Pest Control Roundtable: Fox Control, Drones, AI & DIY Pest Kits

Hello and welcome to Pest Perspectives episode #61 and this week we have on Kieran News from Greenmont Press Control. How are you doing? I'm all right. Thank you, Sean, yourself. Good. I'm OK. Cheers. I am. I have to say it's been really nice. The sun's been out, bit of a bit of a factor 50 going on so, well, we got a bow.

So yeah, sun's been out. It's been really nice. I have spent, oh, was it last week, four days in a roof space ripping out all the insulation. So that was it was all right. There was one day that was just super hot and and ridiculous, but but three of us got in there and we all started ripping out 4000 square feet so. Oh, that one. The big one. Yeah, yeah, the big one. Yeah, yeah. So guy came and took it all the way on Friday. I think we had 380 bags in the end and millions of carpet Moss. So yeah.

So yeah, that was good. That was a good, good job. Good job done so. Oh, I've got a vote on the poll.

Got one vote on the poll at the minute. All right. If we get any more, but I reckon that's Martin probably on the YouTube. Probably is. Yeah. Is that how you is that how you answer then? Oh, I see. Right. So what they do, they don't click anything. They have to type 1-2 or three in chat and the poll brings it in. That's what you do. Right. In that case, then hang on. Something's stirring. Have you got me or not? Hello. No, I've. Got it. How you doing?

My Internet is talking tonight. It keeps crashing.

You're OK? Yeah, I've got a. It's not doing too well at the moment, no.

You have a good day there today, Sam.

No, I'm going to come off and try again. It just. It won't have it all right. No worries, Internet. He's he's a bit more rural than you, ain't he? Oh, is he? Yeah, no, he's in the sticks. He he really. I always thought I was in the sticks and then I met Sam and he really is in the sticks. Yeah, he's. Are you still there, Sam, or is he just craft?

Oh, yeah. So this week we were going to talk about what I'm saying. Now I'll say, have we been up to much else saying that we're only on Tuesday? So you couldn't, you couldn't have done much more.

Say again. I was saying we're only on Tuesday, so you couldn't have done much more, could you? Really. No. No, no, no. The weeks are flying through. I don't know. Weather's getting warmer, more insects are getting called in. So it's got Moss but not wasp. I do have to go and look at a wasp job tomorrow. Actually there are some Wasps making house in a lady's soffit, so I do have. To ask for video evidence. I have, yes, OK. Fair. Enough and I did turn 1 down the other day. Somebody up on Facebook said they've got bees in their dog kennel with a picture of a nice little golf ball sized boss nest.

So after correcting that and they were using incense and lavender oil. Try and stop it. Hello.

How's that buddy you back you? Back. Hello. No, it's not working. I've just got I think it's mine into that. We've got like just jitters. I haven't got anything really. I'll leave it for a minute. You tarek Carol talking. If it don't go then I'll try on my phone maybe. Oh yeah. So, so, yeah. So that will be my first proper. What's nice, I've had bees, bees have come in. So bee swarms everywhere. You, you swarming up your way up north. See here's the thing everyone right, you all know where I am.

I'm in Rutland. Now here's the thing, I speak to Sam and Salmond Kieran on daily basis on Facebook, on a Facebook messaging group and I am the northerner in the group. And then like Kieran sent a map of the picture and showed me why I'm not I'm northern to them. They're like right at the bottom of the map, in the middle, anything above. Anything above Bristol mate. Anything above Bristol up north? That's what Hugh is always saying. Absolutely. It is. It is. But yeah, apparently I'm, I'm a northerner.

I can't say I'm northern, but I am. Apparently I am so. So yeah, have you come across any B swarms?

No Martin in Chatwood have though. Martin have one swarm, but removal calls are all trickling in now the sun's out. He he does bee removal, so he will also do you know where you know where you've got like some bees outside and they've landed on a plant pot. He will actually come and take take them away for you. Oh. Absolutely. Does that locally. Yeah, yeah, I collect swarms. Yeah, I don't. I don't know what he does for them, but he he knows his stuff. Because I'll tell you one thing, when I was going with him to look at last year at Pestech, not at Pestech, but we went to look at their venue empty, and I got a master class in how to speak to customers on the phone.

That man can talk to people. He know he's a master. He was answering calls left and right. It was. But he knows how to talk to customers on the phone. That's right. Yeah, see what what I do with swarms is when I collect them, obviously you've got to make sure you've got the queen, but once you've collected them, I've got a list of aprists who I get in touch with every year and ask if they want, you know, any new colonies. So I just phone off the list really. So, and they come and collect tomorrow, drop them off.

So, but some of them are interesting. You know, sometimes the aprist will come out with us as well. You know, I'll hold the box and you cut off the branch and we'll give it a smack and try and see what we can collect. So yeah, it's it's quite exciting really. Give us a smack. Give us a smack down. Knock them off. So, yeah, it's it's it's quite, yeah, it's, it's nice as well. You're saving, you know, you're saving the Colony of Peace, or you single a customer from going down the chimney, to be honest.

I reckon he's on his phone all right. He's on his phone. He must be on his phone. Well, it's looking better. Are you on your phone? How can you tell it's not working well? I give up the technology tonight. Yeah, No, I'm not. Everything's delayed on your side and it's all jittery. I don't know if it's feeding all right through you or not, but yeah, I can't. I can't really hear. You.

Sonia, hello. Hello, Are you there? Hey mate, let me play again. Let me carry on. I won't give in. Yeah, Sir, Sir Martin's obviously say I've got to prefaced it. He does remove bee swarms, but obviously it's a chargeable service. Yes, I make that sound like he goes around collecting them for free. He doesn't. It's a service. Obviously it gets very busy. Gets very busy, he does. Yeah, I wish I could do more, to be honest, but when people think I've got to pay for a scaffold, you've got to knock the chimney down and you've got to knock a hole in the side of the wall, it just puts people right off, really.

They are seeing a local beekeeper in Stamford but a post up and I didn't comment because there's nothing wrong with wrong with what he said. He just said if you get any bee swarms and they're not but ring me and I'll come and collect them. But he says do not ring me if it's inside a roof void or kidney or anything like that that needs a proper bee removal company. Yeah, yeah, I find that quite a lot. If they're not, if they can't walk up to them and just go, oh, thank you very much. Yeah, they don't.

Don't touch them. Hi Darren, thanks for popping on mate. Hopefully I can get hopefully I can get you on in Boon. I'll drop you a message. I'd love you to come on in June time mate, if you can. I know you're a busy man, but I'd love to get you on to talk about drains because the drain podcasts have been really popular. They have. I've been getting massive good feedback I have from them. Yeah. I'd love to get you on when you're free. I will. I would love to. I have asked him privately. He he has mentioned he he would like to come on.

So it's not like I'm putting him on the spot. It's. Not no. Good evening to the bed Bull Queen, hope you're well. And I have forgot to put the banner up for the podcast now. Fox Control is only been mentioned if Sam Tricky's Internet actually works because I know, no, I do not know a lot about Fox Control even though it's in there. If this Internet doesn't stabilise or whatever, it ain't happening. That's basically a Sam topic, isn't it? That is. Indeed, Yes, Sam, Sam's the only one who does it out of US 3.

Oh, are you? Oh, yeah. Sorry. Yeah. You're in Bronson on Monday morning. I'll have to see what my schedule's like, Martin. I will. That's near me, that is. Have to have a look. Oh, currently. Yeah. Got that. Got that. On or off the sea. See if I can pop over. Yeah, it comes into my area.

I don't do bees. No, just Wasps, Wasps and Hornets. I don't get many Hornets. I don't. Don't. Yeah, we'll get a few. Well, last year was a bit poor. The year before was very good. Don't. Generally get money. I do say to people that they won't hurt you. Yeah, they're. Just they're big and scary and even though they're not, but they look it, don't they, to people. Yeah, when they, when they come in the house, you know, at night time windows open because it's nice and warm lights. On yes, when you hear the tapping on the windows, I was like, I hear it tapping.

I said, yeah, it's the Hornets. Absolutely. I said turn the light off. Oh, it stopped. I went one job when the lady kept getting attacked and the the Hornets were not attacking her. What was happening was we discovered it. We don't want to come find it. What was happening was it's the old farmyard houses right happens to have zero lights. It was last year or the year before a couple of year I can't remember what it was and get to and from the car. Guess what she put on? I don't. Know. Flashlights to see.

So the moths were coming towards the light and the Hornets were coming towards the light eating the mops, but she was getting attacked at. The. Same time. But we did find, we did find it. It was quite a big hornet's nest, actually. Not normally very big. That one's probably 48 to 50. But I did want a couple of years ago as well. That was massive. I'd never say no like it. They just kept coming. It must have been over 100 or more. There must have been. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was. Brilliant. What do I have, what, 200 plus come the end of the season, so.

But yeah, but up until New Year's Longest Day, I'll always try and rehome them Hornets. Yeah, I didn't do that. Try and rehome my Hornets. This this nest you do struggled. You did probably the scaffold did the high up 1 farm yard one was very high up. That was it, yeah. It was, it was in like like the Eve's thing. It was area. Yeah. So I'm pleased, I'm pleased to like the podcast with Martin on from the National Drainage Association. Darren, extremely knowledgeable man regarding his drain. Some bloody nice bloke.

Yeah, he did. He did seen it. He did. A lot of people got a lot of messages about that and a lot of people liked it. I did. So yeah, it went down well. That drains is a great subject. I'll have a good drain. I've got a good team around me for doing drains. I don't do it myself, but yeah, I do have a good team. We come in and and, you know, like you, like, you know, rats in roofs, roof spaces, if there's not an obvious air brick missing, chewed through or obvious holes, you're pretty much going to guarantee they're coming up from the drains.

Yeah, so. No, you're not wrong. It's. But are you still getting lots of rat calls? Calls for rodents. Hi there. I wouldn't, I wouldn't say. I'd say it's still steady. I wouldn't say there's an increase in rats. I wouldn't. Not where I am. It's I'll just call it, let's call it a steady. It's not, it's not, I'm not raging my work. It's just normal. It's, it's, you know, it's not that, not that much. But I'm getting, I'm getting a lot of jobs for insects now. That's good. I'm, I'm finding because where we are, it's usually kind of seasonal.

