Armadillos

Armadillo Exterminator

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armadillo removal

“I’m telling you, call for armadillo extermination right now.  What else can we do?”

I absolutely love my sister, but lately she was really starting to wear on me, and on my family.  Since her ugly divorce three years ago (which I applauded, by the way), she was relying on me to take care of her.  Not financially, but, let’s just say married couples have “Honey Do” lists.  She gives me “Bro Do’s.”  She never really developed enough self confidence or self-reliance to handle big household tasks.  So, I found myself doing things like fixing her garage door, trimming trees, moving furniture or fixing plumbing for her.  She and her ex-husband had bought a nice house with a huge lawn when they got married, with dreams of filling it with children and having a safe, beautiful yard for them to play in.  Unfortunately, he was not the dream husband she thought he was.  They never ended up with children and he ended up with a girl he’d dated back in high school.  I was now stuck with taking care of that huge yard and it was getting tiresome.

My wife, my beautiful, understanding and compassionate wife, encouraged me to help my sister in the beginning.  She realized my sister was going through a very difficult time,  and she wasn’t really equipped to handle it alone.  So, while I took care of yard work and was my sister’s handyman, my wife spent hours on the phone with my sister listening to her troubles and helping her as best she could.

Now, after three years, I was feeling like an “enabler,” as I stood on her porch looking over her yard and talking about armadillo extermination.

“Just look what it did to my beautiful bird bath, the one I bought on my trip to Reno!”  she was saying.  The armadillo had dug several shallow holes all throughout the yard, including right next to the chintzy bird bath my sister had fallen in love with.  The armadillo’s hole caused the bird bath to tip over and break, which prompted my sister’s early-morning phone call to my cell phone on a beautiful Saturday morning.  I had planned on sleeping in.  Oh, well.

“I’m not even sure there’s an armadillo extermination company,” I said.  “I think they just trap armadillos and get rid of them.”

“Well, I honestly don’t care what they do with the armadillo.  I just want them to get rid of it for me!  Will you set it up?”

I sighed.  Three years.  It was time to help my sister get the confidence she needed to handle problems like armadillos digging in her yard all by herself.   I looked up the number for armadillo extermination, which was an armadillo trapping service, dialed it, and handed her the phone.  She tried to give me the phone back, panicking, but I smiled and said, “You talk to them, just tell them about the armadillo holes and the bird bath.  They’ll know how to help you.”  Baby steps, I thought.

Voles

Vole Exterminator

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Sweet, domestic cat by day, vole exterminator by night, I prowl the premises and get rid of voles with my incredible skills in stealth, stalking and staking prey within my sharp claws.  I live with a lovely woman and her little girl, both of whom adore me.  The woman has given me a very soft bed to sleep on during the day, a wide variety of delicious foods, and fun toys to chase and bat around the few hours I’m awake when the sun is up.  The little girl dotes on me, and who can blame her?  I’m soft and beautiful and I let her pick me up, carry me around as I’m  draped over her shoulders, pet me and tease me until her mother makes her “be soft,” whatever that means.

As the evening approaches and the sun goes down, my wild predator side emerges.  Soon, the woman will open that front door and let me loose on the world for a few hours before she calls me back inside.  She offers me food, but I’m usually satisfied during my time in the wild outdoors.  I’ve usually gorged on a rodent of two during those brief hours of freedom, especially since I am a vole exterminator extraordinaire.

I begin with my normal routine.  I get down to about the third cement stair and roll around.  I rub my house-cat scent all over, making sure all the other felines know that this is MY house, my territory.  Then, I roll around in the dirt, which works to mask my scent a little.  Then, there’s running time.  Under the chain link fence and I’m streaking across the neighborhood as fast as my legs will carry me!  A day of pent-up sleeping and it’s time to get the blood racing.

Only then am I ready to take on my noble role as a vole exterminator.  I enter into stealth mode, poking around in the undergrowth, the garden, and seeking out any holes or scent of voles.  I listen to the ground around vole tunnels and vole holes for any sound of vole activity.  Once I know a vole is in there, I slink back to an appropriate hiding place and lie in wait.  Sometimes, I’m weak, and a passing bird or dog barking will distract me, but usually I can wait for the longest time.  I don’t pounce when the vole sticks its nose out of the hole.  I don’t pounce the moment it exits the tunnel.  No, I wait until it’s a little too far to duck back quickly to safety.  Then, I’m like lightening, and the vole is in its death throes before it even realizes it is caught between my sharp teeth.

