#and roach is in tennessee because in my mind roach is from tennessee

[youredyingthatsallthereis]

"bug? you still there?"

roach jolted awake, nodding before he remembered ghost couldn't see him. "mhm," he hummed, hoping the affirmative was loud enough that ghost would hear.

"thought i lost ya there for a second," ghost teased. "gettin' sleepy on me again?"

just a little, but im fine, roach typed into their chat.

"hm," ghost mused into his mic. roach blinked and refocused on the stream; ghost was playing stardew valley for him again. they were quiet for a moment as ghost made quick work of harvesting some rice and jogging over to the barn his livestock were in. "if you're tired i can just cut it here, its not a big deal."

no no no, its fine! roach typed quickly. i like listening to you talk.

it was far from the first time he'd said it, but every time he said it now it felt...heavier, somehow. like there was more...something in it.

it had been a few months of this; they took turns streaming games for each other as a way to chat and hang out and over the course of their time doing it roach had found himself feeling more and more...something for ghost. he'd never had such a strong feeling about anyone before, nothing even close; he'd never felt so happy and calm and content to just listen to someone before.

ghosts accent was unique to his american ears, something he wasnt used to but that he enjoyed enormously. something lilting and calm and just distinctly ghost that made him smile every time the call connected and ghost said "hey bug." the gentle inflection, the sweet nickname, all of it just very...as much as roach felt flutters in his stomach admitting it (even in his own mind), it was just theirs.

presently ghost chuckled at the freely given compliment. "i love that you like to listen to me."

they always did it like this; a voice call for roach to listen to ghost when he streamed, and a video stream with chat when roach played survival horror for ghost. roach relied on sign and expressions/body language to convey his moods/reactions, and while ghost was still trying to pick up on some of the ASL roach frequently used (like 'why' and 'do not want') he hoped that ghost appreciated being able to see him.

ghost had told him early on that video calls made him feel a little awkward and that's why he just preferred voice, and even though he couldn't talk back roach was happy to do it this way. their way. more than anything he wanted ghost to feel comfortable and was ever grateful that he got to listen to him at all.

he smiled and cuddled his blåhaj closer, propping himself up against the wall behind his bed to try and stay awake. something about listening to ghost narrate what he was doing while he walked around his farm or the caves or even just stood and fished, wanting to get every single type of fish possible, made him feel so content and calm and frankly, safe. he felt embarrassed to even have the thought, but sometimes when he closed his eyes while ghost was talking he wondered if that was what it would feel like to have ghost really sitting next to him, talking to him close while he played maybe on a switch or on his laptop. he wondered if ghost would want them to sit close enough to be touching softly, maybe their legs pressed up against each otherwhile roach sleepily enjoyed his narrations.

"do you think i should bother with more chickens? or maybe more ducks? i like having the extra mayo for sale," ghost was musing out loud.

"hmmm," roach hummed thoughtfully. i'd go for a few more ducks as long as the hay to feed them isnt too expensive, he typed into their chat. they're cute and i love how you named them all after sanrio characters. you could call the next one tuxedo sam.

"true, kuromi the void duck was the last one i got, and that was a while ago," ghost considered. "and that big blue penguin is damn cute."

roach smiled. he loved ghost's fixation on sanrio characters, finding it as endearing as he was realizing he found just about everything else about ghost.

"are you sure you're not too tired?" ghost asked one more time. "its almost the end of the in game day and my save isn't going anywhere."

roach bit his lip. one more day? he asked. then i should probably go to sleep; its almost 1am here.

ghost chuckled over the call. "alright," he agreed. "one more day."

[fixfoxnox]

What state do you imagine Roach from? I’m projecting, and like to think of him from Texas. And of COURSE he has at least one Buc-ee’s T-shirt, and will jump anyone who disses it.

This is such a fun question cause my answer is never 100% cause I change my mind so much.

So when I write Roach in his home state I draw a lot from my own experiences living in Arkansas. So I think I've mentioned that some of the memories that Roach has from his first life in SiTO were based on like actual locations around where I live.

For example, when Roach is remembering being thrown into the river by his dad and talks about the bridge and the highway above it and the graffiti and stuff, that is an actual place in Arkansas that I used to swim when I was younger (unlike Roach I almost drowned there then my dad saved me so).

So in terms of like how I write where he lives, I would place him as from Arkansas. I've also said I just think it would be funny for the 141 to witness him doing the hog call lmaooo

However in terms of where I have actually placed him being from, most of the time when I think of where he lives in aus like the cryptid ghost au or ultranationalist Roach au I usually place him in Tennessee.

I don't have much of a reason for this, I just like to think of him somewhere near the smoky mountains for funsies. But even better would be to have him near/in the Appalachian mountains because I think it would freak the 141 the fuck out.

So yeah, generally the location I describe as similar to Arkansas cause that's what I know, but in terms of where I actually think he would be, I usually place him somewhere in Tennessee/ the Appalachian mountains.

[togachipblog]

So Good Chips

As a teenager, I spent a lot of time with my Dad.  At the end of many high school days, I went to his CPA office to help him out and we spent a lot of time together in his car.  My Dad's favorite singers were Andy Williams, Eddie Arnold and Perry Como.  I was really into the Beatles and to put it mildly, neither of us favored the other's favorites.  At his office, my Dad only played instrumentals (ala MUSAK background/elevator music) and sometime a Beatles tune would come on, and not realizing it was the Beatles, my Dad would say "Now, that's a nice tune."   We did finally find common ground.  The singer who bridged our generation gap was Neil Diamond.  Read all about Neil's career at his official web-site.  http://www.neildiamond.com/.  In 2017, Diamond celebrated the golden anniversary of his show business career.  At the 2017 Grammy Awards held at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, the highlight was when host  James Korden did Carpool Karaoke with Faith Hill, Tim McGraw, John Legend, Jennifer Lopez, Keith Urban and the legendary Neil Diamond.  Neil has endured for over half a century with a prolific catalogue.  His biggest all-time hit is Sweet Caroline.   At the end of each chorus, "Good times never seemed so good" the entire audience sang "So good. So good. So good.  Enjoy the performance here.