So when the weather warms up, we tend to slow right up on, on rodents, you know, domestic ones anyway, and then, you know, moving new insects. But this year it's just been relentless and it still is. You know, I'm still getting a fair few calls every week for for more rodents and more rodents. So, yeah, so I need a bigger van because usually all my rodent stuff gets cut down in the van and it goes back into the store and me insect stuff comes out. But now I'm, I'm carrying both.

Oh. That's safe. Is it? Is it working, Sam? Is it working? Is it working? I don't think it is working. He's shaking his head. No, No. Can you not hear us then? No. Can you not hear us? No. I can hear you, but you're both like Daleks. Hold on, Oh me and Kieran will just carry on then if if your internet's not working mate, it's no worry. Yeah, that's all right. I'll just, I'll, I'll try again on the phone. And if not, I might have to leave it because it it ain't. Yeah, you know, but at the moment.

All right, I'll catch you in a bit. All right then, mate. Cheers mate. So what are you saying? Sorry, Kieran. It's all about how seasonal it usually is down here for rats, drop right off on the domestic side, you know, in and around when it's weather starts warming up. And then kind of like I go down to a skeleton skeleton amount of stuff for rats and rodents on me on me van. And then we've, you know, obviously all the insect stuff goes in. But this year I just need a bigger van because Roden sudden slowed up.

The amount of squirrels in roofs at the moment is just crazy. I. Have had more squirrel calls than normal, but we never seem to get a lot of squirrels. But we'd get more squirrels. I mean more bed bugs, put it that way. Yeah, yeah, I don't do any bed bugs, but. You know, it's one of them things. It is. It is. I thought I do like doing squirrels. I like it when a client things you're not doing very well. I had one recently where? Well, these ain't working, are they? But I said it will work. Yet a word.

A day later, I had to come back with two dead ones. I was like, she's like, she was smiling like, yeah, you don't know what you're doing, do you? Yeah, you're going to love that. I says, I says, well I was just recently I've had one where I've caught 9 so well, I've got intelligent ones ever. I said you must have. But then it it, then I then then it worked. So yeah. Nice. What's that? He's on. WCS. It was a court. He's on his phone. Let's see. Hello, Daniel. Damn Tricky tricky pest control is it is.

It working or not? I'm trying to do everything it's telling me but it's still not working. Is it working? I can hear you tell me it's working. Can you hear us?

Yeah, I can hear you, but there's a bit of a delay. We'll run it for a minute. I'll sit next to the router. If it don't work then I might have to drive out. But it's yeah, he's not too good. So how's your week been then? Why? Why? We can get a word in with you.

How's your two days been all week? Since. Since he last been on? You're always busy. You are?

Oh, wait a minute. How's he gone? It's, it's gone now. He didn't like the question, didn't he? It's Internet's not great, is it? It's normally fine, though. His Internet is. Yeah. It is. It's gone again, but it's been a few more squirrel jobs for us. It's always satisfying. Like when, when when you get a job where you struggled at 1st and you'd start, you know, it really starts working. It does. Oh, Kieran, come on. What's going on? Your incidents dropping out. Oh. Am I? All right, there we go. You're back again.

I'm back, I'm back. Yeah, I've got a fair few school jobs on the go at the minute, and then we're finishing off a few and proofing Paul the proofer is coming round Saturday morning. It is Paul the Proofer coming on the show. When do you want him?

I was asking where he was last night. He said he should have. Come on. Yeah, Paul the proofer. I will ask him next time. I'll ask him to come on, but but yeah, Paul the Proofer, he's we're going to get the ladders on board and go knock it out the park and do a fair bit of proofing at the weekend. So. Martin, where Sam lives, he's very rural, rural. So he has paid his bail, which is just not very good. At times it's, I thought I lived in rural, living in Rutland, but it's nothing like that. That's true.

Rural it is so. Yes, it's where real link don't work. Yeah. Is that true? Yeah, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Real link is a bit of a nightmare for him so. That's based on your card though, isn't it? It depends what card you put in and what network. Yeah, he just doesn't have much coverage. It's just he.

Likes using cameras as well, doesn't he? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, Yeah. Oh, you can't beat a good camera though, can you? No, you can't. You know. Sometimes it does solve the mystery. Yeah, and it's, it's an expensive hobby, but well worth it. Really, it's well worth it. Yeah, I was looking at listen to that podcast on the beauty basis where they're the Blink camera and and Tom Gaff was saying he uses blink cameras. They seem like a cheap option, but they're not an option where you could like let the client watch the video, though.

That's the thing. It's not you'd have did have to log into your Amazon. So that's why I'm not so sure about them. But you'd have to give them your Amazon login like an Amazon thing. But the price wise you can get like I've heard an offer 5-6 cameras for under crib when you put them on offer. Bloody hell. Wow. Wow. Yeah, but I think I'm paying that for one at the minute. Oh, there you go. It depends what you want to do with it. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. I just, I've just got a job that's about an hour and 20 minute drive away, which I don't tend to do normally.

So I put in a, let's say, a reasonable price to do it and never heard back. And then three months later today, it's like, Oh yes, please can you come and sort that out? So I will definitely be using my cessor cams down there because I'm not driving an hour plus down there just to check a trap. So yeah, they're going to come in very, very handy for that. So, you know, worth £100 every time, £115.

So, yeah. So yeah, it's all going really well. All going really well building up the the camera bank. We've only we've only got we've got two. I haven't used any of them in a while then, but security cameras at the minute. Yeah, that's fair enough. Yeah. So I will let everyone, I'll tell you, I sent Sam a picture today. It was a classic. You still do paper. It was a picture of a treatment report paper and a pen. And he texted me back saying painful. I'm still having nightmares about that because I was in Borne and I've got a quarterly contract where they will not go digital.

You know they want it in the paperwork, so there's not many boxes there. So I just fill it out for them. I said you are the only one. When I changed digital I forced it on everyone but I don't offer an option of paper. You have to have it and I says but I said if you want to have the paper you can. You can download it and put it in your folder you want because you can put all the necessary documents in the in the online folder now. I've not had no issues with any Ehos or anything so far. So that's.

Why everyone kept telling me all we have issues with ehos? Well so far I haven't been told anything. I haven't. No, I'm still, I'm still paper at the moment. I've got till July and then I'm going to switch out and go digital. This was my, my plan for this year was to go digital. So we've doing the zero accountancy. So we're cracking on with that. We're getting that down and, and yeah. And so I thought, well, I'll give it six months, six months with that. So we get that down pat and then I'll move over to to some software and just start doing all my stuff online.

And like you, I won't give them an option. It's like, no, this is how it rolls. And yeah. It does become, it does become easier. Yeah, it really does. Because you, yeah, Once you get used to it, because it will, there will be a transition period where you won't be used to it. But once you're used to it, you'll think, why did I, why did I leave it? Why did I leave it so long? Absolutely, yeah. I'm the same with the accounting really. You know, we start and it's like, oh, this is a nightmare. But now it's brilliant.

It's really quick. It if you like data and you like looking at figures and knowing where you are and, and where you're getting on with your business, It's it's brilliant. You know, it's click a bun, tells you, you know, profit, you've made this this year so far, tells you, you know, earnings, losses, whatever. Yeah, just really smart. So you're more, you're more more than in that point because a lot of people message me saying, Oh, what you're using for accounting software. I went nothing. I'm not, I don't do digital, but you're after it says no, you don't, not when you're limited company, as long as your accountant is digital and it's fine because they they transfer it to digital.

So we don't do it 00 and any of that. I've got digital reporting etcetera, but not but not the accounting. Accounting. Is it in the car?

Can you hear me now? Yes. Good. I want to be something good. All of it, mate. Where, where? Where have you driven? I've literally gone out to the lay by by the house. The house is completely crashed, no Internet. I don't forget occasion. Sorry, I was at this time. I see, I see he's in his. Car. Yeah, allegedly. I thought the problem is because we live in the sticks. If I go outside the house I don't get any signal either. So you just got to drive 2 minutes down the road and then I get signal. So Joy's a live in rural, isn't that?

Perfect. Now Martin was saying, should we all have a whip round for his Wi-Fi bills? Like now? He lives deep. He lives in a deep country. It's amazing we get Internet to be honest, but most of the time it's all right, but when it drops out it's a nightmare. I used to think I was rural. So you tell me where you lived. I was like, no, I'm not. I'm. Not we're quite rural. We're as. Rural as we were. Starlink's quite expensive, isn't it? Yeah, I mean, we're with the at the moment, but yeah, there's a few people that have changed.

Over the Air Band was meant to be quite good, wasn't it? But I don't know, they all struggle to be honest. So how's your week, your recent days been?

It's. Troy. Yeah, Troy. And yeah, it's been quite cold the last couple of days here. Not cold cold, but cold for nearly May. Been warm up here. Is it about say up here because I'm up north, you say? You are up north, aren't you? But yeah, it's been really warm race. It's maybe warm for the rest of the week, definitely. What What? What have I missed then? Anything good? It's been talking about various different things, like I was telling people that although there's Fox control in the description and all that, if Sam can't do it today, his phone don't work.

You ain't getting nothing on Fox Control because me and Aaron don't know anything about it. Yeah, that's all right. No, I, I, I I couldn't leave you hanging. I thought I'd better drive out and sit like a weirdo in the sleigh by, you know. Dedication just got to the podcast. Then go there, one way or another. Don't worry, I'll bring up being complain next week. Yeah, and I bet if he puts his camera outside the window, he's a Mackey D's. Oh. No, I've got to admit I did finish late. I did have a Mackey's yesterday so I was a bit bad there, but you've got a.

Mackey. You've got a Mackey's near you then you can't be that rural. No, it's not near 2020, 25 minutes away. Oh, OK, right. Yeah, it's not, it's not near. We don't have anything near by the pub.

Hello Jason. Thanks for popping in, mate. No, no, I mean we're just talking about jobs we've done and I was bringing up various stories about Hornets and stuff that I've done before. No, no, you'll probably hear it back if you if you do listen to it back. Squirrels in rooves. Squirrels in rooves saying that me and Paul the proof are at the weekend are going to go out and do a lot of proofing on some roofs. Squirrel proofing. Oh no, I see. That's good to earn it and you do quite a bit of that. Yeah, yeah, I always like to to try and try and do the proofing on all of it really, you know, rodents, whatever.

