I first launched Toxic Free Talk Radio back in September 2011, to celebrate the publication of my book Toxic Free.
I did a marathon—12 hours straight!
1:00 hour – Michael Piachenza, owner of Pest Control Naturally will talk about what’s available today in nontoxic and natural pest controls for home, lawn, and termites.
TOXIC FREE TALK RADIO
Toxic Free Talk Radio Marathon Hour #2
Host: Debra Lynn Dadd
Guest: Michael Piachenza
Date of Broadcast: September 08, 2011
DEBRA: We’re back. I was just eating some organic food during the music to get my strength up, and drinking some purified water. This is Debra Lynn Dadd, and this is Toxic Free Talk Radio.
We’re doing a 12-hour marathon today, talking about toxic until midnight tonight, Eastern time, to celebrate the release of my new book, Toxic Free. And in this hour, we are going to have Michael Piachenza who owns a business called Pest Control Naturally here in Clearwater, Florida.
Excuse me just a moment. There’s someone who needs to ask me a question. Oh, sorry, okay.
So, we’ll be here with Michael in just a few minutes after I make some announcements.
So, you can go to my website, DebraLynnDadd.com, D-E-B-R-A-L-Y-N-N-D-A-D-D dot com. And right across the top is a green bar which has a bunch of links in it. There’s one that says, “Toxic Free Talk Radio.” You can click on that and on that page is the whole, entire schedule of everybody who’s talking today. There are also links to all my guests’ websites. And so, you can go there and get a link to go to Michael’s website if you are inclined to do so.
We have a caller. I’m just going to take this call, and then I see that I have Michael holding. And so then we’ll get to interviewing Michael about toxic-free pesticides.
Hello, caller. You’re on the air with Debra Lynn Dadd, Toxic Free Talk Radio. Hello? You’re on the air.
Okay, I’m not hearing you at this end, so please call again. We’ll see what’s going on technically.
I’m going to go to Michael now, and let’s hope that one connects.
Hi, Michael.
MICHAEL PIACHENZA: Hello, Debra.
DEBRA: Hello. Thanks for being here.
MICHAEL PIACHENZA: My pleasure.
DEBRA: So I’ll just introduce you again, and say that Michael has a non-toxic, natural pest control service in Clearwater, Florida. And he does a lot of alternative things instead of toxic chemicals. If you’re actually on the page where, on BlogTalkRadio, you’re looking and seeing the pictures go by on the player, Michael is the one with the blue shirt on. Very cute.
So I’ve just recently met Michael. So I’m very interested to hear everything that you have to say. Why don’t you start by telling us how you got interested in doing away with all these toxic pesticides and pest control? What’s motivating you to do this?
MICHAEL PIACHENZA: Well, I like to say I’m the only person I know that got into pest control for health reasons. This is an industry that’s just riddled with health problems. Many of my competitors are suffering from cancer and all types of different health conditions.
DEBRA: That’s something that we don’t usually think about that we hire somebody to do something toxic, but we don’t think about what are the health conditions of the workers that are giving us these services.
MICHAEL PIACHENZA: Yes, it really is a shame. These guys are constantly, constantly exposed to synthetic pesticides.
Maybe in low dosages or infrequent dosages, the body can handle that. But when you’re doing it day in and day out, that’s a tough environment to be in.
DEBRA: So did you get sick, or were you just looking around and saying, “I don’t want to get sick.”
MICHAEL PIACHENZA: Well actually, I’m an ex-fiber optic executive, and I was looking for another direction to move in, and I was getting tired of traveling all over the world. And a good friend of mine owns Advantage Pest Control. He asked me to come on board. My first response was, “No, thank you. I don’t want to be around all those toxic chemicals.”
But I did what I did in the fiber optics industry, as I just did research. I just went out and did a bunch of research, and found that this actually can be done in an effective way, and much more safely.
So he agreed to let me come on board, and start up the safe, natural side of the company. This was about a little over four years later, and we’re the probably fastest-growing pest control company in Pinellas County.
DEBRA: That’s great. I’m really glad to hear that the public is responding to it.
MICHAEL PIACHENZA: Most definitely.
DEBRA: Just pick one, what is the most frequently-asked for alternative pest control treatment?
MICHAEL PIACHENZA: My favorite is diatomaceous earth. It’s just amazing how many people misunderstand how diatomaceous earth works, what’s safe about it, and what’s not safe about it.
DEBRA: What’s safe and not safe, and what do you use it for?
