When Perception Becomes the Pest: Why Knowledge Matters in Managing Arthropod Pests

By Samantha Kiever, Research Entomologist, Insects Limited

In my last article, I explored how education and exposure can reduce fear of insects. Fear, as I wrote, is loud; knowledge is steady. But fear doesn’t just affect how we feel about insects. It also affects how we respond to them.

And according to a 2018 review published in Entomologia Experimentalis et Applicata by Schoelitsz and colleagues, those responses can make or break the success of an integrated pest management (IPM) program.

In this article, I outline the key findings of the study and address how education can undermine common shortcomings in attempts at managing pests.

Weak Identification

Unsurprisingly 85% of the general population are aware of bed bugs. If you had to guess, what percentage of the general population would you think is able to correctly identify a bed bug? Would you say maybe 70%? Or maybe 30%?

The real answer is closer to 12.5%.

This means that for a large proportion of the population, bed bugs feel like some unseen, unknown boogeyman that could be lurking around any corner at any time like the shadows of tree limbs appearing as though clawing fingers cast upon a wall late at night.

Similar confusion often happens with other insects in the home: a random moth from outside confused for a clothes moth, a drugstore beetle confused for a wood-boring pest. When the problem is not identified properly, the wrong solutions are often employed. For example, a fogger aimed to treat a carpet for clothing moths whilst there’s a pantry full of Indian meal moths ignores the source of the issue entirely and is doomed to fail from the start.

This is why education is critical. If an insect can’t be accurately identified, effective decisions can’t be made. Whether that be learning how to identify a pest or where to get a pest identified, of course, depends on the level of investment and available resources of the person searching.

Unrealistic Thresholds

In agriculture, thresholds decide when action is necessary. Intervention is justified when pest numbers cross a point of economic damage. In homes, however, the threshold is almost always zero. Two little beetles or one moth, or even one little cast skin of a carpet beetle from who knows how long ago equates to a full-blown infestation in the public’s mind.

While the expectation of zero doesn’t undermine the actual reduction in arthropod presence achieved, it can alter a client’s perception of the success of a program. Education reframes thresholds for clients and pest management DIYers alike and can shift from a zero-tolerance attitude to a reduction mindset focused on risk mitigation. Proper knowledge of the risks associated with pests can also reduce fear as well as impart patience as numbers are gradually reduced. Suddenly, seeing two in a week isn’t as panic inducing as it was before. After all, how often is it that one hopes to see no arthropods immediately after calling a pest management professional or applying their treatment?

Fear Driven Chemical Overuse

The Wageningen review showed that fear prompts people to reach for sprays and foggers first. In some cases, this even led to documented cases of illness from misuse. This can also cause issues for professionals called in after a valiant fight on the part of the client. If the client reactionarily and chronically misapplied the same insecticide over and over again, the professional could be dealing with a population with developing resistance without even knowing it.

This reaction is led by fear. Fear pushes people to act without considering consequences. Knowledge, by contrast, offers grounding in a seemingly uncertain situation. By teaching that chemicals are only one tool among many, not only the first or only response, chemical overuse can be reduced whilst steering both households and professionals towards safer, more sustainable IPM practices.

Poor Information Sources

According to the 2018 study, most households don’t turn to universities, extension services, or entomologists for advice. Instead, they rely on neighbors, store clerks, or advertisements. From personal experience, internet forums and support groups are also becoming increasingly common echo chambers of bad advice that people often turn to for information. Unsurprisingly, this often leads to quick fixes that don’t solve the issue or straight up useless myths being perpetuated, much to the chagrin of the frustrated party seeking advice in the first place.

For instance, there’s been a recommendation floating around the internet lately to sprinkle baking soda around like insecticidal dust or diatomaceous earth without any amendments for a variety of insects including carpet beetles and clothing moths. The information that this premise is built upon relies on the baking soda being mixed with other tasty stuff for insects such as cockroaches to ingest. Naturally, a carpet beetle nor a clothing moth is going to respond to a pile of baking soda by saying, “Yum. I’m going to have me some of that for lunch.”

This is where this whole conversation about education has the potential to fall apart, I suppose.

How do you proclaim the importance of education whilst dissing all of the most common sources of information that people turn to? It’s simple, or at least in theory it is.

Simply educating folks on how to educate themselves will empower them to make good decisions on acquiring good information to further make good management decisions.

The Most Important Finding: Education Works

The study’s most hopeful finding was also its simplest: a single educational session about cockroaches measurably reduced infestations. In other words, knowledge directly improved outcomes. This wasn’t because folks just got smarter about how to use pesticides. It also was because they bought into the idea of modifying their environment to make it less hospitable to pests, which is the hardest part of IPM to sell clients because of the indirectness an lack of immediacy of the approach.

If that can happen after just one session, the potential for broader, repeated education is enormous. Teaching clients about life histories turns vague fears into clear, solvable challenges. Demonstrating a monitoring program and setting thresholds shifts management from guesswork to science.

Fear is loud, but knowledge is steady. Where fear drives reaction, knowledge builds patience, direction, and most importantly, the ability to be proactive. It keeps both households and professionals from chasing shadows and instead focuses attention on real problems and their real solutions.

Further Reading

Schoelitsz, B., Meerburg, B.G. and Takken, W. (2019), Influence of the public's perception, attitudes, and knowledge on the implementation of integrated pest management for household insect pests. Entomol Exp Appl, 167: 14-26. https://doi.org/10.1111/eea.12739