Peskies Pest Control Birmingham Alabama Podcast

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Welcome to another episode of Peskies Pest Control podcast here in Birmingham Alabama with Michael and Travis. We do this podcast as a community service for Birmingham, Hoover, Vestavia Hills, Mountain Brook, Helena, Alabaster, Pelham and all other surrounding areas!

Michael Wienecke
Hey, so today on the pesky pest control podcast, I’d like to focus on termites. Termites are something we do a lot of we see a lot of termites, small jobs, big jobs. And today I’ve got my friend Jay Campbell with me. Jay, it was funny, because whenever to Jay’s house and talked him into let me do a termite inspection, got up under there and found the, probably the worst one of the worst termite claim damages I’ve ever seen. So Jay, tell your story, man.

Jay Campbell
It was bad.

It was bad.

Well, I’ve got a crawlspace. I’ve got a crawlspace house and I never go down there. That’s the problem. And so, you know, when I was young, I bought the house and everything and I let my termite bond lapse and, you know, didn’t have termite. What would you call it like a termite bond

Michael Wienecke
where the termite protection?

Jay Campbell
Yeah, it didn’t have the Sentricon and all that kind of good stuff. You know, so younger dogs, just let it go. You started your business and everything. And I was like, Hey, man, come on out. Check it out. And everything. And you know, I had to get under there to where do you kind of crawl? Yeah, that was fun. Yeah.

Michael Wienecke
It’s always good. It’s always good when a homeowner comes under there with us, because I’m like, Man, you can experience this. Yeah. Great.

Jay Campbell
So got up under there. And I’d had some water damage. I think there’s

Michael Wienecke
water down. Yeah, we started noticing a lot of mold. And yeah.

Jay Campbell
So it was a lot of moisture and everything, you know, know what I know now that drops in the termites. And yeah, it was bad. It was really bad. When you’re doing your tap test, or whatever, you could take a screwdriver, just drive it to the side of the, you know, through the side of the home, you know, two by sixes or two by eights or whatever they were, yeah, in the floor joists and everything. So yeah, it was bad. And then we ended up you know, having to tackle the situation, you know, so it was bad. Yeah. But we got it though.

Michael Wienecke
I remember we were sitting there when you when we found out you know, you were telling me about the boat you’re about to buy? I mean, you might you probably gonna have to hold off on the boat. Yeah, I had a lot of plans. there with that. But yes, yes. But it

Jay Campbell
was it was, you know, it is what it is. And you know, that’s what learned a lot. I’ll say that learned a lot. So yeah, it’s crazy. Well,

Michael Wienecke
so as far as having a termite bond, I mean, do you think you would ever not have a termite bond termite coverage on another house? I’ll

Jay Campbell
never do that again. Yeah, I mean, honestly, you know, tell me that, because if you did have if, you know, correct me if I’m wrong, if you have the termite bond, and that happens, the company covers it. I think

Michael Wienecke
maybe it depends on the type of coverage you have exactly. A repair bond if you have a retreat only retreatment only bond. Yeah.

Jay Campbell
So, yeah. So yeah, word of advice. Get your bond.

Michael Wienecke
Well, so, um, walk me through the process of repairing it. I think it’s amazing that you repaired your own house. I mean, you know, you literally took the initiative to tear your floors up, and I mean, just walk me through that.

Jay Campbell
Well, I had a guy come out, there’s actually a buddy of ours. He’s actually a friend of mine. Now here originally your friend. Yeah, buddy of mine. Yeah, Greg Kane, good guy. He come out and looked at it and everything and, um, you know, gave me a quote and everything and I was like, a little bit steeper than I wanted to go you know, and you know, that you know, this obviously, but you know, I work on cars for a living and I talked to my wife and everything and I was like, you don’t really want to spend that money or should I just try it myself, you know, if I can rebuild a total in the backyard in the shop at home, surely I can do something with the house and everything and I got a lot of friends and construction and all that kind of stuff. And, you know, people that I can bounce ideas off of, you know, like, I have a concept of how to do it. Yeah, it’s like a hey, what would code code thing to do here so that way whenever that date does come sell the house and you know, am I in the right in my going down the right path of fixing it and everything so

Michael Wienecke
I’m good Josh. Yeah,

Jay Campbell
Josh you know at the end there’s a lot of people I’ve talked to a lot of people with my bad my bad he knows a lot actually learned a lot that he that he knows a lot about that type stuff and I didn’t realize that Yeah. So yeah, got with dad. He’s got a bunch of friends I’ve talked to my good buddy Josh. I’ve talked to people at work but no friends and you know, they got people and also it was kind of like a and YouTube you know, we were talking about YouTube. Yeah, definitely YouTube a bunch of stuff and yeah, just got in there and just did it just started small and worked my way into it and obviously pulled the floors up and everything and I don’t think I sent you pictures but so the biggest reason I had to jump on it pretty quick was you know Benji was being born. Yeah, he found out we were pregnant. Everything is like, let’s talk I want to get on it now. Right? Right. Um, I don’t think I ever showed you pictures but in his room which you know where it’s at, yeah. The termites that ate into the sub floor itself. It was within a foot of the actual main beam of the house like the main I guess you I call it beam but but main

Michael Wienecke
structure? Here’s some structural damage.

Jay Campbell
Oh yeah, it could have it could have went about another foot, it would have been really, really, really bad.

Michael Wienecke
Well, that’s why I wanted to bring you on here. Because I mean, this is that house is the worst case I’ve ever seen. And I don’t I don’t mean to be mean. I get it. It’s like one of those things. And the cool thing about it was, and I was thinking about this, and I was like, you know, I really started my company. And it was like, what, two years three? I think it was like, after two years, we started doing termites. And your house was like the fourth or fifth house that I kind of inspected. You know, did all that training all that book, we’re looking at all these pictures, and I’m secretly screaming like, yes, you’re excited.

Jay Campbell
I can see it all over your face. You’re excited. Which I mean, it was cool, though. You know, it was Yeah. So the whole time being like,

Hey, man, I gotta get I gotta get pictures. Don’t Don’t Don’t judge me. All right. Yeah, it was. So it was the fourth or fifth house.

Michael Wienecke
It was somewhere around there. I mean, you know, I was I was extremely green. And like I said, Do it try to do everything I could do to learn without actually getting in the field and getting out there and finding something like that?

Jay Campbell
Well, that was probably what once in a lifetime, maybe not once in a lifetime,

Michael Wienecke
but it’s a that’s a rare. It’s hard to find a termite, you know, infestation that completely tears down, you know, almost, really the front side. I mean, and we’re talking the room size was like 203 100 square foot

Jay Campbell
room. Yeah, things like a 10 by 12. And it was

Michael Wienecke
on their wall side of the window. You

Jay Campbell
had or had his room. But then if you it was like his room, but then it was like, in the living room as well. So it was he was there the whole front side of the house. Yeah. So it was bad. Yeah. But then to come to find out there was another water leak, too, that I saw that brought him in, right on the front side from the porch, you know, you know, I’m talking about what the porch came up. So I think that’s what brought them in, originally. Yeah, well, it’s funny. It was it was one man tear of it. She when she you know, obviously, we’re serious and our relationship, so she kind of started staying more at the house and everything. And at that time, it was my daughter for him. Yeah, yeah. Jay, what are these bugs? Oh, no, baby. I think that’s just please dance.

Michael Wienecke
You remember? Yes. I do remember that.

Jay Campbell
I was like, oh, no, it’s all good. Well, then the next year, they came back. And I was at work or something. And she looked it up. That’s when I sent you a picture. So what are these? Like? Do those are? What are you calling warmer? Warmer? Yeah. Oh, Lord, then I think that’s when you came out shortly after that. Yeah. If it was in the sheet rock in the in the two by fours and the walls and the floor joists in which you got the pictures, everything. It’s in the, like, the big window frame and the header in the header? Yeah, almost to the to the roof and everything it was? Yeah.

Michael Wienecke
Well, that’s why I’ve been so excited to bring you on here because it’s, it’s awesome. Getting your perspective because like you own a home, you pay for that home, you worked hard for that home. And to understand, you know, I would never not have a termite bond on my house. Obviously, I know a guy so yeah, but it’s just it’s that important, because that process you went through if you don’t mind? How much were the quotes that you were getting to repair your home house.

Jay Campbell
I’ve had a couple people come out in the highest now. I think the highest now there was some damage in the back as well. And I think all together. Like 50,000 That’s the quote you were getting. Yeah, I got a $50,000 quote. And then I had a guy just for the front side was like 30,000 I think it was Oh, wow. Yeah. So it was pretty expensive. Right

Michael Wienecke
was the highest though.

Jay Campbell
Yeah, I don’t want to throw him under the bus. But Now granted, that was for everything. Right? Right. And I just I didn’t want to swing that. You know, couldn’t swing it. You know, you know I think I’ve got with me doing the work. This is front and back. I’m maybe have eight grand in it.

Michael Wienecke
That’s That’s incredible. What’s that a

Jay Campbell
fifth of what it was a call? Steena? Yeah,

Michael Wienecke
that’s Wow. Yeah, it

Jay Campbell
was maybe eight. Now granted, I had about some tools and stuff to in that. So materials. Probably like six.

Michael Wienecke
Well, it’s also I mean, it’s like I said manage Just you went out and you did something that you didn’t know how to do at all. You’re just like, hey, I’m gonna, I’m gonna just I’m gonna go through this and I’m gonna fix this myself. Dude. I think that’s awesome. Yeah, appreciate it, man. I can’t like when you told me you were doing I was like, I can’t wait to see these pictures, videos. All this so there’s a lot of late nights. Oh, dude. Yes. A lot of late night. I know. I know. I I can’t wait to get on YouTube. Like I said, where we can talk show the pictures and all that because really? I think talking about it doesn’t do it justice unless you can see it. Oh, yeah.

Jay Campbell
I was I was thinking about too. I got some more pictures I’ve tried to send to you too, before you put them up there. But

Michael Wienecke
so let’s talk about the the flying ants. So when when they when they flew out? Did you just spray him with something or how did you treat it? Willy?

Jay Campbell
They I don’t know exactly how termite works and everything. But they were did for some reason. Yeah. Okay. So it was like, assuming they made it and they died after they laid their eggs. I’m assuming not real sure. I’m talking kind of just

Michael Wienecke
so kind of guessing here. Most time they’re flying out. Their wings are gonna break off. You probably saw a ton of wings sheds all around like the windowsill on the floor. I mean, tons tons. It’s amazing. How many of you see, and then they’ll just die. Yeah, they’re just they won’t make it. Yeah,

Jay Campbell
I mean, they didn’t get far. I guess they kind of just hung it. There was so much right there. I guess I just hung out right there. Because it was almost like you have like ladybugs in the house. Yeah, it was just like that. But quote, unquote, flying ants, right? Being swarming termites. So

Michael Wienecke
well. And I mean, do we get so many phones, we get so many phone calls in the summertime when they start swarming? And it’s always, hey, I’ve got an ant problem. There’s an ant problem, or, Hey, it’s a termite problem. It’s an ant problem, because they both can fly the summertime. So yeah, I always call it professional and you know, just get an opinion.

Jay Campbell
Yeah, cuz Honestly, I thought there and yeah, that’s kind of odd to have. You know, was it the queen that has wings and everything? Reproductive care? Okay. I was like, see that many? In the house? I was like, but, of course, the wife she Googled, I was like, Oh, well. All right.

Michael Wienecke
Well, and like I said, it’s just one of those things where you don’t, you don’t pay attention to it. And then, of course, a lot of people don’t get in their crawlspace.

Jay Campbell
Well, that’s the biggest thing is who really wants to get the crawl space? Well, I

Michael Wienecke
don’t have to know. I hate it. Yeah.

Jay Campbell
So it was once I got down there with you. Yeah. And I saw what was going on. I was like, you know, I need to make it more of an effort to get under there. I was I needed to do now speaking of that, just to get into there and check everything out. Yeah, um, yeah. Word of advice to people. If you have a crawlspace get in there and just check everything. And if you don’t feel comfortable, call some

Michael Wienecke
of it. Go check it. Yeah, I agree. Like somebody you trust? Yeah. Yeah. So

Jay Campbell
for us, it’s not going to, you know, try to pull one over on you. Yeah. You know, um, I’ll never forget that. You laughing? I’ll never forget that. Like pictures. I got, I

Michael Wienecke
know. So excited from from a very small YouTube channel. But what was it going with that? Oh, yeah. So like, you know, not know what’s on your crawlspace. I mean, we’ve gone on jobs before where crawling the crawlspace looking at termite damage, and all their pecs lines are just leaking. It’s just a water hose under there. And there’s a swimming pool, and I have no idea. So I would say, you know, just with as our termite inspection, we’re also looking for mold growth. I mean, we’re gonna let you know, things that you can do to fix problems like that, because we’re not a Water Restoration. Come on. Now. Of course. I mean, we have people that we can send that way. Yeah. But I think it’s very important as doing an inspection, you might as well just do everything, you know, make sure that there’s no major leaks you’re seeing, I mean, I’ve seen air ducts, you know, people cooling and heating the crawlspace instead of their house, because the air duct came on, it fell down. So yeah, I would agree with you on the problem, the crawlspace. And it’s, yep,

Jay Campbell
it’s worth it. And if you’re older, if you’re, you know, whatever, not able to at least get somebody you trust to get up under there and just look.

Michael Wienecke
Oh, yeah, I agree with that. So

Jay Campbell
yeah, it’s still a lot to do, but it’s a work in process a work in progress, that’s for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Like the like the room and everything like everything’s done. It’s just you know, honestly kind of straighten it up out there now because it was in such a hurry just kind of cleaning up the debris and stuff like that.

Michael Wienecke
Well in the amount of damage that they did and the amount you had to replace. I mean, that’s a lot of work like cutting the wood out. Like I said, we keep you know, kind of emphasizing on the on the amount of damage and it’s really the time that it took I mean, this took like, nights and weekends. Yeah, I mean a lot of time.

Jay Campbell
Well then also the damage that that the termites did. That wasn’t just a one year deal. Oh, that was uh that was years worth of you know? Yep because what I bought the house 21 Something like that. Yeah, so I was early 30s When I saw that oh man so yeah younger younger No Yeah,

Michael Wienecke
well you live and you learn man that’s it. Well Jay I appreciate you coming on the podcast might have been like through sickness and kids and all that kind of stuff it’s

Jay Campbell
glad to get together on it

Michael Wienecke
yeah Glad we could talk about your your you know I think just victory from from having your issue to fix it that’s all that and like I said can’t wait to get those pictures out there. So again, thanks. No,

Jay Campbell
of course man course. Appreciate it.

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Travis McGowin
Hey, thanks for checking out our video today as we wanted to go ahead and take a quick moment to discuss the official Alabama wood infestation inspection report. So what this form is, is for real estate transactions, whether you’re buying or selling a home, whether you’re refinancing a home, most of the time, mortgage lenders are going to require a wood infestation report what infestation reports are done in search of wood destroying organisms that may be affecting the home and this inspection is done so that it can be fully disclosed to the purchaser, as well as the seller. And then that way they can make an informed decision before they actually sign the dotted line and by the house. So as you can see on the this is the very first page of the report, man with the title official Alabama wood infestation inspection report, part A. And it does consist of a Part A and Part B. And then there is a third sheet, which is an addendum, but we’ll show you all that here in just a moment. So the first portion, the top part of part A labels, the company name, license number, address, and all the information for the company as well as the date of inspection and the date of issuance. It also has a spot for the sellers name, purchasers name, and it also list the inspectors name. Now another very important part to this is the scope of inspection. So this actually details what it is that the report encompasses. So you know, it lists out that some portions of the structure may be covered and not visible, list out if there’s any mold like conditions, or there’s concerns about molds and fungi in relation to indoor air quality and that it’s not covered. And then you know, you should have that inspected by someone else who’s certified in that type of inspection. So it’s really important to read the scope of inspection so that you really clearly understand what it is that has been inspected by this report. As you can see here, there’s also a list of the address of the structure and whether this report is only for the main structure itself, or whether it may include you know, some sort of outbuilding shop or shed that you have on the property. And there are some mortgage lenders that will require you to have all of those building inspected, instead of just inspecting the main structure that is for sale on the property. And then there’s also a spot for evidence of previous treatment, which is right here. And that is just going to be up to the inspector to see whether or not they found any evidence such as drill marks around the house bait stations for termites around the house and that sort of thing as well. So moving down to the next section, you have findings. So inspection reveals evidence of subterranean termites, powderpost beetles, wood boring beetles, dry wood, termites, wood, decaying fungi. And you can see there’s checkboxes to mark active or previous infestation. What you can’t see is right here, there’s a section that says remarks and additional findings. This is a spot on a fillable form where the inspector is able to put their remarks, you know, maybe they didn’t wanted to elaborate on something that they found or elaborate on what they checked. And so typically, they’ll type something in or write something in right there. So it’s always a good idea to go ahead and look at that remarks. And additional finding sections just to make sure that the inspector didn’t put something that was you know, very relevant or that might not want to be overlooked by the person who’s buying the house. Directly beneath that, there is a section for treatment. And it shows if any treatment was done on the structure. Now, sometimes this can be done in conjunction with this wood infestation report or it can be done previously well before the wood infestation report was issued. So in this case, the company that’s doing the inspection may have at one point in the past done treatment on this house and this allows them to showcase that to the new buyer. So they may have the above structure was or were treated by this company as follows and they may check this box and then you know they’ll write the date of treatment and the date that the treatment expires on these lines. And they will also note whether or not that is transferable or not transferable to a new property owner when the house is being purchased. And then at the very bottom of that is the last check box which is the above structure is are are not covered under a treatment contract by this company. This is a very important pour Part of this form. And the reason it is is because this tells you whether or not the house you are buying has coverage with the company that is doing the inspection. Now, just because this box is marked, that there is no coverage does not always mean that your house does not have termite coverage, there’s a possibility that your house could have termite coverage by a another company, and that that company is just not the one doing the inspection. But this box will tell you if the inspecting company does have coverage. And if it is marked that it is transferable to the new home buyer, it is a very good idea on your part, to reach out to that company after the closing of your home and ensure that they have updated contact information for you. That is one problem that we do run into occasionally, where contact information for the new homebuyer is not relate to us or to the other company that holds the termite coverage on this house. And if it comes time to renew, and they’re unable to contact you unable to get ahold of you, because they don’t have your proper contact information. And maybe they sent mailers and never heard back from you, then your termite coverage may actually lapse or be canceled altogether, at that time of renewal. So it’s always a great idea to go ahead and reach out to that company after closing, and just update the account information so that they have some sort of contact information for you. So right here, at the very bottom of part A, there’s a buyers signature form. And that, of course, is just going to be where the new buyer signs accepting the results of this report on part A. And then these boxes down here on the bottom are simply checkmarks were the people filling out the report, the company filling out the report can request that copies be sent to either the buyer, the mortgagee, the real estate agent, the seller and as well as the pest control company. So the next page is labeled as Part B. And part B starts off with, of course, showing the address and the date, just to make sure that this report goes along with that same address structure. And these conditions are very important to they kind of spell out a little bit more about what the extent of the report is. So it’s really definitely a great idea to read over these conditions and understand them. So that when you close on the house, let’s just say you close and that very same day, you start to move in and you walk into the house, and then you find something that maybe doesn’t look right to you. It’s a good idea to know what was either a not covered under this inspection that wouldn’t have been listed or be maybe unfortunately, somebody missed something during their inspection that should have been covered. So it’s a good idea to read the conditions governing this report just to ensure that you’re aware of what was covered and what to look for just in case something was missed. A little further down under the conditions governing this report is three checkboxes and it says inspection of accessible areas of this property indicates visible evidence of active or previous infestation as follows. Now this section should go right along with the section from part A, where the inspector was able to mark whether there was an active or previous infestation. So this should mirror whether there was anything found on part A it should mirror on Part B. So the inspector has the opportunity to say that there was evidence observed and that either control measures were performed, or control measures were not performed. And then as well as it should tell you that the evidence of an active or previous infestation exists below. And then they should be able to list that out. Now directly underneath that you see there’s more checkboxes for active and previous. And then it has the five wood destroying organisms that the report looks for. And in these blank lines to the right, the inspector should list a more detailed description of exactly where the wood destroying organism was found. So let’s just say hypothetically that there were subterranean termites found there were active ones, and the company did not provide any control measures. So they would check the boxes up here to mirror that, as well as check active by subterranean termites. And let’s just say for the sake of this video, that the termites were found in a wall, near a window seal in, for example, the living room, so the inspector may list out to the right of subterranean termites. The exact location of the activity, window seal on front side of the house and the living room. May be a little more specific than that. And so they’ll list that out. And directly below that is a diagram. So this diagram will actually give you a visual of where that activity or where that wood destroying organism was found in the structure. So this diagram should have it clearly marked. And then directly below this is a legend, or a key that shows you what the markings mean. So for example, if there were active termites found on that graph, where the termites were found, you should see something like S T, and N A, so that should stand for subterranean termites active. Now, if it was previous damage, you would see S T, with a P for previous subterranean termites previous. And then directly to the right of that key, you’ll see the construction type of the home, whether it has a basement, whether the house is on a slab, or whether the house has a crawlspace. And it does say check all that apply, because we do have some houses that have multiple, if not all three of these items, or construction types. So you may have just a slab checked, or you may have a crawlspace and a slab, or you may have all three. On the bottom of form, Part B is another location for the buyer to sign and date. And then directly beneath that is an authorized agent signature with a date of inspection, then that authorized agent signature is just going to be the inspector signature. And then again, the section that allows them inspector to check where the reports need to be sent or where copies of the reports need to be sent. The very last page which may or may not be included in this report is the wood destroying organism and best station inspection addendum. This is simply an addendum form, we typically do not include it unless there is some sort of change or addendum that needs to be done to the actual initial report itself. And it’ll allow for the inspectors name, date and file number. And then as well as any other relevant information that may need to be added. So let’s just say that the original wood infestation report showed that the house had an active termite infestation. And maybe before closing, the company was asked to treat that, excuse me that termite infestation. So maybe the company would issue a or an addendum, and maybe be able to graph out on the bottom underneath the information portion here and show that they treated. So that’s just a hypothetical as to what can be done with this. But typically, this will not be included unless there’s something additional done after the original inspection was completed. So this was just a overview to tell you kind of what the purpose of the official Alabama would infestation inspection report is, and to give the homeowner, someone who’s buying a home or a business or just any property in general in the state of Alabama, to give you a good idea of what each section means. And to give you a good idea of what you should look for. In terms of reading this report. I always tell my customers and I always tell anybody that asks, Please do not go to the closing table, and just sign the paperwork without reviewing the report. Once you sign this and you close, you’re accepting that report. And you want to make sure that it is acceptable before you sign it and before you close on your house. Know that property. homes and businesses can be the most expensive investment that a person can make. Their home is usually their most expensive investment more than cars or any other items that they may buy. So it is important to make sure that you protect your investment. If you’re dealing with any type of wood destroying organism, whether it’s subterranean termites powderpost beetles, wood boring beetles, dry wood, termites, and even wood destroying fungi. Give us a call at Peskies Pest Control. We’ll be more than happy to help you. You have a question about your wood infestation report or your existing termite coverage. We’re happy to talk about that too. Our Montgomery number is (334) 595-9055 and our Birmingham location is (205) 470-8161. We hope that you found this video helpful and if you have any other questions about this report, give us a call today.

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Michael Wienecke
Hey, so today on the peskiest Pest Control podcast, I have my personal friend Drew baby AK, and he owns rescuer, LLC. So we’re just promoting his business and kind of bringing his business to light what he does and what he can do for you. Take it away, Drew.

Drew Babyak
Hey, good morning. Appreciate you having me on excited to kind of shine a light on an important subject. And I appreciate you bringing me on today.

Michael Wienecke
Yeah, definitely. So let’s talk about, you know, my favorite part about a business is kind of, you know, where’d you get your start, you know, as an entrepreneur, what, what, what just made you want to start this business.

Drew Babyak
So me and my business partner, Joseph Patton, we spent a lot of time working together at one of our fire departments, I left that second fire department. And we were just kind of discussing different things that we could do to with our free time, instead of working in a second fire department. And we were discussing CPR and kind of the needs for it, we knew a couple guys that taught a class here and there just were discussing it. And we kind of thought that a good idea to go after it because it was a need that we saw, we were going on scenes and seeing where people were either afraid to do CPR, or they weren’t doing CPR. And it’s just something that as firefighter paramedics, we know very well. So we’re like, we could go and teach this with extreme confidence, bring real life scenarios and real life knowledge to people. And hopefully, you know, educate people so that the they would act in scenes rather than be scared to help someone, especially when it comes to a loved one. Yeah.

Michael Wienecke
100%. And I mean, there’s no right or wrong CPR when somebody is down on the ground dying. I mean, as long as you’re pumping on that chest, you know, something’s better than nothing. Absolutely.

Drew Babyak
That’s, that’s what we try to get out of everybody’s just the confidence to at least act.

Michael Wienecke
Yeah, yeah. Well, watch, come up with a name. So rescue

Drew Babyak
came around, we were talking about just different names. And we were, we kind of rescue we’re stuck. Because we’re like, when we teach the class, and you are now knowledgeable in this skill, you become a rescuer on the scene, you are the person that’s making the difference. So we felt like it kind of had a good meaning behind it, it kind of is catchy, it makes sense. So it was simple. So we wanted to we ran with it rescuers, just just that act of to helping somebody. And that’s what we want people to do. Awesome.

Michael Wienecke
Well, how did you get so what made you want to start just being an entrepreneur? I mean, what what got you kind of enter that, in that mindset.