MICHAEL PIACHENZA: Well, I don’t like to use it. A lot of people call up, and say, “Hey, I’m going all safe. I’ve been using diatomaceous earth.” And they dust their pets with it. They dust their house with it.
The way it works is it’s fossilized sea creatures. It’s little diatoms. Their skeletal structure is very, very sharp, and as the insects crawl through it, it scratches its exoskeleton, their waxy, protective covering, and it causes them to dry out, and they just shrivel up and die.
That in itself is all fine. The problem is, is that as mammals, we breathe in these little diatoms, and they get into their lungs, their sharp, little specks, and our lungs have no way of expelling them. So they have to insist over that spot. And you do that enough, then you start to lose lung capacity.
DEBRA: So diatomaceous earth isn’t something that we should use as an alternative then. This is, I think, a really important point because I think a lot of people use diatomaceous earth because it doesn’t emit toxic chemicals. But diatomaceous earth is this little particle with sharp edges, and it can cause a different kind of harm. Even though it’s not toxic, it is hazardous.
MICHAEL PIACHENZA: Exactly. If you haven’t touched little parasites, I’d say get some food grade DE, and mix it up in a glass, and drink it down. You can put it in your pet’s dog food or cat food, and that’s fine, to take care intestinal parasites.
But you don’t want to breathe it in, in over a long period of time.
DEBRA: That’s good to know. So you don’t want to sprinkle it around in your house.
MICHAEL PIACHENZA: Exactly.
DEBRA: So what have people been using diatomaceous earth for, and then what would you do as the alternative?
MICHAEL PIACHENZA: Well, a lot of people use it for roaches and fleas, and to some degree, ants. I prefer to use something like sodium borate. Everybody’s heard of boric acid, or Borax, or 20 Mule Team Borax. All of those contain the mineral, boron, and the mineral boron is very, very safe. It’s all natural. And the way it works is it acts as a desiccant, so it will dry out eggs and some soft-shelled insects.
But other insects, when they ingest it, and they get it into their digestive system, it changes their digestive enzymes, and then they can’t assimilate any nutrients.
So it’s very, very safe. If you or I pick a one-day mineral, there’s going to be boron in there. And the way our system works is if we take in more boron than we need, we just pass it through, through our kidneys. It’s like taking too much vitamin C, I think.
So that’s as safe as it gets. The LD50 on it is twice that of table salt. The LD50 stands for the lethal dose and 50% of the population. So you’d have to eat twice as much boron than table salt for it to be deadly.
DEBRA: Well, that’s pretty safe.
MICHAEL PIACHENZA: Yes, I think so.
DEBRA: As long as you brought that up, let me just interject. A lot of times people assume that the word non-toxic has a legal definition, but it actually doesn’t. And we see it on labels a lot. But what it means is that for something to be considered toxic more than 50% of the animal pasture die on the LD50. And so if 49% of the animals die, it can be called non-toxic.
And so the line is actually very fine between the word non-toxic and toxic, if you’re just using those two words on a label.
And so this is where we, as consumers, need to do our homework and become familiar with these different ingredients, and so we can then say, “Well, the LD50 is zero,” or whatever, and we can compare it with ones that is a higher LD50. And all this information is available for all these chemicals.
And then we can compare how toxic one is versus another. It’s not about reading the product labels because they’re not going to give this information, but there are tons and tons of information available, some of which I have on my site. There would be more information on my site. Essentially, we have the internet. There’s been so much access to information about toxic. It’s really changed a lot.
So I’m just going to take a break with us for a second here, and we’ll be right back.
DEBRA: Okay Michael, before we go on, this is Debra Lynn Dadd, and you’re listening Toxic Free Talk Radio. And I’m just going to tell you about one of our offers today is that I have a limited number of my book, Toxic Free, which is being released today. And if you want to get an autographed copy that has today’s date in it, as being the first day of release, you can order that by phone, by calling 727-466-6812. An operator is standing by to take your order.
Now, also I just want to give everybody my website address. I have many URL’s on my website, but the main one to go to is DebraNonToxic.com. That’s D-E-B-R-A-N-O-N-T-O-X-I-C. And that page is the index to everything else that’s going on, on my website. You can always go there, find out what’s new, look at the whole, big pictures, and to just go to DebraNonToxic.com.
Michael, back to you, so we’ve talked about what’s toxic and what’s not toxic, tell us more about what one could expect if they called your business, or a business like yours, in terms of the spectrum of what you have to offer.
MICHAEL PIACHENZA: Well, my whole approach is to take a pragmatic view on things. People will call me up and they say, “Are you all organic?”
