Commercial Pest Control in Food Sites: Audits, Sanitation & Public Health | Marcus Scruggs - Pest Perspectives

Hello and welcome to PES Perspectives episode 36. I've gone early, 9 minutes early, which is a first last, but you had two podcasts on People think I'm crazy. Are there that many podcasts? But I'm on episode 36 now. PES Perspectives is a podcast in the pest control industry to try and entertain and educate. And you can get CPD credits in the UK if you listen to the podcast. You can with British pass register basis prompt for the older episode to say if you listen to older episodes give me DM and the six codes I can give you for older episodes is a bit different with that system and DPCA self register stay pretty diary.

You just tell them which podcast it was and what you learn and you can get your good points. So yeah, that's pretty much what past perspectives is it. We've been going since January. I see we it was just I do it by myself. As I said, we sounds better. And this week we have on Marcus Scruggs. So how you say it, Marcus Scruggs, is that right? It is, yes. Scruggs, yes. And he hosts. He hosts the Licence to Kill podcast, another pest control podcast if you check out. I just had it up there and I was like, it disappeared for a second.

And he's been in the you've been in the pest control industry for 10 years. Yes, yes. So how you doing to see you in your vehicle, your car? Yeah, I'm doing great. It's no, the weather finally kind of took a turn for us. We have, you know, I'm in South Houston, TX area, so it is always hot 910 months out of the year. But we had a little bit of a dip this week. It's finally getting down into the 50s and 60s at night and only the 80s during the day. I know that's not, those are in Fahrenheit units.

So I don't assure you it's Celsius. But yeah, it's it's typically significantly hotter than that. So it's been nice. Oh, 10° at night then. Oh yeah, that would that would be a lot cooler. Yeah, but use Celsius and use Fahrenheit. I always have to convert it. I do yeah. I. Love a good little across the pond, you know, conversions. It's always interesting talking to people from other areas of the world and really starting to learn how you guys do pest control, how you approach it. You know you're talking about the credits and stuff, how y'all's regulatory system works.

It's. Been pretty cool. Yeah. It's it's not like yours as such. It's we don't have to do CPD points, but you can Everyone moans about getting the points, but you can get the points pretty easy. You can you can read magazines and do quizzes. You can listen to podcasts. You can go to courses in person, past shows and you've got a if you, if you use Rudenticide now as of next year, you've got to do 3 hour well, you've got to get your free crew points. It's like it's basically a set. It's basically teaches you how to use Rudenticide safely, but there's free parts to it and that's what you've got to do to buy and use Rudenticide next year.

So it all courses are free, they're online. So it's not that it's not too difficult, but I always find it easy. I'm nearly probably about 70 points for this year. I am so not too, but not too bad. But so how did you start in a pest control? Did you come out of school knowing pest control was a job? Was it a thing you knew about, or did you fall into it like everyone else does? No, it was. I don't want to say I aspire to do pest control. I can make it sound like that. But I my brother was a pest control technician when I was growing up.

And so when I was about 12 years old, he got himself apartment not too far that I could ride my bicycle too. And I remember him having his own place and a take home truck. You know, he had a new game cue, which was like the hot thing at the time. And I remember thinking like, oh, OK, you know, he was he was going somewhere, you know, and he was doing something that was pretty interesting. And I like, I like the job. And then later down the line when, as I got to high school, my house had, my household had a few run insurance with pest control incidences.

So we had bed bugs at one point and we ended up with fleas at another point. And so having someone come in and treat, you know, it, it really helped restore our home. You know, that was that was that was kind of the thing, right? It was that like our household, it was just on edge. There was so much tension. My mom was kind of a bit of an insomniac person. And so the pest issues were causing her to lose even more sleep. And it just caused, you know, mental deterioration rapidly. And it just, you know, like I said, there was a lot of friction in the household.

And when people came in and they did the treatment, it was, you know, I was curious about it. I was interested about what was happening and you kind of the science behind it. But also, you know, it was, it was effective. You know, it really did work. And so, you know, I followed around the salesperson that came out to do our house for the bedbugs and we just kind of hit it off. And I was like 16 at the time. So he was like, Hey, when you turn 18, you know, give me a call and I'll, you know, I'll help to find you a way to get a job working for the Big T. And so because that's the company that came out and serviced our home.

And so it was just, it was a great experience. I've, I used it as a way to kind of pay for my College in cash when I first got out of high school. So I got out of high school and didn't have to take on any debt that allowed me to immediately have an apartment and then, you know, rent a house with some friends. And then shortly after that, at 20 years old, I bought a house. And so, yeah, pest control really offered me a lot of economic stability in those early years. And I, I remember when I first went out on my training ride with our top sales termite person and they, you know, they were kind of trying to encourage and they disclose their Commission check for me for that month or for them for that month.

And, you know, obviously as my 18 year old, mine was just, you know, I've never seen, you know, an actual, an actual living wage paycheck like that. So it was, it was awesome. And I was sold. And, you know, just started diving into as much I can learn about the active ingredients started like just pulling up Google Scholar articles and just reading everything I could. And yeah, so and I just, it just allowed me to take on a lot of additional challenges at, at the company that I work for, allowed me to start taking on some extra kind of stops that other technicians were either not learning in or just didn't have that, that knowledge base yet.

And then later on I was able to get into food handling and food manufacturing. So a lot of audited stuff, a lot of documentation and it just, it just became an actual, you know, real career. Like it really did, you know, road map out into something that was quite, quite nice. Yeah. So are you still with the same company, The big, the big green tea? No. No, I'm working with, Oh yeah, that's the people that these are the guys that had me, I only spent a couple months at at Terminix and that was in a sales capacity.

And to be honest with you, I think I was a little too young and a little bit too, you know, baby faced and bright eyed, bushy tailed. But, you know, I had a good mentor or a friend of mine said, like, get out in the field, you know, go, go do the work, go perform the work, learn about it, you know, learn about the past. And you know, that's going to be way better off for you than trying to, you know, trying to trying to learn how to do sales. It just wasn't, I mean, yeah, it just that's how it worked out for me.

So I went. I went to the field, loved it. That's that's really good. And also Adam Holt was saying hello. Hello, Adam. Thanks for popping me. So, so obviously what kind of level you mentioned you like to learn a lot and you keep learning. So in what are you just a normal technician or are you because or are you like a field biologist because you say you mentioned you do audited, audited food sites as well. So. So what level are you at in the scout? So yeah, no, I'm nothing. Nothing special about me, just a regular out in the field kind of technician.