Satiated and happy, the evening’s work as vole exterminator is done.  I get back inside the warm home, purr as the woman gives me cold, clear water to drink, and head off for another well-deserved nap.

Feral Cats

Wild Cats In Neighborhood

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get rid of feral cats

I’m at my wit’s end with the wild cats in the neighborhood.  These wild cats, or feral cats, are becoming a danger to my children and my pets, and they have got to be stopped.

Look, I’m a cat owner, and I love cats.  I have two sweet felines.  My older cat prefers to stay inside all the time, sleeping, purring and playing.  My younger cat comes in and out as she pleases through her little cat door.  They’ve both received their shots and boosters and are fixed, because I believe in being a responsible pet owner.  I guess that’s why I don’t understand people who dump litters of kittens in the empty fields behind our neighborhoods.  They don’t spay or neuter their cats, and when they end up with a litter of kittens that they can’t give away, they just let them go in the fields, figuring they’ll fend for themselves or nature will take its course.  After a generation or two of felines, our neighborhood has a real problem with wild cats, or feral cats, as some people prefer to call them.

I took my two toddlers out for a walk today, and we saw several wild cats in the neighborhood.  My daughter, who adores animals of every kind, immediately ran after them, trying to pet them.  Fortunately, I was able to catch her in time before a feral cat scratched her.  Wild cats don’t like to be chased by two year-olds.  Instead of enjoying a sweet, leisurely walk through our quiet streets, I had to educate my children on the dangers of wild cats in the neighborhood.  Yes, they can pet our cats, because our cats are safe and clean, but wild cats can carry diseases.  They’re dirty, they can bite, they can scratch, and they can really hurt them.  My son, who’s a little more sensitive, had a nightmare about cats at naptime.  I guess I don’t need to worry about him running after the wild cats in our neighborhood, but I really need to watch my daughter.  She’s likely to have to learn that lesson the hard way.

Feral cats use certain areas in our backyard as their litter box, so before I can let the kids go out and play in their own playground, I have to go out first and inspect the ground.  They can go outside and play only after I’ve had a chance to pick up all the cat poop.  As a cat owner, I know diseases can be spread through cat feces, so I’m very careful to make sure my children aren’t exposed.  It’s frustrating, because I’d love to be able to let the kids run out in their own backyard when the weather’s nice, without making them wait until I have the time (and, frankly, the energy) to go out and sanitize the area first.

And, then my little cat came home once with scratches on her face and ear.  I’ve had it with the wild cats in the neighborhood.  It’s time to do something about it.  I’m calling in a professional service to get rid of the feral cats.  Maybe I can convince the city to do something to stop people from dumping their cats in the empty fields.  In the meantime, though, let’s get rid of the wild cats in the neighborhood and have a fresh start.

Animal in the Wall, Mice

Mouse in Wall

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You know you have a mouse in the wall or something else running around inside your home when your dog spends the entire day staring at your wall and sniffing at the baseboards.  Either that, or your dog is just crazy.  But, I have a great dog, and I trust her.

At first, I didn’t notice anything odd.  Life is busy around here.  With three kids, a husband who works over 60 hours a week, and a part-time job, I have to admit I don’t take a lot of time paying attention to how my dog spends her days.  I was hurrying to get breakfast ready the other morning when my youngest said, “Mom, Daisy’s staring at the wall again.”

I was in such a hurry, and there were so many other things going on at the time that I just responded, “Hmmm, mmmm” as I rushed over to the stove to flip the frying eggs.  Unfortunately, I accidentally tipped over the juice container just then, too.  So, it wasn’t until after the eggs were on plates in front of everyone and the juice was cleaned up that my youngest piped up again.

“See, Mom?  Why is Daisy staring at the wall?”

I had no idea what she was talking about and turned to see what my German shepherd was doing.  True enough, she was pacing in front of the wall that separates the kitchen and living room, sniffing at the baseboards and whining every now and then.  Everyone stopped eating breakfast and chatting just to watch this strange behavior.  That’s right when my husband came down the stairs.  We must have been a sight.  His entire family was sitting silently, staring at the dog, who was in turn staring at the wall.  He stood there on the steps before bursting out laughing.