So, but yeah, especially for for squirrels and get in and and sort that out afterwards. Send Paul the proofer up. And I think Sean wants Paul the Proofer to come on as well at some stage. No, that'll be good. He he, he can do. It's more of a joke because he said he he he said that you mentioned to it to him what Sean wants you on. He was panicking. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he kicked himself. It was a joke, but if you if he wants to come on, he can. He's more than welcome. Yeah, bless his face.

Do. You want many squirrel jobs on at the moment. Yeah, got a fair few, Got a fair few. I'm running out of traps, so I've got a. Hence we're doing the proofing work. We're going to make sure they're all cleared and then get the proof of work so I can get some more traps back to do some more. You've got a lot, so have you got a lot of squirrel traps then? Yeah, I don't know what a lot would be, but for me I've got what, 10 WCS traps, 8 Fens in cages and I'm down to 1 Fen in a cage left. Oh, I'll tell you what I had.

I had big success on one job a while ago with the Fen, the Fen trapped in the quail boxes. But recent jobs I haven't had much success for that. I find them good for rats in the quill boxes. I will think though, there was one job where I think a squirrel got away. It was a Fen. Something got away because when I looked down, the trap had gone off. When I was resetting it, there was there was a bit of fur in it. It was like either it would have been either a squirrel or a rat. I think it was a squirrel and it got away.

But yeah, I've been more local. WC SS Really. The nice thing with the cages that Kieran's on about is that it directs them. They go straight down if you put it down and they drop straight down onto that plate. So it's game over. There isn't much wriggle wriggle room with them. That's I quite like them really for for that. They're easy to carry as well. You can put fair few in your kit bag when you go up a loft. But the dub those yes traps, the tube traps are awesome, aren't they? Yeah, yeah, I do like them.

But what one thing I have learnt that I'm going to be doing next year is I've got my boxes outside, right. So I've got a load of, I've got a few dot boxes and me, me dog, one 50s, whatever, 2 hundreds. And next year I will be covering them, covering them up when it comes to nesting season for birds, because in one of my boxes, I have a blue tip who's made home in my in my dog box. So, yeah. So I will be, I will be tapping those over next year so I can, I can't get near them. Every time I go near me boxes, I get thrown in the face by this blue tip.

So it's a Bluetooth of attitude. That's it. So you had something similar, didn't you, Sam? What's that mate? A bird's nest in one of your boxes. No, I've got, I've got I've got a blue tip taken up the box outside the kitchen window now. So I was quite pleased with that. But I haven't had any, I haven't had anything nick any boxes yet, but we got them covered with tarp. So it's not too, too bad. But really I want to put put everything in a shed really new shed really. I think it's nice to have them undercover in there everything.

But you can't you can't store everything undercover, can you? But. No, I've got to say pest control. It's one of those jobs where you end up with stuff. But yeah, you there is shame the. Stuff. It's like if anyone likes. Stuff, Karen, Do not, Do not say it. Do not say the word.

But yeah. What was that?

AP Pardon. AP Oh yeah, yeah, it's here. It's a difficult place where you got to stall them though, isn't there? You all get them out. That's what I've learnt. Get them out and get them working. Get them paying, paying across. Absolutely, Absolutely. No good start at home. No, all of it, all of it's got to go out. But mind you, you, you know, you get a contract and, or you do something and they all come back and like you think, oh, where am I going to stall those then? So, and I, I got to admit I am, I am a bit of, a bit of a boy for a bargain.

You know I I will buy bulk. Yeah, you've said that before. Yeah. Oh Sam does the main sell offs. You know I'm on it. I'm on. That's what he does, him and his four pallets or three pallets of traps and all that. Yeah. I mean, I mean, yeah, I think it's five in the end. 05 OK. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've still, I've nearly got through a mined. We're not far off. I've just got to buy a few more boxes for. I wanted a couple more of those quill boxes for our leftover 150. So and I think we're pretty much out, which is good.

They're earning some money. So yeah, worthwhile investment. Have you seen them rock proof ones that trap selling? I'm not I The only thing I don't like about that is there's no bottom and anything could just lift it up and get get to it and that scares me. I've not bought any, I've just seen them. Yeah, no, even if you weighed it down or any. I just, I like something with a bottom to it because if you get a determined dog, he can roll those sun boxes over all day long. He ain't getting in there.

But if he was to roll that over, if he got the weights off, then you're in a bit of trouble, aren't you? Yeah, I suppose you're. Right. What traps in them? What? Just Fen Fen tunnels, if they're the ones that you're talking about, Sean, the ones on Facebook. Yeah, they look good. Well made. I just that's the only thing. It'd be nice if they had a bottom. You'd have a nice fun bottom. Yeah, got to have a bottom when it comes to traps, but it's just me being hypersensitive. But I like, I like think the worst situation because you come across it, don't you?

Hi Sam, how do you, how does a pest controller that does fox control do fox control then? There's, well, there's, there's, The thing is, there's lots of different fox control, isn't there? You've got rural fox control and you've got urban fox control and they're 2 completely different things. I mean, we, we do a fair bit of rural fox control this time of year, but in, in reality, I don't think you would rely on paying your bills for it. It's an added little extra, but you just got to be a bit careful with how much time and effort you put into it.

We at recently, we're normally this time of year, we get a lot of lamb in call outs and as lambs are making good money, the call outs become more. So I've always noticed when lambs are good money, we get more calls because it's worth something that they don't mind paying. So we do a lot of sort of thermal, thermal work and, and, and night time shooting around lamb and fields. And then we've had a few odd chicken killers as well. And then obviously same sort of thing, but it's finding the, it's different.

You can drive around the field or I, I tend to, I do mine by foot, but you can you could drive around or walk around and shoot 1015 foxes. But getting the one that's actually causing the trouble is a is a different matter. And that's what takes the time and the effort to be honest. Yeah. The the one thing as well is you've also got the battle of and you will have found this and we've all found it in different respects. You've got all the people offering it for free. Do you do And we all suffer that we all suffer that we've all come and shoot those rats for you what you know and you've got to be careful that you're not getting too wrapped up with it because yeah, you've always got to make your boy down the road that will come and do it for free.

So yeah, when they look at the price of it, because in reality, you're probably looking at 2 and our three hours commitment time to go and shoot a problem fox most of the time. And that's you've got to get paid for it or there's no point doing it. So but mate, your boy down the down the road will come on a Saturday afternoon if he feels like it. And he may or may not shoot something, but he's not charging for it. So yeah, it's, it's a, it's a very fine line to be honest. So you know you're shooting and what's what's your your favourite calibre?

I've always used the 222 rim fire, I've eventually progressed over the years and I've got a nice Seiko 85 rifle, very accurate, nice nice accurate round and to be honest with you, the centre fire when it comes to Fox's 2222232225243, they're all very much the same. It's just an old keeping round that I've always had since I was a lad liking. I just I just love that round for foxes, small impacts, 50 grain bullet and it doesn't leave huge amounts of mess either. It just gets the job done nicely. No recall really quiet and efficient, you know, And then if we've got sometimes you'll get

like little little shift, like crafty jobs that you need to get in and out without anyone kicking up a fast. And we use a little 17 then and that works quite well just for a nice not not far, you know, 8000 yards and, you know, making sure you're you're calling in to a good point. So we do a lot of calling. I call a lot of foxes in most of the time. And can you give us a demonstration on that? You really?

Yeah, maybe not today. Sweet as. Bang. Nice, I'll say that when you ring tone. Coming into Stoneshore soon. The clip. What's that? That clip coming to Stoneshore soon. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. People be playing out their cars to get all foxes coming in. Hey, yeah.

Farmer told you about locally, It was closing. Yeah. And I said to her, I've always wondered, oh, at school with her, why do you put llamas in with sheep? They hate foxes. There, that's exactly what she said. They they scare off the foxes, The foxes leave them alone. Yeah, we've got organic chicken farms do the same. That was, I've always wondered that she's. Yeah, they really get on well with the sheep. Yeah. They're like, they're like the protectors. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, they go, they go, they go for them.

Yeah, they really do. So I mean, as I say, it's not Fox control is a drop in the ocean this time of year, something a bit different. It's a bit bit bit of a month bit bit of money in the pocket, but it's not you wouldn't rely on it. And I'm very careful with what we do. It's a lot of, you know, extra late nights on top of the rat rat work late nights. And you just, yeah, you have to be careful with it. But it's a nice I used to do a lot when I was keeper and I'd be out all the time, you know, But that was part of my job.

Jason has just said you can tell Sam was a gamekeeper. LML.

Yeah, yeah, too, too many nights out foxing, that's for sure. Now I don't, I only go out foxing if there's if I'm getting paid for it. That's another thing you've got to be careful you you can do like we do a lot of rural contracts and you're quite often get don't suppose you, you, you shoot, don't you don't suppose you could sort out those foxes down there and you have to be very firm with I can, but this how much it costs because they end up talking to you like it, they're paying you for it and they'll start texting you saying I've seen a fox when it's not your if they're paying you for it, fine, but you have to get it just right.

Otherwise you'll be running around the country for nothing. So yeah, you have to really watch the Foxcontrol. Obviously completely different when it comes to urban. That's, you know, not something I've done a lot of, really.

But then it's, it's the thing about, you know, a lot of things we do, we seem to be in an industry where people seem to think they can phone up and say hi, can I have a lot of free advice? Yeah, do you? Get that quite a lot. That's why I think, right, with AI moving on, we should have a call centre system on your phone to say press one for advice and have that as a premium number and then two to speak to someone or three to book in a contract or something like that. So or not them services? Yeah, they already exist.

You can have it set up that way. If you wanted to do that, you could do it. Yeah, yeah, I think that's a really good idea. I'll charge you £1.50 a minute. It's. Annoying. It's when they ring. You want Google. Google guaranteed looking for free advice when you know that they probably don't realise it's a chargeable service that is. And what you have to pay for that do you? Well if someone stays on the phone so long on Google, guarantee you have to pay for that regardless if you get the job or not.

