Talstar P Professional Insecticide - Questions & Answers

For the initial application and in areas where pest populations are high you should use 1 oz of Talstar per gallon of water for indoor and outdoor use. For maintenance applications you can use 1/2 ounce of Talstar per gallon of water.

The manufacturer gives Talstar P  a shelf life of 3 years as long as you keep the top on the bottle and you do not store it in direct sunlight or in extreme temperatures.

It depends on the pest you are treating for, but for the most part you would typically use 1 oz. per gallon of water.  The bottle of Talstar P comes with a convenient measuring device on the bottle for easy use.

Talstar P is safe to use around animals as long as they are out of the area while you are spraying. They can return as soon as the area is dry. Talstar P is odorless, dries clear, leaves no stains, is non-irritating to the skin, and will not break down easily with rainfall.

Termidor SC is the #1 termite product on the market. When used as an in-ground barrier treatment, Termidor SC will protect your home or business for over 10 years. Termidor SC is completely undetectable by termites and once termites touch it they contact, ingest and spread the termiticide until it eliminates the entire colony. Termidor SC controls all types of termites including subterranean, formosan, and drywood termites. Talstar P lasts for about 5 years in the ground and works as a repellent, killing only those insects that come into contact with the treated area.

Most of the time you can apply all of those types of products together and apply them at the same time so long as all the products label of the items you are using allow tank mixing. While it shouldn't harm a yard to do this, and many companies will apply multiple products together, separating the sprays even by a little can be easier on the lawn health. We would suggest using something like a fungicide by itself unless you have insect and disease damage occuring to the lawn at the same time (as in grubs, chinch bugs, etc), otherwise mix those together for applying. Then you can use a fertilizer or herbicide afterwards by a few days or even a week to not overload the lawn with chemicals.

The Talstar P product label allows you to use 1/4 fl oz - 1 fl oz per gallon of water for indoor and outdoor spraying. We recommend using the 1 fl oz per gallon of water usage rate for the fastest knockdown and longest lasting residual. Please refer to the Talstar P product label for complete usage instructions.

Talstar P should be used at the highest concentration of 1 oz of Talstar per gallon of water for bedbug treatments. According to the product label: "Thorough application should be made to crack and crevices where evidence of bed bugs occurs. This includes bed frames, box springs, inside empty dressers and clothes closets and carpet edges, high and low wall moldings and wallpaper edges. Do not use this product on bed linens, pillows, mattresses or clothes. Remove all clothes and other articles from dressers or clothes closets before application. Allow all treated areas to thoroughly dry before use. Not recommended for use as sole protection against bedbugs. If evidence of bedbugs is found in/on mattresses, use products approved for this use." As you can see the Talstar P manufacturers do not recommend that you use Talstar P by itself to get rid of bedbugs. The other products that you will need to use in combination with the Talstar to effectively treat for bedbugs are all included in our New York Bedbug Kit. You will need to treat every 7-10 days to help break the infestation cycle. You may also find it helpful to read our Bedbug Treatment Guide as it contains a lot of useful information regarding where and how to treat for bedbugs.

Talstar P would be your best general insecticide for your yard. It is labeled for just about any insect you could have a problem with including ants, roaches, beetles, mosquitoes, and many others. Talstar P can be used in a hose end sprayer but can be a little thick so may need a touch of water added to thin it a bit.

If you are looking to get rid of the weeds and grass so you can reseed you should use a glyphosate product such as Glyphosel Pro. This is a non-selective herbicide that will kill the weeds and anything other foliage it is sprayed on. You can reseed after 14 days. Do not directly spray the trees or allow drift to get on the trees to avoid damage.

Yes. Talstar is labeled for and will help eliminate bees. To use Talstar P for carpenter bee control you should mix 1 oz of Talstar per 1 gallon of water and spray the areas where you have noticed activity such as the eaves, fascia boards, mouldings, overhangs, or siding. You should reapply the Talstar P once a month through the warm season for best results. Please note that Talstar P will not offer an instant knockdown of insects, it will take several minutes to a few hours for them to die after they come into contact with treated areas. We also recommend dusting the carpenter bee holes with a dust such as Tempo Dust to help kill any larva inside. Do not plug the holes for at least 30 days after dusting to prevent the developing larva from drilling a new whole to exit.

When applying Talstar or most other insecticides, you want to make sure the product has at least 6 hours of full dry time prior to rain or watering to ensure it is completely rainfast. After 6 hours the product will typically hold up to standard outdoor elements roughly 30 days, sometimes more. However during heavy rain seasons throughout the year, you may have to reapply at 21 day intervals and reapply after extremely heavy monsoon rains. A heavy application of Talstar will be needed for crickets to help penetrate to the layers of soil where the eggs are to control prior to adulthood. You also need to create a wider barrier for scorpions than you do for general insect control. For most pests you would spray 2-3 feet up on the foundation and 2-3 feet out on the ground as well as other harborage points in the yard. For scorpions, it takes a much wider barrier and heavier spray as their exoskeleton is thicker and requires more time spent on the chemical for it to affect them. You would still spray 3 feet up but roughly 6-10 feet out on the ground and heavily around mulch or any rock landscaping. A better product than Talstar for Scorpions in particular would by Cy-Kick CS. It is our number one product for scorpion control and it also covers all the same insects as Talstar and holds up to the outdoor elements a little better. Please let us know if you have any other questions.