So Good Potato Chip Company was a long-time manufacturer and marketer of potato chips , popcorn, cheese curls and and other related products in the St. Louis, MO. area.  So Good was  based in south St. Louis County.  The company began in 1934 and So Good Potato Chips were a staple in St. Louis for many years - in cans, and later in bags featuring Sally Sogood on the label.  See the photos.  Note how the last tin uses the term "Saratoga"  The original generic name of potato chips was "Saratoga Chips." 

An article entitled "The Energy Crunch" by Elaine Viets in the December 5, 1976 edition of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch describes how oils affect taste and the type of potato impacts color and is presented in part here because one of the sources is the President of So Good Potato Chips:

potato chips are "30 to 40 per cent oil."  The oil gives chips their flavor, [Potato Chip /Snack Food Association Vice President Larry} Burch said.  "If you cut down on oil, you cut down on flavor.  There's no such thing as a dietetic potato chip."  

Corn, peanut, soybean and palm oil are all used in potato chips.  Burch says that different areas prefer different oils.  Dayton, O. likes potato chips freid in peanut oil.  Chicagoans want them done in con oil.  

"If chips fried in another oil are introduced in a market dominated by say, corn oil, the new chips won't sell well," he said.  "People buy what they are used to."  Local chip men say St. Louisans are not too particular about their oil.  Chip color is another matter.

Eastern chip eaters like dark chips.  Westerners want them fishbelly white and Midwesterners, in a spirit of moderation,prefer golden yellow potato chips.  

St. Louisans keep changing their minds.  This information comes from Elmer Leeker, president of So Good Potato Chip Co., 4190 Hoffmeister Avenue.  So Good converts 10,000,000 pounds of potatoes into chips every year.

The chips are as pale as possible - that how St. Louis likes them.  "At one time, St. Louisans wanted dark chips," Leeker said.  "Then they liked them golden yellow.  Now they'll buy anything light."

It's the sugar in the potato that turns the chips dark brown.  It carbonizes when the chip hits the hot oil.  Potato growers developed special low-sugar potatoes for chipping, and while they were at it, they made the potatoes a nice, uniform oval that sliced into chips without much waste.  The low-sugar chipping potatoes aren't from Idaho, but Minnesota and north Dakota.  

Leeker says some light-chip fanatics still question the brown ring near the chip's edge.  "That's a sugar ring, and we can't do much about it - potatoes need some sugar," he explained.    

See the photos (black and white and color) of the So Good Potato Chip. Co.  The back of one of the photos contains the following handwritten note:

Chippers Graham, the Caldwells and Lloyd Brooks are gust of Bill Peche at the New So Good Plant in St. Louis during the Mid central meeting (of the Potato Chip Institute of America).  

In 1945, So Good entered into a licensing franchise agreement with Frito-Lay, Inc. to manufacture, package and sell corn chips under certain Frito-Lay trademarks.  Until the termination of this agreement in 1973, So Good also marketed other food chip products in its own package utilizing its own trademarks.  So Good later formed a subsidiary, So Good South, Inc. in Lithonia, GA that operated a non-union plant.  

Unfortunately, the company's history did not live up to its So Good name. Frito-Lay successfully sued Frito-Lay for marketing corn chip products in a package that violated So Good's agreement not to do so in a similar package.  

So Good was owned by A. Elmer Leeker.  On February 10, 1976, his son David W. Leeker, who worked for his father at the potato chip company, was tragically killed.  Peter W. Busch, the 20-year old son of beer baron August A. Busch, Jr., was charged with manslaughter in the shooting death of his friend David at the 281-acre Busch family estate.  Peter shot David once in the face with Peter's .357 magnum revolver.  

So Good's St. Louis plant closed Sept. 30, 1988 throwing 58 people out of work.  Subsequently, the subsidiary's Georgia plant which had about 80 employees also closed. Both the St. Louis company and it's Georgia subsidiary filed for bankruptcy in 1988.   Both companies later dissolved.  

Thanks to the Missouri History Museum and Kirwin Roach at the St. Louis Public Library for his help in researching the history of So Good.  

For years, legend was that Caroline in Sweet Caroline was about Caroline Kennedy.  However, in 2014, Neil Diamond set the record straight.  

I was writing a song in Memphis, Tennessee, for a session. I needed a three-syllable name," Diamond said during an appearance on "Today." "The song was about my wife at the time — her name was Marsha — and I couldn't get a 'Marsha' rhyme."

Read more about the song at

http://www.today.com/popculture/neil-diamond-reveals-sweet-caroline-secret-today-1D80228037

Enjoy Neil Diamond's Madison Square Garden 2008 performance of Sweet Caroline.

