NC Pest Detectives

08/30/2026

There’s an old Southern warning that’s been passed down for generations… 👀🌲

And before long, you might find the reason why hanging around your own backyard 🔎🌿

For most of the year, they’re surprisingly easy to overlook…

But as they grow, something starts appearing between shrubs, gardens, porches, and anywhere else they can find the perfect spot 🏡🌿

A massive circular web… 🕸️

With something VERY strange running straight through the middle of it 👀🔎

🕷️ Meet the Yellow Garden Spider 💛🖤

One of the biggest and most recognizable spiders you’ll find around North Carolina 🌲❤️

That enormous black, yellow, and silver spider sitting in the center?

That’s the female! 👀🕷️

And despite looking like something designed specifically to make you reconsider walking through your own yard 😂🕸️…

She’s actually an incredible backyard hunter 🔎

🦗 Grasshoppers
🪰 Flies
🪲 Beetles
🦋 Moths
🐝 And other flying insects

Once something hits her web, vibrations tell her exactly where the struggling prey is 👀🕸️

She can quickly rush over, immobilize it, and wrap it in silk for a future meal 🕷️🍴

But catching dinner isn’t what made this spider famous…

Look closely at the center of her web and you’ll often notice a thick white zigzag woven into it 👀〰️

It’s called a stabilimentum…

But generations of people thought it looked like something else 🤔

✍️ Writing

That’s why you may have heard them called…

🕷️ “Writing Spiders” ✍️🕸️

And with that name came an old piece of Southern folklore 🌲👀

If one ever wrote YOUR NAME in its web…

☠️ You were going to die 😳

Thankfully, there’s absolutely no evidence our backyard spiders are keeping a hit list 😂🕷️

But the REAL reason for that strange white zigzag is almost as interesting 🔎🕸️

Scientists still debate exactly what purpose it serves 🤔

It may help attract prey, make the web more visible to larger animals so they don’t crash through it, or serve several purposes at once 🕸️🔎

And if you think the female is impressive…

Wait until you see her boyfriend 😂

Male Yellow Garden Spiders are MUCH smaller than females and can sometimes be found hanging around the edge of her enormous web 🕷️👀

Eventually, the female produces a brown, papery egg sac filled with hundreds of eggs, protecting the next generation through the colder months 🥚🕷️❄️

So when one of these giant black and yellow detectives eventually sets up shop around your home…

There’s usually no reason to panic ❤️🕷️

She’s mostly interested in catching bugs, keeping to herself, and quietly working her own cases from the middle of her web 🕵️‍♂️🔎🕸️

Just do yourself one favor…

Don’t tell her your name 👀😂

🔎 Pest Detectives 🕵️‍♂️🐜

We’re On The Case, Because Pests Leave Clues!🔎❤️

08/23/2026

🌙 Somewhere in the darkness, a little black and white animal is wandering through the yard…

And it carries one of the most unforgettable defense systems in the entire animal kingdom 👀💨

🦨 Meet the Striped Skunk

Those famous black and white colors aren’t exactly helping it hide…

They’re sending a warning ⚠️

DON’T MESS WITH ME!!! ❌

And if another animal doesn’t get the message?

A skunk has a backup plan 😂💨

But spraying is actually a last resort

Before things get THAT serious, a threatened skunk may…

🦶 Stomp its front feet
🦨 Raise its tail
😤 Arch its back
🦷 Click its teeth

Basically giving whatever is approaching every opportunity to reconsider 😳

But underneath that smelly reputation is an animal that’s surprisingly helpful to have around ❤️

Skunks are omnivores that spend much of the night searching for insects, worms, grubs, small rodents, eggs, reptiles, and other food 🐛🐭🌱

And they’re doing all of that with surprisingly poor eyesight 👀

Instead, they rely heavily on their incredible senses of smell and hearing to investigate the world around them 👃🌙

Unfortunately, that powerful nose can sometimes lead them straight to our homes…

🍗 Pet food left outside
🗑️ Unsecured garbage
🐛 An abundance of insects and grubs
🏡 Shelter beneath decks and porches
🔎 Accessible crawlspaces

All can give a wandering skunk a reason to hang around

And sometimes all it takes is one curious family pet to learn exactly what that black and white warning means 🐕🦨

