Episode 59: Martin Beattie on Rats, Drains, CCTV Surveys & Pest Control Growth

Hello and welcome to perspective #60 that's mental to believe

that I've been. It's a 60th episode.

Sorry about last week. There's a cancellation of

guests, but it couldn't be helped.

There's a family emergency. But I have now sorted out.

I've got a list of backup people and I've got a list of backup

content we can talk about. So that shouldn't happen

anymore. I will.

Rather than just not doing 1, I will, I will get a hold.

I've got a few people I can ask and a banking content we could

potentially talk about to fill in if it ever happens again.

But the diary is getting quite full.

I'm getting, I'm starting to book it up.

So if you've got any requests, people obviously be realistic in

who you're going to ask me to get.

You know, if you want people from chemical pest control, big

chemical companies and even ask me because it's not going to

happen. I don't seem too keen.

But generally a lot of people are.

I'm starting to book got that's my fault.

I used to be 3-4 months ahead but yeah, getting booked up now.

But this week I have Martin from a Co founder and chairman of the

NADC. How are you doing mate?

I'm doing well, Sean. How are you?

I'm OK, cheers. Good.

Thanks for having us. No, it's good.

I mean what? This is Martin Spurs live

podcast. An actual podcast isn't it?

It is indeed. Yeah, and lots of loads of CPD

fence like this never live. There you go, you've got one

down to you, someone live. So obviously this is a pest

control industry podcast and obviously there is a massive

link to rats and drains and a lot of people don't think there

is obviously people within your own industry Rats need.

I was on that. I did Davies course with I'll

Germ and that's one thing he kept saying that people keep

people within it 30 years keep telling them rats don't come

from the drains, Rats don't live in the sewers and they still say

it, you know. Well, it's crazy though, because

it's obviously he never mentioned the names of

companies, etcetera. You don't want to for legal

reasons, but but yeah, there's a lot out there.

There is. But yeah.

So would you like to tell people who, who you are, what you do

and and your company and what you you've been around quite a

long time within the drainage industry, haven't you?

I I have had a couple of silly jobs after I left school and

about two weeks before my 8th birthday, I managed to get on to

Donna Rod. I won't say when that was, it

was a long time ago. I done, I think it was about two

years, 2 1/2 years with Donna Rod and I left him and I went to

work for John Murphy's Big Utilities, contracted doing the

mainline servers. I can find a variety of roles

there, one of which was sewer winching.

Not many people have heard of that and even less have done it,

enjoyed that, worked on their combi tankers there as well.

The Vector 82 fives. Some of the older lads that are

around will remember them. They were the ones with the big

gin. Yeah, combination units,

tankers, but they they were unusual to look at because the

jet rail was mounted on the front of the lorry, not on the

back. Is this where you just blast the

drains out of the blocks? Because obviously a lot of

people listening won't know what you're talking about.

They won't. High pressure jetting but for

mainline schools. But the beauty of the beauty of

the 825 was it was one of the first where you could jet and

sack up at the same time. So the jetting come off the PTO

off the main lorry engine and the vacuum pump come off of a

come off a slave or a donkey engine.

Then I went to a company called William Titmus.

They were boasting can. I'm not far from where I live.

They were drainage consultants done about two years, just over

2 years with him back to Dinah Rod and then flipped between

Dinah Rod and drain doctor. And then about 25 years ago, I

opened up on my own and then it wasn't long into my own

business, about eight or nine years when news come to both

Peter Stacey and myself, my Co founder at the NADC about

Johnson Silas transfer bill. So we started bringing around

contractors around the country and warning people about what

was going to be happening. And as a result that that was

the spark. That's where the the NADC was

born. And from the NADC we found at

the advice of death row, we found the National Drainage

Academy developed a suite of training courses.

So there's training for jetting, electromechanical, excavation,

repair, CCTV, which I'll talk about in a little bit more

detail at the minute. Patch lining.

We've now got a vacuum sank course.

There's a new mapping course coming out very, very shortly

and that has to come out. I can talk to you about that in

a little bit more detail shortly as well.

And then what happened sort of probably about eight or nine

years down the line, we were talking to the stakeholders, a

lot of stakeholders that we wanted them to engage with the

NADC and they said, look, what you really need is an

independent approved contractor scheme.

So we went off and we've done our research.

We spent a couple of years on that as it turned out and fair

bit of money. And that's, that's when Drones

Safe was born. So the NADC, National

Association of Drones Contractors, it's it's a trade

association just like any other. Yeah.

People are getting too confused. NADC is a trade association, but

Drain Safe is an approved contractor scheme similar to

similar to water safe or I suppose even Gas Safe to an

extent. OK.

So that's where the difference so sort of three fold the NADC,

the NDA, the Academy and drain safe.

Why why is talking to pest controllers important?

Well, I can tell you now from just the, the year before

lockdown 2019, it, it was jibbs and drabs at 1st and then it

really, really came on. But we started getting first the

odd pest controller on a CCTV course, then there'd be two on

the course, then there'd be 3. I banned one last summer.