Drew Babyak
So in the Forest Service, most guys, you know, they start with one job. And with our schedules, we work 24 hours on 48 hours off Well, with that other 48 hours, a lot of guys, you know, either find another side business, but what kind of comes naturally seems like people go work a second fire department, because the scheduling allows it. And when we got into it, we wanted to prevent people from working to fire departments, we, I left my second fire department because I loved it so much. But I was missing so much, so much on life, you know, being gone for 48 hours, you know, doesn’t sound like much to some people, but to other person, it’s a lot, you know, that’s as two nights away from being being away from your home from your family. So we went after it, because we wanted to kind of get away from that. See, try and best way describe it that what people that natural thing that people do. So we left got into it, and now you know, we get to work normal hours and spend more time with our families and enjoy, you know, improves our, our quality of life. So, rescue has definitely been a blessing to both of us.

Michael Wienecke
Oh, 100% I mean, I you know, I was in the fire service for 15 years. And I mean, you’d see these guys working 48 hours coming in like zombies. And it’s just, it’s not healthy. I’ve always been against it, I’ve never worked 48 And I always said I would never work 48 So I love that you’re giving these guys a chance to stay in that their field and be able to make some extra money in something that they already know and are good at. Absolutely.

Drew Babyak
Um, it has been great. Right now we we’ve we’ve been hiring just firefighter paramedics. Like I said strict goal is to get the guys away from the 40 eighths and we’re slowly working towards it. As we grow, I think we’ll be able to get more and more guys involved. Teaching. That’s our our ultimate goal is only to hire firefighter paramedics, just because that is something that they’re so knowledgeable in fire. They’re confident in that skill. So when we send them out to teach classes, you get a really good experience. You’re gonna leave with someone that was able to answer all your questions about CPR, you know, people start asking questions, we didn’t just go take a class to teach you. We took the class and we’ve used it so when you ask your questions during the class to, to kind of give you that comfortability or confidence, we’re able to answer the answer in the best way possible.

Michael Wienecke
Well, that to your class is fine. I mean, you got a lot of firemen teaching the class. So we know how firemen are they like to joke and have a good time. It’s not something that’s going to be boring, it’s going to be, it’s going to be entertaining, and it’s going to be educational at the same time. So Oh, yeah, we

Drew Babyak
definitely. So we know everybody, no one loves to sit in a class and just be read to from a PowerPoint, we, we try to make it as involved as possible, you know, we like to cut up and crack jokes and make it as light as possible. And you know, when we get in the hands on, we’d like to, to make it a little more fun. We don’t just sit there and ask you to do this, we give you a little fun scenarios and make you think, and it’s also a really good team building thing. So we, you know, we bring these companies in that like to invest in their in there people. And, you know, in the beginning, they might be a little, you know, unsure of what’s going to happen by the end there. Everybody’s laughing and having a good time. And while learning something that is so valuable. Yeah. So it’s it’s a lot of fun. These classes. I love teaching them.

Michael Wienecke
That’s great. So let’s talk about how important CPR is. I mean, you know, I know the American Heart Association says about 350,000 people die per year in cardiac arrest. And it’s something that’s, that’s pretty preventable. I know. You’ve got some stories, I’ve got some stories. So give me a scenario of a real life event where you know, you saw CPR work right then and there?

Drew Babyak
Absolutely, yeah, I have. This story is just, it’s unreal. So to put in perspective, the importance of CPR, I’ll start with that. So CPR, we do CPR when someone’s heart completely stopped. So if someone is not breathing and doesn’t have a pulse, we start CPR, what we’re doing is we’re mechanically pumping the heart to move the oxygen that’s inside the body, to perfuse the organs to keep them alive. So for every minute that we’re not moving the oxygen through their blood, their chance of survival drops, 10%. So put that in another perspective, when you call the fire department, and they’re dispatched to you, you know, a good response is going to be three to five minutes. Well, if you’re not doing anything, if you’re not performing CPR, well, they’re their chances, survivability has now dropped to 50 to 70%. So that’s something that we want to kind of change, we want people to act immediately so that whether it’s just a bystander or a loved one, we want to give them the opportunity to survive, you know, there’s only so much that we can do. But if the difference, you know, then walking out was just CPR. We want to if that’s that’s something we can control. The craziest story that I’ve had as a firefighter paramedic, we were dispatched to a cardiac arrest to a triathlon athlete, this mill, this was a male who was roughly, you know, young, early 50s, super healthy guy, he was running a triathlon, I mean, this guy’s an athlete. Well, he goes into cardiac arrest, mid mid race, to his look. And I mean, to his luck, a pediatric doctor was running in the race, and she was behind him, she witnessed him collapse and began CPR. She starts doing compressions, she activates the emergency system by calling 911. The paramedics that were on scene work in the event, got to the patient, put them on their ad, and they administered a shock to the patient. By the time that I got on scene, which is roughly eight to 10 minutes after the initial call, the patient was no longer in a full arrest. He was still, you know, still kind of having the effects from it. Well, I just went to a party. Yeah. He went from a really bad day. So to put in perspective, most time when we work, cardiac arrest, even if we get what we call, raw score, you know, get their heart rhythm back, most time, they still stay kind of unresponsive and just a different state. Well, this mill had immediate CPR, immediate defibrillation or shock to the heart. And by the time that I’ve got on scene, and we were loading him in the ambulance, somebody asked, Hey, what is this Mel’s name? And he lifted his head up and answered the question to us. I had never seen that and that and we give all the credit to the doctor that started immediate compressions. And our paramedics who were able to get on scene and give a quick defibrillation or shock to the heart. So that was a huge success story. This guy went to the hospital to get checked out. And by the next day, he was released and was able to go home to his family because of good CPR and quick action from bystanders. That’s

Michael Wienecke
awesome, man. Well, I mean, you have to understand, I mean, with the fire department, you know, they have to get in the truck, they have to go they have to get there. You’re talking one two minutes as fast as they can get there. But you know, and then you’ve got to take into account of when the person went down. And when that when the person that called found them. So you know it time was you can be five 610 minutes before before CPR has even started. Oh, absolutely.

Drew Babyak
If it’s been five minutes, like we said, if every minutes 10% We’re already down 50% And we want to give everybody the best chance possible.

Michael Wienecke
Oh, yeah. Well, man, I love the business. I mean, helping people and bringing someone’s you know, office together. teaching them a very valuable skill that they can help one of their co workers, one of their family members, you know, a random person rent running a marathon. So tell me tell everyone where you can work. What What areas do you service around here, local. So,

Drew Babyak
we are a Birmingham based company. But we are fully mobile. So we traveled to your business, to teach the classes that creates a huge convenience, especially for scheduling and trying to get your people together for these kinds of classes. But we’ll travel anywhere, we’ve traveled to Tampa to teach classes, Atlanta, Pensacola and Destin so there’s really not a spot that we won’t go we we like traveling and we really enjoy, just bring in our, our, our class t you know, we, we provide a really fun class, you know, we’ve got some good stories to bring and good attitudes that make this class a lot of fun. So we’d like to go wherever we’re needed.

Michael Wienecke
That’s awesome. And hey, I mean, I was looking on your website. I mean, you teach all of Alabama so that’s, that’s the

Drew Babyak
University of Alabama nursing. We teach them their BLS at the beginning of every semester. So the nursing students have to have what’s called basic life support, which is just the fancier version of CPR, but it’s for medical professionals. But they have to have that before they go do their clinicals in the hospital. So it’s really fun. The the Alabama nursing classes, a really great class to teach just because they’re all so young, and fresh in the profession. They’re super eager. And so we go teach these classes, they eat it up there. They’re super excited to learn that new skill.

Michael Wienecke
Well, good deal. Well, um, so anybody that’s looking to, you know, start a class with you, where can they find you phone number?

Drew Babyak
Yeah. So, you can reach us at our through either through email, our email is info inf o at rescuer, r e s e u e r llc.com. And you can reach us at my phone number is 334-595-2737. We take phone calls, text email, you can go to our Facebook at rescuer LLC, Instagram, whatever your choice of contact is, we we can respond through any of them to book classes, we just ask you to reach out and we will we’ll talk, you know, some people like say, hey, Mondays are a great day for us, because we have staff meetings from 10 to 12. We’re like, Well, great. So how about we meet you at? You know, 1231 o’clock. So our scheduling is super flexible with our you know, being firemen, where we don’t have a set schedule once our off days, or we’re off days. So you know, we like to create that convenience of coming to you and working around your schedule. We know that scheduling part of getting a lot of people together like herding cats, we know it gets tough, so we want to make that as easy as possible for you. Well,

Michael Wienecke
good deal. Well drew, I really appreciate you coming on the podcast and again, I know it took a little while I was getting our schedules together but again, thanks, man.

Drew Babyak
Absolutely. Thank you for having me on.

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Michael Wienecke
Hey, so today on the podcast, we want to talk about something we’ve been seeing a lot of and that is just creepy crawlies in the attic, anywhere from Asian lady beetles stinkbugs pretty much your too generic that they were getting a lot of calls on. And I think the best thing to talk about what this problem is just that, you know, homeowners always can we seal up the attic, can we still have the attic? No, you cannot seal up the attic. The attic has to live and breathe. You know, as your house is getting hot getting cold, it’s venting. So there’s really no way to completely seal up an attic. So those bugs are still going to be able to get into your attic. So Travis, talk about some treatment plans.

Travis McGowin
Well, unfortunately, like you said, we’re getting those calls and and tis the season I had a very long conversation with someone about two or three days ago in reference to the Asian lady beetles specifically, but you can kind of bundle the stink bugs into that same conversation because they’re, they’re about seeking the exact same thing. So they’re both seeking out a place to overwinter. They’re seeking out a place to just basically make home until it’s time to go and get back out, you know, in the springtime and whatnot. So, but yes, you’re exactly right. Houses need to breathe. And, and I’ll take that even one step further. Even if you have spray foam insulation in your attic, these insects will find a way to get in. I don’t care how good of a spray foam job that you have had. If you go up into your attic, you know in the late or early fall and going on into winter, you’re gonna find some form of either stink bug or Asian lady beetle, it just there’s no way to either a completely seal up your attic. And like you said, nor should you really necessarily want to because that air exchange has to happen. Or else you’re going to end up with more problems than just insects, you’re going to end up with moisture problems and everything up in that attic spaces which you definitely don’t want.

Michael Wienecke
100% And another thing I’ll say to what we’re getting a lot of calls is ladybugs, ladybugs in the attic. They’re not ladybugs, they’re Asian lady beetles, super aggressive. They bite ladybugs, or just cute little, you know, red bugs with dots on them. They don’t

Travis McGowin
Well, and I’ll say this too. While we’re on the topic of that. Ladybugs are beneficial. Yes, Asian lady beetles are not

Michael Wienecke
they don’t. They sorted they serve no purpose,

Travis McGowin
Other than being a nuisance. But the unfortunate thing is, is that if they if you’re seeing them if you’re seeing them in your house, if you’re seeing them in your attic, surprise they’re already there.

Michael Wienecke
Oh yeah, definitely. Well, it’s funny I saw a video the other day of somebody letting an Asian lady beetle crawl on their finger and a bit them

Travis McGowin
You know, people can actually be allergic to their bites, I do have a customer that is allergic to their bites and and so you know, they, they definitely are more concerned about the Asian lady beetles than the average homeowner, and rightfully so. But like I said that they’re so small, and adapted to getting into these little tight places, and they want to go live in your wall voids and in your attic. And and if you start seeing them in your house, they’re already there. The the thing that I recommend most to my customers is being proactive, especially in that late summer, going towards fall to try to be proactive and treatment. And what little bit exclusive that you might can do around doors and windows and cracks and crevices that don’t involve completely just sealing out something that needs to ventilate. But being proactive and treatment and exclusion early on to try to keep them from getting in in the first place.

Michael Wienecke
Oh, yeah, definitely. I mean, I know my house was built in the 70s. And we had the old style windows a couple of years ago. And every every time and this time of year, we just got stinkbugs galore. And we got new windows put in and that you know it was cut down to I mean, almost almost none coming to the windows now we still get some of the attic. And we still have to treat but that just door seals something something as simple as just replacing your door seals if your door seals are wore out, or your windows or anything like that is going to help tremendously.

Travis McGowin
Yeah, and we do have some other options too. In terms of treatment and products, I did have another customer that actually swapped over from a larger company to us under the I guess under the agreement that I would be able to take care of his stinkbugs and that was a big thing for him. That was really the only problem that they were having was stinkbugs consistently being an issue. And I went and inspected located the fact that they were coming in through around the eaves of the house and getting up into the attic and then coming down to the living space in the attic. We were able to treat that addict with a dust. And they were pleasantly surprised because they didn’t have any more stinkbug issues after that.

Michael Wienecke
Oh, yeah, it’s huge. And I mean, standing behind our work, that’s just what we do. But yeah, I love how you brought that in. So I mean, when you’re, when you’re getting getting in the attic, you have to the dust is going to be the best way because you’re going to be able to get all those cracks, crevices, those voids where those bugs are going to try to enter, and that dust is going to linger. Another great thing about the dust is that there’s no sunlight in the attic. So it’s not going to break down, it’s going to stay there. Most of the time, when we do a treatment in an attic like that for stinkbugs or Asian lady beetles, or ladybugs you know, it, they don’t have a problem the next year, the next year, the next year until that product starts to break down, which takes a very, very long time and the attic or a wall void or anything like that.

Travis McGowin
Yeah, that product is definitely there for the long haul. And definitely, like you said, undisturbed by sunlight undisturbed by large amounts of moisture, it will be there and it will be effective there for quite a while.

Michael Wienecke
Yeah, and another deciding factor that I’ve kind of found just from from homes with these issues. It’s always light colored homes white, light gray. So I just recommend everybody paint their house black and they probably wouldn’t have this.

Travis McGowin
Well, maybe so maybe not. I do know that especially stinkbugs to you know, if you go out on a warmer day on the side of the house that’s facing the sun that you get a decent amount of sunlight you may even catch some of these inbuilt insects sunbathing and and there’s a higher likelihood to that that’s the side of the house that they’re going to be more of an issue on you’re going to see them more often. Because of that, that heat from the sun they’re searching that warm place actively so you know they’re going to be in those wall voids they’re going to be in that portion of the attic more so than others. That’s not to say that you’re not going to see them in any other portions of the house because you will but they’re going to be on the sunny side because they like the warm

Michael Wienecke
Yeah. And like said for this for this podcast I’d say the takeaway is just you know, you just if you have this issue going on, just know that don’t go up there and just try to follow them every every void in your in your attic and like, like Travis said, You’re gonna cause a lot more issues than good.

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Michael Wienecke
Hey, so today I want to talk about blowflies. blowflies are disgusting. They’re disgusting fly, they come out of dead animals they come out of poop, or feces. Travis take it away on the discussing both blowflies

Travis McGowin
I like how you said that they are they are disgusting. Unfortunately, if you find yourself with blowflies, that can mean a number of different things, from the very basic of you have pets in your yard, who may use the bathroom in your yard, and you know, blowflies will use that excrement in your yard as a something to feed off of, and continue to survive. And that’s really gross, even on up to the more harsh things which they typically like dead things dead animals, dead rotting flesh. And so they’ll seek that out and they will go and they will lay their eggs on that. And the larva when they when they come out, they’ll you know, they’ll feed on that and continue to grow until they grow into adult floss so and then they want to come and they want to land on your surfaces are laying down your food, you know when you’re around your house and contaminate those items before you eat them or touch them.

Michael Wienecke
And that’s how we get salmonella,

Travis McGowin
E. Coli, Salmonella. I think even cholera, just a home just a whole slew of just nasty things that you don’t want gastrointestinal problems that you don’t want. All from a little bitty, fluorescent colored fly.

Michael Wienecke
Yeah. So here on the podcast, we always talk about real life events. So I’ll just tell a story about you know, last week well, right before Christmas, had a customer call, we had done a rodent job for him. She called she flies all in her basement, she had them flying around her TV at night, they were just everywhere. So whenever inspected, and she had blowflies. So we knew that we had an issue with a rodent problem. So we had controlled the rodents, one may have died somewhere around the house.

And that’s, you know, that’s the whole point of talking about blue flowers today. Once again, she had 50 of them downstairs, when I had invaded took care of the problem. If we if we still would have had blue flowers coming out after treating it, then we would have known that we’d had more dead animals or potential bigger problem, but the treatment completely solve the problem. So

Travis McGowin
I even had a customer several months ago that had blowflies is like she woke up one morning. This is this kind of hotel and it but she woke up one morning. And it was just like an explosion of flies very large, all over the place inside her house. And that was what was very strange for us is that there were no dead animals. No dead animal smells. We checked the whole house, we checked the attic and couldn’t find anything. She did have a dog that lives in the house, you know, which would go to the restroom in the backyard. But it wasn’t like there were large amounts of flies that were lingering around in the backyard was just like all of a sudden an explosion of flies in the house. Which we of course, like you said, baited. We took care of the problem. And she hasn’t had any more issues like that since but if you’re experiencing these flies, just like I said all of a sudden overnight, or even, you know the dreaded inward maggots. If you find yourself, you know overwhelmed with not just flies, but maggots, you might want to check your garbage, you might want to check your your yard, you might want to check your walls or your attic or what have you. Because something has brought them there. And that’s why they’re reproducing and showing up.

Michael Wienecke
Yeah, and they can fit at the tiniest crack and crevice. So just your typical window they can fit through, especially if it’s an older style window, your doors don’t have proper seals on them, you’re going in and out, you know, especially taking out the trash or something like that, you know, they can enter in. And then of course, if you have something dead in your attic, or your crawlspace not a problem at all for them to fly into your home or even the maggots to to get into your home and then turn into flie.

Travis McGowin
And they just reproduce so quickly. One female can lay hundreds of eggs, you know at one time, and where you started with, you know, just a couple over a very short time span, especially in warmer climates. I mean, it can just balloon out of control and balloon to this very, very big problem.

Michael Wienecke
Well, and again, I mean, the it’s always best to find the source of your issue, whatever pest problem you’re having. There is a source. There’s a reason that that pest is there and like I said with flaws, especially with blowout loss. Typically it is going to be something dead inside or around the home. I know I’ve had them in my house before. I’ve had a rat issue at my house before so I had to seal that and get rid of it. But that’s that’s always going to be an indicator of something bigger the flies are are showing you that you have a bigger problem.

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Michael Wienecke
Hey, so today I want to talk about powderpost beetles. And if you have ever experienced powderpost beetles, then you know exactly what they do they leave a fine frass powder on the floor, it’s normally white, yellow, and that is the signs of powderpost beetles.

Travis McGowin
You know, a lot of the the crawl spaces that I’ve inspected in, in older houses have been prone to having some sort of old identifiers that there were at one time powderpost beetles, and typically, you know, on the floor joist floor members inside the crawlspace, I mean, little holes everywhere. But the key thing there is that powder, that identifier that there’s activity going on, and that usually looks like a, like you said a whitish yellowish colored powder that’s kind of been pushed out of those holes. So it makes like a, almost like a rain down effect on the side of the wood. And that’s always usually an indicator that there’s activity going on inside of the wood in that crawlspace.

Michael Wienecke
Yeah, that’s right. And then, you know, a lot of times people freak out about powderpost beetles, typically, they do not reinvest. So there’s really not, not really a need to just, you know, I’ve worried more about termites and I would powderpost beetles, because we see it all the time. And if they’re if you just see the holes, and you don’t see any of the powder, then that’s old, there’s really no need to worry about it.

Travis McGowin
Yeah, definitely. Although I will say this, you know, I think there’s some misconceptions out there from people. I had a customer this is back probably a year or two ago, that called us because they had had an inspection from another company. The other company said, Hey, we think you got powderpost beetles. And I assume, I guess that the other company declined to do the treatment on the house. And of course, this gentleman was very concerned about it and wanted it treated. So he ended up calling us and I went out to inspect the crawlspace. And sure enough, there were holes and powder coming out. And the The interesting part about this is the wood in question, the wood that was infested wasn’t the old wood underneath the crawlspace, it was actually new wood that they had put inside the crawlspace that they had recently bought from a big retail store. I’m not gonna say any names on retail chain, but they had just bought it and had it put in and a couple months later, lo and behold, they’ve got a powderpost beetle infestation coming out of the wood in this wood was supposed to have been treated wood.

Michael Wienecke
Well, let’s talk about that. So when when the wood is brought into the sawmill, it’s not invested from from the forest or whatever it’s brought into the sawmill and then that wood is stored. That is when that wood starts to become infested. And they’re supposed to go through treatment styles, they’re supposed to put a type of bore care on it, or they’re supposed to do a heat treatment. But it’s heat treatments just aren’t as effective. And they take forever. I mean, you have to heat wood up for I think it’s 24 hours at 124 to 135 degrees. And that’s just, that’s, that’s hard to heat that much lumber. But, you know, 111 bundle at a time, I guess you’d say?

Travis McGowin
Well, and you also, you know, with wood, there’s there’s other factors to consider more so than just heat to you’re talking about heat, you’re talking about moisture content inside the wood. And like you said, whether or not the wood itself has been treated with some sort of pesticide or bore a type substance that’s going to, you know, penetrate down inside of that wood and have a long lasting effect. But like I said, I think that there’s just a common misconception that, well, if you go to a store or a retailer, and you purchase wood, well, it’s been treated. So it’s good to go, you know, and that’s not always the case, you can’t always just act under that reassurance that that there’s not going to ever be a problem.

Michael Wienecke
Right. And then but the customer you had that they were emerging. I mean, there was no structural damage done to the wood, it was just a couple pinholes that were that were coming out. So I know you traded it, and typically likes that they don’t reinvest any, any beetles that are emerging out of that are going to die. So pretty easy to fix.

Travis McGowin
Yeah, and like I said, a good if someone has that problem has that issue in their house with their wood. It’s nothing that a bore a treatment cannot, you know, go ahead and take care of them. And the other good part about that is these these treatments like say with borides products, like board care, I guess or Tim bore or one of those products is that once that wood is treated, I mean that that product absorbs down inside of that wood and that product is there for a very very, very long time. And so it’s not just effect against things like powderpost beetles or other types of beetles, it is also effective in helping to prevent infestation for things like termites as well.

Michael Wienecke
Yeah, that’s right. So I want to talk a little bit to about some miscommunication between people thinking they have powderpost beetles and people thinking that they have are actually having stored product pests. So I know, you know, a lot of the flower beetles and powderpost beetles can be, you know, that you can think you have one in the other.

Travis McGowin
Yeah, you know, and the other thing that I will say to differentiate is your powderpost beetles are your going to be less likely to actually see the beetles themselves. Most of the time, they’re going to be inside of that wood. They’re very rarely are you ever going to actually physically see the beetles themselves. Whereas a confused flower beetle or other type of stored product pests crawls around a lot of people will have a mis misconception that that weevils are beetles too, or some type of beetle. So you’re usually gonna see these pests. I’ve had a customer that had some confused flour beetles at one time. These things were everywhere, when I tell you the room that had them. They were crawling all over the counters. They were they were they were just everywhere. And actually, they they had bought these like wicker, some type of scent, a material baskets from a home decor store. And then they put these baskets in their house, and then all of a sudden, they’ve got confused flour beetles everywhere. So it’s kind of interesting, but like I said, typically with the powderpost beetles, you just you just don’t physically see the beetles very often at all.

Michael Wienecke
Yeah, that’s right. And I mean, they’re not going to they don’t have a pupa either. So you’re not going to see that that little cocoon up in the in the corner of the pantry or anything like that. Also the powderpost beetles that come out at night so that’s another reason you don’t see the beetle.

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Learn more about the Sleep Soundly Sweepstakes! Click Here!Michael Wienecke
Hey, so today on the podcast we want to talk about something we’re doing kind of a Christmas giveaway. It’s called the sleep soundly sweepstakes. And what it is, is it’s a free heat treatment to anybody that applies, wins the contest, and they are going to have a bedbug free home. So come in hate, hate the house and get rid of any bedbugs that you might have.

Travis McGowin
Yeah, I’m excited about this. I really, really am. I’m excited about putting it out there to somebody in need, because let’s face it, bedbugs Okay, let me start off by saying I wouldn’t pick any insects to live with. Okay. I mean, roaches, ants silverfish earwigs. I wouldn’t I wouldn’t pick any, any insects to share my home with but if I was forced to pick, I definitely wouldn’t pick bedbugs. You know, whether it’s the fact that they are literally using you as their food source or the stigmatism that surrounds bedbugs. They’re just something that I don’t want and I wouldn’t wish that on anybody else.

Michael Wienecke
Well, it’s funny you say that I’ve actually I had a customer the other day asked me you know what’s worse, German roaches are bedbugs. And by far bedbugs. I mean, really, at mites. In other things I can think of parasitic, you know, insects, fleas, anything like that bedbugs are worse. I mean, there’s, there’s nothing worse than, you know, the, the horror stories we’ve heard where customers laying in bed, and they can just feel these things munching on them, or they wake up and they can, you know, see him crawling in the sheets, or just just the, the stress that they that they bring on.

Travis McGowin
Yeah, you know, I think a lot of people limit their view of the problem that bedbugs cause to only to only really thinking about the physical aspect of it and in terms of like, like you said them feeding on us and, and maybe the allergic reaction calls from their bites or, or that sort of thing, but really, there’s just a whole other. There’s just a whole other problem with bedbugs. More so than just the baits. Like I said there’s the social aspect the stigmatism around having bedbugs. And then there’s also a mental aspect of it too. You know, bedbugs. They don’t, they’re not limited to just one socio economic class there. They’re not limited to one group of people, people who own a million dollar home can have on people who own a, you know, $90,000 home can have them and everything in between. And so if you end up with these insects, they can affect you mentally from affecting your sleep. That can make it harder to sleep because you dread laying down in your bed or dread laying anywhere in your house because you feel like you’re going to become a meal. And then that can affect your your day to day, you know, at work or with your family. I mean, it’s just there’s just a lot more than just the physical feeding aspect.