That's the capacity, but I am in. The Commercial. Company. No, no, not at all. It's, it's like I said it, yeah. And so I, I, I focus mostly on the commercial side of, you know, our company's operations. And then I, one of the only texts that we have that is fully trained in like FDA and AIB auditing and all the third party auditing, you know, there's a bunch of different companies, they audit each other as far as like the big name brands and stuff. And so those are a lot of the companies that I do my routine service for now, you know, so it's all large food handling, manufacturing stuff.

Houston's got a lot of places. The one you do food plate auditing places, Are you talking about places where, sorry, you do the pest control, not the auditing do do you audit them or you just do the pest control there? Just do the pest control. Yeah, yeah. So these facilities, we kind of hold their hand and help them prepare themselves for all gene audits that come through. Yeah, yeah. We make sure they're in compliance at all times, you know, because sometimes it can be surprise inspections and, you know, and a general facility will have, you know, 8 + 8 plus audits a year.

Sometimes, you know, it can be even more than that. Yeah. Oh, OK. Yeah, some of it's like for these sites, do they take you like half a day or a day? Some some of these massive, massive areas to cover. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, so I'm fortunate. I was fortunate enough to actually service my church, which is not an audited level facility, but I do go to a very, very large church and I was there for 4 1/2 hours today. So, you know, it's pretty common for me to have, yeah, only a, there's, there are some days where it's super busy.

I got, you know, 18 tickets. I'm all over the whole city, you know, touching all four corners. It's, it's a very, very large city. So a lot of people don't understand the square mileage of it. But the, there are also other days where I just, I'm, I'm doing one maybe 2 stops through the whole day, you know, just massive 1.1 million square foot food handling facilities, you know, distribution, shipping, the whole yeah, 900 plus scan stations and, you know, 300 exterior bait stations and Oh yeah, the whole nine.

Yeah, exactly. So stuff that really, I mean, it takes a long while to have to break it into chunks and, you know, move the vehicle around and all that. You can tell by that reaction I've never been a big site before. I've never done anything on that. I've, I've tried to get places like that, but never been successful in getting it yet. But because obviously I'm just not AI, am a technician, but obviously I am owner operator with my dad as well. So just me and my dad, but I've never actually, I do want to get somewhere like that eventually.

But so do you do do you have to check? Obviously you check your bait points and your monitoring points. Do you have to do that trend analysis to see what flies are in the trays? And Oh yeah, we do that too, yes. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. They want quarterly reports, you know, think, you know, I mean, in three, 400 pages, think of bar graphs and all kinds of stuff. I mean, it's just a tonne of data on, you know, what insect activity they're getting or what rodent activity they're getting. And you know what we're doing to combat that or, and a lot of times too, it's really kind of doing like predictive stuff.

So it's looking at what are the, what's been trending, what's the weather that we're having the last six weeks? What's the weather we're going to have in the next six weeks, You know, and then trying to, you know, do something to mitigate what your challenges are going to be. Because we like get a lot of seasonal pests, like a lot of bugs that you can kind of say, OK, you know, early, earlier, you know, spring, this stuff is going to come out, you know, and the hotter temperatures, 100 plus degree weather you're going to deal with like Rover ants and June bugs and stuff, you know, stuff like that.

Yeah. So when you said 3 out of 400 pages, I'll ask this question, Are you paper or are you digital for these or is it a mixture or is it? All so it's all, it's all digital. Yeah, it's all digital. It's just a tonne of different reports. Yeah, reports after reports all you know, that's a nice thing about these digital systems is they can look at the data in a bunch of different ways, you know, so you can yeah, yeah. So it's it's paper, but only for these more important one off meetings that happen, you know, or, or at audit time, stuff like that.

Yeah. I've. Heard a few. Different ones have to be maintained as well. OK. Just just trying to compare it because obviously I've spoke to a couple of people who do in the UK audit and that they're like they've been, they've been in Europe and all sorts. And one of them said that a lot of food manufacturers in the UK or in places he's not been, I don't think he's done it in America, but he said they don't really like digital because he said what happens is they rather paper because there's so much to do with the fact that if they can't log in and get all the paperwork, it causes the problem.

And I spoke to someone else on the other side that says all the sites he's checked are all digital and it's all fine. So it seems like the jury's out on what you could use for food auditing. Well, it's it, it really has to be a hybrid of both, right? These facilities, they are their systems or their, their sites are so large, right, That the only way to to effectively track it, monitor it, contain all the data and then even have something usable to do with the data, right? Something you can even interpret has to come in a digital format.

But these log books have to stay up to date, you know, regularly weekly, in order to make sure that they're prepared for any kind of pop in. And and like you said, you're you as the the pest control provider are not always on site when that audit's happening. So you need to have that data rately accessible to them. So a lot of it does come in the form of print for record keeping. But that stuff is the, you know, the absolute important stuff. You know, as far as like, you know, your licencing, your, you know, IBM protocols, your, you know, sign in pages, pest pages, you know, all of that kind of, you know, documentation and then followed up with all your trend reports.

And, and that stuff can be bulkier. And you do what you can to, you know, maybe trim that down and keep what's, you know, the actual important stuff. And then when you have those larger meetings, you can pull the, the bulk of the data. And that's what those big companies are wanting. You know, they're wanting you to be able to pull up the last three months and have all of that readily accessible to them. You know, but they do want it in a physical form. Oh, OK, I will say OK, OK, so it sounds, yeah.

I can't imagine having to do hundreds of pages of paperwork. I can't for one site. But I imagine you're used to it by now, ain't you? So. It's not so bad. It's, you know, I'm there weekly, sometimes twice a week at these types of places. And when it's a quarterly thing, you know, I mean it's once every you know, well, treatments or whatever, you know, or like 63, you know, it's, you're there all the time. I mean it feels like they're my Co workers almost as much as my actual Co workers. OK. So that's the thought.

They must be fairly large contracts. And if you're there, you know, twice, you know, nearly every week or every other week, you must be fairly large, large sites to to to warrant that they must be. Yeah, some. Some of them. Yeah, absolutely. You know, they take it serious and that's a good thing. You know, a lot of people tend to kind of knock on, you know, the various different things that the FDA allows or what, you know, like, you know, what's in your food or whatever. But the truth is a lot of these companies work really hard to keep a safe food chain and, you know, keep us a pest free, a distribution system.