There was 12 on the course, but seven of them were pest

controllers. That's interesting.

Not one of them was from the same company and what what we're

noticing is more and more and more pest controllers are going

out. They're buying cameras and

they're attempting to do the CCTV surveys themselves because

they can see the obviously the financial benefit of doing so.

The problem that I think we're running into is a lot of them,

if the truth be told, could really benefit from training,

proper training. Now we know David Brown runs his

course through Killjerm, which is brilliant.

You've said it, I've said it. I learnt a lot from it.

I definitely, I mean, you can always learn a lot from baby

Brown. Let's be honest, he's, he's

forgotten more than most people know, if the truth be told, a

very, very good course. But I think when it comes to

drainage systems, understanding drainage systems, understanding

components and design, understanding drainage law as

well, very, very important. And the full CCTV course, our

CCTV course, there's no other in the country like it because our

course was written by two, two organisations.

First of all, the WRC, the Water research Centre, they're the

same people shown who write the book, the MSCC 5 manual, the

sewer condition classification. Oh, I've got one of them books.

Yeah, right. The people that wrote that book

are the same people that wrote our course that there's one,

excuse me, one quite sizeable element within our course, which

is about drainage misconnections.

And that was written for us by the Environment Agency.

So we didn't write that course ourselves.

We had it professionally done. And there is no other course in

the country where you can sit that course.

Get your certification where it's got an NADC, it's got an EU

Skills, it's got WRC, and it's got an Environment Agency

certification behind it. And what we're trying to do at

the moment is we're trying to educate as much of the pest

control industry, those that are buying cameras, if you're going

to do these surveys, do them to a recognised professional

standard. Yeah, I've had pest control guys

in the classroom. I always go around the classroom

and I'll ask people what brings you on the coast?

Get the feedback. What sort of camera gear are you

using? Get the feedback, what reporting

software you're using, get the feedback.

And what's, what's kind of surprising Sean, is a lot of

these guys, they're coming on the courses to professionalise

themselves and their own companies, which is a big, big

plus, a very big positive. But then what they're doing is

they're going on to places like eBay and they're buying cameras

for five, £600 and that just doesn't work.

If you're going to be doing professional drain surveys and

professional vermin investigation surveys, then you

need to be using the proper kit. You should have the proper

qualifications behind you. You know, you should be using

proper recognised reporting software.

And as much as that is lacking in the drainage industry to a

degree, it is really sadly lacking in the pest control

industry. And that's something that we

would like to change. We would like to see these guys

professionalise themselves to the right standard.

I can see why to start with why some of them are because they

might. Some of them when you start a

new service you might get NAF or work and they might just Jack it

in because I can't see why they'd probably get a cheaper

camera to start with. So in degree.

Here's the thing. Pest control.

Yeah, Now I know pest control covers a wide range of things.

We're talking about insects. We're talking about bugs.

We're talking about Wasps. We're talking about probably

stuff that some on you, you can probably barely see it freezing

the like. I don't know.

I can't imagine, but I would imagine the vast majority of

pest control firms out there. I would say the majority can't

be all of them, but I would say the majority of them are getting

called about vermin rat infestations.

And it stands to reason that if you've got a rat in your

property, or if you're getting repeated right infestations, the

first part of port of coal should be your underground

drainage system. Yeah, I.

Mean that's no brainer, but there are pest control firms out

there that are coming out and they're treating and they're

treating, you know, baiting up and baiting up and baiting up

and baiting up. As David Brown always says,

prevention is better than the cure definitely is.

You know, you need to find the source of how they're getting

in. If you can cure that problem,

you've you've killed the rat problem because they're confined

to the underground drainage system or the local sewerage

network, which is, I wouldn't say where they should be, but

that's where they tend to reside.

Exactly. It's becoming more, I've noticed

it more and more prevalent because obviously that is where

they come from. It is not every case, obviously

not every case, but sometimes it is 9.

A stat that a stat that goes around is 80 to 90% of homes in

the UK are drain related. They are routing for stations.

So it comes to it comes to reason why pest control is one

that upscale and I totally believe you're right because we

do say in the pest control industry everyone should have

all the certificates etcetera. Absolutely within you should

also. Then I want to do a few more in

the future for drains but upskill more.

But it's learning what I need to do etcetera.

Because obviously when you go online there's loads of

different websites. You need to know what

information is correct and what called.

You can ask people like yourself or Davey what's the best route

you can. Absolutely.

I would say to any pest controller out there, if you're

even considerate, get onto David Brown's course immediately.

You know you will. You will learn so much and you

will gain so much knowledge right off the bat.

But then if you are going to take it that one step further,

if you're going to go out, start spending money on camera gear

and the like, then you really need to be sitting in the CCTV

course and getting right up to speed with everything that you

need to know about underground drainage.

You might not employ it all in the field, but at least you're

around with that information. You can, you can talk as with

with all the courage and conviction that you, you, you

need to talk to any client. Remember in situations quite

often you're going to be talking to probably building surveyors.

