hi Jonathan,
I watched your youtube video on eliminating springtails from the home..luckily, we have seen no evidence that they are in our home, but they have infested our pool…
I have litterally skimmed thousands of them off, only to see them back in full force in no time… how can I eliminate them?…what product/procedure to you have for me? my kids won’t even swim (and my pool has an enclosure)
thanks
I suggest you review our SPRINGTAIL CONTROL ARTICLE which details all you need to do to control this pest. As you’ll learn in the article, this pest lives in the ground. There they’ll thrive just under the surface and at some point every spring and summer they’ll migrate out looking for new areas to nest. In years where there is more rain than normal, they’ll migrate more frequently and many times will cause a mess in and around the home. If left unchecked, the numbers that populate any given area can become staggering. It sounds like this could be the case in your yard.
You see, finding them in the pool is just a reflection of a local population that’s large and in all likelihood close to the pool. No doubt they are either in the ground or under something nearby. You don’t mention if the pool is in ground or has some kind of deck built around it. But if it is in ground and/or has a deck around it, I suspect this could be a key nest area. We’ve seen many problems with these locations over the years as they can hold moisture, provide shade and essentially provide the perfect environment for springtails to live prolific, happy lives.
For now I suggest you start treating. A good initial program would be to attack the soil surrounding the pool. Get some BIFEN GRANULES applied followed with some CYONARA RTS over the top. Reapply weekly if needed and if you find them still active after a few applications, you’ll need to narrow down where you think the key “originating” site is located. In cases like this it’s hard to say where this will be till you start treating. Over time using this “shotgun” approach you will either get them and if you don’t, you’ll at least be able to elliminate sections of the yard which aren’t important. Eventually you’ll isolate the main site and once treated magically they’ll be gone but again, you have to start somewhere to get to this point. And in all cases like this the best area to start will be the open, accessible areas of the yard.
Here are direct links to the information and products mentioned above:
Springtail Control Article: http://www.bugspray.com/article/springtail.html
Bifen Granules: http://www.bugspray.com/catalog/products/page719.html
Cyonara RTS: http://www.bugspray.com/item/cyonara_rts.html
Leave a Reply