Question about City Ordinances (Pest Treatment)

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Grannyknot

Well-Known Member
Joined
Oct 9, 2012
Messages
1,266
Reaction score
275
Location
Knoxville
My neighbor pays some ungodly sum of money every year to a pest control company to come and spray outside their house for mosquitos. We live in an old neighborhood, houses are anywhere between 70-100 feet apart. Normally, they do it with backpack sprayers that have a little hand pump and wand attachment. They also do a termite treatment around the perimeter of their house on occasion. I've often wondered about the runoff of the termite treatment into our small vegetable garden, which lies downhill from their house, but just chocked that up to my stupidity of putting the garden there. But today's events really made me question the legalities of what happened.

Apparently their pest control company has upgraded and now uses a tank which attaches to a backpack leaf blower, and can blow a fog of mosquito spray a good 20 feet. Two men were spraying up into the trees near there house and wandered over to a small grove of trees between our houses and sprayed them for a good 30 seconds. Our dog happened to be tied up to our side of one of the trees, and most definately got fogged.

So not only do I have to question what this does to our dog healthwise, but we also have a 2 year old that plays over there, and my wife is pregnant.

I'm wondering if anyone has ever heard of a city ordinance that relates to pest control. I looked through the city website but really couldn't find anything.

Thanks.
 
Best thing is to call up your city and ask. When I moved into my current home I wanted to cut down four trees. In fear that I might live in some evil place that has ordinances against me managing my own property I figured I better double check. A five minute phone call later and I was told I can do whatever I want with my trees...an hour later I had a whole new landscape :).
 
First and foremost, I'd call the pest control company and ask what products they used at your neighbors place, and any toxic effects to plants or pets, or people. If the products have no cautionary statements, I wouldn't worry about it too much.
 
First and foremost, I'd call the pest control company and ask what products they used at your neighbors place, and any toxic effects to plants or pets, or people. If the products have no cautionary statements, I wouldn't worry about it too much.

I would ask for the MSDS for all of the chemicals that they are applying, including any surfactants and carriers used. I would not trust them saying that there are no cautionary statements.
 
Agreed. Get the MmSDS's and do your own research. You can also bring up your concerns with your neighbor to see what all they have gotten to see if any literature was shared with them by the company itself. I would document the heck out of it and even bring what you find out to places like your vet for the dog and family doctor for your child/SWMBO.

You can't be too paranoid when it comes to your family. Not to mention when you are brewing up a little one.
 
It's probably harmless in the long run. Of course, this is coming from someone that lives in Southern CA and the air that I breathe on a daily basis is probably worse than any pesticide.

First, I would ask your neighbor to give you a heads up when the bug guy comes. We have a bug guy at our house (more on that later) and he comes once a month on the same day (like first tuesday of the month). That way, you can make sure your wife and kid(s) are away (or at least inside) and the dog is elsewhere.

Most of the "bug guys" that I've had over the last few years are stand up guys that are more honest than their companies probably want them to be. My in-laws have had crazy ant problems for years. Personally, ants don't bug me that much but they freak the hell out of my wife and her mom. Anyhow, no matter what we did, we kept getting ants. Our bug guy started poking around the yard and found a colony between the grass and the roots of a pomegranate tree in the yard and took care of the problem. The fruit was developing on the tree and he told my MIL that more than likely, it wouldn't hurt anyone but if it was his family he would throw away the fruit for this year.

So maybe ask the bug guy if it was his family how long would he keep them away from the area that was fogged or sprayed. It can't hurt, right?
 
Back
Top