A close encounter can leave that unmistakable odor clinging to fur, clothing, and anything else unfortunate enough to be nearby 💨😂

And despite the old tomato juice remedy we’ve all heard about… 🍅

Skunk spray is actually an oily chemical defense designed to be incredibly difficult to get rid of

Which makes that little black and white warning even more impressive…

A skunk doesn’t need to be the biggest, fastest, or strongest animal wandering through the darkness 🌙

It just needs everything else to remember what happened the LAST time they got too close 😳🦨

For an animal most of us know for ONE unfortunate reason…

There’s a whole lot more happening beneath those black and white stripes 🦨🌲

They’re hunters, scavengers, pest eaters, and another fascinating piece of the wildlife living right outside our doors

Maybe just admire this one from a distance…

Your nose will thank you in the process 😂🦨💨

🕵️ Pest Detectives

We’re On The Case, Because Pests Leave Clues! 🔎

08/16/2026

☀️ Summer is showing off across North Carolina right now…

And some of its brightest colors are on the move 👀

Across backyards, gardens, and roadsides, flashes of yellow and black have been floating from flower to flower 🌻💛

They’re big, beautiful, and hard to miss…

But what most people don’t realize is that this familiar summer visitor holds a pretty special title here in North Carolina 🌲❤️

🦋 Meet the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail

Those bold black stripes stretching across its yellow wings give this incredible insect its “tiger” name 🐯💛

And in 2012, North Carolina made it official…

🌲🦋 The Eastern Tiger Swallowtail became North Carolina’s State Butterfly ❤️

But those beautiful wings are only half the story 👀

Long before it’s soaring through our backyards, it starts life hidden among the leaves as a tiny caterpillar 🐛🌿

As it grows, its body turns green and two enormous “eyes” begin staring back at anything that gets too close 👀🐍

Except…

Those aren’t actually its eyes 🤯

They’re eyespots that help make this harmless caterpillar look like something much bigger and more intimidating to a hungry predator 🐛➡️🐍

And if that disguise isn’t convincing enough, it has another trick up its sleeve…

When threatened, it can suddenly expose a bright orange, forked organ called an osmeterium 😳🧡

Along with looking pretty strange, it releases a strong odor designed to convince predators that this might not be the meal they were looking for 👃💨

Eventually, the caterpillar forms a chrysalis, a protective casing where one of nature’s most incredible transformations takes place 🐛✨

This process is called metamorphosis…

And what emerges looks almost nothing like the creature that went in 🐛➡️🦋✨

But even after earning those beautiful wings, the tricks aren’t over 👀🔎

While males are almost always that familiar yellow and black, some females emerge with wings so dark they look like an entirely different species 🖤🦋

And there may be a pretty incredible reason why…

Their dark appearance resembles the Pipevine Swallowtail, a butterfly predators learn to avoid because chemicals it gets from its caterpillar food make it distasteful or toxic 🤯🐦

In other words, some Eastern Tiger Swallowtails may survive by looking like something predators already know not to eat 🖤👀

From fake eyes as a caterpillar…

To an entirely different disguise after metamorphosis 🔎

This insect has been fooling predators at nearly every turn 🐛🦋

Those wings then carry them from flower to flower throughout the summer, feeding on nectar and helping move pollen along the way 🌸💛

So the next time you see a flash of yellow and black moving across your yard…

Take a second to watch it 🦋❤️

Because you’re not just watching another beautiful part of a North Carolina summer…

🌲 You’re watching NC’s State Butterfly 💛🦋

Sometimes the most incredible parts of nature are happening right outside our doors…

We just have to slow down long enough to notice them 🌎❤️🔎

🔎 Pest Detectives 🕵️‍♂️

We’re On The Case, Because Pests Leave Clues! 🐛🦋

08/13/2026

🔎 CASE FILE: OPERATION GOING NUTS 🐿️🌰

It started with a simple flush 🚽

Then came the nightmare no one wants to deal with!

Water leaking through the ceiling below 💧

At first glance, it seemed like a broken pipe

So the homeowner did what anyone would do

opened up the ceiling to find the source 🔧

And that’s when this case took a turn!