Michael Wienecke
Yeah, you definitely don’t want to like go over to your your family’s house for Christmas if you got bedbugs because then potentially, you know, you could bring it to them so, and

Travis McGowin
Your family’s not gonna want to come hang out with you either. Especially if they know!

Michael Wienecke
Exactly what and you know, we’re joking about this. But But really, I mean, we’ve seen it so many different ways that people get bedbugs. I mean, we’ve had, you know, somebody’s mother in law stayed with them. They they she had bedbugs at their house. They had no idea. They were infested. We had a lady that was traveling really nice hotels, all throughout Louisiana and all that and she got bedbugs brought it back to her condo. We’ve had Travis you’ve had some that

Travis McGowin
I had a good friend of mine, same thing. He in his previous job. I mean, he traveled three, four or five nights out of the week, sometimes in different states. You know, working for a national company, and ended up bringing them home to his own house. And you know, it he didn’t stay and nasty hotels either.

Michael Wienecke
Yeah, and I think the biggest thing too, is once you get them, people don’t know what to do people just they think that they can treat them with these, you know, store bought products that really don’t work. I mean, they’re gonna kill the one you spray. Just like roaches. They’re gonna kill the one you spray but they’re not going to take care of the problem bedbugs can get in cracks and crevices. I mean, I remember you telling me a story Travis and you were at a gas station and you saw one between the crack and crevice of like a sign. We’ve seen them in firearms. We’ve seen them just all kinds of the tightest little crack they can fit into.

Travis McGowin
Well, I did an inspection a couple of weeks ago at a house and they they had initially somehow gotten the bedbugs back and I want to say June or July of this year. And they went bought a whole bunch of like you said over the counter products labeled, you know guaranteed to kill bedbugs. Bla bla bla bla bla I sprayed everything down, sprayed everything down in the bedroom that was affected, and then thought they were in the clear, you know, didn’t see any more, didn’t seem to have any more problems. And now, you know, all of a sudden here it is November into December, and they’re back. And what I tried to explain to the customers, they never left. You know, you have bought these over the counter products. They’re they’re over repellent nature. So like you said, they’ll kill on contact if they contact. But, you know, what they didn’t understand is that bedbugs can go a long time in between feedings, they can survive for a long time before they need to feed again. And so if they had to go and hunker down and hide because of an over the counter product that was treated in there, they can they can wait it out.

Michael Wienecke
That’s right. And so I went to a CEU class and I remember the teacher talking about a boy’s home, and the boy’s home all the beds were metal tube style, you know, they’ll bedframe that we’ve all had his kids just hollow on the inside, and they infested with bedbugs. And that’s why we chose hate because he is going to penetrate everything. So they could not they had to throw all these beds away because they were doing liquid treatments. They’re these boys, these boys homes, and they had to throw all the beds away because the bedbugs were so deep inside the cracks and crevices of the tube metal frame, they could not get the product in there. So that’s why we chose heat because heat is going to penetrate the walls, it’s going to penetrate all cracks and crevices the bed pretty much anywhere that bedbug can hide.

Travis McGowin
Well and a lot of people have a common misconception. So you know, we go and we meet with people, we do inspections, people that have bed bugs. And I would be willing to say the majority of the time, all of a sudden you’re looking in the room where they’re having the problem. It’s like where’s the mattress? Where’s the box springs? Or the or the headboard? Or where are these items that are supposed to be in the bedroom? John? And you know, so there again, the one that I went and inspected a couple of weeks ago, they had just bought the lady that lived at the house a new mattress? Well, you and I both know that didn’t solve the problem. And yes, these insects are called bed bugs. But the mattress is can only be just a small portion of the problem. Usually people don’t realize how far these insects will crawl away from you and then back to you to feed on you. And while yes, they can live in a mattress and live around the seams and parts of the mattress and even the box springs to the headboard but you’re also talking about living under baseboards living in nightstands, behind wall plates for plugs and light switches and just all these other cracks and crevices so they’re not just limited to the bed. And I hate to see people go and throw away a perfectly good mattress, or headboard or or whatever article that they’re away thinking that they’re helping. When realistically one you just moved that item out of the room that was infested or that is infested. So now you run the risk of investing another room in your house. And then God forbid somebody picks your furniture up off the side of the road or or the mattress or you give it away or what have you. Because now they’re probably going to have bedbugs too. So you’ve just spread the problem, when if you just leave everything in that one room, leave it in that place. And let a company like us to come in and treat you get to keep all your stuff. So you’re not out money trying to buy, you know, new items of clothing, new furniture, new anything like that. And we we can guarantee to get into every spot like he talked about the boys home because the heats not gonna miss or neglect anything.

Michael Wienecke
That’s right. So let’s let’s dive into the sweepstakes. So, again, you know, we’re putting on Facebook, but on Google, we’re putting it on all these platforms that we we can because we really want to help somebody that’s in need. And, and there’s having this issue and doesn’t know where else to go?

Travis McGowin
Yeah, definitely this. This is something that we’ve been talking about now for several months and being able to give that gift to somebody. And that’s really what it is. It’s it’s us here at passkey. He’s giving somebody the gift of a bedbug free home. And you know whether that individual has one or two rooms that are infested, whether that individual and their family have a whole house that has issues with them. These heat treatment that were given away can can remedy that situation. And in in one day, and I can’t think right, exactly, you know, going back back and laying down in your bed that very same night and knowing that the problem is gone, the infestation is gone. And then being able to anticipate those family gatherings and and having company over as so many of us do during the holiday season, just being able to give that peaceful sleep. And that ability to believe that you can get together with your family and not have an issue with this insect. I mean, I think that’s huge.

Michael Wienecke
Yeah, I agree. And, you know, I’d also like to just kind of get rid of that stigma of, you know, just that that common Oh, well, their house must be disgusting, that, you know, they’re living in filth, you know, all that kind of stuff. I mean, I brought back fleas to my house, a couple of months ago.

Travis McGowin
Inherent risk of the job by the way!

Michael Wienecke
Luckily, I know a guy. So, and bedbugs are no different we worry about that. When we when we do services. I mean, we have to, we have to take our clothes off, you know, right outside the garage or around the back the back of the house and, and take, you know, really, really high precaution on that so

Travis McGowin
Well and I hate that because I think as a society. I think that there are a lot of people out there who, like you said have this negative connotation or negative view on someone with bedbugs, but all of the cheese, all of the heat treatments that we have done so far, have not been in some stereotypical house that’s unkept and not clean. I mean, like I said, it’s so easy to acquire an insect like a bedbug. You don’t have to, you know, have a filthy house or what have you. I mean, it can it can literally happen to anybody. And just knowing that there’s kind of this societal stigma about it, where people just think that someone is lesser than because they had bedbugs is just completely not true.

The post Bed Bugs And The Sleep Soundly Sweepstakes in Birmingham Alabama! appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

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Michael Wienecke
Hey, so today on the podcast, we’re gonna be talking about real estate and I’ve got my good friend.

Chancie Rogers
Hey, I’m Chancie Rogers with Chancie Rogers Realty brokered by Keller Williams Hoover.

Michael Wienecke
Well, Tennessee. So a couple questions for you what got you into real estate?

Chancie Rogers
Well, actually, I had already had our, at the time three year old, and my husband’s a fireman. And so we were looking for a way for me to be able to stay at home and not have to be away from him so much. So I started in December of 2013, getting my license. And then we found out in February of 2014, that I was pregnant with our second child. So no, that’s not right. 2015. And so I decided to go all in with real estate. I was working for a paper company in Birmingham, eight to five. And I fell in love with it, and it took off. And it’s been a roller coaster ever since.

Michael Wienecke
Well, and you started at the perfect time for housing because the market was just on fire.

Chancie Rogers
Yeah, I had six months of just a normalized market, where things sat for, you know, 30 days. And then we went straight into COVID market. And it was it blew up fast.

Michael Wienecke
Oh, yeah, I remember you were calling me daily 567 times a day. So

Chancie Rogers
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And it was it was, hey, how fast can you get out there?

Michael Wienecke
Well hey, um, any advice for someone getting into real estate Now, as far as you know, the good, the bad, what you what you’ve seen?

Chancie Rogers
Yeah, you just have to really be dedicated, you have to have, you have to have goals in mind, you have to know that this business runs off of what you do, what you put into it is what you get out of it. And I’m definitely seeing that now, outside of COVID market. You can’t just they’re not just sailing now. You You have to work, you have to mark it. You have to be disciplined and discipline yourself. I mean, it’s a lot of fun. It’s a lot of joy, because you’re helping people with one of the biggest decisions of their lives. But you have to you have to really be dedicated.

Michael Wienecke
Well, and also there’s kind of that law that you have to have to worry about, you know, if there’s no houses on the market, then you’re

Chancie Rogers
Yeah, I don’t think what people realize is real estate is all commission. It’s commission based and if you’re not selling, you’re not making money, a brokerage just hold your license to, you know, to represent you and to be there for you if something was to go awry. But you know, you’re all commission based, you get no money unless those houses sell when when those houses are sitting and you have to plan for that.

Michael Wienecke
Oh, yeah. So what’s what’s the average commission that you would get off of a home?

Chancie Rogers
It just depends on the area. So I work man, I mean, of course, I’ve sold everywhere in anywhere, but I’m mainly represent mainly due them a call area and here, you know, commission, you’re looking about $4,000 to $5,000. Once it’s split it, the usual split is anywhere between two and a half to three and a half percent for buyer and seller. So you’re looking you know, your your average commission, right here in the Mccala. area, unincorporated Mccala, you’re looking at about four to 5000.

Michael Wienecke
That’s not bad.

Chancie Rogers
Not bad, but then you have to take in the taxes and put it back into the company. You know, people look at it, and they’re like real estate agents make so much money. And I’m like, let me show you.

Michael Wienecke
Like, that’s like being a business owner, you know, so

Chancie Rogers
Yeah, I mean, you are like I’m an LLC, I own Chancie Rogers Realty. And it I mean, yes, Keller Williams is my home office. But I own my own business. So you pay those business taxes. And luckily, again, I’m you know, I’m blessed to be married to a fireman. So we have state and health insurance, but I know plenty agents have to pay for their own health insurance. So that’s another fee that rolls into all of that on top of our sons and our marketing and everything we do to make it a seamless transaction.

Michael Wienecke
Oh, yeah. Yeah. So um, I know, we’ve talked about this a lot. But where do you see the market? Or how is the real estate market now? From COVID to now, you know, what do you what do you see in

Chancie Rogers
You know, some, I think all agents have it different. Again, where I work, the areas that I work that I’m mainly in, we’re seeing a very slow market, we’re seeing houses sitting for a lot longer than what they were which is the norm. They call it the shift we’re in the middle of a shift and what’s so strange is usually everyone shifts together and you’re seeing more of the city’s not so much in a shift right now. Where the county the rural areas are in the shift. And I think that just due to who’s buying right now and who’s not buying right now you know, you have your your people who aren’t wanting to aren’t want to be around all the things in the rural areas. And right now they’re like, I’m just going to hold my money and see what happens. And I mean, I truly feel and anything that I’m listening to fills this same way I do my lender partners feel the same way I do. As soon as we see those interest rates start dropping a little bit, we’re gonna see a crazy market again.

Michael Wienecke
Well, it’s crazy, because prices haven’t changed.

Chancie Rogers
And they’re going up still.

Michael Wienecke
I mean, I’ve seen some some around here, you know, we’ve got some, some older people that are leaving their home and go and go in other places. And they’re selling them for 20 30,000 less than than what they were going for, and they’re still sitting on the market, not not going anywhere. I mean, it’s, it’s crazy how it’s just flipped.

Chancie Rogers
Yeah, we went from here, you know, just in my neighborhood alone, we went from houses selling for 170 to 180 a square foot, and now we were barely getting them over 150 a square foot. But keep in mind 150 A square foot is still a whole lot more than what they were even four years ago. So we’re comparing with a market that is unprecedented to anybody if you ask them. And and the market is trying to level itself out a little bit, but at the same time prices are still high, and now you throw in the 8% interest rates. So we’re just in a little right now, I think.

Michael Wienecke
oh, yeah, it’s crazy. I mean, like, we just talked about $130,000 houses now for almost $500,000 house. It’s I can’t wrap my head around, you know, what it was?

Chancie Rogers
Yeah. Um, yeah. I mean, you know, like, like you and I were talking about I mean, we purchased our homes for right now people. I mean, at the time, we were like, Man, that’s a steal. And now it’s like, was it condemned? Was it falling in? Like, how did you get it for that price? And now, I mean, you and all those can sell our houses for double what we paid for them. And we we’ve lived in a we bought ours in 2014. So, you know, I mean, that’s not a huge gap. from the, from what we’re seeing now. And I mean, have we done a lot of work here? Absolutely. We put everything we can back into it. But does that make it to where we should be able to sell it for 300 1000s? I don’t know. You know, and that’s the market that’s trying to reset itself a little bit because kids now you know, that are getting out of college getting into high school and they’re wanting to buy. I know, when I was getting out of college in high school, it was a starter home was $89,000. You know, and you’re getting a starter home now if you’re lucky, brand new build 250 260 You know, and brand new build starter homes, three bedroom, two bath brick, you know, to get get go when was $89,000 easy.

Michael Wienecke
Oh, yeah. I mean, it was to me, it was a lot easier. And that’s, you know, you’re talking about the 252 70. That’s, that’s a little ways out. I mean, you’re not going to be in your, in your county, you’re going to be more unincorporated. So

Chancie Rogers
yeah, you’re gonna you’re looking at out and clear. And those areas that have all that booming new communities, you know, the Dr. Hortons, the the new Castle’s all of those building, the brand new houses side by side, I mean, they’re still in the 250s to 60s, easy. And a lot of those new builders are giving all of these all of these specials and the bad downs and everything because they’re having to to be able to keep going because it’s hard. Yeah, you know, it’s hard. And when taxes tell you that your house is $3,000 more than what it was two years ago. You know, you have to incorporate all of that when you’re selling as well. And it’s, you know, it’s just people are it’s a shell shock for everyone.

Michael Wienecke
Oh, yeah, definitely. Definitely. So So where do you see the market going? I know we talked about, you know, in the next couple, maybe a year, maybe six months, we really don’t know, where do you see it going?

Chancie Rogers
Yeah, I mean, you know, I always hate this question because I never want I want people to look back and be like she was wrong. You know, what? We listen to Nora, which is the the real you know, that’s where real estate’s get all of their information from that’s, that’s where we get everything National Association of Realtors. We listen to investors who’ve been doing this for years. And if real estate agents aren’t doing that you should be because that’s literally my lifeline. Because, again, I’m four years in. And I’ve seen three different markets in four years. And I feel truly we’re about to see a whole nother market again, where housing prices are still high. 6% is the new two and 3%. And we’re going to go into another feeding frenzy for 15 people per house because you have to think about it. We had those people that sold their home and kept the cash because their house was worth the most it’s ever going to be worth kept the cash. Well, we’re just going to live in our RV or we’re just going to rent for a little while they’re still living in an RV, they’re still renting. And so once that drops just a little bit, which I think will be closer to election time. Maybe spring late spring, I think we’ll see a feeding frenzy again and we’re all going to be exhausted. I pray anyway, I’m ready for Then, after I’ve done that I don’t thrive in how long is it gonna take my house to sell? It’s been sitting for 15 days. But I do feel that that’s what’s coming. And buyers need to brace themselves to be ready to battle again.

Michael Wienecke
Definitely. Hey, I love getting a phone call from you on Thursday night being like, Hey, I got a closing on Friday. I need you to do it Friday morning. Yeah, I’m with you. It’s,

Chancie Rogers
That’s really what we’re seeing. So that that domino effect was, you know, just to give an example of how crazy it is right now. We had been under contract for two months on that. But because you and I both know that, you got to get paid. And I was just waiting because the person that was buying that house was having to sell their house, and they were doing a cash deal. Well, the closing date kept changing, which of course, adjusted our closing date. And then I was doing this as a gift for my seller clients, but I don’t want to pay out of pocket because I’ve had to do it before that didn’t sale. Um, you know, for a termite bond when it’s just sitting there. So we you know, we were having a play domino effect. And then I get the phone call, Hey, we’re not closing next Tuesday. We’re actually bumping it up to this month, this Friday, because there’s people want to be in the house over the weekend. And I’m like, oh, okay, well, because we I think we had it scheduled for like that Monday or Tuesday. And I’m like, Hey, we gotta get this done, like yesterday. And that’s what we’re seeing, like, it’s still moving so fast. And once you get to that process, because the lenders are just banging stuff out, right? But we have to get to that process first. And everything else is kind of slow down. Because these people are waiting for this to happen, and this to happen and this to happen. And with the interest rates changing daily, we never know if we’re gonna make it to the closing table right now. Because they might wait. I mean, if they don’t walk in, like they’re supposed to, they might, they might wake up one morning and be like, Hey, we can’t afford this, because the interest rates went up. 5%. You know, I mean, it’s just it’s, it’s been it’s been crazy. And we’ve literally seen it all in the last six months.

Michael Wienecke
Oh, yeah. I mean buying a house, then you can’t afford the furniture. So.

Chancie Rogers
Right. Right. Don’t care about that before we close because

Michael Wienecke
Exactly. Well, that that brings me right, next question. So that’s perfect. So what sets you apart? I know you just talked about and if you want to elaborate more on that, because when you called me and said you were doing that, I mean that I thought that was awesome for you to do for your customer, great customer service. So what sets you apart?

Chancie Rogers
Well, I mean, that’s it, like, you know, people are, this is the most joyful, yet stressful time of their life. I mean, they’re making the biggest purchase of their life. And so you want to make that as seamless as possible. Of course, in this case, this is a reoccurring client, for me, a good friend of mine, she’s also starting to invest. So she’s going to be an investor client of mine. And, you know, I just wanted to make sure that she knew how much I appreciated her how important it was, and I didn’t want them to I knew coming down to it. The last thing we were going to need was the termite, Vaughn and who are and you know, you guys are always so great to just be like, yes, we’re on it, like, don’t worry about it. But I knew that that was going to be stressful, and I didn’t want her in the picture at all. So I just took care of that. But you know, I also am huge on social media. Absolutely love marketing. You know, background, my dad has been a marketing manager for AMS for golf. 40 plus years now. So the marketing for me is just huge. And I enjoy it. And you can see that in my job. I also give back to the fire department with any closing that I have. That’s huge to me, and not only my married to one, my granddaughter of one, I’m a daughter of one all my family is in the medical field. So giving that to them is so important to me. And it’s a huge staple in our life to make sure that those guys and gals are taking care of so that’s important too.

Michael Wienecke
Oh, yeah. And they deserve it.

Chancie Rogers
Yeah, absolutely. They work way too hard.

Michael Wienecke
Yes,I know. Yes. Yeah. Well, um, so let’s talk about some good and bad about real estate. I mean, you know, obviously, during COVID It was it was great. Now, it’s now it’s bad. What are some just horror stories that you have?

Right, I mean, you know, you just have to prepare and I mean, real estate agents. I mean, they always have to have that, that that keeper in your back pocket. I mean, right now, you and I’ve talked about it, I’m seven at the school. Anytime that I can just to make up for that income that’s not there. You don’t take away from pouring into your business and you don’t be a secret agent. I think if you look on my Facebook, you’ll be able to tell every day that I’m a real estate agent, I keep it in people’s face. But you know, just being a full time agent being there for your clients. You didn’t you just have to know that. What you’re going through, is it anywhere compared to what your clients are going through, especially those buyers who have been waiting for a year to get into a home? You know, they’re they’re stressed, they can’t find anything and just, you know, being a real person like they’re real people. You’re real people. You’re working for them. understand that you’re working for them. And if it wasn’t for them, you wouldn’t be getting a paycheck. So, you know, just just knowing that it’s not as easy as it looks on selling sunset. And it’s not as magical as HGTV. But you make it as smooth a transition as possible for your clients. And, of course, there are plenty of horror stories, you have people that you work with just to get that paycheck that at the end, like y’all probably weren’t the best fit for each other. And they probably won’t use you again. And that’s okay with you. But you still give them the utmost attention and serving them just like you would anyone else.

Oh, yeah, yeah, well, and not getting.

Chancie Rogers
I think that’s a little bit of the downfall that we see in this, you know, in this business, a lot of people are like, they’re just trying to get to that closing table, not really not understanding that you literally are in charge of one of the biggest decisions and people’s laws and their about the sun over literally their life, and every bit of money that they have. And just using that as I gotta get money in the bank is just not that’s not how this should work. That’s not how that’s not what real estate was meant for your your debate, you’re to be that backbone, and that that person that is there to guide them through the whole way. And when you you can’t be that if all you’re looking for is a paycheck. So if you’re getting into real estate, and but you know what you need, make sure that you have that something to fall back on, so that every paycheck isn’t like, I’ve got to have it no matter what the situation is.

Michael Wienecke
Oh, yeah, well, and, you know, the biggest thing is trust to I mean, like, we work, we work with multiple real estate agents. And like, I’ve voiced my opinion, you know, some of us, some of them have, after we’ve given them the wood infestation report, we’ve never heard back from them, we’ve never, we’ve never been paid. So you know, just just having that trust with the person you’re working for. And being able to vouch for that person is huge.

Chancie Rogers
Well, and we’re not in a business to where you burn those bridges. You know, like, I mean, I depend on you just as much as you depend on me, you know, you’re like, hey, you know, I know that she’s gonna call me when she needs a termite, if it’s up to her. And you know that, like, there’s no doubt. But you know, at the same time, I need to know that the work, the job is getting done, and I don’t have to worry about it. And I never have to. And it’s the same way with all of my partners, if at the end of the day like, and I’ll use this for Prime example, one of my lender partners, their marketing person is literally my best friend, like my ride or die. And she knows that, like, I love her Absolutely, with every inch of me. But if one, if I have a client that I know is not going to mix with them, I’m going to send them to one of my other lender partners. And if if I have a client that comes to me, and they’re like, hey, this just isn’t working for me, again, absolutely love her. But we’re flipping on to someone else, because they’re my client. And they’re what’s important to me. It’s the same way with my my title company, you know, I have all these preferred people who I rely on them, and they rely on me, but at the end of the day, if my clients not happy with anybody that I pick, we switching gears, of course, because they are my number one priority. And that’s the way it should be in real estate. But at the same time, you do have those bonds with certain people, you’re a team. You know, in real estate, they think that, you know, it’s just the real estate agent, I have 50 million million people, including you who I have at my back that I have this team and we’re ready to go and I give my people the sheet and these are who you need to call. Let’s get the ball rolling, right? I’ve built a team of people that I trust, so I don’t have to worry about it. That’s right. That’s right. And if you don’t have that team, you don’t have that backbone. You don’t have that structure. You’re not running a true real estate business. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you’re making it work. And when you burn bridges like that, like you know, with me, and you I wanted to make sure that there was a paid situation. So it was paid in full, and then when you were reimbursed, you reimbursed me. That’s the way it should be like that’s the way this business should be ran Not while I’m gonna call a person, and if it didn’t work out, well, I’ll just move on to the next that’s not a team that’s not running a true business.

Michael Wienecke
Well, that’s something else, you know, with with us and you you know, a lot we’ve we’ve heard of a lot of other companies that they go through email and all that I like that that personal touch with, with my customers with you with with anybody that I’m working with where it’s it’s a conversation Hey, yeah, we’ll get it done. I really don’t like the filling out a form type thing. And I guess it’s old school.

Chancie Rogers
Yeah well, and you know, I mean, I think I mean, there are really truly haven’t had many buyer clients or seller clients that haven’t used you. And so and that’s coming from buyers who already have contracts that it was someone else because they’re buying from someone, but my people trust me so much. And we have such a good relationship. And we’re a team that they’re like, I want to flip to your guys because I know that I can call you you can call them if there’s something wrong Whereas with there’s other people, I’m going to be on hold for 15 minutes waiting on the next customer service representative. You know, like, I guess, you know, it all boils down to I mean, you can use big companies. I’m not saying big companies are not a good option. Go ahead, you know, if that’s what you’re comfortable with, and that to your team is, I do better with small town team because I’m a hometown Country Girl lender. I mean, look at my house. But, you know, it just works better for us. It works better for my clientele, I’m not in the upper areas where they don’t mind, you know, somebody’s going to take care of it for them. So they don’t mind sitting on hold for 15 minutes. I know who I can contact, I know who I can go to, and I know it’s taken care of. And that’s something off my real estate plate that I don’t have to worry about.

Michael Wienecke
Right, right. Well, Chancie I really appreciate you coming on the podcast. So how can how can we find you? You know?

Chancie Rogers
Yeah. So my cell phone is always the best way to get in touch with me calls or text messages 205-260-8286. I’ll literally answer anything. It could say spam risk, and I’m still going to answer it just in case. And then I am on Tik Tok, the fancy agent, Instagram, the fancy agent and then just Chancie Rogers Realty on Facebook.

Michael Wienecke
Perfect. well hey, again, I really appreciate you coming on.

Click here to visit Chancie Roger’s website!205-260-8286The post Chancie Rogers Realtor of Birmingham Alabama Local Business Spotlight appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

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Michael Wienecke
Hey so today on the podcast we want to talk about dryer vent cleaning and I have my good friend Matt Parker with job town dryer vent cleaning Matt how you doing?

Matt Parker
Good man how are you?