And it can be hard. I mean, obviously the world's big and there's a lot of pest out there, but in a general sense, every company that you can think of that's major, especially in the US that's operating, we're so litigious as we are. Everybody just kind of sues everybody for any kind of like wrongdoing. Not to say that's a big thing, but it's just a thing in America that yeah, everybody does their due diligence. I mean, people really make to work hard to make sure that these large facilities are not overrun with tests, so.

I sleep good at night. Well, no, to be fair, it's it's what they pay you for. It's the they always say that the the real works in the paperwork. That's what they say. The saying's probably better than I just said it. I've heard the difference of I can't think of it off the top of my head. I've heard Sean Mooney on the beauties and beasties say it, but I just can't think of what he says. I can't. I've I love those guys. Yeah. You really enjoyed it? Yeah, yeah, I got a chance to go on the podcast with them.

They were a lot of fun and it was a very intactive. Talk. What did you think to Sean the. Ballot I like, yeah, no, he's a good, he's a good Alex. Yeah, Alex is nice and kind of thing together, you know? Yeah, a lot of them like going on there. Like Andrew Saneski loves going on with them. He. Loves. He loves the way Sean talks, actually.

The lot of Americans can't get. Over. They couldn't get over. When I first heard Andrew say bollocks, he's like bollocks, bollocks. He was like, it's funny because it's not a word that uses them, even a swear word. It's quite common in the UK. Bollocks, bollocks. You know, things like that. But yeah, when you first heard it, he says what? What are you saying? What it's it's when you hear him first hear. What are you saying? Bollocks. Yeah, bollocks. The bollocks he could get, he could get over it.

There's a lot of I had the privilege of talking to him on the phone yesterday. He's a, he's a really good guy, Andrew. Oh, yes, yeah, he is. Andrew is a really good guy. He is very. Andrew. Gabe, Gabe, and what did it for you? Come on the podcast. I know you're busy, but he's the one man I can't seem to nail down to get on the podcast. He's not been on the beauties and beasties either. They've tried to get him. Off. No, he doesn't. He doesn't. You know, he just kind of focuses. But he's got so much on his plate, though he has.

He's growing that company. I know tomorrow. He is. Yeah. He's a workhorse. Big time, but no huge inspiration. No, he's. Yeah, he's got. I haven't spoke to him in a while, but I'll bet him I'll send him a message of all later and see how he's doing. But I know he's a busy man. He wants to be in $1 million revenue company, doesn't he? He does he he's actually he's my he was our he's our he's one of our huge and 1st sponsors for LTKI mean. He really believes in the vision and he he he kind of plays a more quieter, you know, background type, you know, presence.

He's not, he's not an extremely Ford person like that, but he really believed in what we were trying to do and really believed in the community and the values. And he was one of the first people to convince me to like, hey, you know, really try to do something with it and do more than just, you know, a goofy video game club and stuff. So no, I, I have a huge amount of respect for him and he's a huge inspiration. I congratulate him on his journey to a million. I think his social media journey is one that people should be tuning into.

So Oh yeah. If you're not familiar with ABC Moore, folks, check them out. Be over there with Pest Patrol over in Portland, OR. They're. Phenomenal folks, Yeah. Well, seeing as you mentioned it, let's talk about it. You're sorry, that's all I didn't know I've we failed. I've got to get a different account and rejoin it and play because you've got, do you want to explain your gaming, your whole community you've made for people within pest control Because it's because it's quite a lot of it helps with mental health, doesn't it?

That's a part of it. You know, you probably don't mention it as such. That way it still helps, doesn't it? Oh, so OK, you know, it's a little intimately personal. I don't want to that holds too much. But I actually was getting messages last night from a member of our community who's been in for quite a while, who was kind of wanting to take a step up presence. And he was just saying how much the community meant to him that it had, you know, really changed a huge thing for him in his life and really been a, you know, rock for him.

The brotherly camaraderie that we were that that he has with some of those folks really carried him through during some tough times and, you know, financially and otherwise. And, you know, it's he was just saying saying how much he wanted to share that with other people, wanted other people to experience the community in that same light. So yeah, it it's actually been incredible. You know, like I said, it started off at first just, you know, video gamers who play pest control kind of hooking up in the evening time.

Handsome game, you know, hanging out on the phone call during the daytime because we're in our trucks and so we don't get a lot of chance to, you know, have water cooler talk or, you know, enjoy our coworkers and stuff. And it's really turned into something a lot, a lot more than that. And these guys really have each other's back and, you know, they're cross, you know, educating each other and they're supporting each other, lifting each other up, you know, and they're there for each other's well-being.

They're really checking into each other's person, like each person's mental well-being. And so it, it's served an incredibly good and deep, meaningful purpose for a lot of folks. And I hadn't quite seen that coming, but seeing the fruits of it just encourages me that much more to just keep driving ahead and keep really trying to have a platform that brings people together. So that's, that's kind of what, you know, that's what the LTK mission is about. You know, it's kind of the brief statement is just, you know, making agents in the field or making LTK agents the best in the field.

And that means helping them out and supporting them. However, which way? And we even did a light hearted thing a couple months back, several of the members in our community were having babies. And so we made a little a little LTK baby graphic that was like cute for onesies and stuff. And we couldn't help one to all of the guys and their family members, you know, who are having children as just a way of saying like, hey, congratulations, you know, we support you, you know, you know, it's a big, huge step before, you know, just giving people a little bit of recognition and acknowledgement for that milestone in their life.

So it's little stuff like that come together. It's it. Is there's obviously you and you've got your podcast, which is licenced to kill, but you've expanded on it further. You've got a gaming community connected to it on Discord, which is an app I do struggle with. I do it's, it's quite, I used to use Discord. I used to do a game, I used to run a show called Midweek gaming. I stopped that and I, I started one called a gaming conversation with friends and in the end I used Discord. So what you've got to understand is when I move to doing podcasts, the kind of guests I'm getting on, I can't expect them to just make a Discord account.