You might be talking to building engineers, you could be talking

to Ehos. They're going to want to know

that if you've been called in and you're getting paid a fair

amount of money to do this job, that you're properly qualified

and certified to do the job that they're paying you to do.

Otherwise, what are you? You're you're an amateur with a

camera. Nothing more than that.

Yeah, it it, it's a fairpoint because everyone talks about, we

talk about an industry how every summer when the Wasps come out,

all the window cleaners start doing Wasps nests and everyone

moans about it's the same situation really, the Internet.

It is. It is.

It is so with with with that. Would you recommend if someone

was to do full proper drain surveys, we'd recommend Davies

course. You'd recommend the CCTV but

would you recommend is it the sites of drain surveyors course?

Would you recommend that as well?

It is a drain surveyors course. The course that we run is the

CDs Certified Drainage Surveyor. I would say that is the same

course. That is the course, right?

2 day course and it covers everything that you need to

know. Starts off with drainage law,

goes into misconnections, goes into components and design,

talks a bit about drain cleaning, methods of drain

cleaning and the like. And then it goes into actual

coding, identifying defects properly, coding defects

properly. And you know, there's 54 modules

on there and then it goes on. I mean to, to give you an

example now I can't explain this even with my own company

accelerating drone services, both down here in London.

And maybe you can tell me. I don't know.

I've asked about nobody else seems to know, but since

lockdown 2020, vermin infestation seems to have

skyrocketed. Yeah, it's still.

Experiencing the same thing. I would, you know, I wouldn't

say Skype where I am particularly, but I would what I

would say is since 20, since 2020, well before 2020 rat

infestations used to be not in the summer, right, Not in the

warm times. You can still have rat

infestations all year round. Doesn't matter what the weather

is massively. I'd say since then the

populations have rocketed. Hey, look at Birmingham got the

mess they're in. You know of all the, all the

bidding collections, etcetera, all the rats building up.

But you are right. Since since 2020, the, the, the

rats have exploded. I have there's more of them and

it's where we get them. Even in even in the heat of the

wasp season, the rats are the rats are still about, they're

still there. They're not.

It's not going down, it's going up.

It is. I don't know, it's just my

company. I've spoken to other guys that

offer the similar service and they're they're in the same boat

as I am. They're getting a lot more calls

for it now, month by month by month.

Yeah, because obviously I tell you the biggest thing we get is

customers. You obviously know what I'm

about to say anyway. Yeah, a lot of customers say, we

say there's something from the drains.

We keep coming back. Obviously this was previous to

us trying anything else and I said you need to get a full

drain survey, not one off the water board.

Oh no, no, I've got one off the water boy, all the drains are

fine. I says no, what you that's their

drains are fine, not under your house and a lot of them don't

end up getting it done. They says, well, you'll just

have us back. I said, but I actually, I

actually refused to go back. I said that until you get a full

drain survey, I'm not coming back because you're just going

to have them for the next 20 years.

It's pointless to me coming back.

Obviously a lot of people would just still take the bait to take

the money. I mean, but the issue I was

having was I couldn't get to them wherever they were.

They I said to them, you've got to get a full drain survey and a

lot of customers must, there must be something on Google that

says, yeah, just just ring up your water company.

I'll do it for you for now. Everyone seems to do.

Everyone seems to do it. They do.

I think, to be honest with you, I'm here in the jungle, drums

banging away in the distance. I think the way things are

going, and don't quote me on any of this because none of this is

official, but I think you'll find that over the course of the

next year or two, the water companies will stop offering

drain surveys on private drain systems.

At the moment, they're still doing it, but I think in the

very near future they're going to stop doing that.

And they will be looking, one would imagine, for contractors

who are part of an accredited scheme to refer that word to.

And I'm not mentioning any names.

Yeah, Brainstein. Yeah, you never know.

I. Think you might find if you ring

your local water company and say I think I've got rats, they'll

be saying OK, call in an accredited contractor, get your

drain surveyed and once we're satisfied that you beg your

drain surveyed and there's no problem on your part of the

network, we'll come out and survey our part of the network.

I think that's fair. I think it's more than

reasonable. More than reasonable.

Can I tell you got us interest in in actually doing that to

start with, even getting any interest in drains was we were a

kill germ on the road day on the road, a workshop to call them.

You know, we go through, you know, like a a load of training

and talks, etcetera. And Davey was Davey was talking

and it was fascinating. The course was and he mentioned

about, I'm sure he mentioned something about what blew my

mind was the bit where someone's someone's got a house and I've

decided to build an extension. And it was the bit about messing

with it, the the extension and I didn't know there was a law they

owned it and all that. And.

Next thing and I'll message David saying, let us know when

the nearest course is next year and I'll do it.

It says, I think for you, it'll be the one that Burton on Trent,

come to that one. I'll let you know when, when the

dates are available. So I went on it, but that

fascinated me and I, I love telling customers that that bit

of the law. I was like, right, this is do

you have permission? Do you have this bit of paper?

