Without excuses or lofty explanations of why, I thought it best to let you know that I have failed at my craft on more than one occasion. Pest control is not an exact science as one would think. There are many times where situations dictate you to think outside the box. Move to slow or make the wrong decision and you will fail.
While some of you are undoubtedly sitting there reading my articles and thinking, “Man this guy conquers all”, I would like you to realize that even with 25 years I still fail. I may know the habits and tendencies of a whole host of insects but still sometimes the solution eludes me.
I do my very best to learn from the experience and while it doesn’t happen as often these days, failures still come my way.
Here is one of them.
A very dear friend of mine wanted their home treated for pest control, they had no real issues at the time and for about a year everything was fine. I serviced inside and out and always did what I thought was a good job. That changed.
I got a call from the Mrs. saying she was seeing large ants appear and could I come out. I inspected the area and to my surprise there were quite a few carpenter ants roaming around the living room floor no worse from the wear even though I had recently sprayed. I did, again what I thought was enough to rid them of the ants. It did not help and the ants got worse.
My friend was a laid back guy but after about my 7th trip out and no real results he was getting frustrated. I was now going way beyond ‘just enough’ and pulling out every trick in the book. I went out at night (Carpenter ants are nocturnal), I treated every void I could find, the attic, the trees in the yard, the fence line you name it I did it all. The ants got so bad the Mrs. was putting towels down at the base of her bedroom door to keep them out while they slept. Nothing worked and I was out of anything new to try.
My good friend (still is to this day) still had options and he called me to tell me he was going to try someone new. It was an uncomfortable call to say the least and I know he felt bad but I’m sure I felt worse. It ended there and my confidence was shaken for a while but to be honest I was a little relieved as well.
I never asked him again about it but I wonder what finally happened and what the answer I could never find was. It’s been almost ten years now so I suppose I could ask but I never do. I’d like to say I’m way past that but since I’m writing about I guess not quite 100%.
I take pride in my work as I’m sure you do as well and I endeavor to impart as much helpful knowledge I can on this site. So let me leave you with this.
Lloyd Jones:
Those who try to do something and fail are infinitely better than those who try nothing and succeed.