So that's why I've got this, because anyone can use it, but discount when you've got it set up right where OBS and everything is very good, but it's, it's certain people. I don't think I'd convinced to sign up to Discourse, say say one day, if I got that, you know, the lady from Renterkill, I don't think she's going to make a Discord just to come on the show. You know, a lot of people. Well, I don't. I don't think they will, you know. Yeah, you're a, you're 100% correct. And funny enough, that's kind of one of my libness tests for when I, you know, ask my guests to come on, I get asked them to create an account and join into the Discord, partially because I just want them to see what it's all about, you know, and actually experience a little bit of what's in there.

But you're right, it's it's not the IT is built for Internet savvy people. It's built for people who are on the Internet, right, or raised the Internet. It's definitely for the next generation, right? I would. Say it's just. It's just, yeah. But it's very, it's very attractive to the younger folks. It really is. It's it's like, you know, I, I would say that they're me and some of my, you know, friends who are maybe a couple years older than me are kind of at the, you know, the edge of, you know, the older regular daily user base.

Most anybody older than you know, you know, I don't know, probably 45 or something probably doesn't check in on daily basis or isn't like a regular daily active user. But as you get closer down to that, you know, 18 to 26 mark, I mean, these guys, you know, that's, that's how they get around, that's how they talk. That's how I mean that's where their, that's where their social life is at. You know, it's not really on Facebook, It's not on, definitely not on LinkedIn, right. It's not on a lot of these kinds of platforms now.

It is, you know, I'm, I'm reaching into those spaces because there's good audience there. And there's also, that's where the credible people in the industry are at, right? That's where, you know, the people who have, you know, good career, you know, I always say like good careers, but you know, I mean, they, they're people who are established, right? And those are the people who are tied into them. So I try to have a, a bit of a, you know, positive bridge there by connecting people who are a part of the MPMA and a part of kind of the official traditional trade organisation and bleeding that information over to the folks in LTK where the younger eyes are AT and may not be tuning into the, you know, the more traditional spaces.

You know, I know that a lot of the local trade organisations and the national trade organisation, they've struggled with the youngest demographic, that 18 to 30 crowd to actually get signed up and get registered. And you know, those spaces seem to be mostly spaces for a business owners or maybe like sales reps or something like that. They're not really utilised by the everyday technician. And so I've, you know, I've got bots that we can use that scrape those websites, MPMA and other websites that pull their events and pull their articles and stuff and they post it in the Discord.

So that way the guys who are the younger crowd, the gamers, maybe the ones who, you know, quite aren't seeking out that information, it's brought to them, right. And so because the discord is around pest control, you know, people have a general interest in it. And then and then it provides a resource for, you know, pest identification or, you know, tips and tricks on how to, you know, resolve an issue at a, at a specific site or, you know, all kinds of stuff. I mean, really that it's funny because you said earlier that we took the podcast and built it out to, but it was actually the other way around.

We took the community and we're building that out. And as people got in, you know, the need for something like a podcast started to arise. So we actually started the podcast four months after we started the Discord group. Yeah. And so that's, that's the nice thing about having the Discord space is I can build it out however however we want to. That means we can adapt to the needs and requests of people and, you know, of the community as a whole. So that's how we ended up with, you know, the job board and a bunch of other, you know, really cool little tiny features that help out with, you know, people who have pest issues or, you know, are running around.

Yeah, I mean, when my missus was making the thumbnail, you've seen the picture you sent with the what are they called? You had a competition painting little figures. Games Workshop, Warhammer, she said. That looks cool. Yes, I think that's that's that. That was in person. That's it. Was it in person or did you? It was. It was. In. Person Yeah, no, no, yeah. Nice. Just got behind that and it was incredible. We have a really awesome game shop here that has like a Tavern and a bunch of floor space and everything.

And, you know, we just wrangled all of our you know, we we've got a pretty good foothold in the Houston market because this is where I'm at. This is where my friends are at, you know, try and wrangle in other pest control friends we know whether they're just other companies or just on the other side of town. And so we had a really good showing for that one. I'd probably say about 30 people showed up to, you know, paint do Warheimer and it was incredible. Yeah, we had a whole, it was a whole day, you know, prizes were given out and we had a painting competition and then we also had a kill team competition.

So which? Do you do you paint them as well? Yeah you mean now are are you have got patience. I would struggle with a little bit so I'm like oh, I I I struggle with things like that little but they look so cool. If I could learn to be more patient, I could probably do it. I just. Well, they got these ones to like push together now, so you don't have to like glue them and do all that stuff, but you get it. You the trick is it's not about, it's it part of the is patience. It's also about having the right tool.

If you can get a really, really tiny paintbrush that's like one, maybe 3 bristles, you know, I mean, you can really get into some, some very tiny detailed stuff that's a. Lot of I might look at it because I have got the warhammers I need to complete it. Still I have got Warhammer Space Marine 2 and that I was liking it. I stopped playing it but I need to get back into it and a load of people thought I was a Warhammer fan when I put it on LinkedIn. I just thought the game were cool. I I because it because it was actually like it's like a shooter but it's like it's not a shooter.

It's that is what Gears of War should have been, I think a lot better. So it's, it's been around. So, OK, in all fairness, I am new to the hobby, OK, I'm a nerd, advocate for all kinds of nerd activities, video games or whatever, right? I, I enjoy, you know, all the cons and all that stuff. But yeah. In the main video games, in the mainstream, I think when I was growing up, it wasn't nerdy, nerdy thing, but it is mainstream now. Well, I wouldn't say it's nerdy anymore, but maybe. No, Yeah. Well, exactly.

So. But that that's that was the thing that some of the guys in LTK helped to, you know, introduce me. You know, they they, you know, we're all shooting around talking. Hey, you know, what's good, what's fun, What's you know, who does this, who does that? Next thing, you know, several people that in the chat, you know, voiced off that they actually are into Warhammer. We realised, you know, bam right there we had a whole, a whole crew of people. So, you know, we were able to connect people from across the city and they, some of them drove as far as like an hour, hour and a half away.

And then we even had one guy fly in from Las Vegas. Yeah. So I mean, it's, yes. Well, you know, I mean, come on. We were having a blast. The tournament, right, You know? Yeah. Hopefully the next one, they will try and make it an annual thing. The next one will be even bigger. Yeah, it's yeah, blowing in That's yeah, that's, that's commitment that is. But yeah, no, it's really good what you're doing because I think it helps pest pest control community because as you say, the average majority of pest controllers are out there on their own.