What's that? There's a situation, it's been

going on for quite a while, Sean, where people are getting

builders in. They're building over local

authority, local water company silvers, but the builders that

they're using aren't as common as they should be.

And what they're doing is they're leaving old pint work in

the ground, old manholes in the grand old pint work in the

ground that's been broken off, hasn't been capped off properly.

And within six months or a year of the extension being built,

the next thing you know, they can hear rats in the walls and

they're they're under the floor and they're here, they're there.

And it's all down to poor workmanship.

Now. We've been talking to

organisations like Reba, which is the Royal Institute of

British Architects. We've been talking to CAC, which

is the Charleston Institute of Architectural Technologists.

We're talking to LABC, we're talking to a wide variety of

stakeholders, including the water companies, and we're

saying if you're applying to have an extension built, you

should be having both a pre and a post conditional drain survey.

The preconditional survey is to establish what drainage you've

got on your property, where is it, what conditions are in, who

does it belong to, to see if you actually need consent from the

water company or whether you don't.

Some drainage contractors, myself and one of them will

offer something called a planning meeting where you can

liaise with the architect to help design the new system, the

new drainage system layer. But what is absolutely

imperative is that a post conditional drain survey is

carried out and that's to make sure that that new drainage

system has been laid in accordance with the part H of

the building regs. And there are things in the

works at the moment where I think, when in fact I don't

think I know for a fact that those types of surveys are going

to be more stringently enforced. They know when new housing

estates are built and they go up so fast.

Do these new houses have to have when they put the drain drain

systems in? Do they have to have loads of

surveys done all the time? They are.

They are supposed to have what's called a PC Practical Completion

Drain Survey. That's all I'm saying.

I'm dealing with a developer at the moment and they've got about

four or five sites which are proving problematic.

I was on one of their sites today, I'm on another one of

their sites tomorrow. And I can tell you now, PCs were

never carried out because the draining systems on these sites

are packed out with shingle and builders, rubble and bits of

wood and bits of insulation and Christ knows what.

And every time we go up to deal with a blockage, we're dragging

this stuff out in the trains, we're putting it in buckets,

we're photographing it and we're sending it back to them and

saying this is what we're pulling out.

And it seems to be on every single shot we go to.

Same thing. I just wondered because a lot,

I'm not saying all had new housing estates, but a lot of

them flood as they build them on floodplains, you know, just, I

think the drainage as well as yeah, that.

That doesn't help, does it? No, it doesn't.

It's like, I'm not the biggest expert in obviously drains, but

I've seen drains where I've told them you need to get your

drains. My dad, my dad looked at it and

he says, you know, when they pushed the toilet and the water

goes that fast that the toilet paper is still left, that we've

seen that. And he said, well, it's a bit

like now, you know, you can have to get it fixed.

But I cost it that point, didn't it?

You can get it all redone. We also have, I don't know about

other places in the country, but this same organisation I'm

talking to you about, same development, they're putting in

economy flushes all over the place and economy flushes.

If you push the economy flush like the smaller button, which a

lot of people don't realise the difference between the two, it's

only pushing solidified toilet waste around the track and about

a metre or two down the line and it's literally just sitting

there. There's not enough power on the

flush to, you know, disperse the waste that's just gone down the

toilet. And that in itself is causing

problems, too. So I always tell Pete, you've

got an economy flush. Always use the full flush, you

know. I've only got 1 flush on my

toilets. That's fine.

You know, I didn't know that. I didn't know these toilets had

two different bushes. Yeah, three flush buttons.

Yeah, one for wet waste and one for solid.

Getting more more better ways to sell toilets now, eh?

It's. All about saving the

environment. The reason it come to that we

were doing something, we were looking at radish and we were

looking at the drains and we rang him like the the the

developer. I says we can't even look at his

mate. He says he went why?

He says, well there's about 6 to 8 foot of water which he made.

He says it's full of, you know, everything's down there.

Next thing you know, we got, I don't know who we got out, we

got company and they cleared it. But we think it will happen

again in a while because we told him what what's happening?

The water's going way too fast and leaving the toilet paper

yard. So eventually it'll happen

again. It will, it'll build up and

build up. And that's, and that was a

purpose. Load of houses were built and

all the houses drains were lower down.

But it's other one, it's weird how they've done the drains big

time. No need to do it that way.

When he sent us the plans, that was reading the plans.

It's like these don't line up with what you actually got.

He told the guy and the problem is for a lot, a lot of

developers and not, he said that's how you were a builder or

anything. I'm just a Tyler mate.

We put some money in. I was like, oh, you know.

Yeah, playing joins and his builds are often very, very

different pictures, Yeah. Yeah, I'm not an expert on it,

but like, you know, maybe my dad said that you could have just

joined it to the other one out. But he says all the houses are

built now. So these issues are your

problem. They are.

You know they are. Oh.

They are ongoing. Yeah, they are seems to be ever

changing landscape and drainage, but it's in it's in every

industry. It is the pest control industry

is getting more and more, we're getting more and more regulated

on what we can do. Certain tools have been removed,

whether that's licencing or just by law practises.