DEBRA: That’s a good question. What did you say?
MICHAEL PIACHENZA: What I said, “Well, to be truthful with you, I have to say no because if I’m using borates, that’s an inorganic mineral. And that’s the safest thing in my arsenal. So I am not all organic.”
DEBRA: Before you go on, let’s just talk about what organic is because I think that organic is a big buzz word right now, and that people are looking for things to be organic. And if they’re not organic, then they think that they shouldn’t use them. But you just said that borates are inorganic minerals.
So just to straighten this out, there’s organic and inorganic chemistry. Organic usually has to do with something that’s living like a plant or an animal versus something that’s not living like a mineral or a rock. Is that your understanding, Michael? Am I correct here?
MICHAEL PIACHENZA: Yes.
DEBRA: So the fact that your borates are not living things, which could be called organic, then that doesn’t mean that they’re toxic. Salt is not organic. Sand is not organic. And that doesn’t mean that it’s harmful. It just means that it isn’t organic.
And then there’s this other term that is organically grown, which means for a food or a fiber that no pesticides have been used in the creation of that.
We have a caller, so we’re going to go and pick the call, and see what the question is.
Hello, caller. You’re on the air with Debra Lynn Dadd and Michael Piachenza at Toxic Free Talk Radio.
You know, I think I’ve discovered the problem. I think what I need to do is put Michael on hold, and then take this caller. So hold on. Michael, I’m going to put you on hold, but don’t go away.
Okay caller, can you hear me now?
Okay, I need to figure out what is the technical problem with this, but in the meanwhile, I am going to put the caller back on hold. Michael, you hold on, and I’m going to put on some music. I’ll be right back.
DEBRA: Okay, we’re back. Now, we’re trying to figure out, but since this is the first time that I’ve used this, why I’m not getting my caller calls because people are calling in, and we got a caller before, and we have a guess. It’s just fine. But some other calls are not coming through.
So we have another call now, and we’re just going to try it, and see if we can get that caller. Thank you all for your patience.
Hello, caller. You’re on the air with Debra Lynn Dadd.
Okay, let’s not despair about this. I am having somebody working on this problem. So I’m going t back to Michael, and I’ll let you know when I think that we’re ready with the caller thing.
Michael, I’m taking you off hold now. Okay Michael, are you there?
MICHAEL PIACHENZA: Yes, I am.
DEBRA: Okay, good. Thank you for your patience.
MICHAEL PIACHENZA: I could not hear the caller though.
DEBRA: I couldn’t hear the caller either. Did you hear the music?
MICHAEL PIACHENZA: No, I was just on hold.
DEBRA: That’s right. You were on hold.
So let’s go back and talk with you about natural pest controls. What were we talking about? Do you remember, or shall we start over?
MICHAEL PIACHENZA: That’s quite all right. When you get into this whole organic, natural, there are a lot of terminologies that get thrown around. In my industry, somebody can claim to be a practicing, integrated pest management. Well, what does that mean? It means that they’re focusing on prevention, making sure that the bugs don’t get in, on cleanliness, on educating the customer.
And they can do all these very good things. And then if they still have bugs, they can come through as synthetic pesticides.
And they’re still practicing integrated pest management.
So there’s a new term afoot called green pest management.
DEBRA: Uh-oh. What does that mean?
MICHAEL PIACHENZA: Basically, what they’re doing there is they’re taking all of the elements of integrated pest management like good preventative and customer education, and then using more safe and natural products to combat the pests, if they’re still an issue.
DEBRA: Michael, hold on just a minute, because I do want to fix this, so that we can get the callers. I have two callers, so I am going to try to get one of them, and then try to get the other one.
MICHAEL PIACHENZA: Sure.
DEBRA: Hold on just a second. Caller, are you there? Hello? Okay, I’m going to try another caller. The calls are lining up here, so I want to be able to get them.
MICHAEL PIACHENZA: I understand.
DEBRA: Okay, I’m going to try another one. Hello, caller.
BONNIE: Can you hear me?
DEBRA: Yes, I can hear you.
BONNIE: Hallelujah.
DEBRA: Excellent.
BONNIE: I have a question.
DEBRA: Hold on. What number did you call?
BONNIE: I called the 877-whatever number you gave at the beginning of the call.
DEBRA: Callers, please note this down. Call 877-497-1811. There’s another number on the website which is not the toll-free number, 619 number. Perhaps that number isn’t going through. But this caller just got through on 877-497-1811. So that’s the number we’re going to use. I’ll keep announcing it, so that everybody can get it. Okay caller, what’s your name?
