A day in the life of a pest controller
Terry Curtis got into the pest control 20 years ago after he had problems with ants at home and developed an interest
IMAGINE having to work in sewers, attics, dusty old sheds, and if you’re lucky, at the end a ladder – all while wearing a hazmat suit in this weather?
Well, spare a thought for one of the unsung heroes of Kildare - Terry Curtis – who began his own pest control business Cobra last October , and is now working through his first big summer season.
“It’s insects in the summer, rodents in the winter, much of a muchness,” said Terry when asked how the year pans out, although it does seem to be a lot busier in the summer months.
“You just caught me in the rare time between calls,” he said when called. “It’s like this day and night.” “The main opposition in summer is wasps and ants, but how bad can it get? How long is a piece of string. It really depends on the weather, but the good weather this year brought them early,” he noted.
“In wintertime the prevalence would be mice and rats, depending on what’s around.
“I read somebody in the UK recently caught a 22” sewer rat, but that’s not exactly a new genetic super-rat, because it’s like a running buffet for him down there,” he said very matter-of-factly.
Terry (40) is “Naas born and bred, as is the whole Curtis family”. He got into the pest control 20 years ago after he had problems with ants at home, and when he started talking with the pest controller he found himself getting very interested in the industry.
In the fortunes of the time – 2008 – Terry found himself getting made redundant from his last job, and with a family to provide for, took a bit of a leap and took up employment with a pest control group.
“I found it very interesting, and being being able to solve people’s problems, which are mainly happenstance,” he explained.
“I found the pest control industry very interesting, particularly the biology of it, I suppose.” Curious, we asked Terry how often he gets stung, and his answer surprised us.
“I usually get one sting a year, and it’s nearly always on my days off, or on holiday,” he revealed.
“It’s almost like the lads say: ‘oh, look! He doesn’t have a suit on today!’ It is quite ironic!” he smiled.
Terry looks holistically at a pest problem rather than a quick fix solution.
“There’s been recent legislation that’s saying we cannot use toxic bait anymore, and can only use it when we’ve proven an infestation, but even then, we’d only use it as a last option.
“Like, if I saw a hole in an external wall I’d block it, then monitor the house. If the rat couldn’t get back out to his usual food sources, he would revert to trap foods.
“At a minimum, I’d be doing a twice a week check-up, but there’s no magical trap bait. They are all individual creatures.
“Ideally, I’d use a spreadable paste like peanut butter or chocolate spread, because they’d have to eat it in situ and not just take it away, and that increases the chances of it getting caught.
“My calls largely focus on domestic callers this time of year – wasps, ants, cockroaches, bedbugs – but they are directly related to international travel and holidays.
“I also provide pest prevention services on how to keep them out.
“I’d generally cover the entire Leinster region, but it’s mainly in Kildare.
“We’ll take calls from anywhere, it doesn’t matter to me.
“My next call are rats in Emo, then ants in Naas, then hopefully that’s it for the day.”