They are. Is there a in the training

industry? It's like is it deemed A

regulated industry or is it, is it like regulated industry in a

sense that it's not you regulate yourself, so you're supposed to

on that. There, there's no regulation as

such. I mean you've got the purer regs

under the Health and Safety Act that's provisional in use of

work equipment regulations and what it states is and it's quite

loose even though it's best the interpretation is, but the long

and short of it is if you're using equipment in the

workplace, you should be properly trained and certified

on that piece of equipment. Now, to give you an example, if

you went on to a building site to drive a bumper or a JCB or

even the tower crane, you wouldn't get, you wouldn't get

to set foot on that site unless you could prove that you had a

whole host of competency to do that.

That said, there's people in training companies up and down

the length and breadth for this country and probably I imagine

around the world that are using what I've been to be very, very

dangerous equipment, high pressure jet equipment with

absolutely no formal training whatsoever.

None. And for the life of me, I, I

can't see that in this day and age.

I can't see it. That said, when it comes to

training, if you ask most Chinese contractors, have they

ever done any training at all? Most of them will tell you that

they've held a jetting certificate at one time or

another. See, with the with the National

Drainage Academy, all of our training goes through energy and

utility skills. Yeah.

The idea behind that is if you do all of your training, so

that's your, your basic health and safety, shear drains and

sewers, your jetting, your electronic, your CCTV, your

patch lining, your excavation and repair.

If you do all of that through US, all of that certification

goes on one card. So you don't have to go to 10 or

15 different training providers. You're not walking around with a

wallet that thick full of certification cards.

Everything goes on one card and it's all online as well.

So you can go on to the USR register, any engineer can put

in his name and his 6 digit number, hit the button, his

photograph will come up on the screen and all of his valid

certification is listed beneath it.

And that's one of the reasons why we have done it that way.

It's been deliberately structured that way.

So make maintaining your engineer's certification that

much easier. Oh yeah, That's, that's that's

stood that it's it's also crazy to believe that at the same

time, if you were an actual drainage company that that you

wouldn't have the because imagine if this is how I see it,

not from your perspective on about health and safety, but say

you haven't got in that training and you your employee dies or

gets heavily injured and you look into it.

Where's his training that could get in seriously in trouble.

I I had a. Chat with a guy, I'm going back

a few years now. He was an assistant caretaker at

a school not far from me, South End, and he was called to go to

the school. There was a block drain and he

was told to help the drainage engineer on the job and the

drainage engineer had said to him can you put your foot on

that pedal and run my machine and I'm going to go outside and

see if I can hear it. Now what he didn't realise was

as he had his foot on the machine, the cable was slowly

but surely recoiling back into the machine.

Now he couldn't have known that he's never used the machine

before but what happened was the cutting blade, which in this

instance was an Oxbow U-shaped blade with leading edge teeth on

it, slipped out the drain spinning whipped up and caught

him in the face. Yeah, when I spoke to him, he

had just finished his fifth surgery and he was told that he

needed two more. And when the Health and Safety

Executive started looking into the incident, it turned out that

the guy that was using the machine, no certification at all

across the board. So we had lecture mechanical

machines on the van. This is quite a reputable

country. If I'd told you the name of this

company, you'd know them. You'd know who it is, a national

company. But the engineer had absolutely

no certification. Not for jetting, not for

electromechanical, not for his CCTV, no certification

whatsoever. And when they dug deeper, the

other 12 engineers on the company, same thing, none of

them held any certification. Yet they were using all of this

equipment on a day-to-day basis in the field and employing the

help of people like this guy who had no clue about the machine.

We'd never seen it before. This is mentor.

I imagine though, that he went to court and everything he I

can't, can't work now, couldn't. It I did.

I did actually ask him to keep me up to speed, but I didn't

hear back from him. But I had to feel for him.

Yeah, I had to feel. For him, he's lucky because he

could have died. It could have got worse.

It could have, you know, on his throat.

You don't. You could have, you know, could.

Have blinded him, could have just as easily blinded him, but

he was he he, he was facially scarred, he told me the phone.

Facially scarred for life as a result, but bad enough that he

was asked to use the machine, the engineer on site, no

certification, so on. As sad as it is to say, it's the

same story for an awful lot of drones contractors up and down

the country. They're not adhering to the

Health and Safety Act because none of them maintain

certification on what they're doing day-to-day across the

board. Jetting, CCTV, Electro,

mechanical, all of these things are dangerous.

They all come with their dangers.

And you should by law, under the pure regs, have your

certification in place, but they just don't.

It's that old, the old knowledge.

It will never happen to me. Well, it doesn't happen to you

until it happens to you. Yeah, it.

Probably won't happen to you, but it happened to one of your

employees. Then you're then you're in

trouble. Well, I've been checking like

that. I've been checking 17 years.

When it did happen to me, I only lost the sight my left eye

rushing on a job. Basically, and foolishly, my my

jet had been completely antifreeze.

