LPS Second Visit

On Sept 23, Clyde, Barb and I began our second visit to the Lincoln demonstration school by meeting with the staff, which included the principal, operations manager, head custodian, director of food services, and two PMPs, including the technician who services the school. We discussed that we'd be checking traps set last time and visiting vulnerable areas. We also talked about the recordkeeping process they have in place. Currently, this school keeps a pest log in the custodial office, but they are likely going to make a second set of pest sighting sheets available in the main office to simplify the pest reporting process for staff.

After the short discussion, we made our way to visit the food storage and kitchen areas, home ec, staff lounge, boiler room, and custodial closets/offices.

Food storage was good about primarily using open metal shelves! They did have a few wooden pallets and lots of cardboard boxes, but the area was clean, neat, and dry. We recommended they just discard the pallets and reduce the cardboard.

The kitchen is a pest vulnerable area, as we have seen in visits to many other schools, and we did find traps with Orientals and Germans, as well as a German cockroach hiding behind a bulletin board! We gave them similar recommendations as OPS of deep cleaning everything (behind and beneath equipment, floors, drains, etc.), caulking around the bulletin boards, and setting out more traps to continue monitoring.

The staff lounge was in overall good shape...the traps primarily had incidentals but we had found some mouse droppings under a sink last time, so encouraged them to put out snap traps.

The Home ec room looked good...sinks were clean underneath with no storage of pesticide, and stoves, sinks, etc. were clean overall.


In the boiler room, we saw two live wolf spiders...as big as half my thumb! I got this great picture of one before Clyde started telling me it would jump on me. I wasn't sure whether to believe him, but I wasn't taking any chances :-) so I moved back and let someone perform some "mechanical" IPM on the spider with his shoe! We also saw some dead Orientals on the floor, a bag with pop cans, and various areas with debris and dirt. We encouraged the school to address an area of standing water near the water softener, especially since Orientals love and thrive on lots of moisture.

We looked at several custodial closets and with the exception of some clutter/debris and some cans of pesticide that we recommended they remove, they were in good shape. Mops were hung, trash bags were changed daily, and most buckets were dry.

The LPS school, like OPS, is well on its way to implementing their IPM program. Both schools have or will be receiving recommendations after this second visit that will help guide them in the process.

Nacho Cheese, Anyone?

Last week Clyde and I joined Mark Shour from IA State, and Darrell Deneke, Jim Wilson, and Jon Kieckhefer from South Dakota State to visit four South Dakota schools in two school districts where we are working to implement IPM. Some other participants in one or more of our SD visits have included Mike Daniels, the pesticide circuit rider for the Nebraska Winnebago tribe, Stephen Vantassel, UNL wildlife expert, Ruth O'Neill from Montana, and Jerry Jochim from Indiana, all of whom have either been involved or are interested in IPM for schools in their states.

We began this process May of 2009 and will do a total of 5 visits. Our hope is to educate the SD schools about pests and how to address any current pest problems as well as prevent future ones by implementing good sanitation, exclusion, trapping, and other IPM practices. We have provided sticky traps and placed these in pest conducive areas around the school during each visit. On our next visit, we check and record numbers and types of pests found on the old traps and replace with new ones to monitor progress. PMPs in both school districts we have been working with have been involved in both walkthroughs and assisting with pest monitoring. They are an integral part of the team and will be very important in maintaining and coordinating IPM with the SD schools after this project is completed.


On previous visits, we have conducted in-services/training for custodial and other staff, and teachers to introduce common pests and explain what IPM is and what we are trying to accomplish with this project. We have encouraged the participation of SD school superintendents, pest management professionals (PMPs), custodians and facility managers, teachers, and other school staff.



Overall the SD schools have shown very good efforts! One school had a pretty severe moth fly problem due to a dirty drain and during this last visit we were very impressed to find that the drain had been deep cleaned and there were very few moth flies on the trap we had set out. One school had dead mice in traps and mouse droppings under a sink. They have since removed the mouse, cleaned thoroughly, and freshly painted this area. Other general observations we've made is that the schools need to seal around all their pipes, install doorsweeps under all doors (they are on the way to fulfilling this) and improve general cleanliness under appliances.

We have found some major problems with cleaning small appliances used in concessions and other areas...at least 3 popcorn machines are encrusted with grease and have left over popcorn long after use, a nacho cheese machine looks like it has never been cleaned, and a small fryer and some ovens/microwaves in home ec rooms or teacher lounges have a lot of food debris and grease that should be deep cleaned. All of these things are not only unpleasant to look at, but would be a feast for pests!

During our first visit we found several cans of pesticides in non-locked cabinets, some of which were really outdated. We recommended to the schools that these be discarded. Since then, we have found a can here or there, but the schools have been pretty cooperative in either discarding the pesticides themselves or letting us remove them. We did find some lawn pesticides in outdoor sheds as well, which should be removed or stored in locked cabinets.

With one visit left to go, we have been pleased with the progress that the schools have made. One school is even using pest logs, a recordkeeping tool we have encouraged to help schools keep track of pest sightings. Although there are still some areas that need improvement, the SD schools are doing a good job of addressing many issues that the IPM team has found and seem enthusiastic about making the changes.