Something was moving above the drywall 👀

Not debris

Not water

But a VERY angry squirrel 🐿️😳

Suddenly, this wasn’t just a plumbing issue anymore

We had two mysteries:

💧 Why was water leaking through the ceiling?
🐿️ How did a squirrel end up between the first & second floor?

The answer to both was sitting right above the roofline 🔎🏠

Overhanging tree branches gave the squirrel easy access 🌳

And an uncapped plumbing vent gave it a way in

The squirrel entered the vent system… but couldn’t get back out

So it did what squirrels do best

It panicked!

And it chewed 🦷

But here’s the twist 👀

It didn’t chew its way IN…

It chewed its way OUT 😳🐿️

Breaking through a wastewater pipe from the inside and allowing water to escape into the ceiling below 🚽💧

One squirrel had now created a full-blown wildlife + plumbing + arborist + restoration situation 💰🏠

After a very frantic phone call we showed up and set the trap 🪤

And within 36 hours, the suspect was caught!

At 5 AM, no less😂📞🐿️😴💤🛌🥱🫩

But here’s the real takeaway 🔎

This entire chain reaction could have most likely been prevented with a simple plumbing vent cap costing under $20 😳

$20 DOLLARS!!!!!!💰💵🤑💸🪎

One small missing cover… turned into thousands in damage and a claim to their homeowners insurance!

That’s why preventative wildlife exclusion matters 🏠🐿️

At Pest Detectives, we look for the clues BEFORE they turn into cases 🔎

Because sometimes the difference between a $20 fix…

and a full-blown disaster…

Is noticing what the squirrel would notice before they do! 🐿️💰

Pest Detectives🕵️‍♂️

🔎 We’re On The Case, Because Pests Leave Clues!

08/12/2026

🏆🔎 PEST DETECTIVES MADE THE FINAL BALLOT! 🕵️‍♂️🐜🐝🪳🐭🕵️‍♀️

Because of YOUR nominations, Pest Detectives has officially advanced to the final voting round for Best Pest Control in the Twin Counties! 🎉❤️

To see our small, locally owned company on that ballot alongside some of the most established names in our area is something we’re incredibly proud of ❤️

And we couldn’t have gotten here without YOU 🕵️‍♂️🕵️‍♀️🔎

Now we need your help one more time! 🏆

🗳️ You can vote once EVERY DAY through August 23 at noon!

🔎 Follow the link below
🏠 Select Home Improvement
🐜 Scroll down to Pest Control
🕵️‍♂️ Cast your vote for Pest Detectives!

https://rockymounttelegram.secondstreetapp.com/Best-of-the-Twin-Counties-2026/gallery/?group=555330

You helped get this little local company onto the ballot…

Now let’s see just how far we can take it! 🏆🔎🐜

Thank you for believing in Pest Detectives and continuing to support local ❤️

🕵️‍♂️🔎🐜 We’re On The Case, Because Pests Leave Clues! 🐭🐝🔎🕵️‍♀️

Check it out now!

08/09/2026

Some spend their lives building a fortune… Others bury theirs in the backyard 🌰

And you have to respect the hustle 👀

Across North Carolina, one of our most familiar neighbors spends its days:

🌳 Racing through the treetops
⚡ Balancing across power lines
🌰 Hiding a small fortune beneath our feet

We’re talking about the Eastern Gray Squirrel 🐿️

An animal most of us have seen thousands of times, but probably never stopped to truly appreciate 🔎

Because pound for pound, these little guys are INCREDIBLE athletes 💪🐿️

Powerful hind legs can launch them from branch to branch

Sharp claws keep them gripping the bark 🌳

And that famous bushy tail?

It isn’t just for looks 👀

It helps with balance, communication, warmth, and even controlling their body as they sail through the treetops 🐿️💨

But squirrels have another trick that almost looks impossible

Their ankles can rotate enough to help them climb DOWN a tree HEADFIRST! 😳🌳

And somehow, their athletic ability might not even be the most impressive thing about them 🧠

Because when it comes to that buried fortune, squirrels know their business 🌰👀

They use spatial memory to help relocate food they buried months earlier

But apparently, even squirrels have trust issues 😂

If they think another squirrel might steal their food, they’ve been observed digging a hole and pretending to bury their prize 🌰