I know that because I'd done it two days before Christmas Eve

went to so it it was a Trader jet in a Super Series 6, and in

my haste to get the job done, I connected the supply hose.

The bottom half of the supply hose had frozen water in it.

Icy water connected that up to the tap, turned it on and pushed

all of that icy water into the jet tanks because it was

freezing cold. And I just wanted to get the job

done and get back home and put me feet up because it was in the

middle of the Christmas period. Jet whipped up, caught me in the

face, smashed all of these teeth.

They're not real. Oh, OK.

No, no, they're not real. I've got 6 stitches across the

front of me lip, 6 stitches behind and I had to attend

Moorfield's Eye Hospital every two weeks for about 6 months

because they thought they were going to have to operate on the

optic nerve at the back of this eye.

Do you want to know the crazy thing?

My visor was literally 10 feet away from me on the side

loading, just behind the side loading door.

My van. The only reason I didn't put it

on is because it was freezing wet, freezing cold and soaking

wet, and because it was a cold day.

I didn't want to put a cold wet riser over my face.

If I hadn't had it on, all of that would have been avoided.

So believe you me, I learnt my lesson that day.

I'm still learning it every day as a result of.

It good stories here but not good for you but learning points

of people to do health and safety.

I, I, I'd tell that story on every training course that I

run, every single training course I'll run.

Always use your PPE because it just isn't worth it.

It's it's not worth it not to. Someone in on the LinkedIn chat,

Martin Wyatt, has said he's adding a membrane inside a drain

and accept the acceptable fix if the if if the this damaged

joints are found. And membrane if if by a membrane

he means a patch or nothing yet. I think that's what he means.

I must. He must mean patch line, Yeah?

If you mean if if membrane means a patch liner or a thaw liner,

then yes absolutely. It has been for 30 years.

That's the question that came up.

But yeah, there's a few more. People listen to my podcasts

after the fact. They can't catch up with it.

They do. So what?

So have you got any? Have you got any really, really

bad jobs where you've, I hear all these jobs where people have

had their cameras capped, caught and they've had to get them out?

Have you got any stories on that?

Are you? I'm actually saying by by your

face. Every now and again, every now

and again, your cameraman. Because I, I, I work the

computer. I'm looking at the computer, I'm

typing into my laptop. I've got a cameraman feeding the

camera for me. Yeah.

And I don't know if it's him or me or a combination of two, but

they'll get up to a bend, I'll go right, go easy round the

bend. They'll go round the bend and

everything's great. And then you're halfway through

getting the camera around and all of a sudden, clunk, he's

like, it's not coming out. And that is when your heart rate

doubles and he's on a freezing cold day, beads of sweat are

running down. Because sometimes, I mean, it's

only happened to me a couple of times when you've had to start

breaking ground to get your camera out.

The last time I was on the job at St.

John's Wood, that was my fault. Aren't holding to push it round.

I shouldn't have done. But it it went round a bend and

then straight down the back of a gulley.

So it had gone round a hard left and then dropped down and there

was no way we were getting it out.

And the only thing we could do was get the get the mini breaker

out the van, break out the gulley, retrieve the camera and

we had to go back the following day and fit a new galley for the

gentleman at our own time and at our own expense.

But you know. You don't know a lot about this.

You do need to be careful with your cameras and that's one of

the reasons why I told Pest controllers as well.

Be very careful about what camera gear you buy because if

you're not used to camera and if you aren't used to CCTV, you can

get yourself in an awful lot of trouble very quickly.

You jam a camera in in a pipe underneath somebody's kitchen

floor, for example, that's got under floor heating in it, and

the only way to get that out is to start breaking that out.

It can work out a very expensive job.

The other thing is as well, a lot of people don't realise this

with pest controllers. If you're starting to survey

drains, you need to be informing your insurance company that

that's what you're doing and making sure you're properly

covered. Yeah.

I will say though, with the the company, Bradshaw and Bennett,

if you have their pest control insurance, it does come as as a

standard at us. But they've said, I asked them

at Pestex and they said as long as you're justifying and using

the camera. But if you were to go in the

drain, we have to know. We have to know everything.

Give us a ring. I don't know if you ever would

go in the drain. I don't know what they meant by

if you go in the drain, don't. Get in the drain.

Yeah, then you talk, then you're talking.

What's it called that law, that rule?

Confined space. That's it, confined spaces.

But they said, yeah, just let us know.

But they said generally if you're just using your camera,

you're fine. So you are actually covered,

they said. But anything more, they said

what you need to ring us and tell us what you can do.

Years ago the policy was when I was young, did you get into a

man or if it was up to waist height or or a chamber, you can

only get into it if it was only up to waist height because the

top half of your body was. At the chamber and you're in the

ambient air. The problem with that is as soon

as you bend down. The.

Ambient air. And you get a.

Blowback off the sewer that a lot of people don't realise it,

but then gases down there take about 3 to 4 minutes to kill

you. So if you're down a nano and you

pass out by the time your mate at the top has picked up his

phone, called the emergency services, explained where you

are and what the problem is, while the time the fireman's

coming down the greasy pole, chances are you're already dead.