Michael Wienecke
Doing great man doing great. So um let’s dive right into it. Tell me a little bit about your story your business how you got started all that

Matt Parker
Awesome yeah so been a fireman for 15 years and were originally started out pressure washing so we I was pressure washing me and another guy at the current fire department and he had a pressure washing business as well and one night he ran across a basically it was a tick tock video I think he’s like hey, what do you think about this and it was dryer minute Cleaning Guy was just you know running a run into air compressor with a hose into somebody’s retirement sling and went all over the place he’s like I think there might be something there so that that piqued our interest so when we were going to houses both he and I both we get houses pressure wash we start looking at dryer mats and seeing are the vent caps and see and lots of just clogged stuff like we could we saw something that we could actually help band firemen we’ve both of us had been on actual dryer fires. So we kind of saw a need as well. And so we basically can just started doing research. We reached out to companies in Tennessee reached out to coffees in Arizona companies in Texas, there’s some there’s Texas as a lot bigger than it is here. There are several guys that are actually farming as well. So had a you know, we reached out to guys in Atlanta, we’re just, you know, doing our research, doing our due diligence, trying to figure out if this is something that we feel like, you know, we could sustain and, you know, everything just kind of kind of fell into our lap. Honestly, we we found out about certifications that we want you guys to see that certification that allows us to you know, we we know exactly what we’re doing now with driving and cleaning. So that was a huge get getting that see that stuff. And, you know, so it’s just been slowly and surely grow. And it’s been amazing. That’s basically where it started. And you know, we just like we saw a need. And you know, being being firemen, we can we know the dangers of not cleaning out your dryer, but what it can lead to, and we just wanted to you know, make a difference.

Michael Wienecke
Yeah, man. That’s awesome. It’s funny, because, you know, that’s how I started Peskies I mean, I took a part time job. I was firefighters. Well, you know, we work together. Yeah. And it fell into my lap started a company and here we are. So, yes. And I’ve I’ve also been on driving fires, it’s it’s very, very common. I think people just kind of don’t know how common it really is. So

Matt Parker
Right. Yeah. The NFPA the last, the last numbers that I’ve seen, you know, obviously this is, you know, in our research, we found this out last numbers I think were from, I want to say 15. So they haven’t done a survey, but there was like I want to say close to 15,000 structural fires that were due to dry vents.

Michael Wienecke
Wow. Wow.

Matt Parker
Yeah, it’s it’s a lot more common than you think.

Michael Wienecke
Well, and that lint is so I mean, it just it lights on fire so quickly. I mean, it’s the best kindling for really any fire. And hopefully, it’ll burn your house down quick. So

Matt Parker
Yeah, yeah. And you have an appliance. It’s pretty good. It’s providing heat to it. Yep. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So

Michael Wienecke
Well, so how’d you come up with a name?

Matt Parker
So the name is you know, just going back to the our firefighter route. So when you when around the station, if we get a fire we get a wreck or any anything that is going on that we get toned out on? We it’s called a job, you know, we’re going to a job. So we just kind of just some slang, honestly, that came about at the fire station. It’s just job town. We’re going to Job town. So me and the guy that started this company with both Vironment and hey, what do you think about Georgetown? And it was kind of, you know, kind of tongue in cheek just something different. Honestly, some of this kind of sets us apart what you know what is job town so we can tell our story, but anyway, so just being a fireman, Fireman run and operated business. It just fit job sounds just kinda like okay, yeah, I like it. So we just ran with it. So that’s where it came from.

Michael Wienecke
I love it. Love the logo, love the name. I love the story. So it’s great. I mean, come from the firefighter background, you know, of course. So why why should we clean our dryer vents? Obviously we talked about the potential structure fire, but what are some other issues that you know, like we talked about before? Not a lot of people think about drive ins is something that needs to be maintained clean. I know I certainly didn’t until I got in the fire service and started seeing, you know, the repercussion to that.

Matt Parker
Right! Yeah, well, I mean, honestly, I, it’s something that I never really thought about either, you know, most of my dryers were on exterior walls and in that I’ve had personally and never really had an issue myself. But like you said, we’ve run it, we’ve seen it, we know the dangers of it, we’ll see there’s numbers that are out there. And, you know, the main things that there’s, well, there’s a ton of things that have happened, I’ve been to somebody’s house that had several bands, and they had a break in their dryer vent, and it started creating a water issue. So this link gets in there. And the if it’s not able to get out, you know, all it is, is moist air that is this getting pushed to this dryer, and eventually it becomes dry over time, you know, over that 60 minutes of dryers running, it becomes dried, it dries out. And if you’ve been so just rolls out of your mint. If it’s not, if it’s not venting properly, all that motion just sits in there, and it finds a low spotlight waterwheel and then it’ll just start leaking. So they had they thought they had a plumbing leak, they didn’t know what was going on. Like I think I got like two gallons of water out of this diagram. Wow, dryer vent. Yeah, lint wetland just sitting there, it’s just soaking that stuff up. It was disgusting. So it’s not just fires, you can have water issues, you can have just, you know, if you’re in a crawlspace, and you’ve got a broken lint, a broken pipe, you just got lint, and just moisture and mold can start building up, you know, it’s just, it’s just a giant mess. So one, it’s can just be messy and an irritant to its, it can create mold issues in your house, I’ve seen several, there’s another one that I went to, I don’t know how they didn’t have that standing water, when I got in and cleaning it still that there’s just really nothing that I could do about it. Yeah, I can’t run a sponge up in there, you know, it’s just the one of these things were used. There was no airflow at the end, they had a huge clot at the beginning. And it was just sitting in there, there was no air movement. So it’s just water and moisture is building up over time. And it just hasn’t worked yet. So once we get that cleaned out or moving over it, eventually it’s going to dry out and it’s going to do what it needs to do. But there’s a lot more problems. So you know, you start you can burn dryers, several several dryers is burnt up, you know, that’s an expensive appliance that if you just do some proper maintenance on it, you can the thing, last thing, you know, they’re supposed to last a long time, you can get it last 10 years, just by taking care of this, like, the only thing it wants to do is also pull air in and most heat it and it wants to move it out like it is as long as it can do that it’ll last for a very long time. So that’s, you know, it’s cutting down on energy, you know, it’s more energy efficient if the driver can run like it’s supposed to. There’s, there’s several benefits to not tell people, it’s probably one of the most neglected areas in our homes that require normal maintenance. You know, it’s kind of like the old in all change for your house is basically where we’re what we’re talking about,

Michael Wienecke
Well, that there’s nothing worse than you’re going to, you know, take out the wet clothes, because I’ve had this happen to me. So you’re going to take out the wet clothes from your washer, throw them in the dryer, and then it doesn’t work or it doesn’t heat your clothes. And now you get you know, sopping wet mess. So

Matt Parker
Absolutely.

Michael Wienecke
So just for the typical homeowner, you know, what are some signs before they would call you what are some signs that they would see their dryer, you know, that knowing that it needed to get cleaning, you know, what,

Lint stuck inside a dryer vent hose

Matt Parker
Right so there’s, there’s three major ones and the like the one you were just talking about, you take wet clothes to your dryer, and they don’t get dry, you’re running, you’re running several loads, just to get some sheets dry, you know, I had to run it three times. First time. second sign is. So when we get a clog in our system, we get a clog in our vent that dryer, that hot air can’t move out. So if you go and touch your dryer and it’s hot to touch, it should like it should be warm. It’s not like you know, you go put your hand on and not a big deal. You know your drivers work and it’s good. Hot, like this thing is really hot. This is normal. That’s another sign that you’ve got to drive in this year. And your third like your room will just heat up like the I had a lady who’s been president was broke. It’s just like he just gets so hot in here. I’ve even heard of people having their wall sweating just because there’s so much moisture in there. So if you have any of that stuff going on you really have a you have a real problem so hot you dry hot to touch dry multiple loads room is warm. If your wall start sweating, those are all those are all signs that you got to issue with your dryer vent. So it’s not you know, most people are gonna it’s gonna say I got a dryer problem. No, you don’t have a problem dryers do what it needs to do. It just can’t breathe the vent problem yet you’re not allowing the dryer to do what it wants to do. So

Michael Wienecke
Well like I said with the analogy of a car I mean, you cover the exhaust it’s the same exact thing you’re not gonna, it’s gotta breathe somehow.

Matt Parker
And the beauty of these newer ones now like they’ll they’ll give you code Yeah or older dryers they’ll just keep rocking until they buy Turn up, the appliance burns up or your house catches on fire or, you know, whatever. So these new ones, they’ll they’ll throw a D 80, which are, do you know, that’s just one of the hear about a lot. So it’s like 80% block. Okay, they know that they have a problem, you know, D 90 D 95. I mean, it gets, they’ll get hot. So,

Michael Wienecke
So it actually tells you the blockage in the unit itself?

Matt Parker
I think, right, I think they have a pressure, they have a pressure reader, I think built into the dryer. So once it stepped back pressure starts hitting it. And it just it, I guess it can register. That’s another thing I can think of, that’s the only way I know that it’s just, it’s recognizing that there’s an issue in the event.

Michael Wienecke
Well, that’s pretty cool. Right there. So walk me through your process of how you do it, you know, you get on scene and you start, you know, working what is your process?

Matt Parker
Sure. So we think another thing that separates us too, is, you know, we’re we want to provide customer service like that is that is first and foremost, what we want to do. So we were going to show up, we’re going to introduce ourselves, and we’re going to get you to take us to the jar, once we get there, we’re going to cut it on, and we’re working our way outside. So we’re gonna go outside and the thing that we’re looking for the most, and that tells us, you know, it points us in the direction of where we need to go. So we’re getting an airflow reading. So, you know, there’s a standard that a dryer has. And we know real quick, if your dryer is not performing to that standard, you know, just by therefore reading what’s coming out, we’re looking at your Vent Cap as well while we’re up there. So those things clog up and can create a huge problem. I’ve seen several that just have a mint cap issue, like there’s nothing wrong with the dryer Mint is fine. But the mint cat is completely blocked, and you start getting that blockage and you start getting those problems like we talked about earlier. So while we’re up there at your at your termination, we’re going to get an airflow reading, and we’re going to clean everything from there. So that’s, that’s the first thing we’re going to do, then we’re going to come down most of them honestly, to err on roofs. And that’s another thing. If you have a dryer and an area of convenience, this is a necessity that you get your job and cleaned out. If you’re on an exterior wall, and it’s just blowing right out, your biggest problem is changing your transition hose and making sure that it’s good. I kind of went off on a tangent there. But like we have most of our homes now that are being built, they put an area there dryers in areas of convenience. And that’s where you start getting these problems. So like so most of them are on roofs, that’s where I was going with that. So we’ll go up on the roof, clean that thing out, come back inside. Once we come back inside, we pull the dryer away from the wall, we clean up anything behind the dryer, we’re vacuum and we’re walking down microfiber cloth we’re doing, you know, we’re just taking care of taking care of that, that area that just once again is just neglected, nobody’s pulling the dryer away from the wall and cleaning it. So we go ahead while we’re back there, but we’ll vacuum baseboards, we wipe everything, wipe all the walls down all the witnesses collected back there over the years or years, how long has it been since has been moved. And then we pulled the transmission hose off and we inspect that well make sure that it’s good. You know, check it out, make sure that the code no major holes or anything like that, that can be causing problems. And once we do that, if it’s in good shape, we’ll clean that and set it aside, then we’ll go to the back of the dryer with a dryer, actually the bit is on the dryer where the air actually exits. And we will clean that as well put a vacuum on that. And that’s another thing too, we have a vacuum system that we’re backing everything up. So there’s no lint or anything’s getting blown throughout your house, everything’s getting pulled to a vacuum system that has filters and bags. So it’s it’s super clean. So we’ll clean the back of your dryer out. And then we have an inspection camera that will run the entire length of your event. So your event you know depending on how long it is we’ll we’ll go through checking out all making sure all your terms are in safe and intact, making sure that there’s no real, nothing intruding into your dryer man, that’s a big code violation. And it just creates a you know, it’s just it just grabs lint and creates problems. So we’ll look for that. And then we’ll just make sure that it’s you know, it also allows us to know the length. So you can only have a dryer, man, if it’s a straight around from the back of your dryer all the way out of your house, it’s 35 feet, that’s code. That’s all you can have 35 feet, so in every bend and every 45 it cuts down on that just because it creates so much friction. So we get an idea of how long your vision is. And we can tell you stuff like that too. So it’s an we get some good before pictures so we can share with everybody everybody likes to see we like to show our work too. So you can call us for a fact what you’re getting. So it’s just another it’s another thing that we know just providing that that service for those customers. So we’ll get that. We’ll get all this before and after pictures, make sure everything’s good with the bin. Bring everything out and we have a brush we agitate you know you see all these YouTube videos and all this stuff or these guys put blowers or backings on their vents and they just blow a bunch of lint out. It works great but there’s they’re not agitating that stuff that stuff will stick especially if you have dogs, dogs and cats. I’ve got two. So I mean, like, I understand their hair and lint becomes like concrete, like you can blow all that loose stuff that’s just in there, yeah, it’s gonna come out, it’s still stuck to your walls, if you don’t have a way to agitate that. And to get that and scrub that off the walls, it’s just gonna stay in there, especially if it’s wet. exists. Exactly right, exactly right, yeah, it’s not gonna get blown out with a blower up. So we take a brush system and a drill and we agitate, it’s a four inch brush that hits all the way up the on all sides of your race round. So it hits the hits everything and your job, then we pull everything to it, if it’s a vertical, we kind of let gravity help us out, it falls down, we vacuum everything up. If it’s a horizontal drive, if it goes up and kind of out the side of your house will actually get to the outside of the house, put the vacuum on and we push everything in to the backing system. So it’s cleaned. Once we’ve done that, we rerun the camera, make sure that it’s good shade to get after pictures, and then put everything back together for you. So that is what you know, that’s what you get. When we come out to your house and give you a drive and cleaning. That’s what you’re getting. We’re not cutting any corners, and everyone gets that same service.

Michael Wienecke
I love how you run the camera, I love that you’re showing your customer. Exactly, you know what you’re seeing before and after. So, you know, and I love your I mean, you’re offering a free inspection to make sure that there is no, you know, code violation, because you talked about with me there, you run into a lot of code violations.

Matt Parker
Absolutely, yes, huge code violations, which create lots of lots of problems, you know, I mean, that’s where your fires typically come from. So good to know that, if you have if you if your event is up to code, and everything’s good, it needs to be cleaned. If your event is added code, and you’re running transition hose through walls, you know, just as well as I do how friction builds up, and you’ve got, let’s just, you know, my, my old partner called it Slinky Dog House is that, you know, it’s aluminum foil rat, you know, it’s just wire wrap aluminum foil, essentially, I mean, everything that we put on is UL certified. So, you know, it’s, it’s been tested, but that does, but it’s for, you know, it’s a transition it is to transition your dryer to your mitt, it is not a dryer meant transition hose, you know, it says that it’s in the name. So when you run transition hose into a wall, in, down and out, and it’s got all these terms, and it’s not, we like to pull it as tight as we can, and then make it as short as possible. So like when it’s super tight, we connect it with warm drives, and then as we push the dryer together, it’s super short, there’s not a lot of friction in there. And it it does well, you know, it’s serves its purpose, but when you run it into a wall, and run, it’s extremely long runs, you know, these things are 30 foot long, and you’re doing that and now you have all these all these ridges that are creating friction, not allowing that man to flow like it needs to, you’ve got lint built up in there, and it’s super thin. So we’re going back to now if we get a hole in this, you’re gonna create, you’re gonna be blowing lint everywhere. Best case scenario, worst case scenario is is correct is capturing moisture. And now you have you have water in your home, wherever this man is, you’re getting a moisture issue. And honestly, that’s where your fire is coming from. So they start in the dryer, now you have all this lint built up in a super thin, you know, aluminum foil wrapped vent. So it’s just going to burn, it’s got air coming from the outside, it’s got air, which is you know, it needs fire needs a couple of things it needs steel in it needs oxygen, and it needs air, I mean, it’s an ignition source, basically. And heat, you’re given, it’s got all of it, it’s got everything that it needs. So once it starts, it’s got everything it needs to grow, it’s got fuel in there, it’s got air, and it’s got a heat source that has been provided by your dryer. So all those things are just a really bad combination. And that’s why this transition hose is a huge Kabbalist because that’s where your fires are going to come from is collecting that when it’s getting you know, if it starts in the dryer, it makes his way out, makes his way out of that dryer and starts collecting this lint. And now it just has this basically like a fuse that it can just run all the way through your house.

Michael Wienecke
Well, and that’s it, you know, once it gets in the attic, you know, as well as I do. It’s a it’s a loss. Absolutely. Sign it off. Yeah. Well, and that’s it’s funny you say that because we do a lot of termite work. So we’ll crawl crawl spaces, and I see it all the time where you’re you’re talking about you know, that hose is broken apart or it wasn’t it wasn’t meant to be there in the first place. It wasn’t done right. And they’ve just got dryer lint throughout their entire crawlspace Oh, absolutely.

Matt Parker
I mean, if you go especially if you go to a nicer home that that hasn’t that hasn’t been addressed and never had an issue with it. And it’s encapsulated here like I just wanted to ask crawled one crawlspace man, you could go down there and I like it again. They’re super nice, but the vendors are nice. Yeah, it was super nice. I was like, Man, this is fantastic. But I mean, let’s bro the dryer vent was broke off and I just got lint and some like said moistures in there and like you spent all this money, you’ve done all this to do, you know, to do your preventative maintenance on your home and to keep it nice and clean and fresh air and all that stuff. And now you’re just pumping crap in it. So it’s just, you know, it’s a problem.

Michael Wienecke
Well, we preach preventative maintenance on everything with pest control termite I mean, it like we talked about anything you do, you have to keep it, you know, maintained or it’s gonna fall apart.

Matt Parker
Exactly.

Michael Wienecke
So, alright, so what’s what’s something? What’s the most interesting thing you found in a dryer van? I know, you know, in my business, we find all kinds of things. bird nest, rats, dead things. So since you’re getting a camera up in there, you get to see a lot more not do.

Matt Parker
So, you know, we’ve seen some very interesting things. Lots of birds nest lots what we’ve found we’ve actually found we rescued three birds and took them to the the lady was awesome. We got those out. And she took them to I want to say she took them to a mountain. And like, you know, they say, yeah, yeah. So the birds could go and in live so we found several birds nests. We, we run in a camera after we clean this one out and pull the camera back down. And we’d been back there working on this jar for a while and there was a frog. I think he I think we put the camera out it was at the big gap. And maybe he just crawled onto it and rode that camera off my back down to that Jarvinen so we found a frog. I guess I don’t know how frog got back there. But birds, nests frogs. And one of the most interesting things that we used to clean out the were the lint trap goes into your dryer, we used to clean those out. We had a bad experience with that. So we don’t do that anymore. But I found a toothbrush in one of those. So that was pretty interesting. Pull on toothbrush and somebody’s dryer.

Michael Wienecke
I guess I got left in a pocket or something like that. I bet you find a lot of coins.

Matt Parker
Yeah, yeah.

Michael Wienecke
So where can people find you? So you know, listen to this. What’s your phone number? You know, email address, all that kind of stuff?

Matt Parker
Yeah, so this phone number is 205-881-9115. And we have website. It’s a job town cleaning at. I’m sorry, that’s the email the email is gonna be jobtowncleaningcompany@gmail.com If you want to shoot us an email, and the website says jobtowndryerventcleaning.com. So we’re on Google as well. So this is probably the easiest way to find us honestly. So you can just Google you know job town driving cleaning or just Google Drive and cleaning. We’re, we’re on the Google’s as well.

Michael Wienecke
Perfect. What are yours do you service?

Matt Parker
Man? Well, we will go anywhere we try to stick within the 30 minutes of Birmingham right now just because we’re limited on manpower, but if you’re having an emergency and we have to, we’ll charge slightly but we’ll go outside. We’ll go pretty much anywhere if somebody’s having a problem we can get to him with you know, I’ve been called I had to tell lady no that was in Gordo, which I mean that was like an hour away. So it was a little outside of it. But you know, I don’t we don’t like say no a lot. So we’ll go just about anywhere. Well, good

Michael Wienecke
deal why Georgetown love the name. Again, Matt. I appreciate you coming on and hopefully, you know, some might give you a call and get that dryer vent cleaned.

Matt Parker
Heck yeah man they awesome. We love helping people out reducing risk and people’s homes. And that’s that’s the name of the game.

Lint cleaned out of a customer’s dryer vent by Jobtown Dryer Vent Cleaning Company

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Michael Wienecke
Hey, so today we’re gonna talk about the house mouse or otherwise known as the common house mouse. We have some pretty cool video today, we’re going to show you a little bit later. But I just wanted to go into detail on kind of the what to look for signs of infestation, how quickly they mate, and just their habits alone and of course, controlling them. So Travis, take it away.

Travis McGowin
So the house mouse was originally thought to have come from Asia, but it’s completely widespread, not just in the United States, now. It’s in Canada it’s in, it’s pretty much in every country, and every on every continent, around the world is just a very, very survival adapted creature, well, we’ll put it that way. You know, it can survive and really warm temperatures, it could survive and really cool temperatures. But they’re typically, you know, not really big, definitely not large in comparison to let’s say, a rat, or something of that nature. Their colors rains, typically from you know, a lightest gray, maybe even a little bit of brown on the top of their bodies, and typically a lighter, almost white underbelly on the mouse. If you’re looking at tracks, there’s four toes on the front feet, there’s five toes on the back feet, they’ve got a pointed snout, or appointed nose, and really, really tiny eyes, and air and ears that stick up with minimal hair on them too. And their tails really don’t have a lot of hair either, mostly kind of scaly. So like I said, they’re very small, which allows them to get into places that they shouldn’t get into, we always tell our customers, you know, a hole the size of a dime. But you know, according to research that we’ve done, the average size hole on the small end is about a quarter of an inch, if it’s a quarter of an inch, they can fit through it, and they can get into some very, very tight places.

Michael Wienecke
Well, and if they can fit their head through, they can start nylon and shoe and working that around and making that hole bigger. So it’s funny how you said, thought to come from Asia. I don’t think we know where they came from, honestly, because I mean, with shipping routes and all that they’ve come in trucks that come in boats, all over the place, I find that interesting that they think that it come came from Asia

Travis McGowin
well in shipping, you know, the primary, the primary way that they enter most of your commercial facilities, when you talk about warehouses, you talk about restaurants, you talk about places like that, is through shipping, you know, they may hide inside of a pallet that is, you know, trucked across, you know, from one state to another to be delivered. And then, of course, you know, coming in from the outside, open doors, or from around H back entries, or electrical or other utility entries, plumbing injuries, you know, they’re very, very good at finding, you know, a place to enter into these buildings. And like you said, like what you said, so if the hole isn’t big enough, they may decide to just know, at larger two, they can get in and I actually do have a picture. So I was called out this week to a local childcare facility. And they actually physically saw mice running through the building, which was kind of comical because the kids got to see the mice to which I do have a little video footage of that, that we’ll share here in a minute.

Michael Wienecke
The right place at the right time.

Travis McGowin
Exactly. But I do have this photo here to show you what I found in one of the closets in a multipurpose room. So check this out. So this closet backs right up to another closet that opens door to the outside of the building. It’s like a utility room where they have water heaters and outside objects for play and keeping just different outside toys for the kids. And the door doesn’t always shut all the way very well. So you have to really really force it close. I think sometimes it gets flipped open. But it appears that those mice came through that closet and then with there being no baseboards in that other outside outdoor closet. It’s like they just came right up underneath the sheet rock or right through where some of the plumbing went through the wall and then just chewed open the hole wider so they could get through and you mean you see these vinyl baseboards that they’ve stuck up on the wall? I mean, they’re really no match for a rodent?

Michael Wienecke
Not at all. That’s a that’s like a few seconds for them to get through. And that’s for that’d be in mice you know that. Typically when you see that you’d say that’s a rat hole right out right off the bat but that that’s they did some work to get into that.

Travis McGowin
They did you know in rodents always constantly have to know and chew on things. Their teeth are constantly growing. They have to keep them filed down to a manageable level. But there were we’ve called so far a total of three mice throughout the building. There’s very comical. I arrived that morning after they saw the mouse run through the bill. Holding the video footage that we’re going to show was just not long before I got there, it was taken not long before I got there. And we actually ended up hitting up one of the mice in a storage closet and kind of blocking it off in there. And I put traps in there. And then that evening, I went back and we’d actually caught the mouse. But yet the what’s the big problem, though? So obviously, nobody wants to read it. And you know, they’re there. A lot of people, some people think they’re cute, some people think they’re ugly, a lot of people just don’t want to see them. But what’s the bigger picture? Why do we not want rodents inside of our facilities and our houses and our commercial buildings and those places.

Michael Wienecke
So I mean, the biggest thing is going to be just disease. You know, they’re filthy, the biggest problem they cause they get into your food. They, you know, I’ve seen them wreak havoc in someone’s, you know, worst case scenario, a wrapping paper closet where somebody was doing all their Christmas wrapping paper, and they just shredded it. I mean, it was just so it’s covered in poop, pee, paper, baby rodents, just all that remnants of all that. So and then of course, like said with the food, they’re going to spread salmonella. That’s one of the biggest the biggest issues with with those rodents. So

Travis McGowin
yeah, among among other things, salmonella is probably the the main and primary culprit that is spread by rodents. They usually defecate or pee on everything that they they touch. And then the rodents are very territorial, too. So they go out and patrol their territory, leaving, you know, urine to mark that territory along the way, every single day. And so it just builds up. And I mean, you’re talking about one single rodent can cause a mess. But I mean, most of the time, there’s more than one. So you’re talking about an exponential miss. And it can just cycle out of control quicker than people realize.

