Pest Control and Bug Exterminator Blog

Source: news.naij.com

If you think the rat problem in New York City is bad, it’s got nothing on Tehran, the capital city of Iran.

In an effort to combat the city’s massive plague of mutant super rats, rats that are resistant to pesticides, the Tehran environmental agency has deployed ten teams of rifle equipped sharp shooters to take out the hard-to-kill rodents.

Sniper Teams Assembled To Control Rats

Pesticide resistant super rats, which have grown to be almost as big as the common house cat; have been running amuck throughout much of Europe and the Middle East. In order to better control these rats, the environmental agency of Tehran, Iran has deployed ten teams of sharp-shooting snipers; equipped with infra-red laser scopes and all.

In a couple short weeks, these snipers have managed to kill some 2,000 mutant super rats… but it’s far from enough. The city of Tehran is so over-run with the millions of super rats; city officials are now thinking of boosting the number of rat sniper teams from ten to forty.

After bagging a super rat, city officials either incinerate the dead carcasses, or cover them in lime and bury them.

These rat extermination efforts are all part of a multi-million dollar government campaign to control the problem rats.

Huge Population Of Mutant Super Rats

Tehran city workers exterminate almost one million rats a year, but these efforts are merely a drop in the bucket. Iran’s rat population easily outnumbers the sprawling capital’s 12 million inhabitants. Iran’s state-run media reports that the rat population is thought to be six times higher than the number of people living there. That’s scary!

It’s been impossible for city officials to determine how many mutant super rats are plaguing the city. Best estimates have their population at around 10 million, and growing.

The rat problem has been such a major issue for several years that a newspaper once ran a cartoon in which a rat tells a man: “Our numbers are more than yours, so you leave Tehran.”

Mutant Super Rats

These rats are natural born survivors. Years of genetic mutation have made these mutant super rats resistant to pesticides. It has also altered their appearance and allowed them to grow bigger; weighing as much as a cat in some instances. These changes usually take millions of years to evolve.

The primary reason the super mutant rats need to be exterminated, is because they transmit diseases to both humans and animals that can be life threatening. These diseases include: Hantavirus, Plague, Rat-Bite fever, Lassa fever, Hemorrhagic fever, and Leptospirosis.

Related articles

• Tehran suffering plague of hyper-evolved “mutant rats”
• Iran Has Dispatched Sniper Teams In Its Capital To Eliminate ‘Mutant Rats’
• Iran Deploys Sniper Teams To Battle ‘Mutant Rats’

Anthony Ball

During one hot summer in Austin, I was performing first time services for new Bulwark customers and training a new technician.  It was getting late in the week and the two of us had performed several first time services, so I told the trainee to get started on the outside and I would go inside, talk to the new customer, and get started performing the inside service.  I expected the trainee to come inside after doing the weephole screening and power spraying the perimeter, but after about half an hour, he had not yet come inside.  I explained to the new customer that I was going outside to check on my partner and that I would be back inside in just a few moments.  The hose was on the reel in the back of the truck, the weepholes were already meshed, but the trainee was nowhere to be found around the outside of the home.  I didn’t want to start yelling his name and cause any of the neighbors to question the professionalism of the technicians working for Bulwark, so I decided to finish the inside service, and think about where the trainee could have gone.  I completed the interior work and explained to the new customer, what I had done on the inside, what products were used and how they worked.  After thanking the customer and in the process of walking out the door, the customer said very calmly and nonchalantly, “make sure the dog doesn’t follow you out the gate, she has a habit of escaping” and the customer followed me out into the yard.  As we walked, I recognized the trainee, sweat dripping off of his face and petting a little dog in the yard.  The customer then told the trainee, “I’m surprised you two are getting along, she’s quite an escape artist, anytime someone comes into the yard, she gets out”, to which the trainee replied, “oh no ma’am we pay close attention when there a pets in the yard, we would never let anything happen to someone’s pet”.  The trainee and I left the home and hopped into the truck and asked him, “where’d you go, I was looking for you?”  To which he replied, “That little dog got out when I was reeling up the hose, so I tried to catch her.”  “I have been running all over the neighborhood for that last half hour.  I couldn’t pick her up and carry her the three blocks back here because I’m allergic.  So I caught up to her and fed her my sandwich to get her to come to me.  I took off my belt and made a leash and the two of us walked back to the house right before ya’ll came out.”  We laughed for a few minutes and I offered to buy him a Gatorade and something to eat.  As we pulled into the parking place at the convenience store, there was an unmistakable “LOST DOG” picture and poster in the store’s window from one of the previous escapes by his new friend.