“What’s going on around here?” he laughed.  “We have a ghost or something?”

We all snapped out of it and breakfast resumed, although the talk was about what could possibly cause Daisy to act that way.  My children each told me they had seen Daisy doing this every now and then over the last few days, and I wondered why I hadn’t noticed it until someone actually said something to me.

Finally, we all agreed we must have a mouse in the wall.  But, the morning was ticking on and everyone needed to get to school or work, so we finished up and I sent everyone out the door.  I turned to look at Daisy in my kitchen and sighed.  I had about an hour before I needed to be at work, and I knew I had to spend that time making sure we didn’t have a mouse infestation and doing something about the mouse in the wall.

Reluctantly, I opened up the pantry, and started pulling everything out, inspecting it as I did so.  I spotted a couple of tiny mouse droppings, that looked a little bit like grains of dark rice, on the floor, but our food seemed fine.  I mostly keep everything in jars, cans and plastic containers, so there wasn’t much that a mouse could get into.  One cereal box had a small hole chewed in the bottom and I tossed it, thankful that we’d been eating eggs for breakfast this week instead of cereal.  Fortunately, no mouse jumped out at me while I worked.

That job done, I called a rodent removal service to come out and inspect our property and get rid of the mouse in our wall.  I thought having a dog would protect my family from intruders, but apparently my Daisy protects us from mice, as well.  Good dog!

Rats, Rodent

Rodent Infestation

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I clean and repair foreclosed homes for a living, so I’ve seen my share of rodent infestations, but this home was so horrific I had to shower at least four times after I got home from work.

Cleaning foreclosed homes is not the dream job, I’ll admit, but at least it’s a job.  Like many people, I worked in the construction business for a long time until the housing market dropped.  When I’m not repairing foreclosed homes and cleaning them, I’m a flooring guy.  I lay carpet, hardwood floors, tile and vinyl.  I’m used to the muck and guck of ripping out old floors and finding everything from pet urine to bugs underneath.  So, you’d think I wouldn’t be as disgusted by the remnants of a rodent infestation as other guys.  Usually, that’s true, until I got to this house.

When I arrived, it was obvious from the exterior that the home had been abandoned for a while.  The lawn was seriously overgrown with weeds, the tree out front was dead, and untrimmed bushes practically hid the front door.  Abandoned homes don’t usually stay abandoned for long.  Wild animals nearly always move in, attracted by a warm, protected shelter and any food source they can find within.  Trash, old food, and bugs are plentiful inside some of these abandoned places, so I often have to deal with getting rid of a rodent infestation.

I think I actually gasped when I walked into this place, though.  The place was covered with hard little black pellets.  It looked like a raisin processing plant had exploded in there.

Rat eating a baby bird
Rat walking around with it’s prey.
(Artwork by Sharon Davis. Contact us for her contact info.)

Most times, you can tell when a home is infested with rodents, because rat droppings or mouse droppings will follow a trail.  Rats like to stay up against walls, feeling their way along the wall with their whiskers, so they’ll leave rat droppings in a little trail.  The kitchen counters in this home had the tell-tale rat trail up against the wall, but that was just a small portion of what I saw.  The entire floor, all counter surfaces, the stove, the oven, the refrigerator and every cabinet was covered in rat droppings.

I moved through the home, investigating the living room area, the bedrooms and the bathrooms.  I could actually see little clouds of dust rise up as the nastiness crunched under my feet.  Fortunately, my training had kicked in before I had even walked into the home, and I’d put on my respirator and protective clothing and gloves.  I carried my camera with me and snapped pictures to send off to the bank that handled the foreclosure and their property management division.  I suspected this property would probably be condemned, and had to document everything carefully for insurance and everyone else who would have to get involved.

I have to admit, I was extremely relieved I didn’t actually see the rats.  I had no idea where they were hiding, but there had to be hoards of them.  Only a serious rodent infestation would do that to a house.  I ripped off my respirator as soon as I got back to the safety of my truck, and carefully removed the protective gloves and clothing, disposing of them safely in a plastic bag.  Then, I made the call to the property management company so they could decide what to do next.

