Pest Control and Bug Exterminator Blog

I was an Initial Service Technician, meaning I only was only servicing new customers and providing the Full House Clean Out, for one of the best salesman in the history of Bulwark.  I had a full day of services in one of the cities more influential neighborhoods.  As normal I begin to scan the customer’s property as soon as I exit the work vehicle.  I noticed that there was a paper on the driveway so I picked it up and carried the paper with me to the door.  This is one of the advance tactics that you learn as a seasoned technician.

I rang the door and after a few minutes a kind women who spoke broken English opened the door and greeted me.  I introduced myself and with a smile tried to hand her the paper I had kindly retrieved from the driveway.  She looked at me skeptically and opened the door widely allowing me to see that there was another woman in the home, possibly the homeowner.  After a short conversation (in a language I dare not guess at) the kind women told me in broken English no, they “don’t want.”  I again tried to hand her the paper so that she could see the signed service agreement in my hand.  Again the homeowner kindly refused.  I sat the paper down on the front porch and then presented the contract to the women in the doorway.  At this time she had given all the time she was willing to and slowly closed the door on me.  I was a little surprised but it wasn’t the first time a customer has refused service.  I then called the next customer of the day and told them I had an opening in my schedule and would they allow me to service their home.  The customer allowed me to and I was about an hour ahead in what I thought would be a demanding day.  Late that afternoon I received a phone call from the office asking my why I never showed the earlier stop of my day.  I explained to them that I did, and that the customer refused my service.  The person I was speaking with sounded confused and asked if I went to the correct address, I told him yes that I even recalled verifying the address on the corner of the home after the customer refused service.  The person then stated they would call the customer and speak with them again.  A short time later I received a second phone call from the office; the customer thought I was a newspaper salesman.

Wayne Bryant

Las Vegas, NV

Working at Bulwark Exterminating has been the most full filling job that I have had. Hello, my name is Tarria and I have been with Bulwark for about three and half years. Working for the pest control branch in San Antonio, TX. One experience that I had this past summer is a customer who called in to get scheduled for a callback for interior ants. Of course with our summers we are very busy and it can be very difficult to find a time and day to schedule an appointment for a customer. After, searching the routes I was not able to find an appointment for at least two days out. The lady was very understanding when she had to wait for two days for an appointment, to have the interior service done. However, later that afternoon, I noticed that someone had rescheduled a service and I got the customer scheduled the very next day. The “Mrs” was very pleased with the customer service that she received and how quick we could get someone out to her home. She told me she was very happy with our service and that she has been a customer for over four years. It makes my day to know that we continue to do such wonderful work and have great customer service.

My name is Roger James and I’ve been a technician for Bulwark for four years now.  I am a team leader and service the community of Steiner Ranch which is in Austin, Texas.

My wife and I used to live in California before we made the decision to move out to Austin, Texas.  I never realized how beneficial my experience in California would be for my job until I started working for Bulwark.  I have ended up meeting so many customers who also used to live in California.  This has helped me gain their trust and loyalty because I feel that we can identify with the many differences between both states.

One family comes to mind this past summer.  I was actually spraying a regular customer’s lawn when a man quickly approached me.  He said that he saw my Bulwark truck and hoped I could help him out.  He went on to explain that his family had just moved here from California a couple days ago and they had large fire ant mounds all over their front and back yard.  I ended up servicing the inside and outside of their home that very day paying special attention to the ant mounds.  He decided to sign up for a year’s contract with Bulwark before I left that day.  It was nice for him to hear that I could relate to what they were going through.  You see, the fire ants in California are nothing compared to the fire ants here in Texas. The first time you get stung by a Texas fire ant- You too will want to call Bulwark for HELP!!!  He also asked me if it were true that scorpions actually come into houses here in Texas.  After I let him know that this is possible, I went on to further explain that Bulwark treats their customer’s houses in order to help prevent scorpions from coming in.

A woman in a Phoenix neighborhood flagged me down one day while I was working.  She wanted to know about our company (how much we charge and what services we offer).  After talking with her for a couple of minutes I finally got out of her that she was unhappy with her current pest control company.  She said they are in and out in 5 minutes and do not listen to her when she asked them to do something.  I told her that we would offer her the best customer service and professionalism while also solving all her bug problems.  She agreed to give us a chance.

When I serviced her house I made sure that I understood all her needs.  I knew that she needed a company that showed her that we cared about her.  I spent little extra time inspecting her home for problem areas.  Her entire backyard is grass, so I knew that the moisture from the sprinklers probably attracts many bugs like cockroaches and crickets.  This is what I felt was where the problem was starting.  I made sure that I used our Bifen granules to treat her grass.  I told her to let us know how things went.  Every month since her initial service this past summer, she has been bug free and is very thankful for our help.

