Chinchilla bugs live in the thatch layer and absorb plant nutrients while injecting a toxin that kills the grass blade. The result is small dead patches that will gradually expand to engulf an entire lawn. For more than seven years, the pests have plagued many green spaces in the Southeast, but now lawn care companies are fielding calls from homeowners across the city. James Szojka is the owner of Yard Dawgs Lawn Care and says the bugs are colonizing by the thousands. “We have customers in Chestermere, Airdrie,” he said. “We’ve never seen chinchillas spread the way they have so far this season.” Szojka says chinchillas are most active in the hot, dry summer months and quickly migrate to surrounding healthy lawns. “What is really difficult is that in winter they are not killed by our cold, even – 30 C,” he said. “They hibernate, hide under trees and bushes just for the next season, and then come out and start multiplying.” Bruce and Nancy Crow live in the southeast community of Copperfield and knew pests were prevalent in their city block, but didn’t think they were the cause of their lawn problems. “I thought I had just peed like a dog in the front yard,” Bruce said. “I scraped it up and dug it up and put some seed in it, watered it again and it just didn’t come back but (the dead spot) just got bigger and bigger.” He tried a number of home remedies discovered on the Internet, but none worked. He tried products from garden centers with little success but the pests persisted and continued to kill his lawn. “We go out at night when the weather is very hot,” he said. “Then you see the bugs crawling on the sidewalk on the cement, so you know they’re migrating everywhere, you can’t stop them.” Nathan Tobias is the operations manager at Yard Dawgs and oversees seven technicians. Over the past two weeks, more than 200 lawns have been treated. He says it’s important to have an expert come in and inspect a lawn to determine the exact cause of the problem. “Sometimes people don’t even know they have them and I let them know,” Tobias said. “It’s important to catch it before it gets worse, so by doing these inspections, there’s no harm done, and it’s extremely important to know what’s really going on in your lawn.” Tobias and his team use a commercial grade pesticide to rid a lawn of bugs. “We do a full blanket spray, which means we cover every square inch of the lawn,” he said. “But the biggest thing is that we actually target those areas that look very disturbed to make sure we soak that area well to kill them all.” Szojka says that when a homeowner knows their lawn is infested with insects, it’s important to let neighbors know so a plan can be put in place to eradicate the pests from the community. “Fall aerations are very important for disturbing the turf itself and decompressing the soil, opening it up so it can essentially breathe,” he said. “This will make the conditions less prone to chinch bugs in the future, so fall airing is one of the best things homeowners can do on an annual basis to make sure chinch bugs don’t come to stay at the Airbnb.” them when it’s very hot in July and August.” Once a lawn is treated, the dead grass will not grow back, but must be replaced with turf or seeding. “It’s a hit to the budget trying to keep up with that every year,” Bruce said. “I think if we all get together for a year (and eliminate chinchilla infestations) we might be able to take a year off every once in a while, right.”