No matter how many showers I took and how often I washed my hands, though, it was days before I felt clean again.

Animal in the Wall

What to do when an animal is inside the wall

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mouse removalIt seems like it starts out of the blue.  Just as you’re drifting off to sleep, you hear a noise in the wall.  Almost as soon as you notice it, it’s quiet again, and you start to wonder if you imagined that little rustling, bumping noise in the wall.  You turn over on your side, and there it is again!  Bumping, scraping, possibly even chewing.  You turn on the light and look around and there is nothing out of the ordinary in your room.  But, if you get very still and listen very hard, the noise in the wall soon starts up again.

Your mind is still exhausted from a day of hard work, and scenes from ghost movies bubble up in your memory.  Quickly, you reject the idea that these noises are paranormal.  Unfortunately, they are all too real, and you’re going to have to do something about it.  But, what do you do when an animal is inside the wall?

Late at night, you don’t want to do anything at all.  You wish you hadn’t heard the noise, and could blissfully and naively let sleep overtake your senses.  Every time your mind starts to drift towards dreams, though, the awful thought of an animal living in your wall, just next to your sleeping head, pokes your consciousness awake.  You know it won’t do any good, but you slap the wall hard, hoping the animal inside the wall will be frightened enough it will leave your house for good.  Before long, the chewing sound is back.

It feels like the animal in the wall is taunting you, saying it knows you won’t do anything right now.  This is now its home.  It can feed, breed, defecate and urinate wherever it pleases.  If it wants to chew on a wall joist, gnaw a hole through the drywall or even nibble on electrical wiring, it will.  You wonder what damage it’s causing.  You wonder if you’re breathing in animal shed hairs or parasites.  You wonder if it’s gotten into your stuff.  Worst of all, you wonder what type of animal is it?

Do you have a solitary snake that’s slithered up through a tiny crack and climbed up the inside of your wall?  Probably not, not with the nibbling sound you’re hearing.  Maybe there is an entire rat nest in the wall, and rats are running rampant all through your home, getting into who knows what.  Maybe it’s even a raccoon in the wall, or baby raccoons in the wall.  Could you possibly have bats in the wall?

Sighing, you know you won’t have much sleep tonight.  You turn on the light and grab whatever electronic device is nearest to do some research on the internet.  Unfortunately, you don’t get many definite answers, just more questions.  The thought of crawling around on the inside of your home, armed with nothing but a flashlight, and coming face to face with some animal in the wall is too horrific to dwell on.  No, there is only one solution.  You get the number for the best pest control or exterminator or animal trapper in your area.  Let a wildlife control specialist go toe to toe or paw to paw with whatever animal is inside your walls.  No more sleepless nights with an animal in the wall and an overactive imagination.

Mice

Rodent Removal Service

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how to get rid of mice

“Sweetheart, you’re just going to have to trust me.  I’m getting rodent removal service out here today, and I have washed and cleaned your dance clothes already.”

“No, Mom!!  I can’t wear my costume ever, ever, ever!!  A mouse went pee-pee in it and you can’t wash that out, Mom.”

Mom spoke with more patience than she felt, but she could easily see where this conversation with her six-year-old dancer was headed.  “Emmy, we don’t have another costume for you.  Trust me, I’m the Mommy.  I have washed and bleached your costume, and it’s clean enough for you to wear today.  Please put it on now, or we’re going to be late.”

“I just can’t wear it, Mom!!  I don’t want to go to practice if I can’t wear my costume.  It’s not the same.”

“But, you CAN wear your costume, honey.  It’s clean now.”

“But, what if another mouse already peed in it after you washed it?”

“It’s been in the dryer ever since I washed it last night, so you’re safe.”

“How can you be sure a mouse didn’t get in the dryer?”
Mom felt the patience slipping away.  She had to admit to herself, she would probably have felt the same way at that age.  They had found the mouse in amongst the clean clothes yesterday when it jumped out at her as she pulled items out to fold.  She considered herself the kind of woman who wasn’t afraid of anything, much less mice, snakes, rats or spiders.  But, when a mouse jumped right out of the clean clothes hamper and over her hand before it streaked across the floor and disappeared under a counter, she couldn’t help but let out a screech and knock over the entire hamper of clean laundry.  Heart still beating, she’d used a broom handle to “stir” the clothes to make sure the laundry held no more nasty surprises, and washed and bleached the entire load immediately.  Unfortunately, when she’d explained to her daughter why she was re-washing her dance clothes, her daughter apparently vowed she would never wear them again.