BONNIE: Hi, it’s Bonnie.
DEBRA: Hi, Bonnie. Thanks for calling. So what’s your question for me?
BONNIE: I have a question. This is actually twofold question, so maybe I can take up for the one call that was missed. But with the pest control, I’ve been in a very tight community. And the homes are literally 5 to 10 feet apart from one another.
Although I practice safe pesticide and I’ve called all of the pest control people around where I live [inaudible 00:24:31], what is the actual, I might say “drying time”, I guess, for these pests when they spray them because we’re in a very windy environment near the ocean.
When my neighbors get sprayed, I pretty much hole up in my house all day. I was wanting to know what would be a safe time period for drying, and how long does it remain active?
The second question is more specific to this time of year. I’m getting deluged with spiders.
DEBRA: Okay Michael, I’ll let you answer both those questions.
MICHAEL PIACHENZA: Well, as far as the drying time, it depends on what they’re spraying. If they’re spraying something that dissolves in a water, in a wettable powder or something like that, then it’s just really as long as it’s going to take for the water to evaporate off and leave the residual. And the residual is either going to leave a powdery substance on top of the plant or it may be actually absorbed into the plant. Most of these are considered to be, and that’s “considered,” to be safe once they dry.
BONNIE: That’s what they tell me.
MICHAEL PIACHENZA: Now, if it’s oil-based, it’s actually not going to dry. And the whole thing about oil-based is to keep it in a liquid state. That’s a whole topic we can spend a few hours on, but for the most part, with the industry claims, the little sign you see on the lawn after it’s been sprayed is basically “Keep pets and children off until dry.” That’s all that says.
Now, spiders, this is something that comes up a lot. People are like, “What can I do for spiders? How can I kill spiders?”
Most pesticides, most pests that we go after, we’re either going to kill by putting down something that they walk through and then they groom themselves (they’re going to groom their feet or antennas), so they ingest it that way, or you put down baits. They pick it up and take it back, and they either eat it or feed it to their colony. And that’s really 90% of the pesticides out there whether it’s organic, natural or what. Those are the ways they’re going after it.
Spiders do not groom themselves, and they don’t pick up baits. So, the best thing you can do with spiders is knock down their webs. It takes a lot of energy for them to produce that web, and that web is their food factory. And they have to regenerate that web on an empty stomach. Many times they don’t have enough energy to that and they die.
That’s the best way to go. Plus, if you get rid all of the other bugs that the spiders are eating, then they won’t have anything to eat, and they’re going to die off, and there’s no reason for them to stay.
BONNIE: Okay, thanks.
DEBRA: We’ve got a whole line of callers here, so we’re going to move on to the next caller now. Thank you very much for your call.
Wow! I’m just going to say the switchboard is lighting up. Hold on, let’s see. Who’s next? I’m so getting used to doing this.
Okay, here we go.
Hello, caller. You’re on the air with Debra Lynn Dadd and Michael Piachenza on Toxic Free Talk Radio. The number to call to get through, I’m told, is 877-497-1811.
So I’m going to go to the next caller, and be sure to speak up when I say hello. Hello, caller. You’re on the air with Debra Lynn Dadd and Michael Piachenza. Hello. Are you there? Okay, we’ll go on to the next one. Remember, the number is 877-497-1811, not the one that’s listed on the website that begins with 619. It’s 877-497-1811.
I’ll try the next caller. Hello, caller. This is Debra Lynn Dadd. Are you there? Hello? You’re on the air with Debra Lynn Dadd.
Okay, I’ll go to the next one.
Hello, caller. Are you there? You’re on the air with Debra Lynn Dadd and Michael Piachenza. Hello? Hello? [Inaudible 00:29:47] with the callers here. And yes, we’re not getting through.
I apologize for this technical problem here.
Hello, caller. Are you there? Okay, we’ll go to the next one. Hello, caller. You’re on the air. Are you there? Hello, you’re on the air with Debra Lynn Dadd. Are you there?
I’m going to have to get the company on the phone here at some point because some of them are working and some of them aren’t, and I’m not understanding why yet. So we’ll figure it out because we just got calls lined up and lined up.
Remember, the number is 877-497-1811.
I’m going to the next one.
Hello, caller. You’re on the air with Debra Lynn Dadd. Are you there? Hello? Hello, you’re on the air with Debra Lynn Dadd.
Are you there?