It's like I, I speak to loads of people in the UK on WhatsApp, but I haven't actually met in person. I am meeting a lot of them though in November, Pestech, MPTH, Pestechnom. But I'm helping organise a lot of them are coming. I'm going to say hello in person because I'm not actually met a lot of them, but it is, it is a lonely place and your community helps that, especially with I didn't know about the chat that you can just drop in when you're on the road. I didn't I didn't know about that. So that's you talk to more people.

So that's a that's a better way of making friends and and helping people not be so lonely as such. I know it sounds gimmicky, but it is a lonely industry. It is. Yeah, it OK. So the field shenanigans is what that chat is called is by far the most like we don't, it's not, it's not the core part of the advertisement in some sense or or you know, explanation for it, but most of the activity actually happens there. Most people are congregated in the field shenanigans on route, the Bluetooth in their ear, you know, driving it from one stop to another or whatever.

And that's where most everything happens. And so often times even the actual text channels will seem quiet, but it's not because there's no activity in the in the community. It's because all the activity is happening, you know, via voice chat and everyone's just laughing back in and, you know, making a bunch of jokes and, you know, get helping each other get through the day. So you know, I highly encourage if you, if you jump in, check out the field shenanigans and you'll get a real understanding of what it's all about.

I'll make an account because I got rid of it. Or did I? I need to log back in. I can't remember because that's to make one for my son. You see, because he he plays these VR games and a lot of them want you to go in their server to get he doesn't have a comment in them. He just joins them. Well, I obviously monitor all I do, but he he yes, they join this discourse and you'll get this skin. So he does. So that's what that's what caused the confusion. I had to make one for him and then I got us throwing log back into mine.

I'll sort it and join it and see what it's all about because I didn't really see what it was about really, but it probably just explain it that a lot of people in voice, I didn't notice though, people in voice chat and I thought it's daytime now, what are they doing? Are you in a podcast? I didn't. I didn't. I didn't know. I didn't. I didn't. Know, no, just a bunch of, just a bunch of other technicians, fellow fellow folks and you know, pest controllers out there. Just, you know, you know, having, having somebody else to talk to, hang out with on the phone.

It's like 1 big group line. You know, that's where the brotherhood kind of starts to build. That's where the, you know, the camaraderie starts to really solidify itself. It's awesome. Yeah. No, no, it's really, it's really good what you've done. So I imagine that are you just in your role now? Are you solely commercial? Is that all you do is, is that only commercial? So you don't, you don't, you don't go out and and do wasp nest nothing. Like that well, and so I work a full residential route every 3rd Saturday.

So I do a little bit, it's a that's just kind of a rule of our company. Most of the, we're not forced to work every Saturday or anything like that, but we do rotate on a Saturday basis. It's every 3rd week for us. And so I do work residentials on those days, maybe the occasional like commercial stop on that day, like a, you know, daycare, that centre that's closed or something like that. We can get in there and treat whether or not occupying the building. But yeah, I mean, from time to time, I still do, you know, I actually had a residential stop today.

So it's not, it's not that I'm not ever up there. Yeah. But I would say the overwhelming majority, 85, maybe 95% is commercial. Yeah. I suppose there's something you do when you make a recommendation with the sights that you do, it has to be acted on, otherwise they'll get into trouble. Is that right? You don't. You have to act on it. Is that, is that correct? Yeah. Especially like bees, because bees are very protected. Well, anything that's a stinging insect has to have a, you know, basic like instantaneous response time and then a lot of the bigger.

Can you, can you, like you just said, protected? What do you mean by protected

bees? What do you? What do you? Yeah. So some insects that are like kind of given a beneficiary insect status and not supposed to be eliminating them unless they're causing a direct harm to human health, right? No. No, it sounds good. I just wonder what you meant because technically so. Yeah, yeah. Bees. You'd have to stop selling honey. No, yeah, no, it's, you know, yeah. It's honestly, it's funny too because in, you know, the Houston area at least, there's not a whole lot of fruit bearing or, you know, flower bearing plants, most everything.

It's just like shrub pine cheese zone.

I presume it. You're talking about Bay removal, somebody coming and taking the bees away. Yeah. Is that what you're? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, because we get calls for bees and they're not, they're not protected in the UK, but it's frowned upon to kill bees obviously. And a whole load of what you've got to do. There's a code of conduct and stuff. And not many people do that anymore because it's obviously bees are important. And we've, we've got a guy called Elliot who I've recommended loads, loads of work to him this summer and he's done loads of bee work that I've recommended him.

And then we, we just, we just say now we'll tell people if you was Ness, if you want to be, you've got to be, you've got to be sure there's a Wass Ness who write in now because we offer a free ID service where they can give us a video or a picture. So if we turn up and they're adamant it's Wasps, but it's bees, they've still got to pay the call that price, even though we're doing no work. It's actually written in there. So if you miss ID it and that's, that's on you. That is. We just charged them because it's wasted journey into it.

But right. Yeah, no, I just thought I'd ask you. That was a different countries, a different different, different source of. I mean, when it comes to WASP, it's pretty free game, you know? I mean, you got to. Yeah. Goes out yeah, but so from the some of the content I've seen from our guys that are up in Michigan and up in the northern side of the states, they get these I mean massive, huge wasp nests you know I mean some of these things are, you know, several feet, you know and. But we get mostly, you know, small paper wasp hanging under the eaves or you know, a couple one or two stories over mud dobbers, things like that.

It's pretty rare that we get a big giant, you know, either ground nest or something, you know, ground horns. I've, I've taken those out a couple times over my 10 years, but it's not a super common occurring thing, not here at least. Maybe Isles because. What's nest here can get anywhere from, you know, 50 to 5000. But not seeing some money, not not not seeing some money on the big end for quite a while. I'll tell you what, years, years ago, I don't know what's next. And I'll tell you now, I've never seen so many Wasps.

It was on, obviously treated it years ago on top of a house. I was, I was, I was my gear on. I was frightened. I didn't show it. And it wasn't like when I hit it, the sky turned black. It was that many Wasps coming out. It was, I thought, wow. But because they can say it can be anywhere from 1 to 5000 roughly. It was. But I hit another one last year. And to be fair, when I hit that one, it wasn't the same. But I tell you what it was the, the, the the actual error above. It was going, you know, you know how to go to go crazy.