She was expecting the rodent removal service to arrive any moment, and since she had to take her daughter to dance practice, her oldest son was going to wait for them and show them where the mouse had disappeared.  She hoped the rodent removal service would quickly get rid of the mice and effectively block up their holes, making sure mice didn’t get back in the house.  Of course, if her daughter kept this up, she might not ever have to take her to dance practice again.

It was another twenty minutes before she could convince her daughter of the sanitary condition of the clothes.  She had to explain how bleach works, how the washer works and the effectiveness of laundry detergent before her daughter dubiously gave in and changed into the costume.  She just hoped the rodent removal service was effective enough she would never, ever have to have this conversation with her daughter again.

Voles

Rodent Control

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I began my career in rodent control as a 12-year old kid trying to make a few bucks to fix up my bike just the way I wanted.  Mom and Dad believed if I wanted something really badly, I had to find a way to pay for it, and today I’m happy they taught me the importance of self-reliance.  I’m not sure how happy Mom was that I chose to make that money through rodent control, though.  She was more than concerned over my safety and health, but after Mom’s long lectures, Dad’s lessons in trapping rodents and exterminating rodents, and many promises and reassurances from me, I was finally able to start my business.

Mom had hoped that I would’ve earned money through babysitting and lawn mowing, but my friends and I saw a real need for rodent control that summer.  For some reason, as the snows melted that spring, voles, mice, rats, gophers and moles were out in force.  It seemed like the whole neighborhood was fighting off rodents.  I’d heard Dad complaining about it loudly enough when he discovered trails of dead grass snaking through the yard.  Our lawn looked like a roadmap of seemingly random vole trails.  Mom and some of her friends were chatting over coffee one spring morning, alternating between horror stories of mice in the pantry or rats in the walls, and sharing ideas on how to get rid of mice and the best ways to exterminate rats.  We lived in a nice enough neighborhood, so no one understood why we were under attack that year.

So, my friends and I walked around a few neighborhoods, offering rodent control.  Our nose for business steered us right to easy money.  Fifteen cents for each mouse or rat we caught, twenty cents for each vole, and a whopping thirty cents for catching gophers or moles.  We experimented with all different kinds of bait, traps, techniques, and yes, rat poison.  Mom put a stop to us using the poisons, though, until the following year when I could prove I was wise and mature enough to use it safely.

We went inside people’s homes, crawling around on the floor to find mouse holes or rat droppings.  We’d set the traps, come back later to get rid of dead mice or dead rats, set more traps.  When we stopped catching rodents from that hole, we’d block it up as best we could.  If rodents came back, so would we.

The best part of the job, though, was rodent control out in the yards.  My friends and I would scout through the lawn looking for vole holes or vole damage.  Gopher holes and mole mounds were easy to spot.  We got to spend our summer afternoons together outside, under the warm sun, joking and laughing and catching voles, trapping gophers or getting rid of moles.  We’d earn a few cents each time and go home tired, happy and a little bit richer.  By the end of the summer, I got my bike fixed up just the way I liked, and my friends and I were talking about how we could expand our business.  We took care of my neighborhood’s rodent control for years after that, and I got a real sense on how to run a business and have fun at the same time.

Rats

Rat Droppings

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Rat droppings just do not belong in your office’s break room.  I work in a typical office, filled with cubicles littered with pictures that remind each employee why they’re working so hard to bring in a paycheck.  Some hours of the day are fairly quiet, the sound of keyboards clacking and phones ringing fill the air.  Some hours of the day are pretty noisy, as co-workers socialize briefly before passing files onto someone else and sit back down to a fresh stack of their own.  Occasionally, someone tells a pretty raucous joke, or a highly-entertaining story about the weekend, and laughter circulates.  Certain days of the month are more stressful, when business normally picks up and deadlines loom.  Those are the days when people are more likely to snap at each other or pick up an old bickering conversation.  But, most of the time, it’s not a bad way to spend the days, weeks and months in order to pay for homes, cars, groceries and occasional vacations.

