In my three years as a pest control technician, I have encountered some pretty hair-raising stuff.
Cockroaches, bed bugs, rats, snakes, customers with unrealistic expectations (sorry, but I don’t get paid enough to go into your crawl space and seal up EVERY SINGLE TINY HOLE), you name it.
But I certainly wasn’t prepared for what I stumbled across yesterday.
Backstory: I had a new customer (who shall remain nameless) with a significant mouse issue. I went to said customer’s residence on Monday to assess the situation.
Woo boy, she certainly DID have a mouse issue. There were droppings under the kitchen sink, behind the stove, and in the crawl space.
This wasn’t a tiny house, either. I’d guess that it was well over 2,000 square feet, based on how big the crawl space was.
So I put down some bait stations, some snap traps, and plugged a hole behind the stove (yes, I CAN plug a hole if I have easy access to it *thats what she said*, but if I were to try to plug up every hole in that house it would have taken me at least a week).
The customer asked me if I could come back on Friday to check the traps, and I said I would.
So I went back there yesterday, and I brought one of our home inspectors along to take a look (the crawl space was absolutely jacked up and I thought he might be able to recommend a more significant treatment). He’s trained to look for things like termite activity, wood-decay fungus, moisture issues, etc.
We checked the snap traps (two mice caught since Monday) and the bait stations (every single one had some sort of rodent activity).
Then we made our way to the garage (which I had forgotten to inspect when I was there before).
It was there that I encountered a completely different kind of pest.
There, nestled in the corner of the garage, between the main door and a rickety shelf, was THIS monstrosity:
I about fell out the boat when I saw it. This damn thing’s older than I am!
I took a picture (just in case no one believed me) and then ran to my truck to see if there was a product I could use to counter this smutty pest.
I’ll bet those pervy rodents snuck it in!
In that case, maybe instead of killing all the mice, maybe I should just try to convert them.
Maybe those mice just need…JESUS!
If I could just show them the way of the Lord, then they could leave that house and go preach to other wayward rodents who are under the mistaken notion that happiness and peace can be obtained through old copies of Penthouse.
yonkaholic 