Michael Wienecke
Well, it it’s amazing how quickly they can turn from, you know, babies to being able to have babies, I mean, you’re talking about, I mean being weaned off, what, 19 days, 21 days, and then average about 30 to 35 days, they’re ready to start making babies and then they’re gonna have eight, eight litres per year, around 40 to 50 Babies per year.

Travis McGowin
Yeah, the average litter size of a house mouse is about six, six offspring give or take. So on average, ideally, in nice conditions, these mice can have 4850 plus babies per year. Now, in a cooler climate, their breeding may be a little more seasonal, and they may kind of take time off from that until it warms up again. So there might be some slower months. But in an average climate, you know, much like ours, I would say that we’re probably having to deal with inbreeding year round.

Michael Wienecke
Well, not only that, you know, especially here in Alabama, you know, they they’re their commensal rodents, so they may live in the attic, or the crawlspace. And typically, we don’t get that phone call until they have that that major problem, you know, it’s not one or two rodents that they just didn’t see. It’s now five 612. You know, we’ve seen 48 before.

Travis McGowin
So a lot of times, attics are just kind of the perfect place. They’re dark, they’re usually undisturbed. If they’ve got especially blow in insulation, these rodents can kind of burrow out in this insulation, and make their homes inside of that, because it’s just nice, warm and comfortable material for them. The good thing about rodents, though, is a lot of times, I mean, and they may travel a little further for food, but a lot of times their territory is not more than you know, kind of 20 foot in every direction from around where their bedding is. So, you know as a homeowner, if you’ve got some signs of mice, you know, some telltale signs to look for the obvious things. You know, rodent poop, shredded, like you said in that closet with wrapping paper, shredded bedding material, that sort of thing. So if you haven’t caught a mouse with your own efforts by putting traps out and whatnot, if you haven’t caught a mouse within two, three days than the mice, that’s not the mouse his territory, you need to you need to start looking for another place to put a trap.

Michael Wienecke
Yeah, I mean, that’s the same with bait. So if you’re gonna put your own bait out or something like that, if they’re not eating that bait within that, you know, one to three days, it’s time to move it around the building outside inside, and just kind of see where your activity is. The best way to know Hey, where they’re they’re eating, where they’re sleeping, all that is gonna be droppings, if you’re seeing a ton of droppings behind the fridge. More than likely that’s where they’re going to be at.

Travis McGowin
Yeah, and if you’re, you know, if you move a shelf and there’s 234 droppings just here or there, then there’s a high likelihood that that is that is I mean They may travel through there occasionally, because they usually like sit, they poop and pee wherever they go. But the vast majority of time, that’s not gonna be in their territory necessarily. So you might want to look elsewhere in terms of your effectiveness, and also some other good things to do to, you want to always, of course, put traps around along rodent runways, the rodents run a lot of the same path, they also explore their territory. So another good place to put it, unless it’s, you know, it’s not on that runway is in a corner. So rodents typically slowed down in the corners. And then the other recommendations we have is, let’s just say they’re in a storage closet, and you’ve got a lot of different, you know, let’s say jugs of cleaning supplies or things like that, when you go to place those traps, relocate some of those cleaning supplies, move them around a little bit, this forces that rodent to not just take the same path, but to explore their territory as their territory has changed. And you can just lead to you having a more successful time and trapping those mice.

Michael Wienecke
Yeah, that was them off makes them you know, start kind of rearranging their territory, and they’re easier to trap. Another thing I’ll say, too, about trapping is that if you’re having an issue where you just can’t catch a mouse, bait that trap and don’t set the trap for a couple days, just let it let them eat on that trap, get comfortable that trap and kind of, you know, add that to their, to their runway to their territory where they’re, you know, happy with it being there. And then set it the next couple days. And you’ll you’ll catch them note no problem.

Travis McGowin
Oh, yeah. Well, to kind of round us off, I did, I promise some some footage. So I’m going to show it real quick. Yeah. Now keep in mind, it’s not the best footage, it was taken by a cellular phone, videoing the footage from a CCTV camera system on a computer screen, so it’s not the best. But I’ll start off with this one. So this is an actual, excuse me video of that rodent that was crawling around inside of their multipurpose room. So I’m gonna show that real quick. And you’ll see he’s kind of blurry, but you can tell what he is. So here it is. And you see him right down there on the bottom of the screen. He’s a little dark blob moving around, looks very confused. And he just is exploring that multipurpose room that’s got a bunch of different storage supplies and things in it. Alright, so the morning that I got the call about the rodent running through the hallway. A little girl in the program was at the right place at the right time when the rodent darted from one room to another across the hallway. So this is kind of comical in terms of her reaction. So we got this from two different angles, but I’ll show it to you. And we tried to highlight where the rodent was. It’s very difficult to see. So just keep your eyes peeled. Look the doorways right there.

Michael Wienecke
You can see when she runs

Travis McGowin
Yes, yeah. She turned around and sprinted. She screamed, and she you know, she sprinted. And then that same moment called from the other direction, you can see for a split second the mouse. I mean, it’s just a blur, because it ran through so fast. But she turned around and ran, she was not having anything to do with that rodents. So

Michael Wienecke
And to, I’ll say about this, this facility that had that road. And if they would have, you know, not called us out to come out there and trap and find where those rodents were getting into a couple of months down the road. You’re talking about a major major infestation of mice.

Travis McGowin
Oh, exactly. Like, like we said before, this can balloon into just a huge problem before you know it. My survey, crafty, they’re very good at hiding, they’re mostly nocturnal. So a lot of times you’re just not going to see them unless you know you happen to disturb them or something like that during the daytime and you know, you go into their territory, or where they’re nesting and disturb them and kind of flush them out. You’re not going to see them. So you know, a building like this shuts down at six o’clock the lights turn off and everyone’s gone. And then the mice are left to their own devices for hours all night long. And of course would it be in a child care facility? There’s food there snacks, there’s candy there’s there’s those things are at this facility and not always stored in tubs or or in, you know, storage containers that close that keep things like mice and rats out. So it would have just been a very big problem or much larger problem had they not discovered the mice before that.

Michael Wienecke
Yeah. So let’s dive into control a little bit. I know we talked about snap traps bait all that the biggest thing too is getting rid of the harbor areas sanitation, you know we see a lot of issues where somebody will have firewood stacked up against the side of their house. That’s a huge habitat area for for mice for rats, you know, all that kind of stuff?

Travis McGowin
Yeah, sanitation is a huge one. Mice, you know, they, they may feed on different things in, you know, in their wild environment outside, they’re going to, you know, usually feed on insects, they’re going to feed on different types of fruits from trees, nuts, that kind of thing that fall from trees. So when they get, you know, lucky and find a location that they can enter, such as a school, a childcare facility, your home, a restaurant, and they get in these places they can adapt their their food consumption. So cleanliness is huge in the case of a restaurant, if you’re not getting all that excess food that either falls underneath the tables from customers or falls up and gets raked up underneath the the stoves, the ovens, the cooking surfaces in the kitchen, you have all these things that are just going to build up over time, and they will swap their feeding preferences based upon what’s available at the time.

Michael Wienecke
Well, not only that, that’s going to attract them to the building. So they’re going to start snooping around the building, they’re going to find that crack crevice, get inside and then you know, once again, they’re gonna start pooping and peeing and telling those other rodents, Hey, come on in here and join the party.

Travis McGowin
Well, and what other people too don’t realize is that rodents can follow warm wind drafts, and they can follow odors. So you talk about a building that’s not sealed up well, whether it’s H HVAC, plumbing, electrical coming out of the building, whether it’s doors, whether it’s Windows, mice, they’re not they’re not really good as far as their vision they can’t see very far. And their vision is also they’re colorblind, so they can’t see really well, but they can smell very, very good and compensation for that lack of vision. So you have a building that’s not sealed up, and it’s cooler outside, well, they’re gonna go want one where it’s warm, and to where they can smell something that they may want to consume

Michael Wienecke
Well, and they can jump so they can jump a foot at a time. So you know, if you’ve got a ledge, whether it’s a it’s a foot off the ground that can jump off that and then if you got a windowsill or something like that, that’s open, they can jump into that and then they’re in your home. Same with your pantry. So it’s really not a problem for them getting into places.

Travis McGowin
Oh, definitely. I mean, if you’ve ever caught a mouse on the run or surprised a mouse somewhere, and they took off running, I mean, it’s impressive how quickly they can scale things. They can climb textured walls, they can climb shelves and other objects in your home at lightning speed. You know, a lot of times people don’t realize they have a mouse and then they see something that they thought was a mouse just because they were so fast and so quick to get away just look like a blur like in that video that I showed. I mean, even the CCTV camera CCTV cameras just looks like a blur. So, not realizing that you have the problem for extended amount of time can lead to a very large problem.

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Michael Wienecke:
Hey, so today we want to talk about beetles, particular wood boring beetles. We had a customer that bought a TV tray, a dinner tray type of thing that went in her bedroom. She called us and said that she had some dust pouring out of the wooden part of the tray, got over there, and there was a bunch of dead beetles around it. So we found out that it was a powder post beetle, a wood boring beetle. It’s funny because we typically don’t see many live wood boring beetles around Alabama. I’ve never seen one. So that was the first for me. She bought it from a local store, came in. There’s a great picture of it. You can see the dust that was on the tray itself. It had some holes all around the tray. It was fully infested with powder post beetles, wood boring beetles. And there’s a little guy right there.

Travis McGowin:
Yeah, people don’t realize just how easy it is sometimes for something like this to go unnoticed in a piece of wood. You know, like you said, whether it’s home décor, home furnishings that they’re buying from, you know, a retail location, you know, I’ve even had a customer that had wood and wood destroying beetles inside of a crawl space from brand new wood that they had purchased from another home improvement store, you know and was wood that was supposed to have been treated and bug free basically. But yeah, you’d be surprised how many times somebody actually comes across something like this from just a general household purchase and end up getting it home. And then all of a sudden, the telltale signs, you know, show up, the indicators that you have something eating it. Like you said, the sawdust coming out, the dead beetles. And so, yeah, it’s a pretty easy and unfortunately common way to end up with an infestation in your own home.

Michael Wienecke:
Yeah, it was very easy to solve. We got rid of the wood. We treated around the affected area. And I will say, too, typically we always like we do our termite inspections or our WDOs or wood destroying organism inspections on homes that are being sold or being bought. We see it all the time where it’s old damage, but we typically never see them actually coming out of the wood. So that was that was different for us.

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Today, we wanted to address a question that we get quite frequently from from customers and non customers alike. And that is, How often should I have my house or business treated for pass? And I think that’s a very good question. And the answer is not just one cut and dry, simple answer. It […]

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Hey, so today we wanted to come to you and talk to you about a little kind of misunderstood strange looking insect that you may have seen inside or outside of your home. That’s known as the ear wig. Now the ear wig gets its name from some very old superstitions that originated over in […]

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Michael Wienecke Hey. So on this podcast, we always like to talk about relevant things that are happening here in fescues pest control and we have seen a huge uptick in honeybees, a lot of infestations around chimneys, infestations in attics, some just swarming around the house in general. So Travis, kick us off with […]

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Michael Wienecke
Hey, so here on the peskiest podcast, we like to talk about real life events, things that Travis and I experienced day to day. And one of the things the other Day got me thinking about just talking about customer expectations, and how sometimes miscommunication can cause bigger issues than you would think it would.

Travis McGowin
You’re definitely right. So communication is a foundation for anything, I don’t care if it’s servicing, pest control or any other type of service industry, job. Communication is important in all aspects of your life, whether it’s, you know, dealing with your spouse, your children, your family members, communication is huge, because effective communication, if not handled appropriately, can leave some things either up to misinterpretation, you know, it can, it can cause things to just not be handled appropriately. So effective communication will definitely help set expectations a lot easier than ineffective communication.

Michael Wienecke
Yeah, and, you know, I think it’s, I think it’s good to say that, you know, pest control, wildlife control, road and control, mosquito control, any of that is a process, it does take time to get rid of some issues. Like we were just talking a minute ago, rodents can take a week. I mean, I’ve done them in a day, and had an not a problem. It could take a week, take a month, we have some that linger on for a little bit longer than that. But it’s definitely a process.

Travis McGowin
Well, there’s been plenty of times that I’ve been on site with the customer, whether we’re the first company, they’re called, whether they’re the you know, we’re the third company that they’ve called, or something like that. I’ve had customers after speaking about a problem, whether that’s rodents, whether it’s fleas, whether it’s ants, any of those things. It’s funny how many times they look at me, and they go, Oh, I didn’t know that. Or, oh, okay, well, that’s really cool. Because the previous company may not have explained things appropriately. And I’m not saying they didn’t do the job, right, or they didn’t do it, you know, the best way or what have you, they may have done it exactly like they needed to, however, not communicating those expectations of what’s going to happen next, how is this product going to work? How long is it going to take this product to actually take effect? can leave some doubts in the customers mind?

Michael Wienecke
Yeah, definitely, um, you know, over our Friday, and over the weekend, we had a an issue where we had a lady at her lake house, she was getting fire ants all over the steps. And we had treated it that the Friday. And for whatever reason, the communication did not get back that, you know, this, this particular issue takes about 24 to 48 hours to go away. So she had family over, over the weekend. And she was calling us. We were closed on Saturdays and Sundays. And you know, we got back to her Monday morning, right at 8am. And explained to her, you know, what was going on, went back out there and retreated and took care of the situation. But just just missing that communication of it’s a 24 to 48 hour period before those fire ants are gonna go away, was huge for her. So like I said, that was just an event that made us want to start talking about the expectations of like said not just fire ants, could be German roaches could be just general cockroaches, you know, restaurant issues, flies, dragonflies, all this stuff just takes time to get rid of it’s not it’s not always a one and done situation.

Travis McGowin
Sure, and with the knowledge that a pest control professional has, and I’m probably very, very guilty of what I’m about to reference or say next. My customers that I service on a regular basis would probably tell anybody this is that Travis sometimes over communicates. And I’m guilty of it, I promise you, I’m guilty of it. I don’t know, maybe it’s because I enjoyed the job so much, or I enjoyed the little tidbits of information that I think are kind of neat, or that interest me and I like to convey those over to the customer. But sometimes I find myself I’m like, I really I really just need to slow down and stop because I mean, they don’t really need to know all of these habits of this particular insect or whatnot. But I will say that if it is pertinent to the problem, if it’s pertinent to what’s going on, if it’s pertinent to the treatment type, and how long the treatment takes. Then, in my personal opinion, it is worth communicating that to the customer. And you know what they say about assuming if you leave things up to the customer to assume, then sometimes they’re going to assume wrong. And any problem that arises or any callback that arises May would have been completely squashed with just a few seconds of details from that technician to that customer.

Michael Wienecke
Yeah you know another storing think of carpenter base you know or wasp or any flying insect really you know we can control to an acceptable level or you know getting into the house eating into the woods, the Wasp, you know, wasp nest around the outside wasp nest in the, the, around the eaves or the gable van or something like that, but we cannot, we cannot control wasps and bees and, you know, any any flying insect from flying around your house, they’re just that’s not possible.

Travis McGowin
Well, and I love what you said any flying insect because key word right there they, they fly.

Michael Wienecke
So Zephyr mosquitoes, mosquitoes we, we can control.

Travis McGowin
Yes, we and we do a very good job. But, you know, a realistic expectation for a customer. With an insect like that with one that has wings, that’s a good flier is with the understanding that yes, there are preventative things we can do. And there are things we can do or our technicians can do while they’re on site. To mitigate some of those circumstances. For example, if you’ve got live or active walls nest or something like that, we you know, we always remove those, knock them down and try to get rid of those walls for you. And try to make those places where they’re at less inhabitable, if you will or make make things less than habitable for the insect to want to build their again, you know, such as applying dust or things like that. So, but but communicating that, hey, they fly, you can’t ultimately control where they come across from your neighbor’s yard to your house and then try to make their home on the side of your house. But we can definitely come and take care of the problem for the customer for sure.

Michael Wienecke
Definitely. And, you know, that’s part of our training too. We don’t you know, just train on on these our technicians learning how to apply pesticides, insecticides, anything like that or the machines that they use. We also were trying pretty hard on on, you know, getting that message across the customer, what you’re doing, why you’re doing it and how you’re doing it.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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Michael Wienecke
Hey, so here at Peskies, we are a small business and we like to support other small businesses. So today I have got Aaron with crawlspace medics, Aaron, how you doing today?

Aaron
I’m doing all right, Michael, how are you doing? Well,

Michael Wienecke
man doing well, well, hey, I’m just, you know, wanted to bring you on the podcast and talk about, you know, how your business and my business kind of relate. Obviously, that’s how we met. And yeah, so let’s talk about, you know, how the things you do you know, how you improve people’s lives with helping them save their greatest asset?

Aaron
Absolutely, yeah, I’m really, really excited to be here. It’s pretty neat how we met originally, and yeah, really, really pumped to kind of talk through that. So. So, yeah, so we got started here in January of 21. And we pretty much service, I’d say, like the Birmingham Metro, plus, you know, all the way out to Jasper, we’ve gone as far out as center Alabama. And our goal really, is to transform, you know, the health of the home by moisture control, and repair in the crawlspace and basement.

Michael Wienecke
So just a quick question, would you say that termites are more damaging to a home? Or would you say that moisture is more damaging to home,

Aaron
I would say that moisture, typically is the environment that termites thrive in, I would, I would always say to customer, that termites and fungus love wet wood. And so I don’t know that water, or moisture alone is going to do the kind of damage that’s going to bring down the house except for like, you know, a flood or a tidal wave. But you know, that’s, that is the starting point for the the problems that people have in their homes, whether it’s settling, termites, fungus, it’s all all related to moisture, or, you know, how the house is built, maybe wood to ground contact, things like that. But typically, we were looking through the lens of moisture,

Michael Wienecke
I hear you. So um, with with your hot, like, you know, we talked about this the other day, when we’re when we’re playing golf, you know, that your type, the type of issues you see, you know, they’re not going to go away, it’s kind of like having like, in my business with having squirrels or a raccoon in your attic, or rats, they’re not going to go away, you see them, or you see evidence of them, you know, in the back of their mind, like we talked about with customers, they’re just like, oh, you know, maybe it’ll, maybe it’ll subside itself and won’t have to worry about it. But with with these issues that you take care of, I mean, I wanted to talk about that, like, it’s, it’s not going away, it’s just gonna keep being an issue.

Aaron
Absolutely. And, you know, depending on the, I guess the typically it’s the price tag associated with the solution with a fix. A lot of times, homeowners are used to whatever issues they have in their home. So if you have a mess in your house, the more you walk past it, the more you get used to it, the more you get used to the corks in your home, whether it’s a squeaky door, it’s the same in a crawlspace, or a basement, sometimes even more. So because you’re especially with a crawlspace, you don’t see it. And so typically, you’re seeing the downstream issues that that come from issues in your crawlspace. So a lot of people will say, Oh, my house just feels really humid, or smell this dank, musty smell after, after it rains, or in a basement, they’ll see some staining down where the block is sitting on the slab or next to the slab, they’ll see some staining there. And they kind of go about their day. And so the the key for us is exactly what you’re saying is these issues will get worse over time. And so you can choose to deal with it now, make the investment now. And we can tailor out a solution that’s going to fit your budget, or you can not deal with it and then you’ll be subject to whatever sales guy happens to show up to your home. And you know, whatever solution that they present you with it that now you have to go because you’re trying to sell your house. And you know the inspection report comes back with water or moisture issues and wood damage related to that moisture issue.

Michael Wienecke
Yeah, and you brought up a good point with that with the with the sales guy. Just like in my business. I mean, you show up at your customer’s house these these people’s house your you know, you’re there. Crawling the crawl spaces. I mean checking it yourself and you’re the owner. And you know, I respect that. I think that that goes a long way.

Aaron
Yes, yeah. I felt like that was one of the biggest, especially as a new business with the competitors that we have here. They want customers want to know that they can count on the solution and count on the company. And if I don’t have 35 years of, you know, business history in, in this area, you know, what, what, what else do I have, and I have me, you know, I have, I have my reputation and my, you know, I live here, I work here, my family depends on this business, my customer or my employees depend on, you know, me presenting something that is not just profitable, but useful to the, to the customer. Because if the customer feels like they’ve been sold a bag of goods, they’re going to get upset, and they’re going to tell their friends, and nobody’s gonna call me back. And so that’s, that’s really how we got started. And that’s really what we’re committed to is, is, you know, when I go under house, I’m going to hit the four corners of the house, I’m going to, you know, do everything I can to, to check on that I’m not going to spend 10 minutes in the crawlspace. And then, you know, an hour and a half and you’re home pushing, pushing to sell to the homeowner, I’m going to take my time in the crawlspace, I’m gonna give them a synopsis of what I think needs to happen. And I’m going to give them an itemized estimate with the photos and my recommendation. And then we can address you know, where they are versus where I think they need to be, and hopefully meet meet there in the middle.

Michael Wienecke
Yeah, I mean, I think our customer service is key, I mean, just being there for your customer and taking care of them. What kind of guarantee do you give on on? You know, what you all do?

Aaron
Yes, so it really depends on the solution. So, you know, when people say things like encapsulation, you know, that’s really kind of generic term people have been, they hear that, and they think it just means one thing. And really, that consists of a lot of different elements that go into, you know, protecting a crawlspace, specifically with crawl spaces. But what that means for us is we’re going to put 10 to 20 mil plastic on the walls, we’re going to lay a ground barrier down, that’s going to cover 100% of the soil. If there’s any water intrusion, we’re going to recommend putting in a drain, and this drain would be inside the crawlspace, ideally, the interior perimeter of the crawlspace, that will all be pitched to a sump pump. And then typically will have a dehumidifier installed in there as well. And so all of those things typically mean encapsulation. You know, a lot of people don’t think of the drain as part of it. And sometimes it’s not if they don’t have water coming into the crawlspace. So all of that being said, each one of those elements has its own guarantee that goes with it. So with water intrusion, what we want to make sure is that the sump pump is in a good place that it’s relatively well protected, that it’s not just sucking up mud. Those typically have the shortest lifespan out of anything that we install. The dehumidifiers have a five to six year warranty, depending on the brand that we install. And we manage that for the homeowner. So if they have any issues, we just handle it with a manufacturer. And if they needed a unit, we’ll go out there, swap it out, and and replace it, the barrier. Typically, you know, it has a lifetime of the structure guarantee depending on the type of barrier that we install. But our minimum standard is 10 mil. And for reference, that’s just the the thickness of the barrier. And typically under a home, you’ll see like a black six mil barrier, that’s usually what new construction has is black or clear six mil barrier. And that will break down over time. And so that 10 mil is going to have like a 25 to lifetime guarantee on it. And the same with our our 20 mil that we install.

Michael Wienecke
Good deal. So I see a lot of my customers when I’m crawling a crawlspace or they’re talking to me about their crawlspace because they have a termite issue or a rodent issue or really anything. They always say that they’ve got moisture down on their floor of their you know, their dirt floor, it’s wet, whatever. So they’re just gonna roll Polly out and put poly down. Is that actually solving a problem? Or is that making the problem worse?

Aaron
If you’re you’re saying roll in poly out on the on the soil?

Michael Wienecke
Yeah, just just taking, you know, three mil poly from big box store and just cutting it and rolling it out themselves.

Aaron
No, no, that would never make the problem worse. I think it may give them a false sense of confidence that they’ve addressed the issue and so they may forget about it and whatever is going on may make things worse. But the idea is that any exposed soil is wet. Even if it doesn’t look wet. You know, you go into a crawlspace you see certain areas where the dirt looks, looks dry, and then you see in the corners, it’s darker color, it looks damp. But if you were to cut out a one by one square of any kind of poly and just lay it in that dry section, pull it up, you know, a couple hours later the next day, there’s gonna be condensation under that plastic. And so what happens is all of that moisture that’s coming from that soil is going to, you know, soak into the wood framing of your home. And so if your crawlspace is the wood framing of your crawlspace is only, you know, some places maybe 18 inches away from the soil, those joists and that sub floor are going to soak up that that, you know, the increased water vapor from, you know, that exposed soil. So, there’s nothing wrong with with doing that, I think there’s something wrong with assuming that you’ve addressed all of your humidity or moisture issues by doing that, and, and just knowing that that barrier is going to break down. Usually, when we go to a home, you know, nine times out of 10, if we’re there, the only barrier that’s under there is the one that came with the house. So if they put it down before closing or the builder put it in, and it over time will just disintegrate. And so, you know, five years, maybe maybe there’s no issue, I’ve seen some that have broken down really fast that faster than that, and kind of depends on what the conditions are, how much water’s coming in. If the barriers got dirt and stuff all over it, it can break down a little bit faster.

Michael Wienecke
Now he so I would say out of the out of the crop 1000 I’d say I’m up to 1000 crawlspaces. Now, you know, let’s just say I would say 75% of them have moisture issues, or water damage or rot or something, something like that. So I mean, it’s a bigger problem than I think, then a lot of people realize,

Aaron
yes, it’s a big problem. And it’s a problem, I would say almost exclusive or not exclusive, but it’s a much bigger deal in the South. Because, you know, conventional wisdom and building code pushes people towards the idea that if I have a vented crawlspace if my crawlspace has a foundation vents, as long as I keep it vented, it’s it’s fine, you know, it’s going to regulate its own, you know, humidity, and everything. So the problem with that is it’s it’s just way behind. So, you know, when when the code was initially written, you know, people didn’t have great HVAC systems, and they weren’t taking into account like how human it gets in the south, especially, you know, where we are, and, and then the massive amounts of rainfall that we’ll get over a weekend. You know, we had several calls just in over Easter, you know, I think that was one of the heavier rains we’ve gotten in the last couple months and and so they’re they’re basically just not not equipped homes that are built here just not equipped to handle, you know, the elements that we live in. And so yeah, I would say the same you know, obviously if I’m going out there, there’s a moisture issue but often there’s a moisture issue that the homeowner doesn’t realize maybe they’ll call me out for bouncy floors or something like that, and then we go out there and the reason their floors are bouncy is because they’re you know, the wood fungus has completely or the termite damage has completely destroyed the the joists and so there’s really nothing holding the floor up, but they’re hardwoods, you know, so that’s, that’s definitely the case here.