They do. But yeah, I'm not. I'm not doing many big ones, that's what I'm saying. I'm not doing many where there's there's thousands. It don't happen very often, but most. Sensible, yeah. Do you guys ever get any like tawny crazy ants or any crazy Ant activity or Argentine ants like any super colony ants? No, no, you can get, you can get Argentine ants and obviously garden ants and bear ants. We I'll be honest, we never get much call for ants at all. We don't sometimes it usually inside because outside they're not really deemed the best.

And legally here, there isn't really anything you could do. But we can't go and do exterior sprays for ants. It's not, it's not allowed. It's not, it's like, and I know in America a lot of people are allowed to just spray in case they get ants or they seen one Ant, but you're not allowed. You're not, It's not a thing here. You have to actually have a problem. But I know see like we see like we like, even with your advice in your discord must be hard because one person will say one thing and the rules will be different in a different state, wouldn't it?

Like it will be. It's like having multiple different countries. It's it's all over the place. Yeah. Yeah. But that exposure is great. It gives you, you know, you have to see how people overcome challenges with different tools and their perspectives. Yeah, different perspectives. Exactly. So, you know, I would always say, you know, take the information, you know, with a grain of salt that that's what that person is saying that they would do, you know, but it may be compliant in their in, in their state.

You want to make sure that, you know, it's compliant in your state or your country, but it can it can give you a better understanding of maybe something you can try or, you know, something you can look into the label for to see. You know, a lot of people don't understand or don't know that there are products that you can use like with mopping, which is a really cool service that if you're having a major issue, yeah, yeah, yeah, you can use some products are labelled for mopping, which is, you know, I mean in a commercial kitchen that can really great service.

Yeah, it might it. Might well, I've not heard of that one. Maybe there is, maybe it's not here. I don't know. I've never heard anyone say you mop it out. I've never heard that one. But you never. Know, yeah, well, some of the ground gets so built up with kicked up with grease and food debris and stuff like that. And so there's the products that you can use that help out with that or embed in it and kind of turn it into a type of of bait, if you will. And so like, you know, kitchens that are having really major issues with sanitation, you can go in and like, like, like gnats, like like flies, like little Ford flies and stuff like that.

It can be a great tool for those situations. Yeah. You know, if you don't have someone ever recommends it, then you don't look into it. The product you know, and you might find out that's something you can do and it it might be just a thing that helps out with saving the day. No, it's definitely true. I mean I'm not saying we haven't got it, just I've not heard of it here. Like like recently I had to ask people for advice. Now you'll laugh a lot of them. A lot of the Americans do laugh. I've recently only just started our first ever cockroach job.

We don't where I in the region I live in, we don't generally get them. See in the cities next to us, we get them, but we don't get jobs there. You see, it's not really worth going deep in the city because you can get somebody. Out what kind of roaches? Like German roaches? Yeah, Germans. But I think what happens. Is I think these people lived in the city and I think that they brought the cockroaches with them in their food boxes. That's the only explanation explanation I can come up with. It's not known to have cockroaches.

So I obviously asked people what to do. I knew what to do, but I thought you best ask people do it day in, day out. And we use Avion Avion cockroach gel so. Familiar with it? That's what that's what we used.

But yeah. So OK, that's, that's really so in, in my area, most people like just even the general public, you know, the German road to kind of synonymous with, you know, the need for pest control, right? So it's really interesting to hear of, of another pest controller who's gone out, you know, even a very long period of their career without having to actually do a job. So I love that. It's pretty crazy. I already started in pest control in 2020, so I'm not that experience is you, but it's just the end.

But yeah. But different roaches in our area is like a, you know, you know, three times a week kind of job, you know. You're like, you like, like Jenny, like Jenny, Jenny off the pesticide and said to me, next time I get a big cockroach job, Sean, I'm going to send you a video though raining on me. She was like, after hundreds and thousands of them, she says. We've got a buddy that uses an Actisol machine and always posting the Discord. I mean, they'll be, yeah, they're just running everywhere, dropping from the ceiling.

Yeah, yeah, that's crazy. It's it's done a few treatments. I think we're at the tail end of it now. I think it's about over. It is Jay Robinson. Thanks for commenting on LinkedIn. They have Germans and Orientals in in London. I would, yeah. London's a big city, but I what? You can't understand Jay Robinson. I live in Rutland. We're a very rural area, so we don't generally have a call. I've got it on the website, don't get me wrong, but it's very rare anyone ever contacts us to do cockroaches. It's been a learning experience.

Let's just say that it has. So it's good from that perspective, doing something new. It was I had to ask a few people when we were doing it. What do you do? Just double checking what I learned through my course because I know you can do the course, but when you're not done it in real life, you have to ask people is this actually what you do? So it's not because you've never actually done it in practise. So you've got to ask a few people and they did obviously do. You know Jorge Bedoya? Are you familiar with him on LinkedIn?

Oh, hey.

Yeah, yeah. George Borne, it's however you say it, whether you say it English. Yeah, he is the best man when it comes to German roaches. Give that guy a call, man. If you tell me he is like one of the best contributors. He's so passionate about Roach treatments. And dude, some of his, I've actually got a chance to listen to some of his course. And it is like my chef's kiss. Top tier, best information out there. I've taken a lot of them. Yeah, he's been on the podcast. He said to me his course is like 100 hours or more.

He said it was 150 hours. It was something like that. You reckon? It's some crazy 1 he has a 30 hour course that's that's a little bit more realistic, but he even he's supposed to have a shorter like 1 1/2. Well, maybe it's. 30 I'm thinking of some. I'm thinking of something else. Maybe it was 30, but yeah, he he he's been on. He asked the podcast. But yeah, now he knows his stuff on bedbugs. He does. Yeah. He revealed a few things in a few few things about different laws in different States and it league, a lot of them require if you have cockroaches, you'd legally have to do something called the landlord can get fined or whatever.

And he said it's a good business. In certain places it is. He knows his stuff. Yeah. I wouldn't argue with him. I wouldn't.

Nobody would like to argue, I'll tell you that. That's what we like to have a little fun spirited debates. He's a good he's a good debater. I'll put him on. You know my my team of top tier debaters. That's for. Certain. Oh no, definitely. I've had him on. I've had him on the podcast. So you know while ago, I can't remember when about that many people on say what? It's miffing me though in my phone there is 21st of October right? Whole Diaries booked until mid-december and I don't know but I don't know if I booked someone.