Okay, we’ll go to the next one. Hello, you’re on the air with Debra Lynn Dadd. Hello, caller.
CALLER: [inaudible 00:31:22]
DEBRA: I know. Hello, you’re on the air with Debra Lynn Dadd. Hello, caller in the 714 area code. Hello, are you there?
CALLER: Yes.
DEBRA: Oh, good. We got one. But we lost them. No, I’ve got it. Caller, please go ahead with your question. Caller?
CALLER: Yes, I actually don’t have a question. I just want to listen to the show.
DEBRA: Okay, you don’t need to call in to listen to the show.
CALLER: So how I can I supposed to listen? It’s supposed to be from 10:30 to 12:30.
DEBRA: You just listen on your computer. Just listen on your computer. Go to BlogTalkRadio.com/DebraLynnDadd. And then you can hear the show.
CALLER: Can I hear it any time or just this time?
DEBRA: You can get it from any time from now until midnight tonight, eastern time.
CALLER: Sorry, can you give me the website again because it didn’t go through.
DEBRA: Just go to my website. Go to DebraNonToxic.com. And there’s a link right there at the top of the page. DebraNonToxic.com. Thank you for calling.
Okay, we’ll go to the next caller. Hello, caller. You’re on the air with Debra Lynn Dadd.
Well, I wonder how many of you are listening to the show by calling in.
So here’s how it goes. If you want to listen to the show, all you need to do is go to my website, DebraNonToxic.com. There’s a link there that takes you to a page on my website. You just click on the name of the show. Right now, we’re in Marathon Show #1, and you just listen online. You don’t need to call to listen.
So I think that’s why people haven’t been asking questions because they’re calling in to listen. I think we’re getting it straightened out now.
Okay, so I’m going to take another caller and see if we have a question. Caller, you’re on the air with Debra Lynn Dadd and Michael Piachenza. Do you have a question?
CALLER: Hi. How are you?
DEBRA: Hi. I’m good. How are you?
CALLER: Good. I know that Michael had touched on spiders and how important it was to knock down their webs, but I am being overrun by black and brown widow spiders. I knocked down their webs, I tried to get rid of their egg sacs and smooshed them up, but I live next door to Grizzly Adams, so I can only do so much because he believes in nature, and he doesn’t maintain his nature. But it’s bad because they’re getting into my home, they’re nesting in my mailbox, underneath every window, on my fences.
It’s really bad and I’ve tried non-toxic and toxic chemicals to try to kill them, but they just don’t seem to be going anywhere.
Michael, what can I do or what can you do for me in order to get these brown and black widow spiders under control?
MICHAEL PIACHENZA: Well, the best thing to do then is to try to find where they’re harboring and laying their eggs, and go after them. Find a nice, organic or safe pesticide. And just on a very regular basis, go out and spray them. Knock down the webs. That’s good too.
If you get a big infestation like that you just got to go after them. You’re going to find them most off on the west side of the house, and they’re going to try to find little holes like people with barrel tiles, on their roof, those little tile opening, shoot inside of those.
Any little spots that they can get back inside, that’s where they’ll be.
CALLER: Okay. And I called in on the phone number, 619-996-1662 is the number that I called in on. So, I’ve been doing this good. Thank you so much.
DEBRA: Thank you so much. I think that the problem we’ve identified that people have been calling in, in order to listen, and you don’t need to call in to listen. You can just listen. So only call in if you have a question. The call-in numbers again are 619-996-1662 or toll-free, 877-497-1811.
And we’ll take the next caller.
Call, you’re on the air with Debra Lynn Dadd and Michael Piachenza on Toxic Free Talk Radio. Hello? I guess we don’t have a question there. There’s another one. Hello, caller. You’re on the air with Debra Lynn Dadd and Michael Piachenza. Do you have a question?
Well, you know, you try to figure out what are the problem or errors are going to be. Hello, you’re on the air with Debra Lynn Dadd and Michael Piachenza. Do you have a question?
CALLER: I do not.
DEBRA: Okay, were you just listening to the show?
CALLER: I’m trying to get to the Eduardo San Roman Show.
DEBRA: Well, you have the wrong show.
MICHAEL PIACHENZA: This is very fun.
DEBRA: Well, this is the first one. So here we have another caller. Hello, caller. You’re on the air with Debra Lynn Dadd and Michael Piachenza. Do you have a question?
CALLER: Can you hear me?
DEBRA: I can hear you.