Russel Shoffner

Branch Manager Austin

One time I went to do a service for interior earwigs.  As I was on my way, I called the customer (wife) to let them know I was on my way.  She said, “Yes, please come over we need a spray badly!” So, when I got there, the husband came to the door and said, “What are you doing here, I already canceled the account!”  So I said “I just spoke to your wife and she said to come over and do the service.”  So he said, with a grumpy old face, “Come on in then!”  So as I went in, and the wife began showing me where the earwigs were, and the husband kept running around following us and saying, “You know, I can take care of this myself!”,…. “And I can do a better job!” So as he kept complaining, the wife said, “Honey, What did I tell you!!” as she grabbed him by the ear and dragged him to his room.

What I heard from the other room was, “I will pay for the service.” She came out and apologized and thanked us for the service.  I thought to myself, HMMM, She just put her husband in time out for trying to refuse Bulwark’s services!

Tevita Fine
Las Vegas, NV

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.

It seems like everyone is cutting corners financially these days.  One of my favorite families from Steiner Ranch shared with me that the father of their household had to take a pay cut from his work.  They ended up having a family discussion about where they should cut corners.  It was either their gardener or me.  I’m happy to say that their final decision was to keep Bulwark.  Too bad for their gardener.

I always try to go that extra mile when it comes to customer service.  Many times I take in customer’s trash cans or spend a little time asking how they are doing.  It is very important to me that I take an extra five minutes at each customer’s house in order to develop rapport and trust.  With the number of customers that want my service exclusively, I would say that my skills are paying off.

Our staff for Bulwark in Austin meets twice every month and always encourages the topic of Customer Service.  It helps to hear other tech’s stories in order to pick up tips here and there.

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

My name is Roger James and I’ve been with Bulwark for four years now.  I am a Team Leader and primarily service homes up in the community of Steiner Ranch which is in Austin, TX.

One of my best stories this past summer was a customer who has been pregnant through this past year.  Every month when she saw me, she would smile and tell me how many more months until her little one was due to arrive.

I always try to think of how I can go that extra mile for my customers, so I asked her if she would like me to come and retreat the inside of her house two weeks before the baby was due.  She said yes right away.  It was nice to give her that extra reassurance that the inside and outside of her house would be bug free when she brought her baby home.

In August I saw her new baby girl.  She thanked me again and again for bringing her family “peace of mind” each and every month, especially with the baby.

That confirmed to me that I’m going that extra mile to bring ”Peace of Mind” to my customers.  That’s what Bulwark is all about.

I went to this house in the run down part of town to do an emergency service.  It seemed like the tenants have issues with their rental home.  All five of them sat outside the house with luggage bags in tow when I showed up.  Unfortunately none of them spoke English fluently.  In broken sentences and hand signals, I gather that they were just in the middle of moving in when they noticed that all is not well.  The husband who had been quiet all this time suddenly burst out and said, “The roaches built that!” pointing to the house.  So I proceeded to do the service and was just sort of shocked when I had done the first socket.  There were hundreds of little hair-like feelers waving back at me.  Not even wall plates to cover the plugs.  I was thinking this would be an easy job.  Gross as it was; I kept on going and dusted every outlet.  After I was done inside, I proceeded to spray the exterior of the house. As I rounded the bend that leads to the back, I noticed a shoe sized hole near the foundation.  I immediately sprayed it thinking this would be a good hiding spot.  I started hearing screaming coming from the people inside and turned my head to see what all the commotion was.  However, I wasn’t able to find that out because of the sudden rush of cockroaches that came pouring out of the hole.  I’m not kidding when I say the roaches came out like a wave of Black Death and covered the entire patio and back wall.  These things were even crawling over the doors and patio furniture.  The more I sprayed, the more the roaches came, and for each that was dying, there were twenty more flushing out of the hole.  I soon found out the interior was no better.  By the time I finished the service, the tenants had left, but the office had called me with a message from the landlord. He lost the renters but will keep our service.  Seems like the last tenants were complaining about roaches too!