The Toga Chip Guy

[ragdollswritings]

End of the Year Reflection

As 2018 draws to a close, like everyone else I’ll reflect over this year and see how I can improve for next year.  I’ve already decided somethings I need to start doing immediately, and a few things that I plan on doing by the end of the year.   Firstly, a recap.  2018 sucked.  It flat out sucked.  I came back to Tennessee in January with hopes of the new job I was going to be starting and some new classes at Belmont.  These things pretty quickly turned downhill.  I hated my classes and very shortly beginning work for Freebirds I realized it was not what I was supposed to be doing but I felt stuck because was finally making some money.  I was driving an hour into Nashville, another hour to work, and almost two hours home after work.  I was doing this, 5 days a week.  It made me miserable, and for three months I barely slept and when I did, I was tired enough to fall asleep in my car between classes.  I barely passed the spring semester and was looking forward to working full time through the summer.   By the time summer rolled around I had found an apartment closer to school and that was completely affordable with a roommate.  I quickly started looking for a second job to transition away from Freebirds, but everything I found wouldn’t pay me enough to work fulltime and still be able to afford what I needed.  I was already doing overtime when I could so the idea of losing money was the last thing that I wanted.  Over the summer my roommate and I found out that we had mice in our apartment as well as the roaches.  We worked with management and it took about three months to get rid of them.  I ended up staying with Freebirds through the summer simply because of the financial security they were providing me.  Once school started however, they didn’t keep up their end of the promise to work with me when I had classes.   I finally got my student loan stuff figured out, but I had to change my degree plan and get set up on a different catalog.  While this lowers my tuition, this doesn’t mean I get to take more classes (as I found out recently).  So with this change I won’t be graduating when I thought and it actually pushes me back a year.  After all this time and work its super discouraging to find out I’m still a year behind where I thought I was.  As the semester started I was working the early shift at Freebirds, which was at 6:30 a.m., I would go home, take a nap, then try to do homework.  It didn’t work.  I am not a morning person.  I continually put in requests to work less that way I had time to sleep and do homework and just pick up shifts as I could.  These requests were constantly denied and I ended up having to put my two weeks in.  As soon as I had done that I had an interview lined up for a receptionist position at a salon.  I interviewed and it went really well.  It paid less then Freebirds, and was less hours a week, but it would allow me to focus on school more.  I took it! Since then I have been working at the salon part time, and going to school fulltime.  Thanks to the damage done to my grades so early on in the semester I was never able to catch up and come finals time I didn’t do well.  All of my tests were much more difficult than I was hoping, but to be honest I should have just started the semester over again.  I ended up getting the worst grades I haven ever gotten in my entire life.  All Ds and one F.  Never so far in my life have I failed a class.  I’m not going to say that Freebirds’s is the cause of my F, it is 100% my own fault for not trying to stay ahead in my classes more, but it certainly added to it.   I’m looking back at this year in something of shock and something of appreciation.  For really the first time in my life I have been on my own.  I’ve been responsible for my living space, buying my own food, paying my own bills, pretty much anything you can think of for being an adult, I have been responsible for this year.  It has been tough, and I have fought pretty hard to stay in Nashville and to keep something productive for myself.   Looking forward to the new year I’m faced with some pretty big decisions.  Firstly, do I continue school or do I drop out?  I know working full time can pay off, but if I’m not doing what I enjoy what’s the point? If drop out where do I live? Do I stay in Nashville? Do I move back home? Do I try to get my associates degree from community college (since I only need two more classes for that)? What choice do I make? I’ve spent a long time thinking about why I need to stay, or why I need to go, or where I should go that everything is very rattled.  I thought about moving back in with my mom, and while it could work, I feel like the stress of doing that would mess up the kids more than it needs too. Of course, I would be another helping hand around the house, and I would totally help with transportation and whatnot, but it’s not the choice I’m supposed to make.  Perhaps back in with my family in Texas? I could work fulltime, finish some college, and see my friends again, but I don’t feel right making that choice either.  I could drop out, take a semester off, and try again in the fall, but honestly I’m already registered and I don’t want to drop out considering the fact that I actually want all of the classes I’m taking next semester.   What I have decided for the immediate future is that I’ll stay at Belmont, I’ll fight it out, and if I change my mind in the future, then that’s my choice.  Honestly, I have always hated the idea of college, I feel like I was forced into this decision, and I would drop out tomorrow if this college weren’t offering the one degree I actually want.  The institution of college sucks, they ask you for thousands of dollars for a piece of paper that says you know how to do stuff.  Its pretty stupid all things considered.  For now, I’ll stay where I am and make things work.  

[realestate63141]

Critter Cities: America’s Top 10 Towns for Pest Infestations

xxmmxx/iStock

Cities are bursting with life—too much of it, sometimes. Just ask James Vahter, a video producer who set up shop a few years ago in a trendy part of Manhattan’s Lower East Side. He got a sweet deal on a spacious, two-bedroom, fifth-floor walk-up, but it didn’t take him long to understand why the rent was so cheap. It happened a few weeks into his stay, when he returned from a business trip in the middle of the night and flipped on the hallway light.

“My walls were crawling,” he recalls. “From the floorboards to the ceiling, cockroaches were everywhere. I ran to the kitchen to grab some Raid—and the counters were crawling too.”

Welcome to the epic battle between city dweller and vermin. In Vahter’s case, he was able to wriggle (sorry) out of his lease and retreat to the suburbs. But not all urbanites are lucky enough to have the option of a happy ending.

From water bug traumas to Pizza Rat videos, pests are a terrifyingly common part of American life. In 2015, about 11% of U.S. households had encounters with rats or mice, and 12% with cockroaches, according to the Census Bureau’s newly released American Housing Survey. And, of course, those numbers increase exponentially in high-density metro areas.

Vermin nation

Some creepy creature populations are very much on the rise. There has been a 7% increase in complaints about rats in New York from 2015 to 2016, and a 16% uptick in Boston. Not squirming yet? A recent report by the pest-control company Orkin found a steep rise in bedbug incidents nationwide, to near-epidemic levels in many cities.

“We have more people affected by bedbugs in the United States now than ever before,” said Ron Harrison, an entomologist and director of technical services at Orkin, in the report. “They were virtually unheard of in the U.S. 10 years ago.”

Antwinette Clurksy, 64, endured living with bedbugs in her one-bedroom Houston apartment for more than three years. They were under the carpets, on the mattress—everywhere.

