systems brought with them increased rodent pressures.
I really loved this quote from the paper that I think sums up rodent importance very well, “rodents can be understood as ecological sentinels whose presence signals infrastructure fragility, sanitation breakdown, and governance neglect.”
Rodent issues disproportionately affect low income and communities with aging infrastructure. The health risks are also high in such communities where healthcare may be less available.
That all being said, it is clearly imperative that rodent control programs be robust and well documented throughout the country. This study looked at how pest and environmental professionals perceive their localities rodent control services surrounding a global disaster using COVID as a case study.
The survey had online components and environmental assessment components to look at rodent control capacity, infrastructure, and preparedness. They sent the online survey of 31 questions to a wide variety of list serves focused on professionals in the field not the general public and received 727 us respondents. They had some international responses they couldn’t use. Survey responses came in from across the country with more responses from higher population density areas as expected and many form the Midwest and Northeast. The environmental scan consisted of reviewing 147 documentation such as hazard protocols, public health portals, and pest control advisories for municipalities across various us census regions.
Some of the key takeaways are as follows, most respondents agreed that rodent control is a priority, but that funding is not a priority showing the disconnect between what should be important and what’s actually put towards it. They agreed that trash management is critical but this aspect of rodent IPM may not be leveraged as such. Respondents said that they themselves receive enough training, but that amount of training varied widely based on locality.
The environmental scan gave weighted scores to each municipality with higher scores meaning stronger rodent control infrastructure. Higher scoring municipalities had clear departmental oversight and integrations into emergency preparedness frameworks. There was substantial variability in this score across the country. They did not go into details on which areas of the country scored differently.
Overall, these studies showed that while rodent control is important, less than half of municipalities reported offering control services and where they are offered, they lack details. Responsibility for rodent control is unclear amongst many government organizations and without a consistent ownership, it is easy for adequate control to fall through the cracks.
Only 36% of municipalities reported having a rodent disease action plan and generally many cities have not taken rodent control into account in their emergency planning. Without proper funding as demonstrated, this leaves cities generally underprepared for rodent control amidst disasters.
Some cities were more well prepared than others. But the take-home message is that if cities utilize more funding, stronger surveillance, clear responsibility management, and integrations with public health and emergency planning, they will be able to improve their preparedness and be ready to face the rodent implications for future disasters.
Article by Ellie Sanders, BCE
References
Perception of Cockroach Infestations
Resident Perceptions of Cockroaches and Cockroach Control in Multifamily Housing
Managing the German cockroach, Blattella germanica, in multifamily housing continues to be one of the toughest challenges PMPs face. This pest thrives in high-density environments like apartment buildings, where infestations can grow quickly and potentially spread to multiple units. Decades of research have led to a better understanding of German cockroach biology and improved tools, leading to more advanced IPM solutions. But, infestations remain a challenge to control. The question is why? One answer may not be in the control tools, but in the people living with the problem.
Researchers from the University of Kentucky and Louisiana State University set out to understand how residents of multifamily housing actually think about cockroaches and cockroach control. They launched a nationwide online survey targeting renters who were currently experiencing, or had previously experienced, German cockroach infestations. Respondents were asked about everything from childhood memories of cockroaches to their satisfaction with the pest control products and services they’d used.
One of the first things that stood out to me in the data was that cockroaches are not a new experience for most of the people surveyed. Nearly 91% of respondents had prior experiences with cockroaches in their home as a child, and most of them weren’t particularly bothered by it. Nearly 70% said seeing cockroaches growing up did not bother them at all. The researchers suggest this is likely due to desensitization. When cockroaches are a permanent feature of every home you’ve ever known, a few roaches can start to feel normal.
When survey respondents were asked about present day perceptions of dealing with cockroach infestations, they weren’t as dismissive of the problem. Almost all of them (98%) said they would kill a cockroach if they saw one, and roughly 79% had applied pest control products on their own in the past year. Despite some level of control being implemented (either by themselves, by property management, or hired professional) nearly 65% continued to find cockroaches in their home multiple times per month. And yet, approximately 61% reported being satisfied with the products they were using. The researchers suggested that this gap is likely due to desensitization through childhood exposure. If you’ve never experienced a truly roach-free home, you’re likely to define “working” as “slightly fewer cockroaches than before.”
They also surveyed respondents on the use of OTC products, citing sprays and baits were the most frequently cited OTC options used by respondents, with more than two thirds of respondents reporting they “never” used dusts or foggers. Yet nearly a quarter of respondents used them one to two times per year, and about 19% rated them as “very effective.” This highlights a significant gap between perceived and actual product efficacy.
The survey also shed light on the complicated relationship between residents and property management. For most respondents (65%), pest control was the landlord’s responsibility, yet only about a third of them always reported cockroach problems to property management. The most common reason for not reporting was they felt it wasn’t worth the hassle. And, even if they did, they didn’t believe management wouldn’t do anything about it. Some even feared being kicked out if they raised the issue. Among those whose property management did provide pest control, more than half said it didn’t eliminate the problem, or only helped somewhat. The result was a cyclical stalemate of issues: residents don’t report issues because they don’t expect results, and management doesn’t act because residents don’t report the issues.
