The Pest Control Handbook : The Safe and Sensible Way to Control House and Garden Pests Without Harming Your Family or Your Environment

Explains the six steps of Integrated Pest Management and suggests how to adapt it for home use, and discusses pesticide ingredients

"It is not only possible but essential, we think, to control garden pests without creating needless hazards to health and environment." That philosophy is made workable in this timely book, based on a four-year investigation of pesticide components by Hansen and Consumers Union. The prescription? Not a banning of all chemical treatments, but a careful selection of the least baleful, and some reasonable advice to the contrary. This large and sensible book is likely to be in demand. Without belaboring points or righteously trying to convert, the authors explain what toxicity is and document its dangers, before setting out on the real work of the volume: offering specific direction to lawn and garden keepers, as well as a substantial rundown on standard outdoor pests. For example, the Japanese beetle. No one can fault the Union for lightheadedness: "Look closely at the underside of the grubs," we're commanded. "There is a V-shaped arrangement of stiff hairs on the last abdominal segment" belonging to the Japanese beetle alone--and we're expected to get it straight. Advice in similar detail is served up in discussions of slugs, weeds, spiders, wasps, gophers, rats and squirrels.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Hansen, an ecologist with Consumers Union, has addressed this book on home pest control primarily to home dwellers and gardeners, offering practical advice for dealing with pests that affect the lawn, garden, household, and pets. Similar in coverage and approach to William Olkowski and others' Common-Sense Pest Control ( LJ 5/1/91), which nevertheless goes into greater scientific detail, Hansen's book stresses use of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) as the most reasonable and the safest means of control. This involves regular monitoring to determine the point at which pest damage is no longer tolerable and then usually using a combination of methods to bring a particular pest under control. Pesticides or "least-toxic" chemical controls are employed if necessary, but only as a last resort. A major strength of this guide is the inclusion of many charts listing numerous pest control products (by brand) and their active ingredients, and Consumers Union does not hesitate to recommend certain brands over others. Due to the interest in safer methods of pest control, there should be considerable demand for this book in public libraries.
- William H. Wiese, Iowa State Univ. Lib., Ames
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.