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Tire Swing Principal-led pest management serving Central Alabama, focused on consistency, documentation, and care.

Tire Swing Pest Solutions provides residential and commercial pest management across Central Alabama. Our work is condition-based and focused on identifying the cause of pest activity. We emphasize inspection, prevention, targeted treatment, and clear documentation rather that routine or excessive applications. Clients choose Tire Swing for consistency, follow-through, and a calm, professional experience from start to finish.

If you’ve seen posts about plague and wondered whether the rodents around your home put your family at risk, I understan...
10/17/2026

If you’ve seen posts about plague and wondered whether the rodents around your home put your family at risk, I understand why that would be concerning. Here’s the clear picture from the CDC: plague is serious, but rare in the United States. The CDC reports an average of about five human cases each year, and more than 80% of U.S. cases have been bubonic. Naturally occurring cases are concentrated in rural areas of the West.

Bubonic plague is usually spread by the bite of an infected flea. Pneumonic plague affects the lungs and can spread through respiratory droplets from an infected person or animal during close contact. Rodents are part of the disease’s natural cycle, but seeing rodents around a property does not, by itself, mean anyone has been exposed to plague.

There isn’t a plague vaccine currently available in the U.S., but antibiotics can treat the disease, and public health officials can recommend preventive antibiotics after a significant exposure. According to CDC maps, naturally occurring plague is not an expected risk from routine rodent activity here in Alabama.

At Tire Swing, we take rodent concerns seriously and focus on practical steps to protect your home. Rodent control is worthwhile for the property damage and other health concerns rodents can cause, without assuming that every rodent problem means plague.

🍂 Fall is here. The mosquitoes haven’t necessarily gotten the memo.It’s October 8, and cooler mornings don’t automatical...
10/08/2026

🍂 Fall is here. The mosquitoes haven’t necessarily gotten the memo.

It’s October 8, and cooler mornings don’t automatically mean mosquito season is over. Here in Central Alabama, warm weather and available breeding water can keep mosquitoes active well into fall.

Here’s why those bites matter: female mosquitoes take blood meals to obtain the nutrients needed to produce eggs. While conditions remain favorable, they can continue feeding and reproducing. Some species lay eggs that can survive winter and hatch when conditions improve.

That means mosquito prevention still deserves a place on your fall checklist:

• Empty and scrub birdbaths, buckets, plant saucers, and other water-holding containers weekly.
• Keep gutters clear so water can drain.
• Use an EPA-registered insect repellent according to its label when spending time outside.

For our current MosquitoGuard clients, please let us know if you’re noticing increased activity between visits. Your observations help us identify areas that need attention.

If mosquitoes are cutting your porch time short, send Tire Swing a message. We’ll help you understand what may be contributing to the activity and discuss options for your property.

Enjoy the fall weather—and keep an eye on those little uninvited guests. 🍁

Some may remember when Chewy was unknowingly shipping German Roaches to all their customers - they were living in the ca...
10/07/2026

Some may remember when Chewy was unknowingly shipping German Roaches to all their customers - they were living in the cardboard boxes.

I always recommend opening packages outside the house and getting rid of the cardboard asap!

Came across this post today….

Best clients on the planet! ❤️
10/07/2026

Best clients on the planet! ❤️

I recently saw software being promoted to service companies with a big selling point: show clients what you found, expla...
09/30/2026

I recently saw software being promoted to service companies with a big selling point: show clients what you found, explain what you did, and include photos.

Well, this is awkward. We’ve been doing that at Tire Swing without realizing we were supposed to give it a fancy name.

Your service report tells you what we found, what we treated, and what needs attention—with photos when they help tell the story.

Because “I came by and sprayed some stuff” leaves a few questions unanswered.

You deserve to know what’s happening around your property and what we’re doing about it. Around here, that comes with the service.

Apparently, we need to alert the marketing department.

That’s also me. I’ll pass it along.

- Stewart

09/23/2026

Every fire ant mound in the South traces back to one place. Mobile.

The first to arrive was the black imported fire ant, which showed up around the Port of Mobile about 1918. The one that really took over, the red imported fire ant, came later. Scientists place its arrival sometime between the mid 1930s and early 1940s, most likely riding in soil used as ballast on cargo ships from South America and dumped on the Mobile waterfront.