“I would be sitting on the couch, and I look up, and they’re crawling on me,” Clurksy says. She had red bite marks all over her body. Eventually, she had to sleep on the floor after throwing away her mattress, along with the sofa and dining table, because of the infestation.

Despite this and other horror stories, not all cities are equally affected by the onslaught of pests. In Seattle, for example, less than 1% of homes have a roach problem.

To figure out which cities are most under siege by critters with four or more legs, we used the rat and cockroach data from the American Housing Survey, as well as data about mosquitoes, termites, bedbugs, fleas/ticks—and, hey, scorpions, too—collected from other sources.*

What makes some cities more attractive to pests than others? The Northeast has an infamous rat problem—the chilly winter months drive the multitude of rodents in search of shelter, warmth and food. And the South is plagued by insects. Big insects.

“The warmer climate in the Southern states increases the ability to support insects for longer periods of time,” says Michael Raupp, an entomologist from the University of Maryland. “Insects are usually killed by the coldness, but since it rarely reaches lethal temperatures [freezing point] in the South, cockroaches and bedbugs remain active for a longer time out of the year.”

So where does your city rank on this ignominious list? We doused our data team with copious amounts of Off and turned them loose to find out. Let’s get crawling!

1. Houston, TX

Don’t mess with Texas cockroaches.

BarnabyChambers/iStock; realtor.com

Houston gets a big tentacles- and claws-up from several species of pests, including cockroaches, rats, mosquitoes, bedbugs, and termites. It’s the pest capital of the United States! Why? The warm, humid climate and huge human population (people=trash=delicious food!) offer a luxury spa for vermin, according to Steve Durham, president of pest control company EnviroCon in Houston. About two in five households reported seeing cockroaches, making it the second-worst city for the ubiquitous bugs after New Orleans, according to the American Housing Survey.

“In Houston, I have seen multiple times when there were thousands and thousands of roaches,” Durham says. “You can’t believe how some people just don’t clean [their homes]. Roaches multiply very fast—every roach egg has 32 babies, and those 32 babies will each have 32 babies.” Yuck.

2. New York, NY

Rats grow big in New York City.

robertcicchetti/iStock

No one knows how many rats live in New York, but estimates range all the way from 2 million to 28 million—and that high estimate would mean that there are almost four rats for each human in the most populous city in the nation. The city that never sleeps! Traps have been set, poisons brewed, and volunteers have relocated stray cats to rat-infested areas, according to the New York Daily News, but rats seem to be winning this war. How about we just give them Staten Island and call it even?

“In New York, a lot of architecture was designed without pest control in mind,” explains Taylor Falk, environmental analyst from M&M Environmental. The alleyways, dumpsters, and garbage are very close together. … When there is food and areas to move around, there are rats.”

Mice and rats are talented climbers, Falk says, and sometimes even climb high-rises through the utility systems (like hot water pipes).

And just like in the city’s alleys, rats and cockroaches battle for dominance overall. Rats were found in 15% of homes, cockroaches in 16%.

3. Washington, DC

The District of Columbia is ranked the second-worst city for bedbugs by Orkin, while nearby Baltimore took the top spot. Blame the area’s huge influx of international travelers. Diplomats, tourists, and businesspeople (and their baggage) are practically VIP shuttle services for bedbugs, says Raupp, of the University of Maryland. Washington’s mild climate also helps bedbugs survive.

“The problem is that many of the materials we used to treat bedbugs are no longer available, due to EPA regulations. So there has been a large insurgence,” says Dannis Warf from Royal Pest Control. “They aren’t just in homes, but also in movie theaters, public transportation, libraries, even hospitals.” The pests even invaded the DC Department of Health in 2012.

And although Washington is often criticized for its “fat cats,” rats are a major problem. In fact, there’s even a Yelp page dedicated to a well-known park, satirically labeled as “Dupont Circle Rat Sanctuary.” One review reads, “Wonderful place for 100% organic, free-range rats to frolic in a safe environment without predators.”

4. Atlanta, GA

To mosquitoes, you’re as sweet as a Georgia peach.

Henrik_L/iStock

Warm climate? Check. Wet summers? Check. Swamps and forested areas? Check. Perhaps nowhere can mosquitoes find a better breeding ground than Atlanta. There are about 45 kinds of mosquito living in the Southern city, according to Elmer Gray, a professor of entomology at the University of Georgia. And some species can carry West Nile and Zika viruses. Last summer, there were 77 cases of Zika in Georgia, according to Georgia Health News.

5. Philadelphia, PA

A total of 18% of Philly households have seen rats, making Philadelphia the rattiest city in America. The city’s huge swath of old row houses make it easier for the nimble animals to find holes in the walls and move, Habitrail-like, from one family to another.

“Philadelphia also has a very unseasonably warm winter this year, so the rats are growing more than usual,” says Royal Pest Control’s Warf.

6. Miami, FL

We love Miami’s year-around steamy weather. Unfortunately, so do cockroaches, mosquitoes, and termites. Florida has six invasive termite species that swarm alternately throughout the year, feasting on anything made of wood. By 2040, half of the structures in South Florida will be at risk of termite infestation, according to a study by the University of Florida.

“It’s hot, it’s humid, it rains a lot, and we have a lot of wooden-structure homes, as opposed to concrete-structure homes,” says JC Riverol from Spray’em Dead Termite & Pest in Miami.

The average cost to homeowners to repair termite damage is $3,000, but that can vary widely, depending on the extent of the damage, according to Termites.com.

7. Tampa, FL

The good news about Tampa is that it’s practically rodent-free; the bad news is, cockroaches won’t leave you alone. Ever. They are present in an alarming 38% of homes. They flock to Tampa like retirees, and get comfy in the kitchen, under the palm trees, and inside the gazebos.