That's what happens. Very me. That's why that's why often in about to say where there's a lot of swarms happening and it's kicking off often bring the number back instead. Don't pay for it then. But then sometimes you also risk. You also risk if it's a genuine customer who wants you risk losing them as well because it was seasoned. People don't wait long. I've literally no. They don't. They don't do they When's? The call by men here, I'm sorry mate, I got someone else and I was at the time I was cheaper than the other guy.

I says well wait, you've already booked it mate, don't worry. Yeah, that's annoying. I don't like that when people are like, oh, if you're a bit cheaper, no, no, no, you've booked something, it's too late now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, they they phone you back and then they're like, oh, sorry, which one are you? Yeah. So how did you phone Madam? Yeah, or you get who can come quickest. Can you come quicker than him? No, you've booked him in. That's you know I'm not it's not a race. I'm not coming as well you.

Know there is there is people that ring round and they book all of you and the one that turns up gets the job and then they won't, they won't pay you. My dad's had it once before where not in a long time, but yes they rang someone else. So they rang 2 two companies and they don't really done the wasp nest and my dad didn't get paid. We make it clear now. We do make it clear now that if we turn up and don't do any work, we're still getting paid. Yeah, call out Phil. There's a call. Call out Phil.

Simpler sign it. But there is. But there is people that do that. You know, they bring like 4 companies and just so you can come out, they don't think, don't think of anyone but themselves. It happens. It does. I had it, I, I had said to Kieran I had a domestic garden and they'd been feeding the birds and they had rats everywhere and I'd done them before and they've gone back to feeding the birds, you know, same old story, rats everywhere again. And he was petrified. He rang me up. I said I'm middle of moles, I'm really busy, I can get to you and I think it was 6 days time.

I just can't, I just can't get to you until six days time. On the on the fourth they had a phone call. Oh, someone, someone's just come and done them because the next door neighbour rang them away. I thought, yeah, there you go. People won't wait quite often, especially the domestic side, will they? No. They won't. They won't. That's the problem. It's difficult. When I when I was on about the price, I didn't drop the price for this person, just said how much was it? And they said that, well, I'm a lot higher now.

But yeah, the bed book ring, you're right. The price is the price. I don't hackle with people, you know, the price is. I think you look, I don't. I think you look like you were almost ripping them off if you go down because then they would say, well, why were you charging me that to begin with? Yeah, they could do. Yeah, you're. Right. I always say that's that's what it is, it's what I've worked out and that's what makes, you know, makes a business run. What was control won't become really profitable.

The reason that this might be controversial might say this. So you know what I'm about to say until everyone and all the window cleaners and everyone runs out there for ICAM day. That's when you'll know who really can do what's nests and and a lot of them they will give up once they've run out there by Cam day. They will give up because they won't be able to do it. And that's when you'll know who is actually good. Yeah, a lot of them are just running around before the Cam day still. Obviously, you know, this is this is around my area.

There's loads of people that aren't pest controllers but they do it. There's got to be a lot left in the system if you think how much they were selling at the end. They won't. They won't admit to that. Selling the pilot a time. Yeah, yeah, they were proper bringing rounds. So I understand why from a business sense as to what you'd have to, you know, the buyer, you know, the way you're supposed to dispose of waste, correct way, you know, like a waste carrier, you'd have to do it that way. And that would cost a hell of a lot of money, fortune, fortune, thousands, thousands or thousands.

So it was like they were given, they were given away a buy Cam detail with every order we were as well and everyone. Barely used it all up. I'm not going to say who the distributor is, but most of you probably know who it was. And also near the end or letting us buy one get 6 free. Brilliant. Even the distributors have said it, like on podcasts and stuff. So we won't really know until about 5 years time. So everyone's run out because they know, but people are still going to use it. Oh yeah, it'll still be kicking about years from now, won't it?

The amount that was about. Oh. I've got, I've got, I've got one all right with the deadline so far seems I've not had no issues. I've bought some on the back of what you said so we'll be trialling it this year. You can trial it, but because because you asked me what is it like compared to Vulcan, I don't know what it's like. I never actually tried it. I can't compare the two, but I do know that Vulcan believe that yeah, there's a there's a stronger reaction from the Bosps. I get on right with Vulcan, but to be honest it'd be nice to try something anyway, but I don't.

Know. I always like to try something every year.

Online about the courts. I've tried that. I didn't get on with it, but I think there was a bad batch at the time. I know there was a bad batch. Did it go hard and like coagulate? No, it just, it did block quite a bit and I didn't, I didn't think the reaction was very good on it. I just didn't think it was. I I personally thought the Vulcan was better, but then I probably was a bit scared to use too much to do too many nests with it because I was a bit I didn't really like how it was performing, but I think there was a bad batch so it'd be interesting what it does now.

Yeah. There you go. You went to a few far 2 rats that they had.

Oh, wow. The Holy Grail. The Holy Grail. Wow, That would work for any of that stuff. Yeah. Yeah, no, I used Vulcan last year. The only callbacks I'd got were where I couldn't get the nest. Yeah. You know, and, and yeah, if you can't see it direct, then yeah, it's like, oh, I think I'll be coming back to this one so. Yeah, you know, don't you? Yeah. You can just tell you just like, Oh yeah, just like crack, crack, crack or crevice in it. You know that you're not, you can't see the nest and you're like, oh, just I've got a bad feeling with this one.

Yeah, yeah. So I had a few, I had a few that way, but but I say more thermal image cameras now going on the inside and. You can go on the other side as long as it's not in a loft that's different. But yeah, you can't thermal it. Yeah. This was in. This was in stone.

Yeah. Well, I think it's a good point, though. Good point. Yeah. Yeah, so heavy pest controls. I just want. It's really get a thermal camera. You don't have to spend thousands. You get an alright 1 from 100, two, £100 to start with. You can yeah, you don't have to spend thousands. You don't.

Absolutely, yeah. My works fine. You can't move it over. But I do find, I do find that the customer as well really like likes to look at it when you go, you're following it across the wall. And then they just see this like red and and orange and yellow big BLOB in their wall of heat. And I think that quite impresses the clients to be honest. Oh, it looks good. It does look good. It's about to go blue, yeah. Yes, it's about the wall is about to vibrate. Yeah, exactly. No, it it does look it's handy in lofts as well if you if you can't quite locate the nest.

It is quite handy just for nipping round in the loft boiler up there as well, wouldn't it? Yeah, it's also good for bats. Yes, yeah, you said. That's a good point. Did you get that from Kieran? Then Sam? Because he showed me a photo and I went what are you doing there? Oh, it's me, me looking for bats. I was like that. There is an amazing idea. I've never done that. Yeah, I think with a, with a thermal, I mean, obviously I've looked, but yeah, that's amazing. I I've. Added it to our treatment reports now and part of some of the initial surveys.

If I'm a bit bit concerned then yeah I, I, I've we've got the so we've got the normal thermals for shooting and then I bought a little Hick micro handheld like you 2 have got from pure purpose. If it was so, then you said about the bats and I thought actually that is brilliant because you could just have a quick nip round, you record it and then you put that in your treatment report and it's covered you again, isn't it? You know, it's just another coverage. Absolutely, Absolutely. Yeah. Oh yeah, I'm forever whipping mine out.

And yeah. Are you? All the time, yeah, Every time I go out of the roof, roof, roof. I was whipping out. Why not?

Tell you one thing, Jason, when you get that new Ross kit and when you do try some Ross Nest, we have to have you on to chat about the new the new Ross kit you're getting. That looks good, doesn't it? Because yeah, it does. Look good. Because yeah, so we have to have them all at some point. It's can you remember Kieran? No, I can't. Remember. Is it Vespa? Vespa Kill. Something like that. And he's also. Good. Like I can't Yeah, I, I spoke to Jason about it and I yeah, I can't remember exactly. I think it's best for kills it.

Looks good. He's got he's also got a remote control, so just taps the button from the bottom booth. It sets off the powder. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. Oh the technology all on one env website. All right, OK, I'll sure have a check. I'll have a check. What about drones? What do you want on drones? Do you feel the need to get a drone? I wanted to, but I think isn't there. There's quite a lot of hoops you got to jump through for it, haven't you? So what would the cost of the drone and the jumping through all the hoops, Is it worth it?

I mean, it'd be quite handy for say if you're doing the surveys on woodland for like squirrel damage or deer, deer management, then yes, but it would be an awful big cost for what it is. I think a thermal drone. Yeah, or even even just a normal drone. Normal drone. Yeah. You do, you do have to do like there is a kill germ course you can do because because you're a business, you have to do a licence. I believe Martin's, Martin will come out a minute telling you what you have to do, but he he, he, he uses them for B surveys and all sorts.

He does, he records video, he records videos. He's also made videos for the MPTA where you're like this Sam. He's actually surveyed farm fields full of moles. With the job. Yeah, with the drug, with the drone. I'll have to send you the videos he's made. Yes, have a look at that. I think they put them up on MPT as YouTube, I can't remember. But yeah, he uses it for all sorts. But yeah, Killjerma got a a course on drone because because you're a business, you have to have a licence or a certificate, whatever it's called.

But if you remember the public just messing around, you don't actually need one. You don't. You, I think do not have to have something. A member of public, I think has to have something, but I don't think it's the same as the business. No, I think. It's a certain size. Below. It's below 249 grammes, which they all are. You don't. Oh, OK. You just have to think. You have to register it or something. That's it. Right. But I'm looking, I'm looking for a drone to go up around the guttering as well and looking for in ingress points, you know, entry points for squirrels.

Yeah, all users need to be. All they have to do is all users need to be registered for the drone. It's all about public, right? OK for a business. He reckons he's well over the top for domestic work. But I I can see the need for it. If you're say you're doing a BRCGS site or submit and you're looking on the building for all ingress points. But you could use equally equally caring for on a really high house. To be fair, you could literally I can't see where the most nest is. You can put them you put the drone up to see where they're coming from.

I'm not saying you've got thermal imaging, but you could at least say where they're coming out of. But he he's saying they're they're perfect for surveying the roofs.

I haven't thought about that's one toy I haven't thought about getting, but they I can see the benefits. I don't know if I'll get. I don't know if I'd get the benefits out of it. You see, really. But they do have they they they do have Geo blockers on to say you're near a military base. It won't go up. They've got blockers on. So. Oh, really? So yeah, they just stop the yeah, there's like GA blockers where if there's a protected airspace, it's the only protected airspace is military. Like you can actually fly over.