From there it spread outward, one mound at a time. Today red imported fire ants are found in all 67 Alabama counties, and USDA counts more than 367 million acres infested across 14 states and Puerto Rico. The entire state of Alabama sits inside a federal fire ant quarantine, which is why nurseries and sod farms have to certify shipments leaving the area.

There is a remarkable footnote. Around 1942, a 13-year-old Mobile boy named Edward O. Wilson found a colony of the new ants in a vacant lot near his house and noticed they were something unusual. A few years later, as a University of Alabama student, he did a statewide survey of the fire ant for the state, and that report became his first scientific publication.

That boy grew up to be E.O. Wilson, one of the most famous biologists of the 20th century, the Harvard scientist who spent his life studying ants and won two Pulitzer Prizes. He did not bring the fire ant to America or discover it here, but he was among the first to document it, and it started in his own neighborhood.

So the next time you step in a mound at the beach house, you can blame a cargo ship on the Mobile River nearly a century ago.

09/23/2026

The insect almost everyone squashes without a second thought spends weeks underground doing something many vertebrates don't even bother with, raising its young alone.

The female lays around 50 eggs in an underground chamber and doesn't abandon them. She licks each one individually to remove mold that would otherwise kill them, repositions them as temperature shifts, and defends them with her pincers.

Separated from her, those eggs hatch at a far lower rate, and she keeps caring for the newly hatched nymphs too, something genuinely rare in an insect with no colony structure.

The pincers are actually the least dangerous part of the whole animal. They don't sting, carry no venom, and transmit nothing. She uses them to startle predators, grip prey, and during courtship.

Earwigs work at night, and they work in the gardener's favor: eating aphids, mites, slug eggs, larvae, and decomposing plant matter.

Worth being honest about though: it's omnivorous, and in large numbers it will nibble on flower petals, ripe fruit, and tender shoots. The difference between ally and pest is density, not species.

If you want them around without letting numbers get out of hand, a yogurt cup stuffed with straw and hung upside down on a branch makes a great shelter, one per tree.

Before you squash the next one, take a look at its abdomen. It might be in the middle of the only kind of parenting it'll ever do 🐛

09/20/2026

Wolf spiders do not wait around for dinner to land in a web.

They patrol on foot, using speed and sharp eyesight to chase down insects and other small arthropods hiding along floors, garages, basements, and garden edges.

That makes the spider sprinting across your room less of a freeloader and more of an unpaid night-shift exterminator.

They usually live outdoors and often wander inside by accident, especially as seasons change.

Once there, anything small enough to catch can become part of the menu.

Terrifying roommate, useful rĂŠsumĂŠ.

Sometimes the thing you want gone is busy hunting everything else you want gone.

Tire Swing Seasonal Invader Forecast 2026Historically, Peak Seasonal Invader Activity Begins NowWe’ve arrived at the poi...
09/19/2026

Tire Swing Seasonal Invader Forecast 2026

Historically, Peak Seasonal Invader Activity Begins Now

We’ve arrived at the point in the season when Central Alabama typically experiences its highest level of seasonal invader activity.

If you begin noticing Asian lady beetles or brown marmorated stink bugs gathering on sunny exterior walls over the next several weeks, you’re seeing a natural annual migration that’s been occurring long before any of our homes were built.

One important thing to remember:

Not every insect you see outdoors needs to be eliminated.

Many are simply passing through. Others are beneficial. Understanding the difference helps homeowners make better decisions and avoid unnecessary concern.

As always, every season is a little different. Weather can speed things up, slow them down, or spread activity over a longer period.

The goal of this series has never been to predict the exact day insects arrive.

It’s to help you understand the season before it arrives.

Thank you for following along with our first Seasonal Invader Forecast.

Tire Swing
A Different Kind of Pest Management

09/19/2026

Fall is around the corner, and that means it is time for football, cooler weather, and yellow jackets. On this episode of Southern Ground, hosts Chip East and Shane Harris are joined by Alabama Extension entomologist Meredith Shrader. She explains why yellow jackets become more aggressive in the fall and shares tips for safely identifying, avoiding, and controlling nests.

Listen to the full episode here: https://www.aces.edu/go/6861

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