Pet owners in Tampa also need to keep an eye out for fleas and ticks, which love the warm temperature and year-round humidity. These tiny insects usually don’t mess with humans, but they cling to the skins of dogs and cats, transmitting diseases like Lyme disease, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, and tapeworms.

8. Nashville, TN

With plenty of old structures to roam through, the Music City offers rats a comfortable habitat. Winter’s low temperatures of 30 degrees send rats scurrying into people’s homes for warmth and food, and the humid summer provides perfect conditions for breeding. Brown rats are the most common in Tennessee. One of the largest rat species, they can grow to an incredible 15 inches or more in length. (Silent scream!) Each year, there are also 50 snakebites reported in Tennessee, according to the Vanderbilt Medical Centers.

9. Phoenix, AZ

Not the good, “Rock You Like a Hurricane” kind of Scorpion

johnaudrey/iStock

Phoenix residents have something scarier than garden-variety roaches to contend with: scorpions. Native to the arid Arizona desert, the bark scorpion is the most venomous scorpion in the United States, and is the culprit in most scorpion bites in the state. Arizona’s two poison-control centers report about 12,000 scorpion stings in the state each year.

Most scorpion stings go away after a few hours, unless you have a serious allergy—in which case you need to head to an ER, pronto. Better bring the American Express, too. In 2012, Marcie Edmonds was stung by a scorpion and billed $83,000 for anti-venom, the local CBS news station reported.

“The valley was the natural habitat for scorpions. Then humans came in and destroyed their habitats, to build concrete walls and buildings. But scorpions like concrete walls,” says Ben Holland of Scorpion Sweepers, a pest control company. “So we destroyed their habitat and built something even better.”

10. Boston, MA

In 1917, the Boston Women’s Municipal League spearheaded a sweeping extermination campaign against the city’s proliferating rats, leading up to the first (and, to date,only) Rat Day, when residents were offered prizes for the largest number of rat carcasses turned in. A century later, the city is still battling rodents. The long, cold winter of New England forces ’em to creep into people’s homes for warmth and food. Last year, the Boston Inspectional Services Department received more than 3,500 rodent complaints.

The city adopted a rather innovative measure: dropping dry ice into rat burrows so that rats will suffocate. The method was proven to be effective, although it was temporarily stopped by the EPA last December because dry ice wasn’t registered as a pesticide, according to a report by the local CBS station.

* Data sources: American Housing Survey, Orkin, Terminix, Eastern Arizona Courier, Hartz

The post Critter Cities: America’s Top 10 Towns for Pest Infestations appeared first on Real Estate News & Advice | realtor.com®.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2juC31H

[realtor10036]

Critter Cities: America’s Top 10 Towns for Pest Infestations

xxmmxx/iStock

Cities are bursting with life—too much of it, sometimes. Just ask James Vahter, a video producer who set up shop a few years ago in a trendy part of Manhattan’s Lower East Side. He got a sweet deal on a spacious, two-bedroom, fifth-floor walk-up, but it didn’t take him long to understand why the rent was so cheap. It happened a few weeks into his stay, when he returned from a business trip in the middle of the night and flipped on the hallway light.

“My walls were crawling,” he recalls. “From the floorboards to the ceiling, cockroaches were everywhere. I ran to the kitchen to grab some Raid—and the counters were crawling too.”

Welcome to the epic battle between city dweller and vermin. In Vahter’s case, he was able to wriggle (sorry) out of his lease and retreat to the suburbs. But not all urbanites are lucky enough to have the option of a happy ending.

From water bug traumas to Pizza Rat videos, pests are a terrifyingly common part of American life. In 2015, about 11% of U.S. households had encounters with rats or mice, and 12% with cockroaches, according to the Census Bureau’s newly released American Housing Survey. And, of course, those numbers increase exponentially in high-density metro areas.

Vermin nation

Some creepy creature populations are very much on the rise. There has been a 7% increase in complaints about rats in New York from 2015 to 2016, and a 16% uptick in Boston. Not squirming yet? A recent report by the pest-control company Orkin found a steep rise in bedbug incidents nationwide, to near-epidemic levels in many cities.

“We have more people affected by bedbugs in the United States now than ever before,” said Ron Harrison, an entomologist and director of technical services at Orkin, in the report. “They were virtually unheard of in the U.S. 10 years ago.”

Antwinette Clurksy, 64, endured living with bedbugs in her one-bedroom Houston apartment for more than three years. They were under the carpets, on the mattress—everywhere.

“I would be sitting on the couch, and I look up, and they’re crawling on me,” Clurksy says. She had red bite marks all over her body. Eventually, she had to sleep on the floor after throwing away her mattress, along with the sofa and dining table, because of the infestation.

Despite this and other horror stories, not all cities are equally affected by the onslaught of pests. In Seattle, for example, less than 1% of homes have a roach problem.

To figure out which cities are most under siege by critters with four or more legs, we used the rat and cockroach data from the American Housing Survey, as well as data about mosquitoes, termites, bedbugs, fleas/ticks—and, hey, scorpions, too—collected from other sources.*

What makes some cities more attractive to pests than others? The Northeast has an infamous rat problem—the chilly winter months drive the multitude of rodents in search of shelter, warmth and food. And the South is plagued by insects. Big insects.

“The warmer climate in the Southern states increases the ability to support insects for longer periods of time,” says Michael Raupp, an entomologist from the University of Maryland. “Insects are usually killed by the coldness, but since it rarely reaches lethal temperatures [freezing point] in the South, cockroaches and bedbugs remain active for a longer time out of the year.”

So where does your city rank on this ignominious list? We doused our data team with copious amounts of Off and turned them loose to find out. Let’s get crawling!

1. Houston, TX

Don’t mess with Texas cockroaches.