So you're listening to this and I've booked you for the 21st of October. Drop me Adm with the screenshot of me booking you because I couldn't. I've been racking my brains and I do not know if I've booked somebody and just forgot who it is. I've been through my messages, through my phone, typing 21st of October. Nothing's coming up. So if I've booked you, whoever you are, let me know with the screenshot. I booked you because it's annoying me. It is. You got to you got to give yourself some grace a little bit, man, you got you definitely turned it on a tonne of podcasts.

I mean, we are booked ours, you know, several months ago and you remembered it very well First off, So that was awesome. But you know, you're running a business, you're doing all this. I mean, you got a weight loss journey that you're freaking dedicating a tonne of time to that's. Awesome too. An hour or so on Tuesday?

Well, it's only per hour or so, whatever it is, depending how long people can give. But it all depends on the conversation. But I enjoy it. People learn from. I didn't actually think the podcast would do as well as it is, so I am surprised. But because I asked people how? Many hours does it take to edit for you after each episode? Are you pretty quick at editing? Well, I don't do it. You don't do it. There's no you have, you have a good platform that has the names and all that. I like that. Extremely hard.

It's what Andrew Zaneski uses and the beauties and beasties. It is £30 a month. If I quit a month or something like that. It is. But no, it's I don't add it to the podcast at all. It literally I end it and I'll load it to Spotify. It goes everywhere then. So it's obviously going to stay on Facebook for a month, and it stays on YouTube, stays on LinkedIn, it goes to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, believe it or not, it's the biggest platform for my podcast. Yeah, I love, I love Spotify. I love listening to podcasts.

A few years ago Apple were the big boys if you do your research now, because Spotify spent so much money on investing in video podcasts and then exclusive podcasts, which you don't really do anymore. Joe Rogan got go wherever. Actually, Spotify is now the biggest podcast provider out of all of them in in in numbers and and that takes a lot to beat Apple. It does. Yeah, it's a great I, I that's where most of our listeners come from. That's the one. That's where I'd promote or the. Analytics are really good now.

The analytics have got really good on Spotify, on Facebook they're rubbish. So Facebook, if you're listening because they only want you to make Reels, if I was to try and go and find my podcast in the video, you know that like you know, you have YouTube and everything today, you can see it. It's not on Facebook. It's a mess. Honestly. It's like they only want you to do Reels and that's it. So I tell most people, if you can't find it on Facebook, check YouTube, Spotify and LinkedIn as well because it's it's annoying.

Facebook is, I don't care. Well, I'm, I'm, I'm trying to stay 5 to 10 years ahead of the curve. I'm, I'm already on Discord, Facebook, Facebook, you know, I'm sure it'll be around for a while, but I don't think that's where the, the bigger part of the community is going to stay. I mean, it's there now, but it's, the platform is, is beginning to show its age. And like you said, they're focused on don't. Get me wrong, my views, my views do well on on short, on short form on Facebook. But yeah, yeah, it's, I'm not really at first.

I mean, the podcast is doing well and all that matter. I'm never going to be in the millions because it's the pest control podcast. So but we are, we are niche, but it still does quite well. I think it does. I think. You've done fantastic, right? I've seen a lot of your content and it gets around a lot of a lot of people I know are very familiar with your show. So that is the nice thing. That is small though, you know, So when you look up, you know, pest control podcast, there's not, you know, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them or whatever.

There's really just not, you know, and it's nice and there's, you know, most people know other people pretty well, you know, if you've been in the networking space for a while, which I'm totally new to, which has been awesome. But it's definitely a tight knit group. But everybody's very welcoming. Everybody's very well, you know, warm and willing to win the hand and have a good conversation anytime you need them. So, you know, I love that about our industry. It is, it is pretty cool. But yeah, I wouldn't, I wouldn't, you know, I'm not looking for millions of views either.

I don't think that would ever. I don't, you know, I don't think it would ever even be a good thing to have a million views, to be honest. You know I don't. Know on my face on my tick tock about don't block the hole with wasness that got a good 212,000 views that did but most of them were telling me I'm an idiot. You can't block the hole and the wasness will die. The loads of them were saying yes, I did this and they through the plaster they they chewed through the plasterboard. But he did well he did.

But that one, that was from a business Open Pest Control, that was, I don't think it equated to any work, but it's still, it's still a video, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It is well. You're trying to do. If you're doing this to get work, I don't know if that's. No, no. No, no, no, no, you're not. But I'm just saying like, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's, you know, the there's probably no ROI for anything like that. This is definitely, that's why I love the the podcasters. They're passionate. You know, you're passionate.

Jack and Brad are passionate. Jenny's passionate so gave and Andrew passionate you know Jones

thing are. You there?

Hello. Yeah, you're back. You're back. Sorry about that. Yeah, I got interrupted there. Yeah, Jack and Brad and Jen, Jenny and Ken, Diesel and Andrew and Gabe. They're all, they're all passionate, really good podcasts. They are, yeah. And yours, obviously. It's it's really good. Steve, if you can get some more out soon. Yeah, yeah, I do hopefully. OK, so you know, I'm going to try and capture some content while we're at Pest World. So I'm attending Pest World for the very first time, probably be one of the handful of technicians that are out there.

I don't know, maybe, maybe not. Maybe there's, I heard there's thousands and thousands of people. So it's the biggest thing in our industry. So I'm super excited and looking forward to it. And yeah, so there, you know, fingers crossed there'll be a decent influx of activity at that time. And I'm really looking to capture, you know, some talk and some people on the floor, you know, maybe some new cool inventions that are out there, some new products, you know, maybe some new tools that are would be great for the PM PS out there.

And so, you know, I mean, we'll, we'll, we'll be getting around. But yeah, hopefully in the near future some a a small little burst of content will be coming. Good. If I tell you one thing I've noticed, I know I can get people on the podcast it's and there he is. We talk of him and he shows up. Hello, Andrew. There he is. He is the one thing I know in EU, in the Uki don't obviously know on your side. That. The chemical companies are not really interested on coming on podcasts. They don't want to have their people talking, talking about, well, base it on anyone's podcast.

I've asked Chaz and he says he'll come on. He says, I don't understand the the registration process and whatnot, but he said I would love to come on and he says, so I'm going to change this question from from Jay Robertson. But equally catch in, do you have an equivalent of the British Pest Control Association, right, Or the National Pet Tech Pest Technicians Association, like trade bodies, which I know the answer to. You do, don't you? Yeah, yeah. So we have city, city level, state level and and national level associations for the pest controllers out there.