By: Oliver Gomez

Las Vegas, NV

I recieved a call at the office and the customer was needing a callback for silverfish.  So I told them I would come right out and take care of the problem.  When I got to there, a man was at the door and said to go ahead and start on the outside before I do the  inside. So, I said, “Okay, no problem, I’ll take care of that for you.”   As I was spraying and I got to the backyard a nude lady was laying out in the sun.  So I thought to myself, I think the guy at the door forgot to inform his wife that I was going to be spraying. I didn’t know what to do, I was shocked, so I went back to the front door and knocked on the door again and told the man that when we service homes we need to keep animals and humans inside and he just told me, “Oh, just go ahead and spray!!”  So, I put my sunglasses on and was trying to spray around her without looking at her and trying to hurry and get out of there. I did my thing, and the lady didn’t seem to even mind or notice, some stranger from a foreign country was there!!  Wow only in Vegas!! What happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas!!

Tevita Fine
Las Vegas, NV

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 also teaches in Steiner Ranch and she was surprised at the beginning of the school year by a request from one of her student’s moms.  She asked my wife, “Isn’t your husband that Bulwark guy who works in this area?”  She told my wife that many of the moms in Steiner have told her that Mrs. James’ husband is the BEST exterminating tech and she had to “switch over” from XYZ Exterminating to Bulwark.  So my wife ended up giving her one of my cards.

I received a call from this mom the following week. She let me know that as soon as her contract was over with ABC in a few months that her family would be switching over to Bulwark.

Sometimes the BEST form of advertising is “word of mouth.”  It’s nice to know that I have built up a solid reputation in Steiner.  I have sold many contracts by referrals, but this story is one of my favorites because it validates the quality of work I do.  At the beginning of this year, Bulwark allowed me to go to Texas A & M to further my training.  They also offer classes every month to keep us updated.  This story proves to me that my skills are paying off and I do my job thoroughly.

It was a typical hot, humid Texas Summer day.  I had completed most of my schedule and I was getting into the stretch where every customer is home and needs just a little special attention to feel comfortable that their bugs will be gone.  I pulled up to the next house on my schedule at the end of a cul-de-sac.  I rang the doorbell.  No answer.  I knocked.  No answer.  I then went to the gate on the side of the home; I knocked loudly on the gate and began whistling hoping to attract the attention of any dog that may be in the back yard.  I have not proven this, but I theorize that a dogs lack of colored sight cause them to view Pest Control Technicians as chew toys that must be gnawed on.  No dogs came barking at the fence, or wagging a tale.  I now felt safe to service the home.

I power sprayed the front exterior of the home and entered the back yard.  As I came near the rear corner of the home I heard music from a radio.  I came around the corner and found our customers kneeling on their back deck.  I quickly put on a huge smile, raised my arm and announced myself to my customers, saying “Hi I’m the Bugguy”.  In the next moment I understood why the customers where kneeling down.  I was confronted with one of the most terrifying situations I have ever been in.  No less than 6 small black puppies sprinted off the deck of the home and charged in my direction at what seemed to be 200miles per hour.  I HAD LEFT THE GATE OPEN and the puppies where headed for it and me.  I dropped my equipment and ran towards the gate hoping to close it before the puppies could escape.  I was successful and hours of dog catching had been prevented.

As I came back around the corner of the home with the puppies nipping at every inch of me from the knees down, the customer’s were doubled over in laughter at the sight of a grown man fleeing for his life from a group of puppies with the largest weighing at about 6lbs.  I didn’t try to explain.  I only joined in the laughter and completed the service.

Wayne Bryant

Las Vegas