Yes. Talstar P can be safely used around pets as long as you follow the label instructions; all pets need to be out of the area while application is being made and they can return as soon as the application is dry. Talstar P will kill scorpions indoors and outdoors, but our most popular scorpion products are Demon WP and Cy-Kick CS. Both of these products will stay up on the surface of whatever material you are spraying, making the insecticide more available for the scorpion to come in contact with it. All of the insecticides on our site are safe to use around pets (unless otherwise noted) as long as you follow the product label.

A product like Talstar P can be used to control midges (another term for blind mosquitoes) outdoors.  You can spray window screens, doors, bushes, and plants around the home to help keep midges away.  An aerosol pyrethrin spray such as 565 Plus or Microcare can be used to control midges inside the home. 

Talstar P will kill stinkbugs. You should dilute one ounce of Talstar P per gallon of water. You will use a hand pump sprayer to apply the solution on all door frames, window frames, areas where utilities (cables, pipes, wires) enter into the structure, a band of soil 6 to 10 feet adjacent to the structure, also to a height of 2 to 3 feet on the foundation where pests may be active or may find entrance. As the stink bugs crawl over the treated area, they will receive a lethal does of the insecticide and usually die within a few hours. You should treat every month starting in August and ending in November for best results.

Talstar is great for 99% of bugs that might enter your home, but ants are especially difficult to get rid of.  This is because an ant colony can reproduce new ants almost faster than you can kill them.  Talstar will only kill the ants it touches.  The key though to ant removal is eliminating the nest.  Most of the time you have no idea where the nest is.  So, you have to use a product that will not kill the ants right away so they will take it back to the colony and spread it around, eliminating the source.  This is where ant baits come in.  Ant baits are a food source that the ants in your kitchen will eat and take back to the colony.  It will not kill them right away.  This is the only true way to eliminate your ant problem is to kill them at the source.  If you do not kill the colony, you will continue to battle them all summer.  One important note is you need to stop spraying the Talstar until you get some ant bait, and do not spray until after your ants are gone.  If you continue to spray the Talstar, the ants will die before they get back to the colony with the bait.  Our most popular ant elimination product is our complete ant kit.  It comes with an ant granular bait to apply outside around the house, and a gel bait to apply in your kitchen.  It has a very high success rate and is our most popular ant kit. 

Talstar P is specifically labeled (page 4 of the product label) for a number of medically significant spiders including Black Widow, Brown Recluse and Hobo Spiders. It is important to remember that Talstar P does not give an immediate knockdown. It works over a period of several hours to kill spiders that have come into contact with the product.

I would imagine that your dogs may eat some grass but probably not a lot of it at once.  Talstar, when mixed with water is only strong enough to kill small insects, like ants.  Your dogs would have to eat a truckload of grass most likely to get sick, and they would probably get much more sick from the grass then the Talstar.  However, of course we recommend anything you can do to minimize your dogs from eating the grass.  The other thing you could do is not broadcast the spray over the whole lawn, but treat the ant mounds individually so the grass in between the mounds is free from spray.  Hopefully your dogs don't eat dirt mounds also.

We make product recommendations based on the type of of area that is being sprayed and also the type of pest that needs to be eliminated. We would need more specific information to be able to tell you why we made the recommendation that we made in that Q&A. We can tell you that for termites and ants in outdoor situations on or close to a structure we almost always recommend Termidor. Termidor has a different active ingredient than Talstar and this active ingredient allows the ants or termites to pick the product up on their bodies and move it back to the nest and spread it to the other insects. Talstar on the other hand will only kill the insects that come into direct contact with treated surfaces. Also Termidor will last about twice as long as Talstar when used as a termite barrier in a trenching treatment. Please let us know if you have more questions about Talstar vs Termidor

Space spray refers to spraying the product into the air instead of directing the product onto a surface. The way you applied Talstar is called a broadcast spray and it is also prohibited by the Talstar P product label for indoor applications. Talstar P should only be used as a crack and crevice spray or spot spray (spot spaying means to make an application to an area that is less than 2 ft x 2 ft). We do carry products that are specifically formulated for fleas on indoor floors. Ultracide and Precor 2000 are always top choices for this type of application. If you prefer to use concentrates Onslaught and Permethrin SFR 36.8% are both labeled to be used indoors as a broadcast spray for flea infestations. We do recommend you add an insect growth regulator such as Precor IGR or Archer IGR to Onslaught or Permethrin SFR to help stop the breeding cycle of fleas while you are trying to eliminate the infestation. An IGR is already included in the aerosol products.

Talstar P is a broad spectrum insecticide that works well on most types of insects that invade structures including roaches and earwigs. Roach infestations will usually require you to use additional products to get the infestation under control. You will need to use a roach bait gel such as MaxForce FC Roach Bait Gel. According to the product label, you should place small dots of bait every 10-12 inches directly in cracks and crevices on and under counter tops, in cabinets, cupboards, drawers and food pantries, around dishwashers, refrigerators, sinks, pipes and baseboards.  This will help get rid of the roaches that inhabit places where you cannot apply sprays. We also recommend that you use an insect growth regulator indoors such as Gentrol IGR. You can mix Gentrol in the same gallon of water that you mix the Talstar P in for indoor use. Gentrol will help stop the juvenile roaches from coming into sexual maturity which will help break the breeding cycle while you are trying to rid your home of this pest. Outdoors Talstar P by itself should be sufficient for all of the pests that you mentioned.