BarnabyChambers/iStock; realtor.com

Houston gets a big tentacles- and claws-up from several species of pests, including cockroaches, rats, mosquitoes, bedbugs, and termites. It’s the pest capital of the United States! Why? The warm, humid climate and huge human population (people=trash=delicious food!) offer a luxury spa for vermin, according to Steve Durham, president of pest control company EnviroCon in Houston. About two in five households reported seeing cockroaches, making it the second-worst city for the ubiquitous bugs after New Orleans, according to the American Housing Survey.

“In Houston, I have seen multiple times when there were thousands and thousands of roaches,” Durham says. “You can’t believe how some people just don’t clean [their homes]. Roaches multiply very fast—every roach egg has 32 babies, and those 32 babies will each have 32 babies.” Yuck.

2. New York, NY

Rats grow big in New York City.

robertcicchetti/iStock

No one knows how many rats live in New York, but estimates range all the way from 2 million to 28 million—and that high estimate would mean that there are almost four rats for each human in the most populous city in the nation. The city that never sleeps! Traps have been set, poisons brewed, and volunteers have relocated stray cats to rat-infested areas, according to the New York Daily News, but rats seem to be winning this war. How about we just give them Staten Island and call it even?

“In New York, a lot of architecture was designed without pest control in mind,” explains Taylor Falk, environmental analyst from M&M Environmental. The alleyways, dumpsters, and garbage are very close together. … When there is food and areas to move around, there are rats.”

Mice and rats are talented climbers, Falk says, and sometimes even climb high-rises through the utility systems (like hot water pipes).

And just like in the city’s alleys, rats and cockroaches battle for dominance overall. Rats were found in 15% of homes, cockroaches in 16%.

3. Washington, DC

The District of Columbia is ranked the second-worst city for bedbugs by Orkin, while nearby Baltimore took the top spot. Blame the area’s huge influx of international travelers. Diplomats, tourists, and businesspeople (and their baggage) are practically VIP shuttle services for bedbugs, says Raupp, of the University of Maryland. Washington’s mild climate also helps bedbugs survive.

“The problem is that many of the materials we used to treat bedbugs are no longer available, due to EPA regulations. So there has been a large insurgence,” says Dannis Warf from Royal Pest Control. “They aren’t just in homes, but also in movie theaters, public transportation, libraries, even hospitals.” The pests even invaded the DC Department of Health in 2012.

And although Washington is often criticized for its “fat cats,” rats are a major problem. In fact, there’s even a Yelp page dedicated to a well-known park, satirically labeled as “Dupont Circle Rat Sanctuary.” One review reads, “Wonderful place for 100% organic, free-range rats to frolic in a safe environment without predators.”

4. Atlanta, GA

To mosquitoes, you’re as sweet as a Georgia peach.

Henrik_L/iStock

Warm climate? Check. Wet summers? Check. Swamps and forested areas? Check. Perhaps nowhere can mosquitoes find a better breeding ground than Atlanta. There are about 45 kinds of mosquito living in the Southern city, according to Elmer Gray, a professor of entomology at the University of Georgia. And some species can carry West Nile and Zika viruses. Last summer, there were 77 cases of Zika in Georgia, according to Georgia Health News.

5. Philadelphia, PA

A total of 18% of Philly households have seen rats, making Philadelphia the rattiest city in America. The city’s huge swath of old row houses make it easier for the nimble animals to find holes in the walls and move, Habitrail-like, from one family to another.

“Philadelphia also has a very unseasonably warm winter this year, so the rats are growing more than usual,” says Royal Pest Control’s Warf.

6. Miami, FL

We love Miami’s year-around steamy weather. Unfortunately, so do cockroaches, mosquitoes, and termites. Florida has six invasive termite species that swarm alternately throughout the year, feasting on anything made of wood. By 2040, half of the structures in South Florida will be at risk of termite infestation, according to a study by the University of Florida.

“It’s hot, it’s humid, it rains a lot, and we have a lot of wooden-structure homes, as opposed to concrete-structure homes,” says JC Riverol from Spray’em Dead Termite & Pest in Miami.

The average cost to homeowners to repair termite damage is $3,000, but that can vary widely, depending on the extent of the damage, according to Termites.com.

7. Tampa, FL

The good news about Tampa is that it’s practically rodent-free; the bad news is, cockroaches won’t leave you alone. Ever. They are present in an alarming 38% of homes. They flock to Tampa like retirees, and get comfy in the kitchen, under the palm trees, and inside the gazebos.

Pet owners in Tampa also need to keep an eye out for fleas and ticks, which love the warm temperature and year-round humidity. These tiny insects usually don’t mess with humans, but they cling to the skins of dogs and cats, transmitting diseases like Lyme disease, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, and tapeworms.

8. Nashville, TN

With plenty of old structures to roam through, the Music City offers rats a comfortable habitat. Winter’s low temperatures of 30 degrees send rats scurrying into people’s homes for warmth and food, and the humid summer provides perfect conditions for breeding. Brown rats are the most common in Tennessee. One of the largest rat species, they can grow to an incredible 15 inches or more in length. (Silent scream!) Each year, there are also 50 snakebites reported in Tennessee, according to the Vanderbilt Medical Centers.

9. Phoenix, AZ

Not the good, “Rock You Like a Hurricane” kind of Scorpion

johnaudrey/iStock

Phoenix residents have something scarier than garden-variety roaches to contend with: scorpions. Native to the arid Arizona desert, the bark scorpion is the most venomous scorpion in the United States, and is the culprit in most scorpion bites in the state. Arizona’s two poison-control centers report about 12,000 scorpion stings in the state each year.

Most scorpion stings go away after a few hours, unless you have a serious allergy—in which case you need to head to an ER, pronto. Better bring the American Express, too. In 2012, Marcie Edmonds was stung by a scorpion and billed $83,000 for anti-venom, the local CBS news station reported.