CALLER: Oh, good. I missed the part where he said get rid of the bugs the spiders eat. What does he recommend to get rid of the bugs that the spiders eat?
MICHAEL PIACHENZA: Well, it depends on the type of spider.
CALLER: Black widows.
MICHAEL PIACHENZA: Black widows.
CALLER: Yes, I don’t have it as bad as the caller before me had them, but that just seems to be the only concern that I have is the black widow. But I just tuned in when you had just finished talking about getting rid of what they eat.
MICHAEL PIACHENZA: Well, what they eat are other insects. And the black widows tend to make their webs up fairly high, so they’re primarily going after flying insects. There you want to practice your integrated pest management, which is to keep the bugs from getting in, make sure your screens are all tight, weather stripping.
And if you do have flying insects that are getting inside, there are some really nice, natural aerosols that you can use from EcoSmart which are so safe, they’re exempt from EPA Regulations.
If you kill off all the flying insects, then they don’t have anything to eat.
CALLER: Oh, okay. Thank you very much.
MICHAEL PIACHENZA: You’re quite welcome. Thanks for calling.
CALLER: I’m glad I got through.
DEBRA: I’m glad you got through too.
CALLER: I called the 619 number also.
DEBRA: Okay, thanks. Next caller. You’re on the air with Debra Lynn Dadd and Michael Piachenza. Do you have a question? Hello, caller? No, I guess not.
MICHAEL PIACHENZA: [inaudible 00:39:47]
DEBRA: Here’s another one. Wow, lots of questions. This is great. Hello, you’re on the air with Debra Lynn Dadd and Michael Piachenza. Caller, do you have a question? Hello?
CALLER: Hello.
DEBRA: Hello, we can hear you. Go ahead with your question.
CALLER: Well, I was tuning into the Power is Now.
DEBRA: Well, that’s a different show.
CALLER: Yes, but this is the number that I was told to dial, 877-497-1811.
DEBRA: That’s the number that I was given for my show. It appears that several shows have the same number.
MICHAEL PIACHENZA: This is a much more interesting show, I think.
DEBRA: I think so too. Caller, I’m going to hang up on you, and I don’t know what to do to straighten this out yet, but we’ll work on it.
MICHAEL PIACHENZA: Well Debra, how about if we just dialogue for a little bit, and maybe your assistant there could check into that on the background?
DEBRA: Yes, I think that we’re going to do that. Okay, Michael, we’re almost to the end of our hour. What would you like to tell us? What are some general tips that you’d like to tell us about how our listeners can control pests without toxic chemicals?
MICHAEL PIACHENZA: Well, there’s so much to talk about. Let’s talk for a moment about the classifications. You see, when you pick up a pesticide, it’s going to have either danger, warning or caution on it. And those are really just different thresholds of the toxicity for the LD50 actually.
So the caution can be made up of synthetic pesticides. But even the natural and the organic pesticides will still have a caution rating.
So one of the things you want to look for around there is they have a couple of new rankings that are within caution. One is called reduced risk and the other one is minimal risk. And that really gives you a much better indication of how safe it is.
Minimal risk is in the category, almost like a food additive. It’s so safe, it’s not even controlled by the EPA. Like the products from EcoSmart that I mentioned earlier, they have an entire product line called their Exempt Line. And those are all the ones that fit in that minimal risk category.
DEBRA: Go on.
MICHAEL PIACHENZA: So that’s a good one for people to take a look at.
Another thing that comes up a lot, people are always asking me, they intermix three different terms. There’s pyrethrins, pyrethrums, and pyrethroids.
DEBRA: Wow, tell us about that because I get those mixed up too.
MICHAEL PIACHENZA: I know, it’s easy to do, and I got to do it from memory now that I’ve brought it up. But the pyrethrums are made from Chrysanthemums. They’ve been around since the Persian days for combatting head lice and things like that.
Basically, what that is, it’s this ground up Chrysanthemum flowers.
Now, if you take that mixture and you extract just the element that is the insecticide, that’s a pyrethrin. Pyrethrum is the plant. Pyrethrin is the active ingredient.
Now, if you take that active ingredient and you synthesize it, or you create a totally synthetic product that acts like that, that’s a pyrethroid.
So those terms get batted around interchangeably by a lot of people. There’s a lot of pyrethroid products out there that are totally synthetic, and they’ve been synthesized to such a level that they have a half-life of six months. So we have to be careful about that.
DEBRA: I think that you brought up a really interesting point that I want to talk about for a minute because it spans a lot of different kinds of products.
