Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
Good morning. This is Ben Sell again with Ben’s pest control. And today I thought I would tell you why I got into pest control. I have always wondered why certain people
did certain things. And I think that a lot of people are curious about what directed people to where they are today. And what I find fascinating about pest control. So what I would tell you is this, I grew up in the Midwest, that was mostly a industrial area that had a lot of factories. And when I was growing up, there were a lot of times when factories would shut down or close and people would be unemployed. And a lot of good people worked there for a long period of time. And when I grew up, I was it was pretty much similar. I went to work for a factory. And I remember, I had only been there for a year and they had lost a contract, and people lost their jobs. And anyways, my family had moved to Florida, and I kind of stayed up in the Midwest. And finally in 1994, decided to come to Florida. And I remember my father had done pest control. And so he got me an interview, and I interviewed and I got the job. And on my first day of training, I went out to work with this guy. And I said to the guy, so what do you like about pest control. It doesn’t seem super glamorous, it just killing bugs. And the guy said to me, we’re never out of work. No matter what we do, how we do it, there is no shortage of bugs or pests in people’s lives that they want to have read up. And that really struck a chord with me, I saw that as this is something with a lot of job security where I could do this for a long time. And so that’s what really sparked my initial interest in pest control. And then over the years, I realized that pest control, it’s really about figuring out and solving issues that most of the stuff we deal with is monotonous. And it’s the same old thing that ants roaches. But we get into some some very, very interesting situations that that nobody honestly probably would have even expected. And so we are brought in and we are hired by customers, and we’re asked to help them with these issues. A few examples I like to tell people is that for the most part pest control, if you look at the the contracts and the paperwork, we we list about 1015 pests that we cover with our services. But in the state of Florida, there are hundreds if not 1000s of different insects. So though we cover the main ones, there’s a lot of insects that people have that just are covered. So I’ve always felt it was our responsibility even if we didn’t cover those insects to try to be able to help our homeowners. So some of the things that we’ve seen over the years is a lot of people may or may not be familiar with pantry pests. pantry pests are a whole list of like rice weevils, grain beetles, they are pests that are actually in food. And the longer the food sits there, the more prevalent they can become. Anyways, it’s not uncommon for people to get them in rice and pasta or flour and call us up and say they’ve got this problem. But we had one gentleman in Portugal see that he was having them and we went helped him go through all of his stuff in his cabinet and we could not find the source we couldn’t find it couldn’t find it. He was literally getting frustrated and and didn’t know what was going on. Well they had a cleaning lady so we said okay, here’s the deal, have the cleaning lady come in, clean the whole house and we’re going to come in the next day and see where we have activity to try to narrow down the source of the problem. So this gentleman did he had his cleaning lady co
me in and the next day we came in and we start searching in the pantry pest that we would have expected to find in the kitchen. We were seeing more in their bedroom.
So we started taking a look around in the bedroom and it’s kind of strange but of course you’re asking permission to look in their dressers or nightstands and you’re looking for anything that could be the source so we go through the bedroom and then all sudden we we see that there’s a whole lot by a closet. We start ripping apart the closet and we find that he has this very old heating blankets or heating pillow like and it seems that the pillow was stuffed with beans. I guess there was a time when they thought beans made a good surface to our good product that stuff those in and so they they filled the pillows with beans. And they had put the the heating pad in the closet and left it and completely forgotten about it. And over time the beetles just were infested in the heating pad. So with Pest Control comes a lot of opportunity to to have to be almost like a detective a sleuth and, and try to find the little clues and details that just aren’t normal. Because I would never have expected to find this heating pad with all the beans stored away in a closet. And that’s just one example. I mean, we have seen some of the strangest different pests. In my 25 years, things that people probably don’t even know exist. Remember, one of the stranger one was a bug called the southeastern toe biter. It is a big beetle with horns on top of it, and it got its name, it seems because when the settlers were settling into Florida, and they were walking through the marsh, they would think they got bit in the toe. And really they had stepped on the horns of the speedo on accident. So when I tell people that the thing with pest control is this, it is about taking care of the customer. It’s about delivering a top service, trying to to give the customers the pest free environment that they want. And yet, there’s actually a fine balance. Because when you understand the reason for most of the pests existence, take ants, for example, I tell people all the time answer the cleaners of our world in, in nature, they go out and clean things that we throw away. The dump, I’m sure it’s full of ants, and people throw food on the side of the road, and what’s there to clean it up the answer there. So it’s um, it’s definitely a fine line between trying to keep the customers home as pest free, while still protecting the creatures that are cleaners of our world. It’s, it’s like we want them, we just don’t want them in your house. So we are given the responsibility by our clients to, to find that balance and to create a home if possible, as pest free as we can make it and do that in the safest way possible. So pest control, to me has always been a challenge. It’s a situation that changes from day to day and from house to house. And even though Pest Control
may have be softer thought of is this glamorous job, I can honestly tell you that our customers when when they have a problem and we go in and we take care of that problem, we make their lives better, protecting their family, protecting their homes, protecting their pets protecting their children, there is a lot of pride and the customers are usually extremely grateful and thankful for everything that we have done for them. And that that means a lot. I think when people take care of their clients, and the clients really are thankful. And in our case, when you have clients with things dangerous, like honey bees or Africanized bees, or fire ants or wasps, bedbugs, fleas, ticks, things that just make life miserable, to be able to go in and clear up those problems or things like termites that are eating their house and damaging their home or rats. pest control is something that is a never ending challenge. And for the most part, the people that we have that we get taken care of for them. They are very grateful and that does mean a lot to us. And I think it gives a lot of pride to the people in the industry to know that the customers are thankful for at the end of the day we’ve made their lives better. So I would leave you with this pest control is there to protect your home, protect your family, protect your friends, it is there to protect, pest control is they’re to protect your home, your family, your pets, your friends from from things that make lives miserable. Now if you have a problem, and you’re not sure what or what you do, please leave give us a call at Ben’s Pest Control
