Normally something like this would hit my newsfeed and I would glance at it and move on. It caught my eye this time.
I typically don’t like to call out specific people or companies when I write about an issue. There can be multiple sides to every story and I’m not here to cast shame. No one is perfect, and I’ve made mistakes just like everyone else. I am desperately trying to maintain that attitude.
The first issue is he looks like he is harassing the cats. Now maybe he is just playing, but it doesn’t look great for him. Next, I see no pest management going on. There appears to be no inspection, he’s not looking around, checking for pests, entry points, or sanitation.
He does not have gloves on. I’ve no idea what is in his trusty B&G, but most pesticides require gloves. He puts the sprayer down and lets one of the cats start sniffing and rubbing on it. Most labels say to keep away from animals.
Then, yes, he appears to deposit bodily fluids on the floor. Worse, it looks like he does that toward the cat! What did these customers do to this guy that was so horrible he felt the need to do this? And why then spray some type of pesticide in the areas he left his own liquids? Was it to cover up the smell? And what pest was he treating for?
You know the media is going to be playing this on repeat constantly mentioning the pest control company's name, just like when this happened. The pest control company is likely to lose current customers over this and gaining new customers will be challenging. Especially when the offender was the owner of the company. There’s no information on their website of how many employees they have but this will reflect badly on each of them.
There will be charges, the article mentions he was charged with criminal mischief and disorderly conduct. There could be additional charges against the company and fines.
Customers let professionals into their space all the time. This puts a bad name on all professional services as well as pest control. It is unacceptable to do anything other than your job when at a customer's site. Today, many people have cameras in their homes, offices, production plants, and more. You shouldn’t have to remind people that “someone’s always watching”. As a professional, you should do your job and do it well no matter who might be watching.
There are two morals to this story.
If you are hiring pest control services, you should check up on what they are doing on occasion.
If you work for a pest control company, you need to check up on your technicians every so often. (If you are a technician, you need to "see something, say something".
Contact us, we can help you will all of this.
There is absolutely no excuse for this behavior. If you want to watch the entire video, you can see it here.
Urban pest consulting