You see all these Youtubers and the police arresting them as they fly over a police station. Yeah, it you're allowed to. All the police stations are on Google Earth and all and all the entrance and exits are on Google Street View and the police go, well, you could be planning things. They go, I could just go on Google Street View and find all the entrance and exits and go on Google Earth. You don't need a drone for that. But no, but yeah, yeah, it's, it's not a no, I don't, I don't think I'll get use out of it.

But there are a lot of companies that would get use out, say Martin with bee surveys, things like that. He probably gets loads of use out of it. And you can obviously, as I say, use, you know, Yeah, I've got, I've also. Got the horticultural side as well where we didn't go and design. So you can always then get a nice aerial view and zoom around view of different bits and pieces. So that would kind of warrant a little bit more of getting one. But, you know, do roof surveys just yeah, be brilliant.

And because they do lots of squirrels and and obviously they're always in guttering, sit in the gutters and eat through into the soffits. It's just easier than getting a getting a ladder and then moving it around, you know, move it a metre, go up, have a look. Move it 2 metres, go up, have a look. Yeah, just get the drone up and have a look. Job done. That seems quite a sweet idea for me. And it saves and it saves climbing and. It saves climbing, yeah, yeah, if you don't have. Anything but yeah, sorry.

Military bases as a gaol block. So it will come down. It won't go near it. It it comes upon the map. Military base and it will come down. It would if you try and move it across. You should never do it because you've got arrested. But they they will. It will come down if your train ends up on a military base somehow. You're being serious shit big time. Obviously what you've got, each drone has got a unique ID, so they can link it to you to say, I'm not saying it would happen, but say your drone brand's a wall and the wind knocks it in a right direction and your drone ends upon an Army base.

You'll have the police at your front door. You will they take it quite seriously. Obviously imminent threat. Also airports as well, you know, also airports are Jerry blocked as well for obvious reason. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So. I wonder, I wonder if you could use drones for like scarers for like Stalin, Stalin scarers and stuff. I wonder if I wonder if that would be effective. We saw that a little while back, didn't we? Did. You yeah, I was looking at that because it'd be lovely to have something that would just.

I can't, I can't justify a bird of prey, although I do want one. But. And plus I don't, I don't, yeah, I've got to be careful with keeping birds because of cross contamination on some, some of our sites, like. But I, I, if you kept a mechanical that could scare Stalins and I know they'll, they'll still get used to it, but it'd just be nice to have that up your sleeve, wouldn't it? Yeah, good. Maybe, maybe, maybe put a drone up and and glue on, glue on like a distress call on that or something. Yeah.

Interesting. You cannot use them, he's just said Marty now. No, you cannot use them for disturbing birds. Oh, that's that's There we go then. That's something I've learned already. That's been debunked live on the air. Thanks for that, Martin. Yeah, that I do. Won't be thinking about that then, no.

Not that one on the head. Yeah, but that was that, that was that brainchild gone. Oh, there. So there now, Sam, So what was your realisation with AI that you you told us all about? So yeah. I, I said to Kieran in the week I said I've, I've started to use AI more and it's very good. If you're got your hands busy and you don't want to be writing stuff down all the time, you can speak into AI and you can start dictating what you're saying. And it will put it into a format for you. So that when you finish a job, it doesn't work on all sites, but you've then got something at the end of it already in in in place so you can then edit it when you get home.

I will add since since I started playing with that, I had a massive Paddy because the moment they realised that that's what I was doing with the AI, they updated it. So you couldn't talk for more. As soon as you stopped, as soon as I paused, which obviously you're going to do, they started sending it so it wouldn't flow. So it did him. We had to spend a bit of time getting round that, but I've managed to get it working again. But yeah, it is quite good. Although I said to Kieran, I think it's a bit sad because if you put loads of effort into writing something now, the person on the other end won't necessarily know if you've written it or it's AI.

Yeah. And I like, I like Sean's response to that is tell the AI to put in some spelling mistakes that. Was that was actually a joke, but I said to Sam put me some spelling mistakes and like AI just AI doesn't make spelling mistake usually. No, I mean, we're rolling, I'm rolling with it. I'm rolling, I'm rolling with it and I'm trying to get on board with it and and using it. But it does make me just feel a little bit sad that when you really put some effort into something at the other end, I just think, are they going to think AI did this or this was actually me that wrote this, you know?

And it's, yeah, it's, it's a sad, it's a sad realisation, isn't it? But it's the way it's going. Yeah. I'm using Gemini at the moment, all right? Yeah. And that we had a massive argument, trust me, Gemini had some swear words at it at the middle of the week. But we've managed to sort our differences out and worked worked round it. But Gemini's working all right at the moment for what we're playing with. Good. Good, yeah. What about you? What? What are you what? How are you getting on with it? I'm still using the dollar, to be brutally honest.

Yeah, I yeah, doing all right, really. Like you say, it doesn't, it doesn't save templates for you, but it does does what I need really for it just put it in then I just put it into a Word document and then tinker with it, save it as PDF and then job done. Really. Oh. It does have a lot of delusional delusional in it. Sam said that he asked it something and it added a load of stuff that never happened. What dollar did, what Dollar did for me, because I said to dollar, I said, would you mind? I need you, can you save these bits and when I need them, can you put that?

She's like, yeah, yeah, I could do that. And I've spent like 20 minutes telling her all this stuff. And she went, yeah, I log all that. I'll make sure I remember that. Yeah, I got that. And at the end I said, right, OK, what I need you to do is move that into there. And she was like, no, no, no, I can't remember anything you've told me. It's not part of my software. And I said to her, I said, why have you just told me you can? And she went, I didn't want to let you down. I got it carried away with the moment.

And I was like, what am I doing? Talking to a computer just lit your fault. I can't believe that I've just been mugged off by a computer You.

Know you know. You know, you know, in the law system, you know, like legal cases, they don't allow you to use AI, right? Yes, there was AI can't quote the exact case. There was a case where somebody was up for 20 charges something and they asked AI to do all the research and 19 of them, AI are completely fictionally made-up all all the cases and all the evidence, they all got thrown out. So there's a big regulation in, in, in, you know, criminal cases for using AI. There is because of that, but it can't just literally makes the book.

It can't. I think, yeah, I think so. My, my sorry, can't Sean. Sorry, can't it? Got really dark out there. You might have to put the interior light on Sam.

It's some. There, there he goes, There he is. You have to not in situations you ask, ask it, is this really what happened and you Fact Check this, Can you citation it? So I use ChatGPT plus and I have to think in mode on so where it will look for citations. So it will double check what it's saying is true. It's like if I say I want this standard of pest control or something, it will go on on the app, all the websites and scan all the sites, have a look to see if it's right or not. It will things like that.

But yeah, I mean, AI is great on the sites, but obviously when I was on a certain site the other day with no signal, it's useless. When there's no signal, like today, like today in my house. Things like anything aren't you signal. It's a case of no electricity. We're all staffed. What's the pen and paper? Yeah, I. Think I sent Sam a picture of of a treatment report of a pen and he message back. They still give me nightmares. I literally, I saw that treatment report and I used to use exactly the same and I just thought, oh, how far we've come away from that.

Thank God that's over writing them out over and over. One stubborn contract. Yeah, you said. Once it in paper and I was like OK, you've only got 2 boxes in the yard and two boxes in the kitchen. It ain't that much of an effort, but it does feel painful, Sam, when I'm doing it. It does. Yeah, it's hard. Work. Definitely definitely tell AI has not written this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I. Suppose I could ask AI what to say, but then because it adds a lot more writing, I can't be asked to write all that extra writing, you know?

I think no, no activity at all. I think I think no. So more I think AI is is in some way sad and is going to be detrimental. And then in other ways, I think you've got to move with the times and use it where where, where you can. You know that that's my that's my thoughts on it at the moment and we'll carry on playing with it and you know, go, go from there. But I do think that being able to, when it's wet, muddy and rubbish, being able to talk into something as you're moving around is a good idea.

But yeah, I, I, I'm not, yeah, I'm not. I we've got a we've got a lot more to look into it first before I get a proper conclusion on it. Yeah, in a sense though, because if everyone else is doing it and you're not being left behind. Yeah, you got to do it. You got to do it. Yeah, but it's just to what level? It's just to what level, isn't it? And and how much? How much you use it? I will say one thing, one thing AI is rubbish for is AIID insects. That gets it wrong. Don't trust AI when it comes to insects.

No, not very good at all. It will tell you most things are bad books when they're not. Yeah, it's not very good at that as far as I know. I won't trust it for that, but. No it. Gets it wrong sometimes. Yeah, Googling is not. You can't. Lens is pretty good. Yeah. Yeah, Lens is the right. Lens also gets it wrong as well. I've tested that. Oh really? Sometimes. Sometimes it gets it correct, but sometimes it gets it wrong. I think it's a case if you go through a few different ways to research what you've got.

You need you need you need to take quality pictures as well. Yeah, absolutely. There's a few apps now, isn't there for insect identification. They're pretty good a. Lot. Yeah, I've I've got a lot. Of the butterfly ones, the the nature and the wildlife to get right, just about a lot of the insects we deal with to get wrong. Yeah, a lot of them they do. I came across an oil beetle the other day, which is quite cool. Yeah, I'm doing my old job and just having a look down and this oil beetle was was just chilling walking along doing this thing.

It's got to be what, 3540 mil long. That's quite cool actually. So I've got that one on me app and I've got this this wildlife app where it it tags where you are and then it links up with other people in the area and then it can tell you what other people have found, you know, nearby. So yeah, it's quite cool actually. It's quite good. It is. It is free. All, all my, all my stuff is free at the moment. I haven't committed to any of it, but I'll find, I'll find the name and I'll, I'll let you know.

Is that the one that you sent me, Kieran? Yes. Yeah, that's quite good, that one. That's quite good. What's it called? I naturalist. Naturalist. I nature at list. I nature. No, I mean, I'm going to be right. Glasses on, I don't take the piss, I naturalist. I found it, found it. It's. Got a little birdie on it. Yeah, the bed book queen has said yeah, I, I it's frequently wrong. See, see her group for evidence. Yeah, there's a lot of photos that go up on there with various different things, but you can't look what a bed book is like.