Michael Wienecke
Yeah, that’s always terrifying when I walk into someone’s house, and the floor just sinks down. You know, I had a situation I gotta get it on my YouTube channel. But where I went in my a friend of mines house and the whole front of his house just sat down and I mean, he, he was missing eight, nine joists from from termite dams and moisture he had a lot. It was it was like a swimming pool down there. So that’s another thing I’ll talk about. I don’t think people understand how, how difficult it can be to crawl crawl space sometimes. Yes. Women sometimes I mean, I went one the other day that the joist was literally to my chest.

Aaron
Yep, it gets tight down there. And, you know, I mean, you know, this, you get used to your job, right, like, so, if it’s your job, it’s a lot easier to handle that than if you’re Joe Blow homeowner, and you’ve got to crawl into your house to fix something. You know, I remember the first couple of houses and I crawled under thinking like, what am I doing? And then you know, a little while later now, it’s just, you know, another day at the office and you don’t, you don’t think about it and you don’t even think about it being something that’s like hard, you know, you just think about it. Like, my job is hard. Not not so much like this is a this specific thing that I’m doing is difficult related to you know, if I was a I don’t know, a car salesman or an accountant, but um So,

Michael Wienecke
everybody’s gotta call a man. Everybody’s got Yeah.

Aaron
And that’s, that’s what we’re, what we’re trying to do here is we, we want to really invest and serve our community. And that’s, that’s the way we can do it. You know, I think the median age for homes in Jefferson County is like, I think it’s like the average home was built in the 70s. I think, in downtown Birmingham, it’s even older. So there’s a lot of old homes here. And, and that’s, you know, a lot of history that we can we can save. And, you know, you and I are both doing our jobs and, you know, doing what we need to do, we can really protect, protect and restore a lot of these homes.

Michael Wienecke
No, I agree with you. 100%. I mean, that’s, you know, those Birmingham houses are staples in the community, and they’re, they’re beautiful homes, and I’d certainly not, you know, I don’t want to see a 1920s house get torn down, like a lot of marketing tore tore down because of termite issues, water issues, you know, structural issues in general. So I think that’s very important. Why, Aaron, I really appreciate you coming on the podcast. And once you tell everybody how they can find you.

Aaron
Absolutely, yep. So you can call my number. It’s 205-510-6360. You can go onto our website, or our Facebook page is crawlspace medics Birmingham. Our website is I should have had all that ready. I didn’t have it ready. Hang on, let’s say crawlspacemedic.com. Forward slash Birmingham, Alabama. And, and then I believe our office line. See? Is 2878 Real quick?

I’ve done I don’t know how many Facebook posts and I still and it’s on all my trucks. You got a lot. Not 872858

Michael Wienecke
Awesome, man. Why? I know I said, I know you’re passionate about this. We’ve talked a lot about me learning about crawl spaces, and you learn about termites. I know we call each other a lot and ask questions because you know, we obviously we don’t know everything about every, every part of a crawlspace. So it’s always good to have people that you can reach out to and you’re passionate about your your business. Thanks, man.

Aaron
Thank you for having me on. Michael. let’s uh, let’s go hit some golf balls. Let’s do it. All right. Take care.

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Michael Wienecke
So this podcast we always like to talk about issues that our customers are having or issues that somebody has called about and our real world experiences. So, today we’ve got a different one because it’s new for us. Something that we’ve been really excited to get into and that is bedbugs. bedbugs are no fun for anybody. So we just had a customer. They called couple of weeks ago, well, actually about a month ago, so they were getting bit by something, did a full inspection. found no signs of fleas, bedbugs, anything like that? ended up finally finding a dead bug bedbug in the bed, and they are relieved. So Travis, let’s talk more about bedbugs.

Travis McGowin
It does sound kind of funny when you say that someone was relieved that you found that you found a bedbug, but I get what you’re saying, you know, relieved that. Now we know what the problem is. And we could start working towards a solution. But you know, in terms of pest control, there’s not many other bugs, I think that strike fear into the heart of a homeowner or one of our customers, then you know the the words you have bedbugs. I had a really good friend of mine, who previously had a job that had him traveling all over the United States. He was gone multiple days a week, on and off airplanes in and out of hotels. And of course, inevitably what happened one day he came home, and the bedbugs came home with him. And so you know, he asked me, he said, What can we do? How can we get rid of this problem? What are some tips and ways that I can? Once we get rid of this problem? What are some ways that I can prevent this from happening again? So let’s kind of let’s kind of talk about that. First of all, some preventative things before we go into talking about inspection and treatment. But you know, one of my favorite things to tell people when they ask me is like when you go, for example on a trip and let’s just say you stay in a hotel, maybe an Airbnb, something of that nature, if they provide you with a means to keep your luggage and clothing and personal items off the floor. Please keep them off the floor. And I mean, am I right?

Michael Wienecke
Hang it up, hang it up. Yeah, I’ll say another thing too, because that’s how this customer that we have got bedbugs. Or we’re assuming that she got bedbugs this way, because they’ve never had a problem before. She went traveling right before Christmas to a couple of different locations. And lo and behold starts getting eat a lot of their house. And yeah, so keeping your luggage off the floor where those things can’t get to it hanging, hanging all of your clothes in a closet, you know how high off the floor. And even something if you want to go you know kind of to the extreme, which I would recommend because it’s a very expensive process getting rid of bedbugs is you can bought a little cups, they’re doughnut shaped cups, they go right up under the frame of the bed. They’re rigid on or they have texture on one side. So the bedbug can crawl over that texture and then it slides down into that, that doughnut hole and they cannot get out and that that’s going to definitively tell you hey, I’ve got bedbugs in this location.

Travis McGowin
Yeah, and, you know, even if you wanted to go as far as in addition to keeping your luggage off the floor, things like that. Even if you wanted to go as far as to taking you know, dirty clothing items bagging them up, right when you get home, you know, laundering them washing them and making I mean those those kinds of things will help you too but so let’s say a customer calls you for a an issue with bedbugs. You know, on a treatment level on an inspect I mean not a treatment level but an on an inspection level where do you start like what’s your what’s your methodology? Where do you start?

Michael Wienecke
So first is always going to be you know, the consultation with the customer looking at the baits, you know how much they’re getting bid. You know, if if they’re feeling like they’re getting bitten their sleep because you know, that that can be a telltale sign whether it’s fleas, bedbugs or you know, some kind of other parasitic something going on. So, with the US lost my train of thought so, so with with bedbugs, you know, like they’re gonna be getting bit at night there may be some blood spots in the in the bed. So that’s something you want to look for. And then of course, as you’re doing your inspection, you’re gonna be looking around the rim of the mattress, the frame, any kind of tubing behind, you know, the little holes where the screws are in on your, your bedframe because those little guys can can get in the tightest, darkest crack crevice. And the biggest thing is going to be the baits that’s that’s a huge identification, the blood spots where they’re feeding, and then of course The cast skins, so it just basically looks like a shed of a bedbug. So, those are those are the three things you’re looking for. And if you got all three of those, then you got bedbugs.

Travis McGowin
Oh goodness, well then let me say one thing, as gross as it may be. And as miniscule as it may be, maybe I can say this to kind of put the listeners mind at ease just just a small bit. bedbugs are not known to spread any types of disease or anything like that, from from them biting you, other than maybe your skin having a localized reaction or something like that. They are not typically known to spread disease and viruses from their bites.

Michael Wienecke
No, I would say the only the only issue with the bite is just potential infection. You know, if you if you are getting bit and you’re you’re waiting to have it treated or are just trying to figure out the problem, just just take care of it, you know, get it cleaned, making sure you don’t get any infections.

Travis McGowin
Alright, so you’ve ident you’ve received the call, you’ve inspected and con, had the consultation with the customer. And you’ve reached the point of prescribing some sort of recommendation for treatment to the customer. So tell us, how do you treat for bedbugs?

Michael Wienecke
So there’s two ways to treat for bedbugs. Here at pesquisa pest control, we chose heat, it’s chemical free. You know, you’re you’re heating that room up to 120 130 degrees and you are frying every bedbug every potential bedbug every thought of a bedbug in that in that building, there are chemical treatments you can do but we feel that heat is just above and beyond and you know that’s what we do here pesky is we always go above and beyond going to use the best products we can use the best modes of you know, getting rid of, of our customers problems.

Travis McGowin
Well and one more thing about the heat treatment best part of all is it is done in one treatment.

Michael Wienecke
That’s right. That’s right. Forgot to mention that so yeah, you know, we do come back and we will inspect but with with a heat treatment, if it’s done correctly. Like I said that 120 130 degrees for a certain amount of time. You’re not going to have a problem again.

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Travis McGowin
Hey, so today we want to come and talk to you about a pest that can sometimes come in and inhabit more specifically your kitchen, not just your house. But your kitchen. These little pests that you get are called stored product pests. And that can include a wide range of different insects. So Michael, why don’t you tell us just to name a few a couple of stored product pests that maybe you’ve come into contact with in some customers houses?

Michael Wienecke
Yeah, no problem, Travis. So the most common ones that we see you know, there’s there’s a bunch of different ones, but the most common one is always the Indian meal moth. And then you got weevils, not going to go into description description of what type of weevils, I know, you know, you had a really cool weevil the other day that we’re going to talk about but weevils are weevils or weevil. So you know, the biggest thing about stored product pests is just making sure that you’re rotating stock, you know, and I say that like a grocery store, because when they are moving, old product to the front putting new product in the reason they do that is so they don’t get this problem, because unfortunately, bugs can be in our food. It’s a nasty thing. But it just it is what it is. That’s what that’s what I tell our customers. So. But yeah, I mean, I had a call the other day where a lady had moss flying around her kitchen, and went in there and evaluated it. And we found out that her oatmeal, I believe was or oatmeal was out of date, and she had some dead ones in that meal. You know? So biggest thing is just making sure that when it’s out of date, you know, getting rid of it, because it’s going to cause a lot more harm than good. I know groceries are just outrageously expensive right now. But you know, it’s also expensive to have, you know, 1000 Moths flying around your house.

Travis McGowin
Yeah. And so I’m glad you said the Indian meal moth actually had a customer that went to a couple of days ago that had it. And during my inspection and speaking with the customer there on site, you know, I was advised that they had found whatever it was that the the moths were investing and had already disposed of it. You know, prior to our arrival, but any male moths, I’ve seen him in fest, like you said, oatmeal, I’ve seen him in fast food for geese, I had a customer that had a like a duck pond or a geese or Goose Pond behind their house. And they used to go by purpose made food for that, and couldn’t figure out where the Indian meal moths were coming from. And I found them in their pantry in a bag that was open. And I just didn’t realize it and there were hundreds of them flying around the pantry inside the bag. So we tried to remove as many of the adults as we could get rid of the food source. And then I never had another problem since. And yeah, you mentioned I did run into a new one that I had not seen before. I mean, I’ve seen weevils before, but actually got to see what’s called the cow pee weevil, which is a primary investor of soy beans and things like that. But they had actually infested some bags of black eyed peas that my customer had in their closet. Yeah, and then another one you didn’t mention too that I have seen before too is confused flour beetles. So that’s another one that I’ve that I’ve seen them, you know, in a customer’s home, so, but I like how you said that rotating your stock. I don’t know how long the customer had the Black Eyed Peas in their cabinet. You know, I’m not sure if it was bought rep for the new year. You know, a lot of people like to eat black eyed peas and you know, that sort of thing for New Year’s but the 100% end all be all making sure that you don’t have them or don’t have a problem with like he says rotating your stock, getting rid of them. And if you do end up with them, get rid of what they’re investing what they’re feeding on. Right.

Michael Wienecke
Yeah. So that’s one thing that I’m glad you brought up because, you know, there’s not, you know, don’t get me wrong. I’ve been to houses where there’s been 1000s flying around the house, we’ve got you know, the lava everywhere and that that requires a treatment, you know that that was vacuuming the house treating with an IGR adulticide you know, getting rid of that problem and removing the the adults. But as far as if you just see a moth in your kitchen flying around, you know, the Indian meal moth, it’s brown and light light tan colored normally, if you’re pulling out, you know, once you see that in your kitchen, you need to suspect hey, I need to go through my oatmeal, my rice, my corn, whatever it may be if your husband’s a hunter or you’re a hunter, then you know, check that horn. We had a you know back when we were the fire department. I had a lieutenant that was he had weevils all over his house and I wouldn’t you know, he didn’t he wouldn’t let me come over and see it. So he just he just kept asking me question after question. He finally found he had a bag of corn in his attic that had been out there for a long time. Um, so yeah, just, you know, not really need for a treatment. Honestly, what we say is we just get rid of the food source. And once the adults are once the you know, the pupa hatch, the adults die and then you don’t have a problem again.

Travis McGowin
Exactly, exactly just being very observant. Sometimes it takes a little hunting. I think the customer the other day that had the weevils was very surprised at how long actually hunted inside of the pantry to find this, but I finally did, it might have started at the bottom of the pantry and went to the top, I found it quicker, but I started at the top and went down. So that’s always how I guess, yeah, had I started at the bottom, I’d have found that like, you know, within two or three minutes, but anyway, she was very surprised at how long we hunted. But you know, I explained to her that they have to be coming from somewhere they have to be feeding on something if we found their food source, then we’re gonna take care of your problem. So and we did she was very happy and and, you know, we didn’t require any pesticides, the bulk of the bulk of what we had in there, we vacuumed up and then we threw away this infested bag of Black Eyed Peas and moved on.

Michael Wienecke
There you go. And I’ll say one other thing because you know, summer is right around the corner and a lot of people like to feed their birds and have you know, bird feeders outside sunflower seeds, bird seed, also a huge, huge problem, especially if it’s left, you know, over the winter and then the next year and all that so

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Michael Wienecke
So the other day, I got a customer called in and they were complaining about these little black flying insects all around her house, she had said that they were coming out of the drains, that she had tried pouring, bleach, baking soda, pretty much everything but the kitchen sink down the drains. So we got we got to the house, and we were doing our full inspection. As soon as we walked in the door, we had one of these little, these black bunny eared flies land on our on our shoulder, and it was a drain flaw. So Travis wants to tell everybody about drain flaws.

Travis McGowin
You know, a lot of people I think, probably assume that, you know, they’re, they’re exempt from drain flies. You know, like a lot of people probably assume they’re exempt from a lot of insects. But it’s really kind of a common problem for most households at some point or another. When you think about a drain, and a lot of people, you know, may not be really familiar with how plumbing works. But when you think about a drain, whether it’s your sink, in the bathrooms and the kitchens, you’re always going to have moisture in there. So you’re always going to have moisture sitting in the bottom of the drain. And that’s actually by design. I mean, obviously, you use a drain your wash something down the sink, it’s gonna get wet, but you have what’s called a P trap and the bottom that that holds moisture, 100% of the time, you know, there’s always something in the drain. And over time, these drains holding that moisture and then getting this matter. Rinse down the drain. Over time just creates a buildup. And that’s something that these drain flies love to eat off of.

Michael Wienecke
Yeah, so just you know with that with that P trap, if there’s not that plug of water there or anything keeping it you will have a horrible smell in your home. Because I’ve experienced that myself. And it’s not it’s not fun.

Travis McGowin
Well, not only just a horrible smell, but you also run the risk of having other insects, especially if you’re on like a sewer system for a municipality, you run the risk of having something else come up the drain.

Michael Wienecke
Oh, yeah, say it with cockroaches, for sure. But yeah, with that organic matter in that drain, just building up hair, you know, all that nasty stuff, food, all that stuff, that’s just, you know, sitting in that that moisture, those those larva can feed off of that. And it just, it builds up over time. And eventually, once you’ve got the larva that of that of you know, the adults coming out of the drain, that’s where they’re pouring out of the drains. And then all of a sudden, you’ve got you an infestation, and you don’t know where it’s coming from,

Travis McGowin
you know, and the other crazy thing I’ve seen too, I was doing an inspection on a house that had a crawlspace one day. And as I was under their crawl, and I got up underneath the area of the kitchen, and I noticed that there was a gigantic puddle of water, like I said in the in the dirt of the crawlspace directly underneath the kitchen and the customer had a leak that they did not know about that was sitting there just constantly dripping. And when I shined my flashlight over to look at the water, it was like the water was moving. And there were adult drain flies, you know, on the bottom of the sub floor, you know where I could see. And then there were just 1000s and 1000s of these larva inside of this water that had leaked from the kitchen. So not always, they don’t always just come from drains.

Michael Wienecke
That’s true. And then I’ve had some where, you know, I had a customer we treated the dragonflies came back we treated they came back you know, after a month or so finally went up onto the house pulled the the clean out and his pipe was bent. So there was the gravity was just it was it was causing it to bow in the middle of the pipe. So it was just sitting there. Got our, our borescope in there. And I could actually see where same thing you’d said the water had built up right there and the larva would just crawling all through that pipe area. So ended up having to get a plumber out. And after that it did solve the issue after we traded for the fourth or fifth time.

Travis McGowin
Well, you can It’s funny you say that too. I had a customer also that that was having some dragonfly issues, you know, and we did the typical things we inspected, we treated the drains that sort of thing. And you know, nothing really ever seemed to definitively work like you said it would get a little better and then it would get worse. And so I started talking to the customer a little bit more. And I mentioned something about a leak or an issue with their drainage and you know, their plumbing system for their house. And it was like a light bulb kicked on and he said well actually it’s funny that you say that we’re working with the insurance company right now we have a pipe in that’s inside of our foundation I guess where the foundation that shifted and it cracked it and so they literally little bit further down the road had to have that concrete tore up inside their house and the drain fixed and then report concrete redo all the floors and everything was a big ordeal but and that is solve their problem. I hadn’t had a problem since. Well, I’ll

Michael Wienecke
say with that being said, you know, I would say drain flies. I mean Hear it pesky as you know, we cover that in our in our pest control program. You know, it’s it’s a hard problem to treat yourself I mean you can put something down that’s going to eat that organic matter but you know just just having a pest control company that you know you can rely on and of course they’re gonna give you a warranty even a one time pass if you if you come out, we come out we do a treatment like that. We’re going to give you a warranty on that and if they come back, of course we’re going to honor that warranty and come right back out and treat so

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Michael Wienecke
Hey, so today I want to talk about one of the Hey, so today I want to talk about one of the most annoying, itchy paths that we deal with. And that’s the flea. Travis, tell us a little bit about fleas.

Travis McGowin
Alright, so typically your fleas can come from just a couple of different places. So obviously, most of the most of the people listening probably know, obviously dogs and cats, you know, dogs, cats notorious for bringing fleas into people’s houses. It’s probably, I’d say, you know, 90 95% of the time, that’s where they come from. But I mean, fleas can also come from other things like rats, mice, you know, that sort of thing as well. So, you know, if you’re seeing fleas and you didn’t have a cat or a dog or something like that, then you might need to start looking at an alternative, you know, animal that’s bringing them into your house.

Michael Wienecke
Yeah, I would say one of the, the main animals a wild animal bringing into your house will be a possum. If there’s ever a possum inside your house under your house, and you’ve got fleas, and you can’t get rid of them. That’s definitely one reason. One thing I’ll say about flea treatments, it’s just, you know, it’s kind of like German Roach, I know, we’ve talked about German roaches on the podcast, and how some things you just can’t do yourself. And I for one believe that. It’s just better to hire a pest control company to do fleas. It’s quicker, it’s easier, it’s cheaper. You know, I had a customer one time that said she had spent almost $600 on flea treatments, trying to get rid of it herself, where we came in and did our service. And it was one and done. She never had a problem again.

Travis McGowin
You know, it’s funny that you say that, because anybody who’s listened to our podcast for any length of time has heard me say this. And this won’t be the last time I say it, I’m gonna say it again. Just because you go to the store, and you see something that says, fleas or that it kills fleas on it does not mean that it should be used to kill fleas. Because I’ll give you an example. Back when I first started in pest control, I had a customer called me that had a fleet problem. The very first product that I used to treat was not the best product, it was labeled for fleas. So I mixed it to the appropriate label and everything else and then treated. And then later that afternoon, the customer came home and said, Oh my gosh, is worse. It’s worse, you know, whereas we only had a couple jumping on us at a time two or three at a time now there’s like, no, no law 15 to 20 jumping at us at a time. And so I had to go back the next day and treat again, and thankfully use the correct product. Bisco around the second time, learned my lesson and also took care of the customers problem. And I’ve been doing it the same way ever since. And I’ve never had a call back on fleas. Anybody who we’ve taken care of with the way the method that we use has been 100% satisfied. Like I said, I’ve never had a call back.

Michael Wienecke
Well, in all fairness, you are trying something new. That, you know, the label said that it would kill fleas. So, you know, you learned the hard way that not all not all labels are correct, I guess you’d say

Travis McGowin
well, and it goes and it goes to for pest control providers not even just for the homeowner that goes to their department store or home improvement store and buys something that’s labeled for fleas now I mean, this even goes for people like you and me the ones who do this professionally and who do this day in and day out. I mean, I would be willing to bet that almost every single product that we carry on the truck says something about being able to treat fleas but there again I go back to what I said a minute ago, doesn’t mean it should be used to treat fleas.

Michael Wienecke
That’s correct. That’s correct. Tell him tell him about the time. You know if you have the time and this was way before Travis was even in pest control, but if you ever have if you have the time he did get rid of fleas on himself. So

Travis McGowin
yeah, so after this was prior to me being in pest control and I had done a lot of research and you know I did what every homeowner has done before I went to the store and I bought like fleece spray and I you know this from the dog and cat out pet aisle at Walmart or wherever it was and sprayed my floors and let it dry and all this good stuff and then it didn’t work and it didn’t work so did a lot of research online and found this kind of really cheap home remedy way to do it. And if you’re willing to go through with it, it does work. It is not as quick as having one of you know somebody like us come through but it does work. So basically what I did was I went to Walmart and bought a couple of like these really cheap 98 cents $1 Whatever they were baking sheets like flat baking sheets, but just you know the small add You’re on them. And as you take these baking sheets, you put a layer of water in them. And then you put just a couple of drips of dishwashing liquid like, you know, Dawn or Palmolive, or whatever it is you use, you put a couple of drips of dishwashing liquid, and then you take a desk lamp, and you got the bulb in there, and you hover it over the water in the pan and you turn off all the lights in the room. And the heat and the light over the water will draw the fleas towards it. And they jump in and drown. Because the soap breaks the surface tension on the water if you don’t put so the fleas can just like stand on top of the water. But if you put soap it breaks the surface tension, and the fleas will drown. And so after several days of doing this, I didn’t have a flea problem anymore. So I can say that it works. It’s just, it takes a lot of time and effort.

Michael Wienecke
Yes, that does sound like a lot of effort. You know, I feel like we’re getting off topic, but I’ll tell a story. So I, I had a customer and they were infested with fleas, they had a house that they were redoing, and they had had nine dogs living under their house, from the time of them buying the home. And then you know, getting the contractors out there and all that. So they had to get all these dogs out. And they had fleas. I mean, this was one of the worst flea treatments I’ve ever done in my life. That being said, we ended up getting rid of the problem, it did take quite quite a few treatments to finally solve that issue. But I brought them back to my house. And so

Travis McGowin
it’s kind of inherent risk of being in the job that we’re in, my wife always gets it he better not bring roaches and fleas and you know, whatever else back door.

Michael Wienecke
My wife was livid. So she’s like, Hey, you gotta get rid of this problem. So I mean, you know, I’m, you know, I gave myself my own review, like, you know, treated like, I’ve vacuumed the house, I treated with our products

Travis McGowin
as quality control right there. On your own house. Hey,

Michael Wienecke
that’s right. So, literally within you know, 24 hours, no more fleas.

Travis McGowin
Now, I will say I will say this, and kind of go over how we do this. But number one, if it is, if it is a problem that’s coming from one of your from one of your pets, your domesticated pets, excuse me past pet pets that are so close your domesticated animals, your cats or dogs, whatever your pets that you have at your house, get your animal treated, oh yeah, that’s step one. If you’re not getting regular treatments, we take our dogs to the vet, we get flea treatments done, or you know, in the form of like a pill that they eat. And it works wonders, we don’t ever have flea problems. But if you have a flea problem in your house, and you’re not getting your animals treated, then it’s only a matter of time after you call somebody like us to come in that you’re going to have the problem again. So step one is getting your animals treated. But Michael, whenever you go on site to start a Flea Treatment, tell us what the process is for how we treat for fleas, and kind of walk us through real quick here towards the end of the podcast.