Then they cover the EMPTY hole back up 🍂

And take the real food somewhere else 🐿️💨

That’s not just hiding lunch

That’s a DECOY operation 🔎😂

But even the best detectives lose track of a clue occasionally

And one forgotten acorn 🌰

Can eventually become…

🌱

🌳

A brand-new tree

Those forgotten caches help squirrels disperse seeds and shape the forests around us 🌎🐿️

Which raises a VERY important question

📍Raleigh is known as the “City of Oaks”🌳

So exactly how much credit do we owe the squirrels? 😂🌰

But here’s where this story takes a turn 👀

Because the SAME abilities that make squirrels incredible in the forest can make them incredibly destructive around our homes 🏠

They can climb

They can jump

And being rodents, they can GNAW 🐿️🦷

Their front teeth never stop growing

Which means chewing isn’t bad behavior

It’s biology 🧬

And unfortunately, our homes offer plenty of options:

🪵 Wood
🏠 Soffits
💨 Vents
🔨 Roofing materials
⚡ Even electrical wiring 😬

Then there’s the attic

Warm ☀️
Dry 🏠
Protected from predators 🛡️

To us, it’s part of the house

To a squirrel?

It can look an awful lot like a hollow tree 🌳🐿️

And once they move in, that fluffy little neighbor can cause THOUSANDS of dollars in damage 💰😳

Which helps explain one final clue…

☎️ Squirrels are the NUMBER ONE call wildlife control agents receive! 🐿️

Not because they’re bad animals

Quite the opposite ❤️

They’re intelligent
They’re adaptable
They’re incredible athletes

And they’re REALLY good at being squirrels 🌳🐿️

Sometimes our homes just happen to get in the way 🏠

So the next time you see one burying its fortune in the backyard 🌰

Take a second to appreciate just how incredible that little animal really is 🐿️❤️

Just preferably from the OTHER side of the roofline 😂🏠

Pest Detectives 🕵️‍♂️

🔎 We’re On The Case, Because Pests Leave Clues!

08/02/2026

🍂 August has officially arrived in North Carolina…

And so has one of its largest insects 👀

Across our state, homeowners begin noticing a massive wasp hovering low over their lawns, flower beds, sidewalks, and driveways 🐝

At first…

It almost looks like it’s patrolling the yard 😳

But if you follow the clues… 🔎

You’ll discover it’s there for a very specific reason…

🐝 We’re talking about the Eastern Cicada Killer

Despite growing to nearly 2 inches long, this giant wasp isn’t searching for people…

It’s searching for one of the loudest sounds of the North Carolina summer 🎵

Cicadas

What happens next is a survival strategy millions of years in the making 🌎

🎯 The female locates a cicada high in the trees

⚡ She attacks with incredible precision, delivering a sting that paralyzes the cicada without killing it

💪 She then carries or drags a cicada that’s often heavier than she is

🕳️ Finally, she returns to an underground burrow she dug herself, where the cicada becomes food for the next generation

Now here’s the part that really blows most people’s minds 🤯

Before she ever lays an egg…

She already knows whether it will become a male or a female

👦 Male larvae usually receive one cicada

👧 Female larvae often receive two or three, because they’ll grow much larger

🥚 She lays a single egg…

🚪 Then seals the chamber forever

Everything that larva will need to survive has already been provided before it ever hatches 👀

But there’s another clue hiding in plain sight 🔎

Those giant wasps buzzing low over your yard…

Flying toward you…

Even seeming to challenge you…

Are usually males

And despite all that confidence…

They don’t even have a stinger 😲

Their entire job is to defend a territory while searching for females, leaving the real hunting to them

From early summer into early fall, one of North Carolina’s most remarkable hunting stories is unfolding in our own backyards 🍂

So the next time one hovers over your lawn… you’ll know exactly what it’s looking for 🐝

🕵️‍♂️ Pest Detectives

We’re On The Case, Because Pests Leave Clues! 🔎🐝

07/26/2026

🇺🇸One final stop on our journey through North Carolina’s Red, White & Blue ❤️🤍💙

This week, we’re celebrating BLUE 💙

💙 Some of North Carolina’s greatest pest controllers…

Don’t work for a pest control company 🕵️‍♂️👀

They’ve been doing it for millions of years 🌎

Flying over ponds, lakes, marshes, streams, and backyards throughout North Carolina is one of our state’s most spectacular insects…