Interestingly, the survey also found that most residents understand cockroaches are a health concern. Nearly 68% correctly identified allergies and asthma as health issues linked to cockroach presence. And the vast majority pointed to cleanliness and sanitation as the most effective strategies for control.
To me, this survey was hugely informational in providing quantitative data to support some assumed problems that likely contribute to treatment failures in multifamily housing. And it reinforces some key aspects of communication worth keeping in mind when working with multifamily clients. First, communication matters. The single most important factor that increased resident confidence in pest control services wasn’t the product or company. It was receiving advance notice before treatment. Something as simple as a heads-up can meaningfully improve resident cooperation and, by extension, may also improve your pest management outcomes. Second, setting expectations is part of the job. Residents who have lived with chronic infestations have often stopped believing elimination is possible. If you can displace that belief with the understanding that a roach-free home is actually achievable, residents may become far more engaged in the process. And third, the OTC products that residents are using in between professional visits, whether they are telling you about them or not, may be undermining your work. Foggers and aerosol sprays are widely used and widely perceived to be effective, even when the evidence suggests otherwise. Helping clients understand WHY foggers and other similar OTC products can be counterintuitive to solving the problem is a conversation worth having on every job to improve your success and reinforce confidence in your work as the professional.
Mike Bentley, PhD, BCE
IPM Education and Cockroach Control
Effect of Floor Type on Survival of Amblyomma maculatum and Amblyomma americanum (Acari: Ixodidae)
Ticks are some of the best hitchhikers known to the arthropod world. Unfortunately, there are several factors that are contributing to their increasing hitchhiking potential, such as habitat changes, increased wildlife-human interactions, and people and pets spending their time outdoors. As a result of increased encounters with ticks, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have reported that tick-borne disease cases have more than doubled in the last 20 years, which emphasizes their importance as a public health pest.
However, with the increase in tick encounters, both people and pets risk bringing those ticks indoors. Ticks spend the majority of their time off a host, and during those times frequently seek out opportunities that feature humidity and warm temperatures such as leaf litter, rotting vegetation, or under soil or rocks. As we well know, indoor locations rarely provide these same microclimates, and therefore, it was assumed that most tick species would succumb to the lack of suitable climate. The exception to this was the Brown Dog Tick, which, thanks to its weird biology, can easily survive and thrive inside. But are Brown Dog Ticks the only exception to this rule, or are other tick species just as capable of surviving (if not thriving) indoors?
The researchers decided to focus on two commonly found species of ticks: the Gulf Coast tick (Amblyomma maculatum), and the Lone Star Tick (Amblyomma americanum). Both tick species are commonly found in the southeast United States, and can spread many diseases. All ticks used in this experiment were around 3 months old and were unfed.
Ticks were placed on five different types of flooring: long pile carpet, short pile carpet, wood, tile, and vinyl flooring. Upon placement, the ticks were kept on the flooring using a plastic container that featured breathing holes. The researchers then checked on the ticks daily to measure their survival. Control ticks in plastic containers were used to determine the average survival of each species as a baseline for comparison.
Starting with the Gulf Coast tick, the researchers found that the control ticks survived on average for 21.8 days. Of the Gulf Coast ticks that were placed on different flooring types: Vinyl came out on top with an average survival of 25.4 days, followed by short pile carpet (20.8 days), tile (20.4 days), wood (16.1 days), and long pile carpet came in at 10.4 days. For the Lone Star tick, control ticks lasted for an average of only 11.6 days. For the Lone Star tick, long pile carpet was the best flooring option with an average survival of 14.9 days, followed by wood (12.2 days), short pile carpet (10.8 days), vinyl (10.4 days), and tile at 7.33 days.
So what do all of these numbers tell us? First, Gulf Coast ticks and Lone Star ticks can survive at least a week on indoor surfaces that don’t suit them, and even longer on indoor surfaces that do. Second, different species require different microclimates, as evidenced by the Gulf Coast tick having a higher average survival on vinyl, while the Lone Star tick had a higher average survival on long pile carpet. Lastly, and perhaps most unsettlingly- all of these ticks used in this experiment were unfed. Fed ticks can have higher rates of water retention than unfed ticks, and therefore, could survive in less-than-favorable microclimatic conditions.
Are ticks the new indoor pest? Potentially. Based on this study, we can conclude that more tick species maybe have more tricks up their sleeves that we previously thought in terms of their survival potential indoors. However, what this study emphasizes most is the importance of awareness and prevention tactics. Doing tick checks on you and your four-legged friends when coming in from outside will be the first step in preventing ticks from hitchhiking in and becoming squatters in your own home.
Article by Laura Rosenwald, MS, BCE
References
Afsoon Sabet, Risa Pesapane, and Samuel F. Ward "Effect of floor type on survival of Amblyomma maculatum and Amblyomma americanum (Acari: Ixodidae)," Journal of Vector Ecology 51(1), 12-21, (13 March 2026). https://doi.org/10.52707/1081-1710-50.1-12
Listen to the Episode!
Have questions or feedback for the BugBytes team? Email us at training@pestworld.org, we'd love to hear from you!