You can find that. And then you can obviously make your, you know, I wish some people did a little bit of research on what a bedbug looks like first and then think, does this look like this picture for the ass? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. It's like when you get caught out and I think I've got a bedbug. Send us a picture. Nope, it's a ladybird.

I don't know why people jumped. A lot of people jumped to the I've got bedbugs when it's something like it could be something completely different. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Panic though. Panic of fear, isn't it? I suppose it is it. Is yeah, yeah, I got bed bugs. No. What? Laughs. So, so I'll tell you, I'll tell you what I'm going to bring up as well. We've obviously we are we talking about the IY kit and I don't know whether you lot have seen it. That's been an advert. I can't find it now. Now I want to talk about it.

It's an advert where they give you like a little consultation. It's someone like Pro Green or someone like that. I can't quote it because I might be wrong. And a lady's got a mouse issue and they sell her some mouse traps with a tunnel and basically some traps and some peanut butter and stuff like that. And it was like £200. Their consultation and the advert messed itself up anyway because you go the big one, there is a rat trap. And I thought what if you advised her a rat trap for a mouse job? But it's like it seems to be a lot of kits popping up like the one Kieran's mentioned the other day at the Farmall where it's for small business and it was reduced from 210 lbs to £120 with it was just full of mouse stock products basically.

There seems to be a lot of them popping up.

Yeah, it's kind of, you know, you see the farm one. It just tickled me because you see the farm one and you kind of think, all right, this is aimed for the professionals, you know, farms, professional people and all the rest of it. And then when you looked, it was just amateur market stuff, wasn't it? And it's a lot of. Firms, there's a lot of firms trying it and I've got asked to ask this question here. Where are we? They've got a new pole thing. Here we go. Mark Martin, right there we go. Is everyone happy with the new crew requirements?

Because apparently there's been shops reporting that since the new guidelines came in that there's been a decrease in 30% in business downturn. There were people buying, you know, products and bait, etcetera that they're asked like, I don't, I don't know if it's connected. I I don't know, but probably won't get probably won't get enough people to vote on it anyway. So what the new new requirements as in the three crew points? Yeah, they reckon people just haven't bothered. Yeah, but what, what would that be over, over all?

Like from the whole sector or the professional sector or, or what? Which bit? They haven't. They haven't. Although it was said it's then reported a 30% decrease in sales since the start of 2026. I don't know if I don't know if it's connected. I don't or whether people are have still got mass loads of bait in their stores and they're just not bothered with it until you know. Or is it perhaps or is it that they've turned to professional? I don't know. It's, it's a different. I haven't, yeah. Could have gone a lot of them.

Could have gone the more trap route. Well, they could be that. I know that all the farmers won't have. I don't know that, but that's, that's the thing with it. It's you don't know the reason that I, I do know certain, certain places because obviously there's been a lot of small to medium sized businesses that have been acquired or these big equity firms. And my guess is, I'm not saying this is what's causing a lot of this is say they were using X supplier, I'm not giving their names, but X supplier was supplying bait boxes, X supplier was supplying the bait, right?

So these bigger companies usually got big buying power, so they buy it from somewhere else. So a lot of the chances are because they own multiple companies, they just make them use all the same stuff. So they could have just gone somewhere else and. That's why you've got less sales. I don't know, that's a guess, but also that could definitely. Happen. Is this was this from one supplier is it or from just across the board? There was, I was told it would kill germ. We're down 30%, right, OK, since the start of the year, but there's been other suppliers that are down as well.

Right. Well, you've got to, we've got to look at those suppliers have to own that and say, right, so the last four months or six months before the crew came in, did they have an extraordinary influx, big influx in. Big point. Brilliant point, Gary, you will. Probably a lot, a lot of people I know you're supposed to have your certificate to even use, you know, the crew certificate to use the bait. A lot of paper be like, yeah, I've got in the stores. I'm just going to keep using it. Why should I bother getting a certificate yet or just stock up?

I don't know if that happened, maybe it did, maybe it didn't. There's loads of factors that could cause it, isn't there. Well, let's let's face it though, the whole thing didn't quite work because, well, we can't say that because it we're not in their position. But the if I've, I've had farmers say to me all that that new coursing I took, I did it online. If I can do it, anyone can do it. I can buy the good stuff again now, much as I like. And you just think, yeah, point miss there, then one there.

So it's but it's a hard what do they do? We're not in their shoes. What what what can they do to try and, you know, stop what's happening? You know, it's a very difficult situation. Not even saying I can get involved in, it's like I'm not part of the discussion, but that crews are completely different organisation. There's multiple people involved in it and I do unfortunately think that the agriculture industry has got a heavy hand in in, in the sale. What's going on, I would say. There's too much industry in there, huge industry.

Massive industry. It's like when I was trying to Gary Vincent Jenta, when I did that digital trial, he was casually just sat there saying, yeah, the pest control industry is worth about 700 million. Syngenta. He says agriculture is worth about 800 billion globally. I was like, wow, He said. Yes, pest control is tiny compared to agriculture. I would say that that's probably a factor with what what's happening with the farmers, etcetera, is they've got lobbyists and they've got a lot of power. There's more of them.

There is a there was more farmers as well, didn't there? Oh yeah, it's and also money. It's money, isn't it? It's all money. Yeah, it does, but I don't know how any of it works. This stuff, how it was done or anything, I don't know. I don't, but even Jason's just said I'm using less bait and more trapping. So there you go. You know, a lot of people are, you know, that's probably that's probably a factor to it. But there is one DIY kit I mentioned recently. I don't do a lot of bed book work. You seen that stuff called fin chicks chicks.

It's like a powder bed books and I'm I'll get the website.

I'm obviously not. I'm not a big rarely get work in it. I'll tell you what it is.

It's actually yeah, but it's the it's reading it here. So it's on the website and if anyone wants to have a proper look at this website, it's meant to be really good. It's it's meant to be a non a non-toxic form. But I would still recommend you put a mask on as well. It says for over 2 decades chin chicks has led the revolution in non chemical predecessor originally developed as the most effective defence against pesticide resistance. Bad Books, our breakthrough format based on highly refined silicone dioxide, has proven so powerful that that it now forms the foundation of a complete line of pest control solutions.

You see it? Yeah. It's meant to be really good. I mean, me reading all the detail won't really help, but they've got obviously it's available to pest controllers. What's what's caused a bit of a stare? What's about the window is is is the is the fact that they are developing ADRY Kit version? A lot of the a. Lot, a lot of the worry is that you know how the public are, they don't read the label. They, they, they won't read all the instructions properly. They won't probably do the PPE right. And if they're convinced they've got bed bugs and they haven't, will there be a negative effect saying all this stuff is crap, it don't work?

That's the that's the kind of things you think about. And that's that's why there's concern because people, a lot of people have said, well, trying to remove stuff from the Yeah is. That just for bed bugs, Sean or is. That it does actually say here. Hold on. Mentions cockroaches too, right? Cockroaches. I have a few more actually stored brain pest. Well, it says here. And that's non-toxic. Is it pest side free? It's, it's what it is. It's actually a Hong Kong company and they've started to sell stuff here.

The bedbug queen really rates it and they use it as part of her process. I think she does the steam. I think she steams first place and then and then does it. I think. I believe that's her process. But if she's in chat, she'll probably tell you. But. You're saying that on silicone dioxide? That's what it says. All right. OK, so I. Don't. What was it called again? Sorry, Sean. Fin checked. I know it sounds like a Chinese restaurant or Japanese restaurant. OK, that's interesting. I did, I did put it on one of the groups one day and someone put it's like a someone's named it after a Japanese takeaway or something.

So but it's just a Japanese company. It is. And it's just a, you know, the bedbug crane has promote. The reason it's caused a stir is the bedbug crane has said there's going to be a DIY kit version. It's been seen as a professional promoting a product. A lot of people are against that. Yeah, that's why it's of course, that's why it's caused a bit of a stir to keep some people. It all revolves around money though, doesn't it? That's the that's the problem. We all know that the domestic market is very strong and people rely on that market to be selling, you know, domestic.

And if that comes in a kit form the same as if you buy a rat box with identicized in it or a rebated trap or, you know, or, or or bed bug, you know, control it. It's such a big market that these companies are sat there and they're not going to not enter it, are they, because it it's vital revenue. I suppose that's the it's money, isn't it? That's the problem. I think that if the bed for Queen hadn't mentioned it and just not mentioned there wasn't a DIY1 coming out, there wouldn't have been no stare at all.

I think because she he's affiliated or a brand ambassador for them. I think that's what's triggered a lot of people. They don't agree with it, but that's just, you know, that's what's the few people up. Whether you agree or disagree, I don't know. But it would have been released regardless because the market, but the public is massive. It's like rent to kill. They sell boxes of little bait, don't they? They sell, they sell loads of it. They do. I I wish I invented the big cheese. Known the big cheese.

Company. Yeah, that. One sounds really well. Oh man, you know, you get caught to a rat job and you know, and they're like, Oh, well, I've been to on Amazon and I've bought every product I can find and you know, it's going to be the big cheese. Yeah, and one of those electric rat killers in the loft as well, wouldn't it? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, one of them. Yeah, yeah. And I've. Got big cheese? The humane rat trap that isn't humane. Yeah. That, that, that, that one in the corner, Yeah. Yeah, I haven't caught anything.

It's in the middle of the room. OK, that's good. OK, so the bed book queen is saying it's not the chin chicks. The idea of the of the home kit. It wasn't actually chin chicks themself. It was a combination of the Bed book foundation, you know, with Doctor Richard Naylor, who's a very well known person in the field of bedbugs, and obviously the Bedbug Foundation, it was the Bedbug Queen and the Bedbug foundation to bring that kit out. So to be honest, Doctor Richard Naylor is a very clever chap, so he must think there's something in it, but that's happened.

So this obviously it must be a very good product because the Bedbug Foundation if you ever want samples. So if you go on there, you don't know much about it. You'll learn a lot of the Bedbug Foundation even do idea. And if you think you could send them samples as well, you can and ask for advice. You can because I had them on the podcast. He said they get messages from people all over the world and they help people and situate. Obviously it's with advice. They can't just and see everyone. But dog training as well, can't you?