We’re Talking About The Blue Dasher 💙

At first glance…

It just looks like another dragonfly 😌

But don’t let it’s size fool you 👀

The Blue Dasher is an aerial predator built for speed, precision, and agility ✈️🎯

Mosquitoes 🦟

Gnats

Flies 🪰

Midges

Small flying insects 🪲

They’re all on the menu 😳

Its enormous eyes can see in nearly every direction at once 👀

Its four wings move independently, allowing it to hover, fly backward, stop almost instantly, and change direction in the blink of an eye ⚡️

But here’s the part that will really blow your mind 🤯

Long before people 👨

Long before mammals 🦣

Long before the very first dinosaur ever walked the Earth 🦖

Dragonflies were already ruling the skies 🌎💙

They’ve been flying across our planet for more than 300 million years 😳

That’s over 65 million years before the first dinosaurs ever existed 🤯

☄️ They survived mass extinctions

🧊 They survived ice ages

🌍 They watched entire worlds change around them

While almost everything else evolved…

The dragonfly’s design worked so incredibly well that it has remained remarkably similar for hundreds of millions of years 💙

Some of their ancient relatives grew to nearly 2½ feet across 😳

With wingspans larger than a Red-tailed Hawk 🦅🤯

The Blue Dasher may be much smaller today…

But every time you see one…

You’re looking at one of nature’s oldest success stories 👀💙

The next time one hovers in front of you…

Take a second to appreciate what you’re really looking at 👀

Because sometimes the most incredible stories in nature aren’t hidden in faraway places 🌎

They’re already flying through our own backyards 💙🦟

❤️ Pest Detectives

🕵️‍♂️ We’re On The Case, Because Pests Leave Clues!

07/19/2026

🇺🇸 Continuing our journey through North Carolina’s Red, White & Blue ❤️🤍💙

This week, we’re celebrating WHITE 🤍

🤍 Some of North Carolina’s greatest hunters don’t roar…

They barely move at all 👀

Standing motionless along ponds, rivers, marshes, lakes, and even roadside ditches throughout North Carolina is one of our state’s most elegant birds 🌾

The Great Egret 🤍

At first glance…

It almost looks too graceful to be a predator 😌

But don’t let those beautiful white feathers fool you 👀

A Great Egret can stand perfectly still for several minutes, patiently waiting for the perfect opportunity 🎯

Then…

⚡️ In the blink of an eye…

Its long neck launches forward like a spring, and its spear-like bill strikes with incredible speed and precision 🎯

Fish 🐟

Frogs 🐸

Crayfish 🦞

Snakes 🐍

Even large insects 🦗

Very few escape once it decides it’s time to hunt.

But their story almost had a very different ending… 😔

In the late 1800s, Great Egrets were hunted by the thousands for their beautiful breeding feathers, which were used to decorate fashionable hats 👒

At the height of the plume trade, an ounce of Great Egret breeding feathers could be worth more than an ounce of gold 😳✨

Some nesting colonies were wiped out before the chicks were even old enough to survive

The public outcry that followed helped inspire some of America’s very first bird protection laws 🇺🇸❤️

Today, the Great Egret has made an incredible comeback and is once again a familiar sight across North Carolina’s waterways 🌎🤍

A reminder that when we protect wildlife…

Nature has an amazing way of recovering ❤️

The next time you see a Great Egret standing perfectly still along the water’s edge…

Take a second look 👀

You might just be watching one of North Carolina’s most patient and precise hunters hard at work 🤍

❤️ Pest Detectives

🕵️‍♂️ We’re On The Case, Because Pests Leave Clues!

07/14/2026

🐝 Well… that’s one way to find Yellowjackets in the walls 😳

Yesterday, our friends over at SERVPRO of Rocky Mount & Tarboro were renovating this home when one of their technicians found out the hard way that they weren’t working alone 🐝

They still had plenty of work to do, and these guys had picked a pretty inconvenient place to live 😂

We opened up the wall, found a GIANT nest tucked inside, and took care of the problem so the crew could safely get back to work!

We even got a little demo done in the process 💪🐝

Big thanks to our friends at SERVPRO for giving us a call and trusting Pest Detectives to help out! We’re always happy to lend a hand when pests decide to join the job site 😂🔎❤️