Yeah, no, you're right. Yeah, that's never want to scare

people every week. But it's a factor, isn't it?

This is. This lengths do it all the time.

We'll be down here 4 minutes. Just nip down here, you'll be

all right. And some of these chambers are

quite beep. Some of these chambers are quite

beep, you know, 2-3 metres, you go down there and you get a

blowback off that sewer. The thing is a lot of the gases

that will kick catch you at there's no sense to them,

there's no smell to them and some of them are more dense,

which means you can be standing up and the air you're breathing

is relatively OK. Soon as you just Crouch down,

your head goes down into it, you can't see it.

All of a sudden you're breathing gas, you're dizzy, bang, you're

out, you're unconscious, and the very worst thing anybody at the

top can do is come down after you because that has happened on

a few occasions and that's multiple fatalities.

Really. Well, people have gone in to

save them and they've ended up dead themselves.

Happened to two brothers in Dublin a few years ago.

One of them went down into a big chamber.

His brother was sitting up in the van having seen sandwiches

and he's calling him, will you come up and have your tea?

Come up and have your tea. And he wasn't responding.

So he got out of van and climbed down to see what he was doing

and the old fella watching the gate, the old the old bloke on

security seen them both go down not come out and his wits about

him called the fire service. The fire service showed up and

pulled 2 bodies out. Both come.

Two brothers in their 30s. Two brothers in their 30s

confined space all the way. That's full gear, that's gas

detection, that's harness, that's breathing out the rates

emergency BA kit, that's personal gas detection.

That alarm will go off. It will go off.

Now obviously, I'm guessing they knew they shouldn't be going

down there, didn't they? Well, we all know we shouldn't

be going down there. But you just pop down and don't.

Just undo it. You can be, you can be you, you

can be sure 500 or 1000 lads up and down this country today have

jumped into a manhole chamber that they knew full well they

shouldn't have been getting into, but they've done it

anyway. I know Woody.

He's telling me it's common knowledge.

Yeah. You know, I'm just, I didn't

know a lot of people died like that, Woody.

That was all. I didn't know it was a common

thing. I knew that you shouldn't be

getting into drains, obviously. About 20 years ago if I'm not

mistaken, somewhere in London, 3 legs, one after the other after

the other, they all went down. Somebody called the fire service

and a market somewhere in London and I think it was one of the

market traders. Traders in that instance used to

work for the council and see them going down one after the

other after the other and he picks up the phone called the

fire service fire service come out BA gear winning three

fatalities it's. Yeah, it's shows, doesn't it?

It does health and safety, health and safety.

Health and safety comes first. Look, nobody comes to work to

get injured or killed. And they don't.

It just isn't worth it, is it? Certainly don't count the work

to get blinded. Don't come to work and lose your

teeth. I certainly didn't that day, but

my own negligence. That's how most of it happens,

isn't it? It's just that moment you lapse

and think, ah, OK, I'll do it. And that's split second, yeah.

Split second. That's all it took.

A split second to to scar me and injure me the way it did, you

know? No, it's, yeah, it's insightful

stuff, mate. It really is.

It's what's it called. Is there anything else you'd

recommend for pest controllers? Any kind of cameras or it's only

new cameras coming out of your feature that might help people?

I know of pure. I know this for a fact because

I'm I intend to buy one myself, but there's one company I'm not

don't know if I'm supposed to actually name. 1.

Company over another. OK, let me put it this way.

There's one company in particular.

A lot of the lads are buying their cameras because they're

reasonably priced and extremely reliable.

And the locators that they come with, made out of the same

company are hyper accurate. But they're bringing out a

small. They've got a small camera about

half of the size of our main lines.

Yeah, came as about 3 1/2 grand, 4 grand I think at the moment,

but they're bringing out one. I'm hoping it'd be out before

the end of the year, but it's got pan and tilt on the end of

it. But this camera can go out about

30 odd metres and you can record everything to an app as well,

which comes with it. And the second that's on the

market, I'll be buying 31 for each of my veins.

But I would say to the guys, look, don't buy a £500 camera

off of eBay. It's all well, a good sound.

Well, I'm just getting started. I only want a cheap camera.

No, you don't. You want the best camera that

you can afford. And when you consider what,

what, what does a drain survey, a vermin investigation survey in

London round about £350 on a on a domestic.

Yeah, well, you've only got to do 10 surveys and that camera

unit has paid for itself. So it's worth the investment.

It's worth the investment. And was as much as that equally

having the proper training and certification across the board

because you want to be able to say to your clients we're

qualified, here's our certification, we're using

proper equipment. Here is a copy of an example

copy for example of one of our survey reports.

And you should be using recognised reporting software as

well in my view, you know. But what I can tell you, and I

have this one very, very good authority, demand for CCTV

surveys is going to go up exponentially over the course of

the next three or four years. Exponentially.