Our office doesn’t have an office administrator or office manager.  We’re all expected to keep our workstations clean and pick up after ourselves.  But, when there’s something bigger that needs to be repaired or maintained, the unspoken rule of the office is:  The person who complains is the person who maintains.  So, everyone pretends they don’t notice the air conditioning is broken so they don’t have to be the one to contact the repairman, oversee the work, and submit the paperwork.  Eyes are averted when the office refrigerator is opened, because no one wants to be the one to admit it really needs to be cleaned out.

I just about gagged when I noticed rat droppings in the break room, though.  It was impossible that the three other people who previously occupied the room failed to notice the black, round pellets scattered across the floor and one of the countertops.  I faced a dilemma.  Do I turn a blind eye, and tell myself that someone must have spilled their raisins?  Do I break out the gloves and cleaner and pick up the mess, keeping silent about the problem?  Or, do I take the proverbial bull by the horns, and take on the responsibility for getting a rat exterminator out to the office, getting nothing but paperwork and hassle for my effort?  The boss would probably also make me send an email around to my co-workers letting them know we have now attracted rats to the building, and making them empty food out of their desk drawers.  Yeah, that’d make me real popular.

But, rat droppings!  You can’t just let that slide by and hope the problem goes away.  Rats could be scurrying all through the walls right now, waiting for us to turn off the light so they can scamper out and run all over our desks, spreading diseases and filth.

I sighed as I realized I couldn’t just leave rat droppings in the break room, nor could I ignore the rat problem.  I definitely needed a raise, though!

Mice

Pest Removal

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As a teenage girl, I loved my job at a cute clothing store in the mall, except for inventory and pest removal day.  Sure, most of my paycheck ended up going towards clothes that we sold in the store, but that was completely worth it to me!  I got a great employee discount, and my money would have been spent on clothes, anyway.

The very worst part of the job was inventory.  Every few months, we had to go in extremely early on a Saturday morning so we could check off every item the store owned, clear out shelves to prepare them for the next line of clothes to arrive, and clean out the storage room.  It was a long day, boring, and full of hard work.  And the storage room was awful.

The room was windowless, lit with bluish fluorescent lights, and packed with boxes, unused hangers, clothing racks and dusty shelves.  We called it the dungeon.  Over the previous months, we used it as a dumping ground for whatever we didn’t want to take care of during our normal shifts, and inventory day was payback.  We sorted, we cleaned, and we were always on the lookout for spiders, bugs, or worse, mice or rats.  Pest Removal just wasn’t included on the job description when we’d applied as sales associates.  But, there we were, mouse traps, rat poison, and fly swatters close by as we sorted, folded, and discarded everything that had been tossed into the dungeon.  Once the place was cleaned up, we’d set out the rat poison near suspected rat holes and place a couple of mouse traps in the corners of the room, just to be on the safe side.

Of course, we always had to give the new girls a bad time.  In the days leading up to inventory, we’d tell them horror stories of a mouse that ran over someone’s foot, or the biggest spider we’d ever seen.  Inventory Day, we’d rig it up so plastic rats would be pulled across the floor with a string, or throw a toy spider into someone’s hair.  Didn’t I mention that it was a long and boring day?  We had to break it up somehow!

One Inventory Day, we all arrived, as usual, in our sweats and hair pulled back into ponytails, ready to get dusty, filthy and be bored to tears counting and sorting.  We got our initial assignments from the store manager, and headed off to our respective jobs for the morning.  I was unfortunate enough to get stuck in the storage room right away, bypassing the lesser evil of clearing off shelves in the front.  I got ready to break down the empty boxes so I could stack them up and take them out to the dumpster, and grabbed a box from off the top of the pile.  I pulled it towards me and pulled out the box cutter, just as I became aware of the awful rustling noise coming from inside the box.  Startled, I dropped it on the floor, causing a couple of the flaps to fall up and out, giving me a great view of the box’s interior.  To my disgust, it was filled with wriggling little pink bodies of mouse babies amongst shredded material and cardboard that served as their nest.  My screams brought every girl into the back room, most of whom ran right back out as they realized what they were seeing.  To this day, I can’t open an empty box without shuddering.  Pest removal is something best left to the professionals, not a teenage girl working at a clothing shop.