California School IPM with Howard Grashin

This September, Pest Defense hosted Howard Grashin of Intergrated Pest Control Management (IPCM) a pest control company offering Green Shield Certified services to 16 school districts in California. Howard discussed how they perform sustainable pest control at California Schools. Watch the webinar here or read our blog post below. 

What is your toughest pest at schools?  

Rodents are one of our top pests. IPCM responds to rodents by first removing water, harborage and food. Then we place snap traps inside schools and bait boxes outside of schools. IPCM engages with school staff to keep trash lids closed and focus on adding door sweeps, closing vents and sealing pipe penetrations. Once exclusion practices have been implemented and rodents have been removed through traps, rodents typically move on to another location. 

Given that you contract with schools, is it the law that drives your business or the law that drives your business with schools?  

Word of mouth typically drives our business when it comes to schools. With our Green Shield Certified service we use less products, which is attractive to schools trying to limit pesticide exposure. We regularly go beyond simply baiting and trapping and bring materials to fix leaks, gaps and crevices on every site visit.