Michael Wienecke
Yeah, so consultation with the customer is always key. So you know, talk to the customer. I know we’ve we’ve talked them on the phone and gone over that, but I do like a face to face consultation. So ask them how long it’s been going on again, just, you know, you know, reconfirm that they are taking their dog to the vet, where the most activity is in the house. After getting all that information, we’ll start out so we have a special pest vacuum that is completely sealed. If you try to vacuum it with your own vacuum, you know, there’s crack crevices, these fleas can fit through very, very tight areas, I mean, you can squeeze one with your finger and it can almost slide through your fingers. And they’re designed that way. So they can you know, just run through here very quickly, but so will vacuum the entire house. And another thing I’ll say is a lot of people will I don’t have carpet in my house, but I still have fleas, how’s that possible? Fleas can fit in, like I said, the tiniest cracks and crevices. So hardwood the baseboards all that not very hard for them to just, you know, wedge right in there and just have a home not not to mention blankets, clothes, all that other stuff. So again, we’ll vacuum the entire the entire house. After that we use an adulticide. And then we use an IGR, which is insect growth regulator. So the adulticide is going to kill the adult fully on contact. And then of course, it’s a 90 day product, so it’s going to last active for 90 days. And then we use that IGR which is going to kill any of the larva. So the vacuuming is to try to remove what we say 50% of the population it through the carpet or the floor or anything like that. And then also to try to get that pupa up because there’s not there’s not many pesticides out there insecticides that will kill a pupa. So then once we’ve vacuumed, we do a full treatment there. And then customers get to go they’ve got to wait about four hours so they can reenter the house and then nine times out of 10 they don’t see another flee after that tour. Even if they do see a few jumping around it doesn’t take much longer and they’re completely gone

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Michael Wienecke
Hey, so today I want to talk about something a little bit different than what we normally talk about. And, you know, on this podcast, we always talk about how we’re trying to help the homeowner, save the homeowner money as best we can. And we talk about stuff that, you know, we’ve experienced, whether it be a pest issue or rodent issue, a wildlife issue, whatever it may be. And, unfortunately, we’ve been, we’ve been experiencing a lot of really poor exclusion work, really poor customer service, in my opinion, had some some recent customers that have just, you know, you know, completely my opinion, but they’ve, they just, they were taken advantage of, you know, this, this particular instance, this company charged them $50 per rat that they were catching, they had no intention of covering up any holes, they just trapped and trapped and trapped. And, as we’ve talked about in our previous podcast, you know, if you don’t cover up that hole, those rats are just going to keep on coming and coming and coming. I mean, they’re, you know, Travis, you can probably attest to this, there’s, there’s, there’s, there’s a lot of rats in this world. So.

Travis McGowin
So just as of right now, I just finished up on a job. One home that caught 25 in the house, prior to the problem, ceasing, you know, after some exclusion work was done, we still call it 25. And, you know, unfortunately, the customer did not realize just how extreme the problem was, I’ve got another house, that is a duplex. And I have caught, I’ve lost count, but I know it’s well over 30 in in between the two units of the duplex so far. And if we were charging $50 Or at I mean, you know, these companies making money, and like you said, Either they’re not recommending exclusion because either a they don’t know about that don’t know how to do it or be there’s no end in sight, and they want to continue to make money by trapping rats, because you know, as well as I do, if you don’t solve the problem, they’re gonna keep coming in, they’re gonna keep coming back. It’s just an ongoing cycle. That’s never gonna

Michael Wienecke
Yeah, I 100% agree. I actually did the math. You know, how many rats Did you say?

Travis McGowin
I know, 25 and one, and then I’m pretty sure it’s now over 30 and another.

Michael Wienecke
So 30? Yeah. Yeah, so that’s $1,500. Just just in catching rats. So, you know,

Travis McGowin
we’ve been it doesn’t end there. That’s the problem is it’s not gonna stop.

Michael Wienecke
No, I mean, you’re, you’re, I couldn’t even imagine how much it would cost. So, you know, like I said, it’s all opinion based. But in my opinion, that’s definitely not the right way to do it. I feel like the customer is not being taken care of. And, you know, it’s just wrong. That’s not how we would do it at pesquisa. So I’ll just tell you, you know, this, this particular customer, they had been dealing with rats for a whole year in their house scratching, you know, dropping, droppings everywhere, urinating in their attic, the noises? I mean, he was just, you know, at his wit’s end, and just told me, he said, you know, this is this isn’t my house anymore. It’s the rats house. He said, You know, I can’t I can’t sleep at night. And he just, you know, they went into a hotel a couple times, and they just to get relief from this problem. And I mean, it’s not something that we normally talk about when I wrote it job, or a rodent infestation, or, you know, rodents getting in your house, can can do that to your, I guess, your mental state. But this this guy was literally, you know, at that point where he would do anything to get rid of this problem. So

Travis McGowin
how many, you know, many companies did he have come in prior to you coming into his house.

Michael Wienecke
So I want to say two or three. I know one of them was a big big chain company. And they just put bait boxes on the outside and put a few snap traps in the attic. He actually did his own reconnaissance, and he put his, his get, he put a ring camera up there, and he just, you know, the company would come out and they’d be like, hey, you know, we’re not seeing the evidence ARATS anymore. And he’d be like, well, they’re, they’re jumping up and down in my attic because I can see him on camera. So you know. So, you know, once I talked to him, yeah, yeah. And once I talked to him, you know, I told him, I gave him exactly you know what we talked about, you know, we were going to do it until the job’s done. We give a full guarantee. If I did All the work, and you know, you paid me and the problem wasn’t solved and I would give you your money back because I’m not going to have you pay me for something that did not solve your issue. We have just finished this job. And we are going I think two weeks in the noises has completely stopped in the attic. We’ve we’ve had no rodent activity as of yet. We are checking about every one week to week and a half depending. So our next follow up is next week. So but just to say that, you know, get a reference, if you’re going to call a company and you’ve got a big rat problem, a big squirrel problem raccoon, I mean, any kind of wildlife issue that really needs to be seriously taken care of. Not with just traps and bait boxes, you know, call around, get references, you know, here at pesquisas we have plenty of people that would would love to tell you their story and how we help them you know, their problem. You know, my claim to fame is and I know Travis you do too, you know, we’ve done Rodin jobs where literally they’ve had scratching, you know, Nolen rats in the house for a year. And then all of a sudden we come in, we do a full exclusion job and they’ve never seen a rat again.

Travis McGowin
Well, so one of my favorites. And you know, sometimes the most simple solution is actually the best solution in terms of access into a house and whatnot. But I had a lady and her husband had a very large rat run through their living room one day, while they were just sitting there in the daytime, it ran from the kitchen through the living room, kind of down a little flight of steps and into the laundry room. They had already had the rat, I believe, rats had chewed through the drain lines for their dishwasher that were up underneath there, their kitchen cabinetry flooded, their flooded their kitchen flooded their cabinets damaged all that. I believe we were the third company to come out. And within about 10 to 15 minutes, I was able to locate what I thought was where they came in at. And essentially, in looking around, I found that the rats had come through the exterior wall where there was no dryer vent cover on the dryer hose. So they came up through the clammed up the brake came up through the hose, and had chewed a hole through the dryer vent hose. And were just coming back and forth into the house through the at uncovered dryer vent to the outside of the brick wall on the outside of the house. I pulled back the washer and the dryer, there was all sorts of rat feces under there, the lady was mortified, she had never seen it never noticed it. None of the other company means that ever noticed it. So I literally went got the parts to fix it got her new dryer hose, got her new dryer vent cover all that stuff. And they never had another rat come in the house ever again. But just knowing what to look for, or being a little more, and trying to find it and then solving the customer’s problem, that’s one of my favorite things to do is just to be able to come into a seemingly hopeless situation like you were talking about with your customer just then had multiple companies come out. Problem had went on for over a year, like you said they felt like the customer was losing the battle against these rodents in their house. And that’s my favorite thing is to come back and help them take back the control of their house from these terrible things.

Michael Wienecke
No, I agree. 100%. I mean, you know, I think I think listening to our podcast and the way we talk. I mean, I think you can tell that here at Penske is we’re very passionate about what we do. And if you’re on if you’re on our team, and you’re not, then you don’t last very long. And I think we know that. So. But yeah, like I said, not not trying to talk bad about any company, because there are companies out there that do the right thing and that, you know, know what they’re doing. But it never hurts to just, you know, ask that company, Hey, can I get a reference from you know, the last couple jobs? You did? And you know, do you mind if I could reach out or, you know, if I could get some kind of a review or check their check their Google reviews or check their Facebook reviews, check what people are actually saying about them and who they’re talking about on the on the review, because, you know, naming someone saying, hey, so and so solved my rat problem in a day. You know, you probably want that guy out there, you know, solving your rat problem.

Travis McGowin
Yeah, I don’t think that I’d go with the with the the recommendations. It’s like, oh, well, you know, in about eight months, we didn’t hear any more. Yeah, I don’t. I don’t think that that would be the route that I would want to go for my own house.

Michael Wienecke
Yeah, and I’ll also say too, I mean, every rep. Every rat issue at a house is different. You know, some take one or two days some take a couple of weeks. I mean, I’ve honestly I’ve had one that took four months to get rid of I stayed with the customer for four months. We got rid of it and free and clear hadn’t had a rat since. You know, we stand by our guarantee. Like I said,

Travis McGowin
Oh, and what people don’t understand too is that I’m, especially you know, someone who may not be really familiar with building construction, the way things are designed When a house is built, but Case in point the the house that I caught the 25 rats that we caught them in an upstairs closet. We caught them in a downstairs laundry room, we caught them in the garage, in another closet in another bed room. So I mean, there were just multiple areas like the living room. They were just multiple rooms. And these rats, when given access, will will go through wall void. You know, they’ll go through ceilings, though, they’ll go through attics, they’ll go through basements, and all of these different places. And like you said, Every house is different, some are more complex than others. So you really need to take your time or a technician needs to take their time and be thorough and you know, and try to examine all of the possibilities. Because sometimes, you know, the answer is the simplest sometimes it’s a little more complex.

Michael Wienecke
Yeah, definitely. Well, like I said, you know, just just do your research follow up, make sure make sure that the company that you are hiring is the right one for you. And you know, that’s just the best thing you can do. I just I wouldn’t just trust anybody. I would get you know the information and make sure that it’s going to solve your problem.

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Michael Wienecke
Hey, so today I want to talk about rodent exclusion, something that I’m very passionate about. I know Travis is very passionate about. Good Brautigan, good rodent exclusion. Definitely, definitely very important. So we’re going to show some images talk about a little bit and just kind of go through how we do it differently. And, I mean, our track record is pretty good. Travis, would you not say?

Travis McGowin
I will, I would definitely agree with you on that. It’s frustrating, because I think exclusion is very, very overlooked in terms of the pest control industry, because you really think about it exclusion is the end all be all, sealing, you know, sealing rodents out, even sealing pests out, sealing things out is a guarantee that they won’t come back or that they can’t get back in. And you know, time and time again, we go on some of these, some of these jobs that we go to. And unfortunately, you know, there are there are companies out there that all they do is they throw bait boxes at it Wait, you know, if it’s a rat or a mouse problem, they throw bait boxes at it, or something of that nature. And they never really get, you know, to the root of the problem, which is keeping them out in the first place.

Michael Wienecke
Couldn’t have said it better myself. You know, we’ve had a lot of rodent callbacks is what I call it, not our callback, but another company’s callback. And the first thing I always say is, you know, did they give you a warranty? No, they didn’t give you a warranty, or you know, the customer guy, no, they didn’t give us a warranty, it was just, you know, as needed basis. And then, of course, rats are getting back in the house after a couple of weeks. And then so they call for a second opinion, we come out. So just wanted to show some pictures of what we consider, you know, not great exclusion work. And some of these pictures are excluded, but they left other holes wide open. So if you’re going to do one, you got to do them all.

Travis McGowin
That’s the That’s the true, that’s true.

Michael Wienecke
So here’s one we got right here, big complex, big apartment complex. So walking around looking around the outside, so we’ve got obviously a PVC drain line, some AC lines going in, and they found it. So they just they put a bunch of that foam not only does it look nasty, in my opinion, it’s it’s not hard at all for them to chew right through, they can get right in that, you know, in a couple seconds. I mean, it takes no time at all. So the way we would do it differently is we would tear all that out, and then we would either use an excluder, which is basically a composite of mesh along with a what’s the word I’m looking for? Help me out here, Travis. A fabric there it is a fabric with with with a mesh inside, so they can’t chew through it. And then we would mortar over that. So you’re getting two layers of protection. You’re not only getting the excluder, but you’re also getting the mortar. So of course, we are careful if there’s any gas lines or anything like that, we would not border that because we don’t want that gas line rubbing up against the mortar as it moves or anything like that. So this next one great exclusion job on the vents. Biggest thing, like I said, they are still having a road an issue. So you can see both of those PVC pipes coming out. And Travis, what do you say?

Travis McGowin
So right here, and I actually just had this same kind of issue. It wasn’t it wasn’t poor exclusion, there was no exclusion done on the house yet. And that was why the customer had called us, but actually had a very similar issue to this where the ventilation for the crawlspace was formed out of the brake work, which is fine. And we did have some pipe work. And things that ran you know, between those ventilation cracks, which is pretty standard. What I like to do in this situation, kitchen is the full gaps that have no PVC pipe or anything like that running out of them, I will use the hardware cloth, but in the gaps where the PVC pipe is coming out as long as there is adequate ventilation on either side of those. So you know, case in point with this picture, I’m assuming that there’s more ventilation going across the house a little bit further down on the left to the right side of this so if there’s adequate ventilation, so what I’ll do is I will go ahead and seal those two gaps up with pre mixed concrete.

Michael Wienecke
Yeah, no, that’s perfect. Like like you had said as long as there is adequate ventilation which you’ve got two holes on the right and one on the on the left. As you can see, whoever did this, they left it open and I could actually stick my two fingers up under that mesh. Thus far a rat or a mouse can fit right through that hole and they’re right back in the building so

Travis McGowin
pretty The other thing I like about the the concrete is the I feel like that’s more of a stability thing, too, you know, some of those pipe work probably don’t need to be jostled around anyway. So you know, not only are we eliminating the problem that you see in this picture with the, with the hardware cloth, not adequate, but you’re also kind of helping stabilize the end of those pipes too. But,

Michael Wienecke
yeah, 100% Not only that, I mean, just with that hardcourt hardware cloth, 23 gauge, wire mesh, whatever you want to call it, rats can obviously chew through plastic. So if they really want to chew through that, and if you were going to use hardware cloth, I would have put something around that pipe to fill in that gap. If you know if that’s what you had, or that’s what you wanted, there’s, there’s, you know, 10 ways to skin a cat. So it doesn’t have to be done all the same way. Just biggest thing is excluding those holes. So keep going around. So same deal here got another AC unit, they found it, not not a hard one, this one actually actually had a small hole up under that gas line where something was getting in. So here are these are my favorite crawlspace doors, you’ve got a wooden door, matched up with the ground, as we know, pretty much any animal can dig. So a rat, a mouse has no problem fitting, you know, a small hole under there, and then right into the crawlspace, where they’ve got access into the entire building. Hey, you’re

Travis McGowin
just lucky that that house actually had a crawlspace door. Because mean time and time again, I come across houses that have no crawlspace door on them. So you know, there, there’s a step in the right direction there. But you know, that that crawlspace door that you just showed, probably pretty adequate for keeping things like cats out possums, raccoons, but when it gets down to something smaller Rats Mice, you’re you’re you’re you’re still looking to have a problem.

Michael Wienecke
Oh, 100% Man, I drive around my neighborhood all the time, see a crawlspace door. And I’m like, there’s probably a bear in there. So same here, so we’ve got a dryer vent. And you know, they excluded the entire house, but they left the dryer vents wide open. So we see it a lot where rats will get in a dryer vent, though they’ll chew of a very small hole, especially in that aluminum, bendy tube, whatever it’s called. And it’s hard to see. So getting in there and having that avenue to get right back into your house. You really got to seal that up. And you want

Travis McGowin
nobody, nobody looks behind their dryer. I mean, really, as long as there’s air flow and your clothes are drying, I mean, typically nobody looks but I did I had a customer. A while back that had the very same problem. There was no vent cover. They had rats running through the house in the daylight, they actually saw rats run across the floor from their laundry room to their kitchen. Rats had chewed through their water lines up underneath their sink where the water lines and the drain lines had went from the dishwasher. And you’re within about 15 to 20 minutes of inspecting and going around and looking through the house. I found the culprit which they said to other companies prior to us had missed, but they just never looked behind the dryer. And that was the main the main runway. So we added a dryer vent as well as a metal cover because these were some significantly large rats. So we did put an animal proof cover over that. And they never had another rat in the house again.

Michael Wienecke
Right, that’s all it takes is just like Setsuna all up. And it’s funny you say that because I would say the three main spots that are never looked at is behind the stove, behind the fridge and behind the dryer. Definitely. Same here, we got another dryer vent wide open, I honestly don’t even see the metal tube at all. It’s just a wide open square. So potentially, you know not even a rodent issue. That could be a raccoon that could be a possum, chipmunks, squirrels all that can fit through there. So same deal here, you’ve got your big line coming in your electrical line coming in and it’s wide open on that top part. So excluding the left right sides of the that area is fine, but you’ve got to do it all. So recap of that same deal with these big AC electrical lines going in just leaves a huge avenue for them to get back in. crawlspace door, same same problem around the building. Same lines, so we’re just kind of reiterate this one was my favorite. So it’s hard to see exactly. But you see the right side of the van is completely excluded with wire mesh, maybe hard to see but you can obviously see that the dryer vent and that gaping big square that they shoved in there just huge opening huge.

Travis McGowin
So it’s funny that you show this picture because that was quite literally the same case that I found at another house that had the brake formed out for the crawlspace ventilation so they What I ended up doing with that, because the gaps were too big to fill with with, with concrete. So I did seal up the existing ventilation with my wire measure hardware cloth, and then actually took and I had to, I had to actually drill into the brick on this one and actually make the wireframe go around the actual dryer vent itself on all sides to seal it up, because it was just it was just so large, there was nothing I could really do that was going to stay there for the long term and hold and keep things out.

Michael Wienecke
Yeah, yeah, I mean, that can be a difficult fix right there. But there are, there are several ways to do it. I mean, what we do is, or what I do is I pull out the vent, draw me a hole around the 23 gauge wire mesh, cut my hole and then fit it in there and screw it that looks nice and pretty. And you can barely tell is there so and I didn’t even mention in the photo. But right there. The cleanout is also wide open. And I’d say a mouse can probably fit through that hole right there. So all right, huge overlooked area are always gonna be tree branches. And we’ve talked about I feel like we talked about rodents a lot, because we we just see a lot of problems with rodents. But tree branches touching the roof line, right up against the the building always going to be an avenue for any kind of an animal to get on the roof and eventually find a way into that the property. As you can see,

Travis McGowin
I’ve even had some people. I’ve even had some people that have had limbs grown up against the side of their house that were so large, that over time, the wind blowing those tree limbs and those trunks of those trees has rubbed a entire hole into the side of the eve of the house. And then that was where they had rats getting in. So in the case of that customer, we literally cut down the trees that were touching the house and they never heard another noise in their attic after that.

Michael Wienecke
Yeah, I mean, if you take away that ladder, there’s no way for them to get up on the roof. I mean, you know, it’s very hard for them to climb that brick over the facial in the soffit they can calm the brick, but it’s very difficult to get over that that roof edge. So and then our last one same deal here. We’ve had some kind of an animal I’m assuming a squirrel. We did not we weren’t able to get inside the attic because it was just so tight. But we do have cameras up and all that so we are we are treating this area. But same deal like said we would have covered the gable vents from the outside so nothing would be able to get into the attic. And then of course have that runway all the way throughout the apartment. So yeah, Anna Lee, biggest thing, like I said, we just wanted to show kind of what we run into every day, how we how we handle these situations, and what we would do. And of course, you know, it’s it never hurts to get a second opinion. And it certainly never hurts to see pictures of the work that’s been done. I mean, you know, if someone’s building a house, you would probably want to see their previous work before you just, you know, had them build your house. So again, you know, that’s just that’s how we do our stuff. That’s how we try to be different try to try to make everything as tight as possible and we certainly don’t want to call back. Obviously, if we get a call back. We’re going to come back and we’re going to solve the situation but I’m Michael with Peskies Pest Control and give us a call. We’d love to help you out anytime. 205-470-8161

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Travis McGowin
Hey, so today we want to come and talk to you about I would, I would definitely say one homeowners biggest fear something that they don’t want inside their house, they don’t want to share their space with it, these little insects don’t pay rent, so they definitely don’t want them. They’re German cockroaches.

Michael Wienecke
Yeah, German cockroaches are probably the hardest thing to get rid of. For a homeowner, they always try to do it themselves. And I mean, there’s just no good way to do it yourself. It’s just not, I personally have not seen it possible to do it yourself, you really do need a professional take care of it.

Travis McGowin
So one of the issues with with the German roaches, especially when it comes to the DIY person, and don’t get me wrong, it can be done DIY. But so let’s just say you go to the store, you go to the grocery store, you go to the hardware store, you go to the pest control products aisle where they’re, you know, they’ve got the shelves full of stuff. And you know, on the labels, cockroach killer, wasp killer, you know, killer, they’ve got all these things, and they’re all supposed to be targeted and specific for each pest that they kill. But I always tell my customers this, just because something says it kills a cockroach on the label or on the on the packaging or whatever. Just because it says it can kill them doesn’t mean that it actually should be used to kill the roaches.

Michael Wienecke
But it lasts up to a year.

Travis McGowin
That’s the best line. It’s tested. That’s the best line that I’ve seen here lately is lasts up to an entire year. And I’m like, Man, even the good products we use are three months, you know? So anyway,

Michael Wienecke
German cockroaches, but termites, mosquitoes, rats, mice,

Travis McGowin
and more. You know, crazy family members, you know, or whatever the case may be. So but yeah, so in particular. You know, we’ve we’ve had a rise of German roaches. And the funny thing about German roaches to me, is that they don’t really target a certain group of people now, yes, I mean, you can be more susceptible to get them if you have lower standards of cleanliness than say, you know somebody else. But I mean, Michael, give me an example. Just how easy is it to bring a German Roach into your house?

Michael Wienecke
It’s easier than you would think. We have seen, you know, I would say $50,000 homes, we’ve seen millions of dollars of home, million dollar homes, with German roaches, they they really do not discriminate. It’s all in the lucky person that gets to bring them home. One of the main ways that we see that they are brought home is use furniture. That’s a big one used appliances use furniture a lot of times coming from frigerators. I’ve seen him from a dishwasher, microwave couches, you know all that. So that’s our first thing when we always talk to a customer is when did it start? Did you bring anything new or used into the home? And then it started shortly after? And that kind of gives us a better identification? First of all, how long it’s been going on? And second of all, what is the cause of this problem?

Travis McGowin
Now definitely. And you know, a lot of times, whenever I do an initial inspection on for German roaches, the very first place that I’ll look is behind the fridge behind the freezer. And then of course, in my line of questioning to the customer’s always, you know, have you guys gotten any new appliances? Anything like that? You know, especially recently because that tends to always be a primary culprit.

Michael Wienecke
Oh, yeah. I mean, we had a customer one time, you know, million million plus house, beautiful fridge, it was one of those that have the trim work all the way around, it’s, you know, into the wall, it just looks nice and full of German cockroaches. So they definitely weren’t happy about that. We ended up getting rid of it, of course, but just having to deal with that after you know, spending that kind of money on a brand new fridge is definitely not fun.

Travis McGowin
Definitely not. So, you know, I have stepped into some very, you know, I would even say horrifying, unbelievable houses in terms of having a very significant level of infestation. And I’ve actually got some photographs, you know, for people to see, this house in particular was probably I would have to say the very worst one that I have ever been in. When I first spoke to the customer on the phone, they advised me that they were localized to just the kitchen, and I walked into the house and immediately walked through the front door and I said, you know they’re they’re in every room. You just walked in and you knew it.

Michael Wienecke
Yeah. And I’ll say to you know, the biggest thing is, is just being honest with with the tech addition and saying, Hey, we’ve been going on this for a year, we’ve been treating ourselves that’s going to help us and help us, you know, solve your problem faster. Because if you tell us it’s just in the kitchen, that might may be the only place that gets treated. We may have not seen any in the bedroom or anything like that. But that doesn’t mean they’re not there. They’re extremely good at hiding, and you’ll see this in video we have that they can fit into very tight cracks.

Travis McGowin
Well take a look at this picture. There was no doubt they were in the kitchen.

Michael Wienecke
Yeah, that’s a I mean, I would just by looking at that, that is a huge infestation. Right there. What Yeah, I’d say 300 Plus.

Travis McGowin
Oh, so So here’s the kicker about this house is notice the ceiling, that’s a drop ceiling. So there’s a void space above it. And you know, if you have a infestation, and keep in mind as well, that this is during daylight hours, this is not at night, it’s not like I just walked in there in the evening time and turn the lights on. This is broad daylight, if you have a level of invisible infestation in your house, that is this visible in broad daylight, you have a serious problem. More than just the roaches, you have serious health concerns and serious issues that need to be addressed. Yeah,

Michael Wienecke
I mean, their feces are going to cause asthma issues. And that’s another line of questioning we asked always asked them, How many are you seeing in the daytime compared to at nighttime because they are more active at night. So if you’re seeing, you know, two or three in the daytime, not a huge infestation, obviously, 300,000 Plus, you’re seeing in the daytime? Well, there

Travis McGowin
were 1000s plural. But just to kind of give you a tour of of this, of some of the spots that are dealt with in this house. So this was just Kitchen Kitchen Cabinets. And you notice there’s a course of cleanliness issue there as well. But you know, I don’t recall exactly how long they said this infestation had been going on. But as you can see, I mean, they’re all around the cabinets. And if you look right up underneath the countertop area, there’s I mean, there’s all kinds of feces and things from them to where they’ve just, you know, hung out up underneath that crack and crevice. I mean, even in just doorframes this was and this wasn’t just one doorframe, every doorframe in the house had roaches in the corners, you can see they’re all just piled there together. And this is I mean, it’s the worst that I’ve ever been in.