Yeah, they can buy them. Yeah, once you once you kind of like affiliated with them. My mate getting it over the road, over the village with his with his dog to keep up with the training. He can then buy live bed bugs and then obviously do the training with with with his dog. Yeah, they changed a lot of things about that because when he was on the podcast, he said to me that people started to try and order them the public. They had to start vetting people because he was like, it's flat in New York or something like that.

And it's like, is that a vendetta to get bed books spreaded? You know, buy bed books to try and get one over on? Oh. No, it goes in the unpaid invoice. Yeah, but that's what I'm saying. But they don't. They don't. I don't, yeah, I, I so they were dubious, he said. I, I think you have to be vetted for them to sell them to you. Now they don't. They don't just. Sell them. Yeah, you have to be. Yeah, you have to be a member, I believe. But they never sent them because he says he was dubious about it was a bit strange.

Silicone dioxide, Now, isn't that mode of action going to be for dehydration because silicone dioxide? Is doesn't actually manage to get on the shoe. You know, you get shoe box, you get the little sachets. Isn't that the silicone dioxide? Yes, you're right. Yes, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it isn't that. Absorbs. Moisture so so maybe was it dry? Dry them out. Maybe that wouldn't really affect you. Hit the actor skeleton. It'd be a minute. Yeah, I'm saying what? It's just dry out the. Exoskeleton or is it?

And is it also a foam powder that can get in the sphericals? I don't know, let's probably dry them out. So would that, would that be better than? Would that be better than D then? That's here. I was on right, Rather than me butchering it. I can't actually put this on this little bit here on screen because I'm not that technical. So if I post this comment that's on the YouTube, oh it won't all show right? What are you doing? Rapid? Yeah. Thank. You. There we go. There you go. Yeah. Dehydration. Yeah.

Back boy, boy.

And check works for a physical mode of action. It's microscopic particles, exorbitant lipids from the insects. And because causing rapid dehydration and death without triggering avoidance or resistance. Nice. Yeah, Spot on one again. Yeah.

Bedford Queen says that she's he's had it described to her as DE on crack. OK, there we go. Nice. Yeah, nice. So that could be used. We could use that. We could use that for. I'll look into that because that'd be quite handy. We don't do bed bugs, but it'd be handy if we can use it for other insects. Yeah, it says store project. It doesn't. I'm on the website, it's outside. It's toxic. What did you say, Karen? Sorry. Silicone dioxide is, well, toxic. Right, maybe it's a lower percentage but they put their advertising as non-toxic.

They are. All right, OK. They're saying it's non-toxic. I don't know. I don't know, but I just thought simply also was quite quite a a pokey thing not to eat. I don't. I don't think they recommend you eat it though, you know, I'm no, I mean, it's. If you put it down on the carpet, you put it down on the carpets, sofas, chairs, beds.

It's fine Part, of course, Isn't that going to waft up? I don't know. I don't know but. It. Is.

Well, wouldn't it are? You still there? But then I don't know. You would have to then you know, because when. You are we are we lost? Yeah. Are you there? I think. We've lost Kieran now, haven't we? Oh, Kieran, everyone's on the turn tonight. There you go, you're back. Yeah. There you go. Nobody. 'S going. I'm not really I'm, I'm not really down.

Gone what you're saying about DE Kieran? When you put DE down when? You when you Kevin, Karen, listen. You can hardly see it, you know, it's just a dust, isn't it, where people are going?

These days will be hardly. Anything 10 grammes with these? Oh my God, what are the applicatories for that?

Have a look 10. Grammes. 10 grammes. What a lot. 10 grammes. That's great. Yeah, Yeah. When you, when you think, when. How are you? How are you buying that? That would be amazing. Yeah, that's what I mean when when customers buy DE and they put it down and it's just like piles in it. It's like I'm like a sandcastle like that bad boy. Yeah. It's a very fine dust, but 10 grammes? Oh. What the fuck done?

I'm intrigued now. Yeah, I am. I don't know how you can apply 10 grammes to two bedrooms. Oh, she's saying a brush. Oh. Right. OK. Just like just generally don't like just brushing it all across. OK, that makes sense. Because I asked, I asked, I asked her about treatments. I says, well, because I said the big hub's out of stock, surely I need the big one. And she put actually the 50 gramme, the 50 gramme one will didn't do anywhere from it's pen damage anywhere from I'm sure she said 5 to 6 jobs, 50 grammes.

Well, that's what she. Said Kiss. On you'd have to do a bit of research on it, you would. It's all on the website I mean. So what else would, what else would that work on then in reality? I mean, could that be, could that be another Waspy? What what would that do to Wasps? Yeah, but DA is terrible wasp. No, but what? What about this stuff? I don't know. Would this work on WASP? If it doesn't, if they don't have a reaction to it, have we found something else to use on Wasps? I'm going to say no. No, yeah, probably.

But I just want to be hopeful. I'm positive. On WASP this year I am going to get the Hoover out. I'm hoovering. I'm hoovering this year. I'm hoovering. I'm hoovering. Must not if I get like median Wasps or I get something a little bit different, because I'm sure you'll know that I I save them. I not save them live, but I take them. I put them in ethanol and then I send them up to Ernie. Ernest failed for his resins, so they look. Really good, because I know Sam buys them. Yeah, she got Sam. How much they cost them when you buy them?

They're I think they're very reasonable for what they are. Kieran's got a hell of a collection. I do. I do. I don't know if you can see my pen with my two. I don't think you can see it. Oh wow. Yeah. Yeah, they're what? Didn't they? They are indeed, yeah. That's they're very well done. They're very well done. I really like them and they're, they're brilliant for clients as well. I, I keep a couple in the van and like, especially when you've got kids and they're like going, Oh, what's in there? And they want to see like, oh, what's a Hornet?

What's a, what's you go? There you go and they love it. And, and also just showing. So no, you know, just showing clients. They, they, I think it's a really good, good, good thing. Really. I, I think they're, they're nice bits to have really. Yeah, I am the bedbud queen. She asked me. I put one up on her on her Facebook page, one of Ernie's, and it's got all the stages of the bedbugs and they're quite cool, to be really honest. And then, yeah, did ask where we've gone from. So hopefully, if she's still there, that she got in touch with Ernie's raisins and got a, got a.

Maya done. Yeah, but I've got all sorts. I've got all sorts. I have a good collection. I have mole skulls, rat skulls. Yeah, down to spiders, wood lavs, bed bugs, endless. She has it, I have it. Hey, well done. Brilliant. It's difficult when you get started though, isn't it? You start and then you think, oh, I quite like that one as well. It's very addictive. I think I'm going to. Have to tell you what he's got. It's like, oh, Ernie, what have you got now? I haven't got one of those. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jackie wants to know. Jackie wants to know where she can get the resin Wasps from. Hi Jackie, facts are popping in if you go. Go on Facebook and look up Ernie's resins. Lovely chap as well. Really nice chap. Yes, I believe Ernie's resins. Yeah, it's that a page? It's just a page to see. Yeah. Has he got page? It's it's a full. Time He's a full time dad and A and a full time pest controller. An incredible entomologist, absolutely top bloke. So it's it's a sideline, it's a side hustle. So you know I. Found it.

Found it. Yeah, lovely bloke, lovely bloke. Nice. Nice to deal with as well, isn't he? Absolutely. Wow, he he takes some really good photos, don't he? He does take some bloody. Good photos, but he was on some of his his Asian Hornets was on Good Morning Britain.

So apparently, yeah, he he didn't want a wasp pen, Bedbug Queen saying until 2 minutes ago seeing your pen.

Yeah, see, I bought 1 Sam had to buy 2. I got 2, I got 2. I got, I got the wasp, I got the wasp one and the Hornet 1. You know, just got the you have got, I've got the mouse, I've got the mouse and the rat skull. But Kieran's got a mole skull and I'm desperate to get a mole skull. It's doing my head in.

Well, you've got, you've got a mole you can send, didn't you? Yeah, but you've got he's got Yeah, it's just it's I've got one or two moles possibly, but yeah, he is when he as as Kieran said, he's a busy man and it says when he gets gets round to it like. But yeah, but all my, all my kind of like, let's say rare and unusuals my, my different insects that I get, I save them all up for Ernie and then send them up and yeah, they all get put in resin. What were those Wasps that you that you did, Kieran?

Oh, median Wasps. Yeah, they were cool. Last year I also had some red banded Hornets as well, which are usually found in Italy and not usually found here. So on the backs of the necks, they've got like a red band. And yeah, so I, I managed to, to come across a nest and save them all. And so, yeah, that's quite intriguing really. I think, I think a lot of the time what I really learned from Ernie is look at the species, you know, look, look what you, you were dealing with when it comes to a wasp, it's like, yeah, it's a wasp.

But what wasp is it, you know, is it a medium wasp, Axon wasp? Is it a German wasp? Is it, you know, common wasp? What what are we looking at? Because that's so intriguing. It's, it's, it's just really nice. You know, like, like the medium wasp, you can tell it straight away by the nest because they're, it's made, you know, they have another little funnel at the bottom. So, you know, Hornets have an open, an open nest as they make it, as they make the nest, it's nice and open underneath, you know, So yeah, it's just really cool to just take that time and look at the insects.

It's a huge thing. It's, you know, like like the oil beetle the other day, but. Just try to get back, try what I'm going to get back on with. You know, I started that and took my and took my long sheet to play, but I never finished. I'm going to. I'm going to start doing it again now. Yeah, get on, get on. Yeah, good, Good. It's like Jurassic Park. That's the only way I can describe it. It's like I've never, I've sort of been like, I like mind insects, insects, all right. I'm more of a mammal person, but you know, insects, you know, vertebrates of my sort of thing.

But it's literally like when you start looking, you get more and more into it, and then suddenly you've gone from, oh, there's this to suddenly you've got World War 4 going off and you're there watching Jurassic Park and you're thinking, oh, there's a parasitic wasp. Oh, there's this. And it just, yeah, I've got to admit, I am. I said to you the other day, I'm definitely getting more into insects now. It is. It is quite nice, isn't it? It is. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. You know, and I had some yellow swarming.

Flies don't come across last. Year, last year, there was a lot of them, yeah. I never dealt with any, but I've seen them. Yeah. Well, yeah, we have a few clusters around there. What do you do for that then, Kevin? What do you do for the for them, actually with them? Foggy. Oh, Oh, nice. Well, it's the form of clusterfly in it really. It's a yellow, yellow clusterfly, so I just tend to fog them down.