Jameson Hunter

Phoenix branch technician

It was my second year as a pest control technician and was beginning to realize how much I enjoyed my job.  As a pest control technicians we are trusted to serve our customers to the best of our ability, in a kind, courteous way and we have a lot of freedom in how we accomplish this.  We have all day to complete our services and are often given opportunity throughout the day to earn more money.  I enjoyed all of this, but one day I realized that killing bugs was easy, I was enjoying the time I had to interact with our customer.  I would find myself almost daily impressed with the unique and amazing people we serve.  I have met NFL quarterbacks, World War 2 Heros, City Mayor’s, and even an Aid to the President of the United States.  All this was great but one day I met a little boy that couldn’t have been more than 9 years old.  He was in his pajamas and I was working late and tired.  This boy asked me “Do you like your job?”  I thought for a moment as I screwed an outlet cover plate to the wall I had just treated.  Then I responded that “I do like my job.  I get to meet nice people, see beautiful homes and landscaping, and most of all I get to make your home a safer, better place to live.”  This little boy looked at me with a look that expressed to me he really only wanted a yes or no answer and walked away.  I was left with a new goal at every customers home.

Wayne Bryant

Las Vegas, NV

I got a call from the office one late afternoon to go to this customer’s house where there was a spider on her ceiling.  She said she couldn’t leave the house until we got rid of the spider.  So I hurried up and got over there to take care of it for her. Well when I got there the door was open, so I announced myself and I heard her say “come in quick he’s getting away!” I entered quickly and she was pointing at the ceiling showing me where it was. She looked to be very frightened and upset about this spider. I looked at where she was pointing and saw what appeared to be a female wolf spider with about 200 babies on her back! She had every right to be scared.  If those babies were to leave their mom while they were in the house, the whole house would become infested. So I quickly ran out to my truck and grabbed a can of d foam and ran back inside. The spider had stopped moving and the babies were still intact. So I crept up on it until I was about three feet away ready my can, took close aim and sprayed. My plan had worked. They were covered in foam and unable to flee. So I quickly gathered them up with a paper towel that was in my other hand. Needless to say her problem was solved.

She said I was her Hero! …I was her hero! Feels good to be considered a hero.

Adam MacFarlane
Las Vegas

We have had this particular customer for about 2 yrs and in the mean time she had a relative come and move in with her.  Her relative brought several boxes and along with them an infestation of German cockroaches.  But, since the tech never knew about these boxes we continued doing regular treatments until 2 months after the relative had moved in which was June.  At some point she needed to get some things out of one of the boxes and stirred the roaches to life. Since the boxes were stirred she was getting an influx of roaches into her home so she called us and we went out to do a roach treatment as a callback.  She called back 2 weeks later and she was then due for her regular service at this point so we treated for her regular service along with the interior for these same roaches.  This went on for 2 months and she now wanted a manager to go out to her house and get this situated. I told her that I would take care of this along with a tech to double team this problem.  Little did I know how bad this problem was. Although they did not make it upstairs their problem was still severe, but we did an intensive treatment and set up a follow up the very next Friday.  This time I took a different tech to show them how bad the situation was.  When we arrived the problem was still there but did see several dead roaches, so went at it another way with a full Nygaurd interior treatment.  Nygaurd is a product that we use that is labeled for roaches.  This is something that we have not tried in our office till this year so we set up another follow up and came back the following week and several more dead roaches were found. So at this point we proceeded to treat under her dishwasher and her stove to extend the barrier and set another follow up.  The last follow up she did not show so I baited the outside and left a note for her to call me.  When she called her statement to me was since she had not seen anymore roaches she did not think that she needed to be there.  We still went one more time to follow up and had not even seen any more dead roaches.  We still treat this customer to this day. In our last conversation she told me that she blames it on her relatives who no longer live with her but brought the roaches, and that she is for ever grateful that we are her pest control company.

Ben Montes
Austin Manager

I was lucky enough one day to receive this phone call from a customer complaining about rats and mice.  She wasn’t sure if they were rats or mice, but nevertheless, it was quite comical. She wanted to know all about our service and how we treated for them. I told her the technician would put out glueboards and mouse/rat traps. She seemed very upset, I asked her what was wrong, she said she didn’t want to kill the rats or mice, she just wanted us to move them to a different location. I couldn’t help but laugh, however, I laughed to myself.  I spoke briefly with a manager to see if there was anyway to catch them without hurting them, but the answer was no, which I already knew, but it doesn’t hurt to ask, I got back on the phone with her and told her we don’t offer that kind of service.

I told her not to look at the glueboards or look in the traps, but to call us and we would send a technician out there to check them for her. She seemed okay with that and we sent a technician out to check out her rat/mouse problem, which she definitely had. She has not called to complain since that phone call… I was glad to help in anyway I could.  Hopefully her problem is that of the past.

Jill Booker

Las Vegas