Michael Wienecke
And another thing you can tell by a really bad infestation is if you want to go back to that picture real quick. As you can see the different stages of life. They’re all kind of hanging out together.

Travis McGowin
So in this particular house, we had roaches, in the very early nymph stages, we had roaches running around with egg sack still attached to them, I mean anything and everything in between. And you know, speaking of the, the egg sacks I mean, there was one cabinet in particular that was completely full of execs all of those spots, those those little rounds, you know, spots in the in the cabinet right there on the cabinet surface are all hatched egg sacks. And, you know, each egg sack from one German cockroach can hold relatively, you know, 30 plus baby cockroaches in it. So if you multiply all those execs, you can just kind of get a mental idea of how bad the infestation was in this house. And that wasn’t even all the execs that was one cabinet

Michael Wienecke
well and that’s another thing too with German roaches they make they’re very hard to kill their greater survival because they will actually carry the egg sack up to hatching so they you know were your other roaches American smokey Brown, they will stick it onto something and it’s kind of survival of the fittest where these guys can can kind of time where they want that that their offspring to to be so just something to think about and like he said 1000s One female can create 1000s of babies in a year.

Travis McGowin
Yeah and so then the other thing too is it’s really bad when you walk in and you see this yes, this is obvious areas where roaches have have been and kind of hung out. Yeah, I don’t know if at some point I would assume that the homeowner had maybe a refrigerator or something like that in that corner at one point and you can see at the bottom there was a deep freezer there but there was obvious signs that there had been an infestation just kind of you know hanging out in that area at some point and the you know, and something had been moved or whatnot. But I mean they don’t just get into your kitchen. They don’t just get into your cabinets. You know this house had roaches in the furniture and all the electronics. The cable boxes, the TVs I mean there were roaches everywhere. I mean they got even into the laundry as you can see. You know they were literally crawling around on laundry baskets into your food. As you can see, this was a bowl of cereal that had been left on the table and I I don’t know how long it had been there. But I mean, you know, I’ve even heard customers complain of say, I can’t even leave something out on the cabinet or out on the counter for just a couple minutes. And there’s roaches in it. So definitely, yeah, exactly, exactly. And just definitely a problem. So so what we ended up doing with this house, after I walked in, I told the customer that we we did need to do a knock down on this house, we needed to try to get a grip on some of the population before we really started doing our standardized treatment. So they they allowed me to do that with a UL V. Fogg. And let me just show you the aftermath of the UNLV fog. So this was what I saw when I first walked up into the house. This was right through the front doors, you can see there’s, there’s dead roaches all over the floor. You know, going back into into every room of the house, they were just I mean, they were just dead roaches everywhere.

Michael Wienecke
Think I saw smokey brown in there? Yes,

Travis McGowin
yes, there actually was a couple of running around, he got unlucky he was he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. But you can see I mean, there were there were just roaches of all different sizes, just dead everywhere. All across the house from from where they had fallen from the ceiling, they come out of the cabinets. It was just a very, very bad situation. And I really hate to see anybody that gets, you know, that lives in a place where this level of infestation is gone for for this long. I mean, you know, I mean, you can just see there, there were 1000s and 1000s and 1000s. And I hate to report that the customer, we were able to treat two or three times and then they never would contact us back or get a hold of us again to continue. So you know, I’m sure that they’re, I’m sure that the level of infestation was better. But unfortunately, without allowing us to continue to treat. I really feel like most likely it read it probably rebounded back. And they’re probably back into a very similar situation that they were in, you know, before we got started.

Michael Wienecke
Yeah. And that’s like what Travis said, that’s very important to let us finish or whoever’s trading, let them finish the service. Because I have I had one a couple of years ago, just like that it took me a year and a few months to get it under control. She is still a customer. She does our quarterly program, but she has not seen a German Roach for almost two years now. And she we found out that she was bringing them from grocery bags, she got well not bags, the boxes. So she was getting the boxes from the grocery store and transport her food. And they were coming in through that. So she just she was getting rid of them. And then they were coming right back. And she didn’t figure out why. So once we figured out the problem, we stopped that that eliminated them getting back in the house, and she hadn’t had an issue since.

Travis McGowin
Yeah, and you know, the other thing too is people underestimate it, like a lot of people see. Face value. So the only only things they can see with their eyes. But I mean, these roaches can get into places that that we can’t physically get to cracks, crevices like I was saying in that other you know in that photo that I was showing at the beginning, the drop ceilings, wall voids, areas behind your your appliances, areas behind your cabinets. So and this is an example of that right here. This was inside of one of the closets, I believe it was the pantry and you see that the wood is kind of split. And I mean, there’s just hundreds of roaches that have made their home. And that’s in the customer’s pantry around the doorframe. You can see there’s all kinds of different life stages that were inside that doorframe. And I mean, they were just literally crawling everywhere. And Michael, you brought us some video footage to kind of demonstrate that as well. And also to show one of the roaches consuming some of the bait product that we use. So I’m gonna play that real quick for us.

Michael Wienecke
To see how quickly they can fit in a crack that I could barely fit, you know, my fingernail under. So just any type crack crevice there, they’re gonna be able to get into. And that’s why it’s so important to get into those cracks and crevices, especially with any kind of fog, any kind of bait, anything like that. You

Travis McGowin
know, and the biggest takeaway from this that I think I have for anybody who’s who’s watching and listening. You may not think that you have that big of a problem. And it may not be that big of a problem. Until all of a sudden one day it is and I think that that’s where a lot of our customers a lot of our phone calls come from is that people don’t understand the level of how bad the problem can be hidden up until it cannot hide any longer and I’m not saying that tomorrow, or a week from now that your problem is going to be as big because you know, the ones that we just showed in these photos and video. But if left to its own devices long enough, unfortunately, it can be that bad. You know, my customer even said, Hey, would you mind treating behind the headboard, because they like to go back there and then they crawl on me at night. So, I mean, something like that is a health hazard. You know, these roaches, they contaminate your food product, they contaminate your surfaces, your your utensils, your they contaminate your air in your house, I mean, you know, they can cause respiratory problems. You know, asthma, if you didn’t have a problem, you either develop one or any kind of health problem that you have, it can kind of exacerbate it and make it worse. So these are definitely insects that you don’t want to share your space with.

Michael Wienecke
Yeah, 100% I mean, and you know, like we said, it’s normally we try to help anybody do it themselves, if they so want to this is just not one of those one of those things that you can do yourself. You know, it’s I look at it like roof and a house. I don’t know anything about roof and a house. So I would never tried to found out. But German roaches, it’s a whole nother animal. And it can turn into, you know, like these pictures. I mean, it just, it’s it’s sad. And it doesn’t need to be that

Travis McGowin
way. Well, and I think a lot of people think that when they go to buy the over the counter products from the hardware store, the grocery store, that they’re doing some good and you know, I always tell my customers, yes, you’re going to see dead insects, you’re going to see dead roaches, especially if you spray and contact them with them, it’s going to do its job, it’s going to kill them. The only problem is, is that most of what people buy over the counter, ends up moving or relocating the roaches into a different room of their house. And that’s another question that I always like to ask my customers. I have another customer who I’ve been servicing now for a little while. And I said, How many cut how many companies have you had before us? And they said, I think it was like two or three? And I said How long have you had the problem? And they said, probably about a year and a half, two years now we’ve been fighting and dealing with them. And my next question, and I already knew the answer. But I had to ask anyway, as I said, after the other companies left, was the problem better? Or did it get worse? And they answered like I thought they said the problem actually got worse. I said, Did it move from your kitchen to your laundry room and your bedroom and your bed? And they said yes. So, you know, I’m not gonna say that every professional is trained in that every professional that works for a company out there, you know, has pinpointed exactly the right method to do it. I just know that I have never seen a problem get worse after we’ve taken over with the method that we use. And that that exact customer I was referring to told me after I’d come back for believe it was the second actual official treatment. And they told me, I don’t know what you did. But nothing’s ever been this good. Like it’s actually gotten better. And that’s just because that that with products they used or with products from other companies that other companies used, they ended up just pushing them around the house.

Michael Wienecke
Well, and I’ll say this, I had a customer about a month ago call us when they’re, you know, did the inspection found out Sherman roaches. Always ask for a list. Like if they’ve had a company come in, I want to see what they’ve been treating with because unfortunately nine times out of 10 it’s the wrong product. It’s the wrong combination. You know, we’ve done a lot of work to build our program or German Roach program to solve the problem. And they were using the same products we use, they bought the same products online. They just weren’t using it right. It’s, you know, having the tool and not know how to use the tool is not going to it’s not going to solve the problem.

Travis McGowin
Definitely application is is a huge part of it. So not just knowing what to get but definitely knowing how to use it. 100%

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Michael Wienecke 0:00
Hey hey, so today I want to talk about an issue that we see every now and then that really you can alleviate yourself is the flesh fly. So a flush fly normally will get inside your house around your house, if there’s something dead, whether it’s in the attic, whether it’s in the house, whether it’s in the crawlspace, or even, you know, the backyard. If you you know, wake up one day, or you just start noticing a bunch of huge flies buzzing around your house or inside your house. Normally, that’s what it is, this flashlight is one of the best ways to identify it is just, you know, the easiest way is it’s got kind of like, like a gray body with little white, white and black stripes going down it kind of the best way it’s not, they’re not really Stripes, they’re more like striations, I guess you’d say. But as far as you know, solving the issue of flesh flies, it’s always gonna be removing that dead animal. Where we come in as pest control professionals is that you can’t get to that dead animal. We can try to get rid of the dead animal, we can try to remove it. Most homeowners don’t want to pick up a dead animal. Travis, I know you’ve probably experienced that.

Travis McGowin 1:16
Yeah, most people are not really fond of, of touching anything that’s deceased, unless be real. A lot of the animals whether it be you know, rodents, or birds or you know, a little bit larger mammals that whatever it is. Some Yeah, some of those things. They don’t even want to touch when they’re alive. So you know, factor in the problem that they’re dead now, and the customer is really not going to want to put their hands on it.

Michael Wienecke 1:43
It’s funny. I was on a job the other day, and I had a customer and she was just like, what you do is just gross. I was like, Yeah, but I like it. So I’ve heard

Travis McGowin 1:53
that many times when dealing with many different things. It’s like how do you stomach what you do? And I’m like, Well, I mean, I don’t know if this makes me a weird individual. But I enjoy my job.

Michael Wienecke 2:03
Oh, yeah, no, we definitely love it, we definitely love it. So. So like I said, just the biggest thing that we as pest pest control professionals can do is you know, we’ll come in evaluate, obviously, that it is flesh wise, try to remove that, that dead animal, and then come in and do a bait treatment around the windows because those flowers are going to be trying to get out of the house. So they’re going to be coming towards the windows, and they’re gonna be done towards the windows. And again, they’re very large laws compared to like a house fly, or any other fly out there. They’re quite large laws. So, you know, will will bite the windows bait the doorframes. And they’ll eat that bait. And typically, you know, trash, what would you say about 2030 minutes, the flies dissipate. And they’re pretty much gone after that.

Travis McGowin 2:47
Yeah, you know, I’ve had a customer that had a very similar situation, you know, now that you mentioned that, about kind of waking up or coming back home and just there being this explosion of flies. And so I did I did just that I did inspect the house, I inspected the attic, the house was on a slab I did not find anything did and I hunted for quite a while, um, I even looked around the outside of the house. Like I said, I was looking for anything, any possible source of these flies. Just because overnight, they had showed up, I could not locate any dead animal. However I did, like you said I baited around the windows, you know, some of that fly bait in about 60 seconds to a minute and a half. I mean, the flies are once they contacted their dying, it works that quickly. And then by I believe, well the customer was going out of town. And she didn’t want a bunch of flies in her house obviously while she was gone, but when she came back, she said there was not a fly in existence, and they were all just did

Michael Wienecke 3:54
well and then the alternative, you know, for the customer, if they really wanted to go hunting a bunch of flies, I would recommend that electric floss water. I mean, you could have a file that’s just entertainment with 500 flies flying around, you kill a lot of fly

Travis McGowin 4:06
on their large targets too. So that’s, that’s just fun. That’s the kids going on.

Michael Wienecke 4:11
Or that that’s that gun that shoots the salt. So,

Travis McGowin 4:15
you know, I’ve had mixed results, but the electric flyswatter is where it’s at and there’s nothing you know, to me to use to the customers to people listening. Let me just tell you, there’s nothing more satisfying than seeing one of those flies get electrified.

Michael Wienecke 4:32
Hey, there’s nothing more satisfying than seeing them eat the bait and just drop to the ground. So yeah, I agree with you there and also I’ll go and you know, right so sometimes when we when we do get to a house and there is a dead animal on a wall, we can’t always get to that dead animal if it’s stuck in a wall void you know behind sheet rock and the problem is is that when something dies and it can die like for instance I my house I had a dead mouse in the light, the light socket and I looked over Were in try to find this thing I could not find it anywhere shove cutting all the sheetrock out and just starting to look never knew that it was in the light socket a couple of months later or the the wall outlet it went out and I pulled it out and you know bones and all that came out so it’s not always that easy to find something dead because like I said it could be in the wall void in the home and you could smell it in the attic you just you just don’t ever know but you know if we get in there in the crawlspace and he’s laying in the middle of the floor pretty easy pick it up attic Same Same deal just you know, removing that that dead source and then not not having to worry about those maggots, you know, turn it into flaws and all that so yeah, a little nasty but that’s just how it is.

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Michael Wienecke 0:12
Welcome to another episode of pesky pest control podcast here in Birmingham, Alabama with Michael and Travis. We do this podcast as a community service for Birmingham, Hoover Vestavia hills, mountain Brook Halina, Alabaster, Pelham, and all other surrounding areas.

Travis McGowin 0:35
Hey, so today we’re gonna talk about beetles and more specifically the Ladybug and the Asian lady beetle. Now, around this time of year, getting close into the fall and winter time, that’s typically when people start having issues with them, especially the Asian lady beetle. know over the last couple of weeks, we’ve had a couple of phone calls, in reference to the Asian lady beetle invading multiple my customers houses. I had one customer in particular, who has a vaulted ceiling in their living room. And when I tell you that we’re 1000s of these Asian lady beetles, up on the ceiling, just crawling around looking for a place to overwinter and to ride out the colder weather. So typically, the Asian lady beetle is commonly mistaken as a ladybug. But it is a very good copy. However, there are some subtle differences that you can look at to try and differentiate between the two beetles themselves. First of all, we’ll talk about the Ladybug. So the ladybug is actually a very beneficial creature. You want this creature inside of your gardens and where you’re growing your flowers when you’re growing your crops. They’re harmless, they will typically feed on other garden pests that you have. So that’s a good thing for you if you’re growing crops, and they usually stay outdoors. You recognize them by their red color with their black spots. But the one of the main differences between the Asian lady beetle and an actual beneficial ladybug is there’s an M, the letter M shaped spot on the back of the top of the head of the Asian lady beetle, whereas the ladybug does not have that little spot. Also, your typical Ladybug may be brighter, more vibrant and red color, whereas some of your Asian lady beetles are almost yellow, or very, very kind of a pale red, so they don’t look the same as the ladybug. The Asian lady beetles, actually can can cause odors, you know, they typically do invade your home, like I said, looking for a place to overwinter they’ll come into your home, through cracks, crevices around doors, around windows around eaves and your attic. And they’re kind of aggressive, they have been reported by one of my customer who is allergic to actually bite and give her some reactions to those two. Um, so some things that you can do as a home owner to try and just get rid of them or to stop them before they become an actual problem would be one to seal up the GAC the gaps and the cracks and the crevices around your outside of your house, whether that’s around your doors around your windows, around your eaves. One customer that I had, in particular had an issue around their chimney, where there was large gaps where the wood siding on the house had started to shrink and become weathered over time throughout the years that the house had been there. And so these Asian lady beetles come back year after year after year through these gaps and cracks. And it was particularly on one side of the house where there’s a lot of sunlight, so it’s really warm, and it’s just a really desirable location. So as with all pests, sealing up their access is really the number one thing that you can do, that’s really the best thing that you can do to prevent them from coming inside your house. You know, so you may be asking yourself, what now I already have them in my house. That’s a good question for you to ask because call us call us and let us come out and take a look at your house. Let us see what the extent of the problem is. In the case of my customer that had the vaulted ceilings that I mentioned, I found several accesses. inside the attic where there was just huge gaps are the outside of the house. So we did seal those up. We also treated the attic space to try to get rid of the ones that were in the attic. And then we also treated with the UNLV fog inside their house just to go ahead and eliminate the ones that had already made it inside the house. And as a consequence of treating it inside the house. After I was finished. I went around and looked on the outside of the house and there were hundreds if not 1000s of these Asian lady beetles crawling around on the outside of the house. So where I had actually ran them out of the house with the USB fog, and then I was able to actually treat them on the outside of the house too. So don’t get discouraged, you do have options. But like I said, the best thing to do is to call us before it becomes a problem, and solve the problem before it starts. So seal up that house. Get your pest control provider to get some good treatments going on around the inside and outside of your home, in preparation before they actually make their way into the house. Because once they make their way into the house, whether it’s in the attic, whether it’s in wall voids, they are there and they’re there to stay all throughout the winter. And it’s next to impossible to try to get rid of them completely. So definitely be vigilant when you start to see signs of them, reach out to us or reach out to your pest control provider. And let them know that that they can come and stop that because you know if you have a house for example, like that’s a log cabin, or that has wood siding, where you have wood that contracts and grows and shrinks and based upon the weather and based upon the age, you’re gonna be open to a lot more issues with these beetles when they decide to make their way into your house.

Michael Wienecke 6:16
Thank you for listening to the pesky pest control podcast here in Birmingham, Alabama with Michael and Travis. If you have any questions about what we’ve discussed today, please give us a call at 205-470-8161 and ask for me Michael wyniki. I’ll be happy to speak with you anytime. And don’t forget to share this podcast with your friends and subscribe to us on Apple, Amazon, Google and Spotify. Thanks for listening and we’ll see you next time.

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Welcome to another episode of pesky pest control podcast here in Birmingham, Alabama with Michael and Travis. We do this podcast as a community service for Birmingham, Hoover Vestavia, hills, mountain Brook Halina, Alabaster, Pelham, and all other surrounding areas. Hey, so today we’re going to talk about another very aggravating and somewhat invasive pest for your house. And that is the brown marmorated stink bug. So these little creatures are accidentally introduced from Asia, into the US, as you know, most pests are that we didn’t have up until a couple of years ago or so several years back, you know, and due to shipping, and due to things like that, these pests tend to find a way, you know, even across oceans and across continents, to places that, you know, they weren’t normally indigenous to. So these little, these little aggravating bugs tend to show up right here at the end of summer and into fall, and then going on into winter. And they’re, you know, most of the time, they’re actually attracted to your house because of the heat from the sunlight. They look at it as a place to just bask until to warm up. And then lo and behold, of course, they find these cracks, crevices or on your doors or in your windows around your at eaves up into your attic. Anywhere that they can go. And they start to look for a place to Oh, to do what we call overwintering, which is to find a place to basically hang out that’s warmer out of the weather, up until the point where they can reemerge, you know in the spring when it warms up. So, but what’s the significance of this brown marmorated stink bug, one of the main significance is of it is it’s damage to actual crops, it’s agricultural damage, you know, they, they can damage anything from fruits, apples and things like that to other vegetable crops like corn and tomatoes, soybeans, and then other ornamental plants and things like that. So they can cause significant damage in large enough numbers to agricultural products. But you as a homeowner, that’s probably not what you’re worried about, you’re probably worried about their significance in your house and then to your health or your family’s health. And they can cause some allergic reactions for you and your family. They can cause you to have runny noses, and conjunctivitis, they can also flare up anybody who is sensitive to bad odors, which living up to its name, the stink bug, it can actually have, you know, an influence on someone who is very sensitive to odors. Um, they typically don’t cause a lot of damage to your home. You know, maybe if they’re crushed or sucked up into a vacuum or something like that, they can really kind of have an odor that you would really notice. But more so more often than not, they’re actually just a nuisance. I had one customer at one point, who swapped to us from a different company just because the other company could not figure out a way to get rid of these pests. And we ended up determining that they were coming in to the house from the outside through the attic, and then of course getting into the living space of the house. So we were able to treat the attic of the house and much to the customer’s happiness, they were gone. They didn’t have any more issues with their stinkbugs getting into the house, and basically crawling all over everything, and flying and getting into their face and landing on their food and things like that. And like I said it was just more of a nuisance and it wasn’t an allergy or something like that. So of course what do we do the best method, seal them out before they come in. Knowing that this time of the year they become more prominent, they start to look for a place to hide for the wintertime that’s warmer or something like that. You really want to make sure that you’re vigilant or that your pest control provider is vigilant in making sure that they’re stopped, whether mechanically by sealing them out or you know by the usage of some sort of product that’s labeled for them. You want to make sure that they stay on top of that before it becomes a problem. Thank you for listening to the pesky pest control podcast here in Birmingham, Alabama with Michael and Travis. If you have any questions about what we’ve discussed today, please give us a call at 2047081 Next one. And as for me, Michael wyniki. I’ll be happy to speak with you anytime. And don’t forget to share this podcast with your friends and subscribe to us on Apple, Amazon, Google and Spotify. Thanks for listening and we’ll see you next time. Now Transcribed by https://otter.aiFilename:.txtCancelExportThe post Stink Bugs are Stinking Up Birmingham Alabama appeared first on Peskies Pest Control.

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Hey, so today I want to talk about something that we’ve had a lot of here in Birmingham, Alabama and that’s rain, a lot of rain can cause bugs to just go for higher ground we see a lot of influx of roaches during rain, we see a lot of ants during rain, pretty much […]

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Hey, so today I want to talk about bats, or, as I’ve heard, and like to call them flying rats, bats look just like rats with wings. So why not call them flying rats? Let’s talk about why bats are such a nuisance. Some of the problems they can give you as a homeowner, a […]

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Michael Wienecke 0:18 Welcome to another episode of Peskies Pest control podcast here in Birmingham, Alabama with Michael and Travis. We do this podcast as a community service for Birmingham, Hoover Vestavia Hills, Mountain Brook, Halina, Alabaster, Pelham, and all other surrounding areas. Hey, so today I want to talk about what I would consider […]

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Michael Wienecke 0:12 Welcome to another episode of Peskies Pest control podcast here in Birmingham, Alabama with Michael and Travis. We do this podcast as a community service for Birmingham, Hoover Vestavia, Hills, Mountain Brook Halina, Alabaster, Pelham, and all other surrounding areas. Hey, so today I want to talk about our service our general […]

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Michael Wienecke 0:11 Welcome to another episode of Peskies Pest control podcast here in Birmingham, Alabama with Michael and Travis. We do this podcast as a community service for Birmingham, Hoover Vestavia, hills, mountain Brook Halina, Alabaster, Pelham, and all other surrounding areas. Hey, so today I want to talk about weather change and how […]

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Michael Wienecke 0:00 Welcome to another episode of pesky pest control podcast here in Birmingham, Alabama with Michael and Travis. We do this podcast as a community service for Birmingham Hoover Vestavia hills, mountain Brook Halina, Alabaster, Pelham, and all other surrounding areas. Hey, so today I want to talk about the wolf spider otherwise […]

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Michael Wienecke Hey, so today we’re going to talk about ants. We have millions of different ants, especially, you know, here in Alabama, we got fire ants, we got big headed ants, we’ve got carpenter ants, we’ve got Pharaoh ants, we’ve got Argentine ants, and the list goes on and on. Different Different states have […]

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Michael Wienecke Hey, so today we want to talk about spiders, why they’re good, why they’re bad. You know how to get rid of them, and some that you should leave around your house. So Travis, why don’t you elaborate on that? Travis McGowin Well as being, like most of our customers, I’m not a […]

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Alabama with Michael and Travis. We do this podcast as a community service for Birmingham, Hoover, Vestavia Hills, Mountain Brook, Helena, Pelham and all other surrounding areas! Hey, today we want to talk to you about one of the most feared insects if you are a homeowner, and that is termites, Michael, why are termites […]

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Michael Wienecke Hey, I’m Mike Weinecke, owner and operator of pesky pest control. And today we’re doing things a little bit different. We are a local family owned business in the Birmingham metro area and Josh Deaton, the sales associate for Alabama stone works. They are also a family local own business in the Birmingham […]

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Michael Wienecke Welcome to another episode of pesky pest control podcast here in Birmingham, Alabama with Michael and Travis. We do this podcast as a community service for Birmingham, Hoover Vestavia, hills, mountain Brook Halina, Alabaster, Pelham, and all other surrounding areas. So today I want to talk about summertime, and what summertime pests bring […]

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Hey, this is Michael Wienecke, owner and operator of Peskies Pest Control and your pest expert in the Birmingham metro area. And today I have my co host Travis McGowin, aka assistant to the regional manager. How’s it going, Travis? Oh, man, we are doing great. Today I’m doing doing very well excited to be […]

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Michael Wienecke is the pest expert at Peskies Pest Control. How you doing Michael? how are you doing? I’m great. Well, you know what, what we want to talk about today, you being the pest expert in Birmingham, Alabama, and Vestavia. And Hoover, you know, you’re the guy the go to guyto get rid of […]

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Michael Stewart 0:00 Hello everyone and welcome to the launch of the pesky Pest Control podcast here on Apple and Spotify and all over the world where you can get great podcasts. And this is for the residents of Birmingham, Alabama. Yes, pesky pest control is starting a podcast to help you have a pest […]

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Peskies Pest Control Birmingham Alabama Podcast: Recent Episodes

Peskies Pest Control Birmingham Alabama Podcast