But that work is only going to be going to companies that hold

the correct qualification. It's not going to be going to

Joe Bloggs training firm up the road because the bloke there has

been doing it five years and he happens to have a camera.

No, it will be going to work. That work will be going to

companies that meet a specific criteria.

OK. So that's good.

To know. If pest controllers up and down

the country meet that criteria, they will be in you know they'll

be in line for that work as much as the Droneys contractor down

the road that's. Good to hear that's an area of

growth people could potentially look up.

To me that is growth company. That's one company that works

there. There's one company here in

London, Sean. I trained 2 of their lads in

2019, just just before COVID, and he had one drainage van, 1

camera. I've now trained all of them,

that same pest control company. At the last count they had nine

drain, 9 drain cameras, 12 vans and nine of their vans had a

drain camera. All of their lads, all fully

certified, all of their reports to WRC standard and then making

a fortune. An absolute fortune.

It's good because it's a growth area that can potentially be

tapped into. Martin.

Martin White's saying he's going to get himself on the next

course. Then Martin White's just put

I'll get myself on the next course.

Then I don't know which course he's referring to.

It's CCTV. I imagine CCTV and you know.

Further to his early question, when he asked about the

membrane, he did put, he had a recent job that he was on and

he's saying that the membrane fix fixing the damaged joint

didn't help with the flow. What was it Martin?

I don't know if you can hear me. I imagine you can.

Was it a WRC approved patch liner?

Would like get a professional droneage contractor come out and

fit a patch liner? Is that what you mean by

membrane? Yeah.

Because the patch liners, they're actually quite thin, but

they're extremely strong, yeah. No, he's, I'll, I'll see if he

comes back to me on that. But no, there's been some great

information on the podcast. I'm sure it's really helped

people, and no, I'm sorry. I would hope so.

Yeah, yeah, He wants to go on the Yeah, right.

CCTV. Yeah, well, look, give me a

call. I'm easily found.

Oh. And I'm on LinkedIn.

He's, he's got, yeah, he's on LinkedIn.

I'm on LinkedIn, the NADC logo is on my on my LinkedIn thing.

So you you'll know it's me just and I would invite anybody that

wants to connect with me on LinkedIn.

Anybody that's watching now in the future, feel free to do so.

I'll get people connecting with me.

I've got 8 what, 8 1/2 thousand people following me there now.

Dream territory. I wish I could be.

I'm nearly at 2000. I am.

Well, it's just taking a while for that to build up, I can

assure. You imagine it has, Yeah.

Every time I logged in, there's four or five people that want to

connect with me and I'm very choosy about who I let to

connect. As well.

I used to let everyone in. I used to, but now I don't

anymore. A lot of people are just trying

to connect because they want to sell you stuff.

They want a lot of time, but they want they want a job offer

me. For some reason they do.

I'm yeah, I'm a bit more choosier with connections.

Not obviously followers follow you, but yeah, but they want

inside your connections, don't they?

But I have my connections set so you can't see them.

I tell them I know I did. Yeah, but yeah, no.

Thanks for coming on. And do you want to?

I will. I will put your information in

the description as well. Do you want to promote promote

any courses or anything on on the?

I would say, I would say to any pest controller, I would say

this, if you're going to go into vermin surveys, there's never

been a better time to do it. But make sure A, you're using

the right certification. Yeah, So C baby brand C me, B,

make sure you're investing in the proper camera gear because

you don't want to invest, you know, 500A grand, 52 grand in

something that is not much use to you 3-4 months down the line.

Buy the right gear from the start.

Yeah, yeah. And make sure that you're

reporting to a recognised standard.

And if you tick all of them boxes, you should do well.

There's no reason why you shouldn't do well.

Well, you've said there's proof of that with this London pest

control company. It's now gone to 9.

There is there is an area there for growth.

OK, let's be fair, it's taken them seven years to get there.

It's still good though for someone to expand to sector 9

when they probably do, you know, past other pest control services

too. So there must be a fairly,

fairly large company. I would say I would.

Well they're, they're running 12 vans in the London area, so you

know, 9 cameras, 9 cameras on 12 vans at the last camp.

I would say it's working out very, very well for them.

Proofs, yeah. And there is.

So there is room for growth there.

But yeah, it's been an interesting chat.

I'm sure you'll probably get a lot of interest from from the

podcast because I'll, I'll put it up by Apple Podcasts and

Spotify. It goes nearly everywhere.

You can get a podcast, but now you can add on, tell everyone

you're doing the seminars and courses online.

You've now done a live podcast as well.

Live. Podcast, yeah.

There you go. You you've ticked ticked it off

on your bucket there, so don't think it was on.

That very soon Yeah, you will. Well, listen, Sean, it's been a

pleasure to be here. Pleasure to talk to you and the

wider pest control network and thanks a lot for having me on.

I appreciate. It Yeah, definitely.

So thanks everyone. I'll see you all next week.

You just stay on the line for a minute, Martin.

I'll just end the stream. All right.

Thanks everyone, and I'll see you next Tuesday.

Tonight's Episode