The word natural is another one of those unregulated words because it doesn’t really have a legal definition. Natural cosmetics is a big one where this is true. There is an ingredient that comes from something like coconut oil which is a natural ingredient, a plant-based ingredient, yet it’s so synthesized into something else entirely that it’s not in the form it is that it is in nature.
And so still, it’s a manmade ingredient, just as if it were made from petrochemicals. It’s just that they’ve taken the molecules from coconut oil instead of crude oil.
Now, there is actually a big difference in how that behaves in your body. But when we hear that term natural, as you said there’s a big different between pyrethrins and pyrethroids. Pyrethrin is from natural Chrysanthemum. If you saw on a cosmetic label coconut oil, and it actually was, but that would actually be coconut oil.
The coco dimethyl betaine, or something like that, or sodium lauryl sulfate, both of those come from coconut oil, but they act very differently in your body than the natural coconut oil would. And I think there could be a confusion about what really is natural.
I think that it sounds like from what you’re telling me that you’re really wanting to go the route of using the most natural products possible.
MICHAEL PIACHENZA: Yes, most definitely. And even if you use any pyrethrin, it can be toxic to humans, to mammals. And basically, it’s a neurotoxin, and what it does is it short circuits the synapses and the nerve endings. And also in the insect, when you spray them with a neurotoxin, you’ll see their entire body is vibrating. It short circuits every one of their nerves.
You pick off these aerosol bombs in our house, and we’re filling the house with gases of pyrethrin, will it kill you? Probably not. Will it bother you? Most definitely. You breathe that in, and all of your nerve endings start firing like that, you get this terrible nervous feeling.
Now, there are other neurotoxins that only affect the nerve endings of an invertebrate. So that company, EcoSmart, it’s one of my favorites, they have patented an all-natural neurotoxin that only affects the nerves of the insects.
So you’ve got to be very careful about how we approach these things and the general terminology of natural.
Hemlock is all natural. Would you like a nice cup of tea?
DEBRA: No. People also think that natural things are not toxic, but there are all kinds of toxic things in the natural world.
Let me back up for a second because we’ve been living with things toxic since the beginning of humanness. But what’s different now is not that there is hemlock in the world, but that we have so many manmade chemicals, and they’re so dangerous to us because our bodies really don’t have any way to process them. We do have detox for some, but they look at these chemicals and they say, “What is this?” And they just put it in a storage place someplace because we don’t have the mechanisms to break them down. Or we have too many that we’re overloading our capacity.
And that’s why we need to reduce our exposure, and we need to get the toxic chemicals out of our body because we’re just overwhelming our bodies and destroying our health.
MICHAEL PIACHENZA: That’s a great point. And you know, the natural cures are so much better.
Let me back up a second.
These synthetic products, the insect world quickly adapts to it and builds immunities to it, or like in the case of the mosquito, we sprayed the mosquitos down in the Panama Canal back in the 1950’s with DVT. And within a few generations, the mosquitos converted the DVT into DDD and DVE, and what that did is it made the mosquito toxic to their own predators.
So if we use things like the sodium borates that I was talking about earlier, insects cannot build an immunity to that. I use that product, you mix it with water, and you spray it on the wood, the lumber up in your attic, and termites cannot digest that wood.
They will not be able to digest that wood in a thousand years from now if that house is still standing.
DEBRA: We actually have used that product, Tim-bor.
MICHAEL PIACHENZA: Yes, Tim-bor is made by Nicus Corporation. That’s the brand name for it.
DEBRA: Yes, it’s T-I-M-B-O-R for anyone who’s interested in this. And since my husband found it just several years ago, every piece of wood we install in our house first gets treated with Tim-bor. And it smells like nothing, it protects the wood.
Don’t they not have any termite problems in Australia or someplace now because so many people were treating with Tim-bor just that the termites have nothing to eat?
MICHAEL PIACHENZA: There you go. It’s highly been approved in this country. They have one called Bora-care from the same company. And they’re using that as a pre-treat. The traditional way, if you’re putting an addition in your house or building your house, is to go in there and use something like Termidor.
Termidor is banned in China. It’s so toxic. They put this stuff down at a rate of four gallons per linear foot of your footer.
DEBRA: Oh, my god.
MICHAEL PIACHENZA: Another four gallons on the inside, and if your footer is made out of a block, you’ve got to put another two gallons inside the block. So you’ve got 10 gallons per 10 linear foot, or a gallon per foot around your house of this stuff. And this stuff stays in the environment for years and years and years.