“The valley was the natural habitat for scorpions. Then humans came in and destroyed their habitats, to build concrete walls and buildings. But scorpions like concrete walls,” says Ben Holland of Scorpion Sweepers, a pest control company. “So we destroyed their habitat and built something even better.”

10. Boston, MA

In 1917, the Boston Women’s Municipal League spearheaded a sweeping extermination campaign against the city’s proliferating rats, leading up to the first (and, to date,only) Rat Day, when residents were offered prizes for the largest number of rat carcasses turned in. A century later, the city is still battling rodents. The long, cold winter of New England forces ’em to creep into people’s homes for warmth and food. Last year, the Boston Inspectional Services Department received more than 3,500 rodent complaints.

The city adopted a rather innovative measure: dropping dry ice into rat burrows so that rats will suffocate. The method was proven to be effective, although it was temporarily stopped by the EPA last December because dry ice wasn’t registered as a pesticide, according to a report by the local CBS station.

* Data sources: American Housing Survey, Orkin, Terminix, Eastern Arizona Courier, Hartz

The post Critter Cities: America’s Top 10 Towns for Pest Infestations appeared first on Real Estate News & Advice | realtor.com®.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2juC31H

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Critter Cities: America’s Top 10 Towns for Pest Infestations

xxmmxx/iStock

Cities are bursting with life—too much of it, sometimes. Just ask James Vahter, a video producer who set up shop a few years ago in a trendy part of Manhattan’s Lower East Side. He got a sweet deal on a spacious, two-bedroom, fifth-floor walk-up, but it didn’t take him long to understand why the rent was so cheap. It happened a few weeks into his stay, when he returned from a business trip in the middle of the night and flipped on the hallway light.

“My walls were crawling,” he recalls. “From the floorboards to the ceiling, cockroaches were everywhere. I ran to the kitchen to grab some Raid—and the counters were crawling too.”

Welcome to the epic battle between city dweller and vermin. In Vahter’s case, he was able to wriggle (sorry) out of his lease and retreat to the suburbs. But not all urbanites are lucky enough to have the option of a happy ending.

From water bug traumas to Pizza Rat videos, pests are a terrifyingly common part of American life. In 2015, about 11% of U.S. households had encounters with rats or mice, and 12% with cockroaches, according to the Census Bureau’s newly released American Housing Survey. And, of course, those numbers increase exponentially in high-density metro areas.

Vermin nation

Some creepy creature populations are very much on the rise. There has been a 7% increase in complaints about rats in New York from 2015 to 2016, and a 16% uptick in Boston. Not squirming yet? A recent report by the pest-control company Orkin found a steep rise in bedbug incidents nationwide, to near-epidemic levels in many cities.

“We have more people affected by bedbugs in the United States now than ever before,” said Ron Harrison, an entomologist and director of technical services at Orkin, in the report. “They were virtually unheard of in the U.S. 10 years ago.”

Antwinette Clurksy, 64, endured living with bedbugs in her one-bedroom Houston apartment for more than three years. They were under the carpets, on the mattress—everywhere.

“I would be sitting on the couch, and I look up, and they’re crawling on me,” Clurksy says. She had red bite marks all over her body. Eventually, she had to sleep on the floor after throwing away her mattress, along with the sofa and dining table, because of the infestation.

Despite this and other horror stories, not all cities are equally affected by the onslaught of pests. In Seattle, for example, less than 1% of homes have a roach problem.

To figure out which cities are most under siege by critters with four or more legs, we used the rat and cockroach data from the American Housing Survey, as well as data about mosquitoes, termites, bedbugs, fleas/ticks—and, hey, scorpions, too—collected from other sources.*

What makes some cities more attractive to pests than others? The Northeast has an infamous rat problem—the chilly winter months drive the multitude of rodents in search of shelter, warmth and food. And the South is plagued by insects. Big insects.

“The warmer climate in the Southern states increases the ability to support insects for longer periods of time,” says Michael Raupp, an entomologist from the University of Maryland. “Insects are usually killed by the coldness, but since it rarely reaches lethal temperatures [freezing point] in the South, cockroaches and bedbugs remain active for a longer time out of the year.”

So where does your city rank on this ignominious list? We doused our data team with copious amounts of Off and turned them loose to find out. Let’s get crawling!

1. Houston, TX

Don’t mess with Texas cockroaches.

BarnabyChambers/iStock; realtor.com

Houston gets a big tentacles- and claws-up from several species of pests, including cockroaches, rats, mosquitoes, bedbugs, and termites. It’s the pest capital of the United States! Why? The warm, humid climate and huge human population (people=trash=delicious food!) offer a luxury spa for vermin, according to Steve Durham, president of pest control company EnviroCon in Houston. About two in five households reported seeing cockroaches, making it the second-worst city for the ubiquitous bugs after New Orleans, according to the American Housing Survey.

“In Houston, I have seen multiple times when there were thousands and thousands of roaches,” Durham says. “You can’t believe how some people just don’t clean [their homes]. Roaches multiply very fast—every roach egg has 32 babies, and those 32 babies will each have 32 babies.” Yuck.

2. New York, NY

Rats grow big in New York City.

robertcicchetti/iStock

No one knows how many rats live in New York, but estimates range all the way from 2 million to 28 million—and that high estimate would mean that there are almost four rats for each human in the most populous city in the nation. The city that never sleeps! Traps have been set, poisons brewed, and volunteers have relocated stray cats to rat-infested areas, according to the New York Daily News, but rats seem to be winning this war. How about we just give them Staten Island and call it even?