Yeah. Yeah. Because some of the the smaller local ones I believe if you get a membership with them you automatically get a membership with the NPMA which is also really nice too. Content from both. You want to explain him Jay? Go and find the episode with Andrew Saneski. Best perspectives. I'm pretty sure we talk about the trade bodies in America and he explains it. I'm pretty sure he does. Because he's high up in the trade body worlds. He is. He's I can't think offhand what he Yeah, he's quite high up anyway.

I can't remember what his role is off offhand. I can't because I'm in the trade body too. I'm a board director for the National Press Technicians Association. I am. So I thought you knew that.

I need to do a better job of getting to know all the various different title members and there's I try, you know, you know, repost the board members and stuff like that. But I do need to do that's one of the things I'm looking to sit in on some of the the meetings, the leadership meeting, not the leadership meetings, but like they have the meetings that are open to the public and just getting to see who's who's actually on the various different boards and who's in the various different positions.

And nice to know who they are. You know, I mean, they represent everything that we do in our industry and work out in the field out here. You know, I mean, it'd be nice to see who's out there fighting for us and on Capitol Hill and, you know, on legislation day and all that other stuff. You know, they have our back. So we should have their back. Well, yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm Matt Green on the board, the National Pet Pest Technician Association. I'm actually asked, I'll rephrase this. Jasmine, if you're listening, you are the youngest on the board, Emerson from Optic Catch.

However, I am the youngest board member that is actually a pest controller there. Oh, younger than me, but I'm actually I'm the youngest pest controller on the board. That's awesome. On the on the actual board of directors, but they've now got some committees, so I'd have to look through probably. So there's probably someone younger on the committee somewhere. There is, there is. That is incredible. But I never thought I'll get it. But there we go. I tried and it worked And Jay Robertson says we get ghost ants, pharaoh ants, big headed ants, crazy ants in South South.

Oh, so y'all? Do get crazy ants. See, we get tawny crazy ants and they're, they're like, wow, it's incredible. When you see a house that's being attacked by tawny crazy ants, they get pheromone locked around the foundation and they just circle and circle and circle it until they die. And then it just causes more stress pheromones. And I mean, they just, you know, I mean, I, I've walked up on a house sometimes before and your feet are kicking what looks like little pieces of like dirt or granules or something like that.

And it's just millions of dead ants, you know, that extends out, you know, several feet from the foundation. And we actually, there's some radio towers, there's super high voltage that we have to go out and treat for crazy ants because they'll actually jam themselves into electrical components and outlets and stuff like just like Transformers and stuff to the point where they'll like Bridget and they'll arc and they'll short out all kinds of expensive electrical equipment and all. So you have to do something about it.

Yeah. Yeah. So it's I'm. Not. Come across. Yeah, I'm not always the best judge of what we've got in this country because I don't. I don't. To be honest, most of our work throughout the year, park and wasp season is rats, mice and moles and some squirrels. We we do do insect work, but we don't get a lot of it compared to obviously Jay in the chat. He gets a lot of it by sounds of it. But we get the old Ant job here and there. It's not very often we get many ants. We don't. But imagine in London they get everything they will.

That's really cool. Yeah. You know, I've talked to some guys up in Washington and, you know, rodents and, you know, wildlife are definitely the primary focus, whereas the insects are kind of in the background. We're a little bit of both. You know, I would say wildlife is pretty common. Rodents are pretty common, but the pest pressures are significant enough here that they they still take that, you know, that primary. I mean that's where that's where our if I do 10 tickets a day, I would say 9 out of them are insect related.

No, not me. Don't get me wrong, I would love to see more insect work, it's just we don't. Either we're the wrong price or we're not cheap enough. But it depends what you want to pay, doesn't it? I don't know if that's it or whether someone else is doing it for next or nothing. I don't know. We just we never seem to get loads and loads of insect work in. We're getting loads of wasp nests in the summers. We've done quite not bad this year. I wouldn't say it was a record year for the wasp though, but it was better than last year.

We did 160 nest last year total. So this year's a lot better, hundreds more. But but yeah, it's yeah, we do have loads of insect. We don't have as many bugs as you do in America. You lot have really scary stuff as well. At least it's not China or Australia. I've heard it's a little bit Wilder over there. I've heard Australia. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We just have, you know, it's it's just general household stuff way Sean. Ohh, Andrew just popped up and said his best world really ready for LTK. We'll find out, you know, hopefully, hopefully they'll, they're excited for what we come to bring.

That's all I can do is put it out there and hopefully people are receptive. But man, thank you so much for your time. I am hitting my hour lunch break, so I do need to finish up my route for the rest of the day. Get out there and service those folks. But it's been absolute driven. It's been great. Do you want to promote your podcast correctly? I'll drop the link to the description. I will. Yeah, yeah. Tune into the Licence to Kill podcasts. We interview PMP's, we interview entomologists, people in the career field, industry in general.

We like to kind of put a spotlight on the superheroes or people who have done a bit of contribution, maybe an unsung hero out there and just cool articles and stuff like that. Anything that's pop culture related to pest control, we kind of cover all of that stuff. Check out the Discord. If you've never been on the platform, I highly encourage you to download the app. You know, break out of your shell, do something new, do something kind of exciting, you know, check out what all the buzz is about.

I'll be out there at Pest World handing out cards with QR codes on them. That should point you in the right direction. So again, Sean, thank you so much for the opportunity to be here, that privilege to have a conversation with you. It has been a blast. And thank you. I've been on our calendar for quite a while, so I hope I get the chance to come back in and thank you just for doing everything that you are on the British Pest Control Association board and stuff that you're doing for your industry.

National. Pest Technicians Association. National Test Tech Association. My apologies. Everybody has the different acronyms, but I know, I know you're out there and you're and you're, you know, you're doing your best. Yeah, you're. Rocking it too. You're rocking it too. You're doing good. I just try and do stuff just you know, but. It's up to us, the next generation of people who can, you know, carry the mantle. Definitely. But thanks for giving us some of your, well, your dinner break to come on and I'll speak.

I'll drop your message soon. All right, Anne. All right. Thanks, mate. All right, Anne. Cheers. See ya. See ya. Cheers.

Tonight's Episode