Pest Misidentification

This happened when I was in Albuquerque and it demonstrates why you have to be very careful when you hire a pest control company. A lady had some small white grub-like insects all over her floor. She called several exterminators including the one that regularly services her home and none of them had any idea what they were, although one said he would spray the house with pesticides to kill them. She called me and I went to her house and inspected it. She had fungus gnat larvae on the floor. Usually these insects live in overwatered house plants, but she didn’t have any plants. They were on the floor on both sides of a bathroom near a bathtub that is rarely used as it is a guest bathroom. It is obvious that she has a plumbing leak as the adult gnats laid eggs in damp soil under the tub, probably through the access hatch. When the soil dried out, the larvae moved out looking for mold and fungi to feed on and they were all over the floor. It is unbelievable that professional pest control companies wouldn’t recognize what was going on and couldn’t even identify the larvae. Many of them work around roaches and ants and just aren’t knowledgeable about anything else. She will call a plumber to look for and fix the leak. If you have any pest questions, you can contact me at askthebugman2013@gmail.com and I will help you as best I can and I don’t charge anything.