DEBRA: Oh, my god. We have another caller. So let’s try our next caller and see if this will work.
Hello, caller. You’re on the air with Debra Lynn Dadd and Michael Piachenza. Hello, caller?
I have a message into the company to find out what we need to do about this. So hopefully, we’ll work it out.
Go on, Michael. I didn’t mean to interrupt you. I just wanted to catch the callers if they come in.
MICHAEL PIACHENZA: It’s probably greater than 95% of the houses that are being built.
DEBRA: Michael?
MICHAEL PIACHENZA: I thought I heard somebody trying to talk. I thought we had a caller got through.
DEBRA: No, go ahead.
MICHAEL PIACHENZA: Anyway, they’re using this chemical. It’s called Chemical Trench Vapor Barrier. Doesn’t that just sound delightful? And they are perfectly safe, borate-based products that can be used, and it’s all been approved by the State. And the problem is that most builders don’t even know about it. Most architects don’t know about it. So it doesn’t get factored into the permits, it doesn’t go into the prints and the drawings, so it’s a shame. It really is.
It’s just a sin, the amount of chemicals that are being poured out there.
DEBRA: You gave me an idea that there are chemicals that are being used in new constructions that people don’t even know about it. And there should be some kind of review of each of the processes and the plans. As a consultant, one of the things that I do is that I’m available to go over plans and specifications for building materials and help people specify building materials and finishing materials.
But if you don’t even know these things are there as part of the process, that there needs to be a review so that people can have truly toxic-free houses.
There’s another caller, so let’s try this new caller.
Hello, caller. Are you there? You’re on the air with Debra Lynn Dadd. It must be for the other show.
MICHAEL PIACHENZA: [Inaudible 00:53:56] a good show though.
DEBRA: I think that there’s a problem with our 800 number. So I think that there are a lot of things that people can do.
There are a lot of alternatives to pesticides that we don’t need to be having so many pesticides, and that all of these options need to have more widespread publicity.
And that’s one of the reasons why I’m doing this show, and that I will continue to do this show every week because I want people to know that there is a toxic-free world out there that we don’t need to be using all of these toxic chemicals, and that there are alternatives.
If you like what you’re hearing here, it would be great if you would let other people know. We’re going to be on the air for another 10 hours until midnight tonight. And if you would go to Twitter or Facebook or [inaudible 00:54:55] or whatever and tell them that this is happening, and it’s something good, and that they can learn to be less toxic, that would be so fabulous.
Well, thank you so much for being with us, Michael. I really appreciated you being on here. I learned a lot and I’m sure that our listeners learned a lot too. And I certainly will be calling you in the future when we need some toxic-free insect control.
MICHAEL PIACHENZA: That would be great. Let me do a little selfless plug.
DEBRA: Go ahead.
MICHAEL PIACHENZA: Advantage Pest Control, and our website is PestControlNaturally.com. We’re servicing Pinellas County and the City of Tampa. We do rodent control, pest control, termite control, and lawn spraying.
Probably a future topic would be talking about the lawn spraying because that’s an area that’s really, really difficult to try to go natural.
DEBRA: Well, we can certainly do that because as I’ve said, I’m planning to do this weekly, so there are going to be lots of spaces and lots of topics that we can talk about. And I certainly will call you again and hope to see you soon.
MICHAEL PIACHENZA: I look forward to it, Debra. Thanks for all the good work you’re doing out there.
DEBRA: Thanks, Michael.
Okay, in the next hour, we’re going to have April Cook, who is a aesthetician. She will be talking about how toxic chemicals affect our skin in the negative way, and what we can do to have beautiful skin naturally, and about various kinds of care products.
I also have available a limited number of my book, Toxic Free, which I am autographing today with today’s date, so you’ll have an autographed copy with the date of publication, which is today. Today is the very first day that these books are available. So those of you who get them today will be among the first on the planet to have them.
You can also, of course, buy my book at Amazon.com and perhaps your local bookstore, and it would be great for you to call your local bookstore and say that you want to order it, or do they have it, so that they know that people are interested in this subject.
We’re at the top of the hour now, almost, which is also the end of this first segment of Toxic Free Talk Radio. So the way this works today is that it’s 12 hours. We’re through the first two hours, and it’s in two hour-segments. So when we get to the end of each two hours, what we’ll need to do is switch over to a new show.
So I’m going to put on some music now for three minutes, and there may be a period of silence while this show ends, and I have to call in for the next one. But we’ll back in a few minutes with Toxic Free Talk Radio. Thanks for listening.