“In New York, a lot of architecture was designed without pest control in mind,” explains Taylor Falk, environmental analyst from M&M Environmental. The alleyways, dumpsters, and garbage are very close together. … When there is food and areas to move around, there are rats.”

Mice and rats are talented climbers, Falk says, and sometimes even climb high-rises through the utility systems (like hot water pipes).

And just like in the city’s alleys, rats and cockroaches battle for dominance overall. Rats were found in 15% of homes, cockroaches in 16%.

3. Washington, DC

The District of Columbia is ranked the second-worst city for bedbugs by Orkin, while nearby Baltimore took the top spot. Blame the area’s huge influx of international travelers. Diplomats, tourists, and businesspeople (and their baggage) are practically VIP shuttle services for bedbugs, says Raupp, of the University of Maryland. Washington’s mild climate also helps bedbugs survive.

“The problem is that many of the materials we used to treat bedbugs are no longer available, due to EPA regulations. So there has been a large insurgence,” says Dannis Warf from Royal Pest Control. “They aren’t just in homes, but also in movie theaters, public transportation, libraries, even hospitals.” The pests even invaded the DC Department of Health in 2012.

And although Washington is often criticized for its “fat cats,” rats are a major problem. In fact, there’s even a Yelp page dedicated to a well-known park, satirically labeled as “Dupont Circle Rat Sanctuary.” One review reads, “Wonderful place for 100% organic, free-range rats to frolic in a safe environment without predators.”

4. Atlanta, GA

To mosquitoes, you’re as sweet as a Georgia peach.

Henrik_L/iStock

Warm climate? Check. Wet summers? Check. Swamps and forested areas? Check. Perhaps nowhere can mosquitoes find a better breeding ground than Atlanta. There are about 45 kinds of mosquito living in the Southern city, according to Elmer Gray, a professor of entomology at the University of Georgia. And some species can carry West Nile and Zika viruses. Last summer, there were 77 cases of Zika in Georgia, according to Georgia Health News.

5. Philadelphia, PA

A total of 18% of Philly households have seen rats, making Philadelphia the rattiest city in America. The city’s huge swath of old row houses make it easier for the nimble animals to find holes in the walls and move, Habitrail-like, from one family to another.

“Philadelphia also has a very unseasonably warm winter this year, so the rats are growing more than usual,” says Royal Pest Control’s Warf.

6. Miami, FL

We love Miami’s year-around steamy weather. Unfortunately, so do cockroaches, mosquitoes, and termites. Florida has six invasive termite species that swarm alternately throughout the year, feasting on anything made of wood. By 2040, half of the structures in South Florida will be at risk of termite infestation, according to a study by the University of Florida.

“It’s hot, it’s humid, it rains a lot, and we have a lot of wooden-structure homes, as opposed to concrete-structure homes,” says JC Riverol from Spray’em Dead Termite & Pest in Miami.

The average cost to homeowners to repair termite damage is $3,000, but that can vary widely, depending on the extent of the damage, according to Termites.com.

7. Tampa, FL

The good news about Tampa is that it’s practically rodent-free; the bad news is, cockroaches won’t leave you alone. Ever. They are present in an alarming 38% of homes. They flock to Tampa like retirees, and get comfy in the kitchen, under the palm trees, and inside the gazebos.

Pet owners in Tampa also need to keep an eye out for fleas and ticks, which love the warm temperature and year-round humidity. These tiny insects usually don’t mess with humans, but they cling to the skins of dogs and cats, transmitting diseases like Lyme disease, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, and tapeworms.

8. Nashville, TN

With plenty of old structures to roam through, the Music City offers rats a comfortable habitat. Winter’s low temperatures of 30 degrees send rats scurrying into people’s homes for warmth and food, and the humid summer provides perfect conditions for breeding. Brown rats are the most common in Tennessee. One of the largest rat species, they can grow to an incredible 15 inches or more in length. (Silent scream!) Each year, there are also 50 snakebites reported in Tennessee, according to the Vanderbilt Medical Centers.

9. Phoenix, AZ

Not the good, “Rock You Like a Hurricane” kind of Scorpion

johnaudrey/iStock

Phoenix residents have something scarier than garden-variety roaches to contend with: scorpions. Native to the arid Arizona desert, the bark scorpion is the most venomous scorpion in the United States, and is the culprit in most scorpion bites in the state. Arizona’s two poison-control centers report about 12,000 scorpion stings in the state each year.

Most scorpion stings go away after a few hours, unless you have a serious allergy—in which case you need to head to an ER, pronto. Better bring the American Express, too. In 2012, Marcie Edmonds was stung by a scorpion and billed $83,000 for anti-venom, the local CBS news station reported.

“The valley was the natural habitat for scorpions. Then humans came in and destroyed their habitats, to build concrete walls and buildings. But scorpions like concrete walls,” says Ben Holland of Scorpion Sweepers, a pest control company. “So we destroyed their habitat and built something even better.”

10. Boston, MA

In 1917, the Boston Women’s Municipal League spearheaded a sweeping extermination campaign against the city’s proliferating rats, leading up to the first (and, to date,only) Rat Day, when residents were offered prizes for the largest number of rat carcasses turned in. A century later, the city is still battling rodents. The long, cold winter of New England forces ’em to creep into people’s homes for warmth and food. Last year, the Boston Inspectional Services Department received more than 3,500 rodent complaints.

The city adopted a rather innovative measure: dropping dry ice into rat burrows so that rats will suffocate. The method was proven to be effective, although it was temporarily stopped by the EPA last December because dry ice wasn’t registered as a pesticide, according to a report by the local CBS station.

* Data sources: American Housing Survey, Orkin, Terminix, Eastern Arizona Courier, Hartz

The post Critter Cities: America’s Top 10 Towns for Pest Infestations appeared first on Real Estate News & Advice | realtor.com®.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2juC31H