From the category archives:

In my opinion

Undeniable Proof That Lawn Treatments Are The Devils Tool

For the life of me I’ll never understand why bug companies are in lawn care. Not the insect part – that part I get, but something about loading up your rig in the morning to go off and fight pythium blight just doesn’t seem to fit the mold of a pest control professional. How can [...]

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If You Had A Pest Control Genie What Would You Wish For

We’ve all watched the scene play out, a ship wrecked man in tattered clothes who comes upon a bottle in the sand. Thinking it’s water perhaps or something else, he picks it up, uncorks it and SHAZAAM! Out pops a genie who is so happy to be released that he or she grants the guy [...]

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Urticating Pest Control Accounts

Who would have thought that the mighty Tarantula would ever need any other defensive mechanism than it’s appearance just to protect itself? I mean besides the sheer size, these things have fangs that are clearly visible and not something I’d ever want to get close to. Add to that a full coat of hair and [...]

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Pin Stream Pest Control & Seeing Red

I’ve never been accused of having a bland imagination. No ones ever said my conclusions or correlations were so obvious that they could see them coming from a mile away. I’m not sure if that’s a real good thing or not but one thing I can say, that at least when it comes to pest [...]

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Why The Best Pest Technicians Are Thigmotropic

I’m not sure I’d be a good service manager just running behind pest control technicians and grading their work. Big companies like numbers so they may not like my approach. I wouldn’t be an unfair evaluator mind you. I realize that even though pest control is a science, it’s not an exact one. I’m aware [...]

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The Oz Effect In Pest control

An intelligence test sometimes shows a man how smart he would have been not to have taken it. Laurence J. Peter I think sometimes we put to much stock into really smart people. We think just because ‘they’ said it, they surely have considered all the options, weighed the pros and cons and we have [...]

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IPM Aka

In the early days of what we might call “modern pest control”, thoroughness of coverage was the key. The average flea job took an entire gallon of mix (usually Ficam W). Any less and the boss would frown at your lack of efficiency and you were all but guaranteed an unscheduled retreat. Termite work was [...]

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Sand Bags, Shell Games And Successful Pest Control Sales

Pest control sales can be a pretty sweet gig when things are rolling. Nobody questions you about your daily activity, the boss is fairly happy to see you and as long as numbers are adding up in the positive realm you can just about come and go as you please. Have a day or two [...]

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Should Terminix Do A Class Action Suit Against Its Employees?

Since I received this story from a loyal reader I have tried diligently to figure out some in’s and outs so that this article would be fair and unbiased. To be honest, I haven’t found much of anything that supports my initial belief and inclination which was to rag on the ‘mega corp’ while siding [...]

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How Much Pest Control Do You Let Your Customers Do?

Recently on a trip to the Pacific Northwest I was reminded of a service that I thought had gone by the wayside and I just took for granted that it was now my lifelong task. I pulled into a gas station and before I could unbuckle my seat belt there was a man at my [...]

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Two Winters Too Cold For a Jacket-Winter # 1

At one point in my career I came within a whisker of quitting pest control altogether. What started out as such an adventure and my ‘high calling’ had suddenly turned into this free fall of one bad experience after another. In the space of just about a year and a half I went from National [...]

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The Handyman Effect – I Named It You Solve It

Jerry, I’ve got my plumber in today and he’s looking up under dishwashing rack and says you need to bait up there. It’s the worst he’s seen in awhile. Can you get out here today? Hey Stu, my electrician said I have 30 or 40 thousand brown recluse up in the attic and you need [...]

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Undercover Pest Control Stings-Have You Ever Been Set Up?

I’m pretty sure I’m not any more paranoid then the next guy, you know, the one over there who’s been following my every move for the last hour. So I’m sure I just imagined all those times that the customer dropped that $10.00 bill behind the dryer or that folded up piece of cardboard really [...]

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Why Can’t You Kill The Nit Niche King?

There is a pest control job that I’m sure no mega pest control operation would ever consider adding to their resume regardless of the profit margin. That would be hand picking nits and lice out of a clients hair.Eeeccck! In fact, I don’t know any small operations that would be too eager to start a [...]

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