But yeah, but no insects. Yeah. As the season goes on. Yeah. And and I another thing I really try and push is there's a lot of insects that are mimics. There are, yes, and especially. When, when, when people, you know, like, like the public see, see something, it's instantly Oh my God, it's an Asian Hornet. Oh my God, it's going to kill me. Let's kill it. And you think, oh, that was a hoverfly, You know, it's, it's before doing anything. And I and I don't mind people sending me pictures and asking what's this?

What's this? What do I do? What's this? Because, yeah, it's so important. Really. It's so important. Wasps. Yeah. They have a good purpose in life. They eat aphids. They pollinate. And they've also got a little wasp syndrome and they and they sting the crap out you for no reason whatsoever. But yeah, insects you've got. No, no, the species, the bedbug lady will know, you know, with some of the pictures that get put up on her side, you know, is this a bedbug? No, it's a family. Oh, it's I took the picture of this Ridge.

From 17 miles away, can you identify it? Oh. It oh it looks like a bit of skin off something it does. Yeah, yes, a bogey. Hey, there's. A bit of snot. Yeah.

But yeah, no, you are right. You are right in what you're saying, Kieran. It's because I, I think I've told many customers that literally we asked for photo IDs and I said to, I said that's a, that's a hoverfly mimic on it anyway that don't exist. It says it does. Look it up. And it was just just to mimic. There's boss mimic too. Yeah, they. Make themselves they make themselves look like predators, don't they? So things leave them alone. Is that that right? Yeah. Better idea, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

So, yeah, I, I, you know, I get sent stuff. Yeah. Like, like all of us, You also get sent pictures of poo. What's this poo? Class I tell you what you tell you do you get quite often is Pew pay and they think it's rat droppings. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And you go, is that by a bin? Yeah, I don't think that's rat droppings. Oh yeah, I think you need to clean, clean your bin out. Oh, OK. That happens quite often, isn't it? Yeah, I've had that. I've had that quite a few times, to the point that I've actually got there with them saying they've got rats in the kitchen and it turns out they just need to clean up around their bin area.

But you'll have more of that Sean, now you've got your new recycling bins and your your 3 weeklies. No, not 3 weeklies. I want you. What are you on? 2. 2 is it? Oh, I was a three down here. We still we we thought to keep that however I've got my food waste bin. I'm getting a second. I'm allowed. Yeah, fair enough. Well, the problem is obviously we've got kids and stuff and you don't eat all the bread. It it's, it really uses space up. So someone said you can ask the council for another 1. So we did.

I haven't got it yet. Oh, the food waste bin, it's Tuesday now, right? Our food bin gets picked up with the, with the whatever bit of the week it is every Thursday. So our bins already fall down. I love food waste. Food waste bins already full. Food food waste. Food waste definitely helps with paying the bills. The amount of times you get people chucking food waste. Places they shouldn't. And that's the main root of the problem. I'll get loads of calls for that now. Then you get a lot of calls then for your food waste bins then.

You not have had them for a long time, haven't you? Oh yeah, good. We've had about 17 years we've had we've had ours. I don't tend to get too many problems. Communal areas where there's a communal bin area, then yes. When there's like 5 or 6 or 7 it all together in a yeah, it's. Normally if the if the bins are full, people Chuck them on the floor. Yeah, absolutely. I used or just not use them at all. No. Are you sitting in a block of flats? And yeah, a lot of people never used to put stuff in the bin, no.

But generally if if you're just like a single household, then no, I don't get that type of problem really. We get quite a lot round here. We get people not using the food waste. So when I say food waste, they're actually just chucking the food waste in their garden and that and using it as compost. And then they don't understand why they've got rats everywhere. And it's like, yeah, that's that's why. So it's like Thanksgiving. Yeah, it's so, yeah, I have had problems around food waste. But normally when there's quite a bit of it stacked up, but the, the main, the, the, the one that you get all the time is people using food waste as composting.

But yeah, it's all just sort of dumped there and you're like, well, that's where the problem lies, isn't it? Why don't we just put a bird feeder there as well just to finish it off? I've got I've got compost bins but I only use them for grass. I do right. I've never had no issues, but that's all I use them for. We had a spake spake week or two ago. We were trapping quite a lot of compost bins actually, with quite a lot of rats in them. So yeah, just just. Eggs, a lot of egg shells, things like. That Yeah, yeah, I. Love it.

Oh, close. I I do make blogs about it and stuff and on my website and stuff. Yeah, I've launched only recently I've made them. It's. Complete big voice, but they don't listen. A lot of them to make decent to make decent compost isn't art. Yeah, Kieran will know about that. Yeah, absolutely I can. Boy to death on that man. Yeah, let's go get started on. That one, yeah, let's do. Let's move on quickly. Yeah, when I just, when I just go to the garden centre and buy me a bag of compost, you'd be hitting your head against a brick wall, I suspect.

That's what I that's what we do when we need to. Do that's what I do until I've yeah, that's what I do. Yeah, but potting compost isn't compost you make in the garden out of food scraps. No, that's not improvement. So an improvement in mulching if you want to, if you want to. The thing is, if you're, you're sowing seeds, you don't want to use that because there's too many pathogens in it that's going to kill off, you know, it's Phytophthora and things like that which are going to cause dampening disease.

So the seedlings will die. So you need a sterilised 1. So yeah, you'd buy a seedling compost, specifically putting stuff up, you would use a potting compost. So, but compost, you make it hard, can't be too wet, can't be too dry. If it's too dry, you get ants. If it's too wet, you get rats and the mixture of of how you do it if you just put so I'm ranting on now, but if you just put no. It's gone out of my head over and. Over and over and over again. It's just going to build up. It's going to compact down, it's going to go bone dry and you will never get compost.

But there you go. I'll shut up and bed in there. I was going to say me roses are coming on well, but I don't want to spurt off another topic, so I'm going to move away from that. But they are doing them. They're looking good. Wisteria is. Oh, is it flaring? It's just starting to. Yeah, look, I've managed to grow up around the kitchen window and up over the porch. It's looking pretty tidy, actually. I'm quite pleased with that. Yeah, cool. You know, very nice too. Yeah, I just think it sets off for the cottage, doesn't it?

I do. I just think, I think it makes a house look nice, doesn't it? Oh, it does. Yeah. You, you've got a quaint, you know. But you've got a quaint cottage in the middle of nowhere, aren't you? Which is, well, sweet. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's good. It's going to be going to be our tiny cottage is lovely and it's going to be quite noisy soon. And yeah, we're soon. We're soon realise it's a tiny cottage. In a minute, but. But the insulated pod office won't be so. Yes, yes. I've decided to go slightly bigger with it as well so as I as I will be losing my office, I will get a nice big office in the garden instead.

Absolutely. It's like buying a van, isn't it? If you think that's the right size, buy a bigger one. Well, I mean, just I said, I said as well, because it's quite nice quite often in the office. I don't know if you 2 like I, it's nice having like Lucy with you when you're doing work. So if you're doing a lot of work, doing a lot of office work, it'd be quite nice for her and Barbie to sit in the office with me. Like, you know, if, if so, you're not out there all the all the time on your own. So it's nice to have a big enough space that you can use it, isn't it?

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, as long as it doesn't become a a child, a child play area. Well, I think everywhere probably would be a child play area by the end, wouldn't? It absolutely. Don't don't matter, but no, it's the office pods are good. Those Holly pods. I'm I'm yeah, just sorting out some bits and then hopefully we'll go go through it with it. But that's definitely the solution to the the Office needs. Yeah, perfect. Spot on, man. Absolutely. I'll see. Oh, another another kind of like moving away from topics.

I'm, I'm a limited company like Sean. Now I've got a friend I did, I did a job for a, for a lady who's now become a friend called Cherry and she's a financial advisor. And I'm like, oh, oh, I need some advice. You know, as you do give me some free advice, I thought I'd fire it back. So anyway, so I've, I've got her helping, helping me and giving me advice and stuff, whatever. And there's something called a trivial benefit that we can have for limited companies. So every quarter we can take out a voucher for 50 lbs tax free to give to an employee.

So there we go, there's 200 lbs of of that we can get away with. So that's a trivial benefit, which I don't know how many people know about that, but for a limited company it's it's spot on. And also we are showing allowed to have one staff party meal for £50 a head tax free. Where are you? Where are you going, Kieran? You going anywhere nice? Mackers mate. Nice. You got a big Big Mackey diesel order that night in you. You're going to go for the 20 dunkers?

Tonight. I'm going to upgrade it to the paid dips mate. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Some sweet courage to go with that. Are you saying you say to the missus? Don't say I don't treat you? I see, I see Christmas meals well sorted this year. Oh yeah. I just thought it was quite cool really. And also, do you have a pension? Pay into a pension, Sean, do you

have a pension? All right. Well, when you do get your business to pay it in, pay it through your business. You only pay tax on it once. You don't pay it on, you don't pay tax twice on it. So I did have. I did have. One but I I've been paying my pension through my own personal earnings where apparently I shouldn't be because I've been taxed twice on the money. So from now on my business will pay my pension. So there's just another little perk save you if you quid. I think the amount, any amount of money put towards a financial advisor or a decent accountant is money well spent.

And I don't think that you you, I don't think you can even think about it because you're going to get that money back. And I think, I think it's definitely worth it. I've got a meeting soon, I've got a meeting with someone soon to have a look at the books and he understands pest control and audit it and see where you can help me grow and stuff like that. So yeah, I've got to make a two hour in depth session on it. So nice. Brilliant. I've been on the podcast, been on the podcast. I'd be on the podcast, that'd be cool.

Harry it's been on the podcast. I'm trainer what I'm in the book for. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought, I thought it would be him.

Yeah. So. That'll be fun. That will the Nuggets where they can help me. But yeah, so I reckon we should call it there because I've had Sam's fed up looking like a weirdo in a lay by. Yeah, I've had a few flashes. I mean I'm a good looking lad and I've had a few flashes and the windows are steamed up so I think in a minute I'm going to have to call it a day because otherwise it's going to get a bit weird. Thanks everyone, lovely job. I'll see you all next week. CPD will be up tomorrow. All right.

Thanks everyone. Cheers. Bye. Bye.

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