Fly Killers

Just spent the day servicing fly killers - changing tubes, boards and counting flies. 130 stairs up to the highest unit in the factory!!

Anybody know how to get the smell of fly dust off your hands??

Euorpean pest control

So here I am in the Netherlands doing an audit on a site with a history of pest problems.

What do I find, but exactly what I blogged about yesterday. Evidence of mice all over the high levels, wall heads, roof voids, and roofs. Some signs that the incumbent pest control company (a big one!) has at least looked in a few of these locations, but many places with droppings, smear marks and urine trails that have not been checked.

I must admit to being surprised by the sheer number of lick-marks I'm finding on the floors of roof voids. Mice have clearly been exploiting dust spillages in these places. Possibly because the rest of the factory is wonderfully clean. This would be a really easy site to keep clear and show that it was clear, if the PCOs concerned just thought about where mice live!

Lick Marks along a roof beam.

Where are they now? - mice!

Amazing, isn't it, just how often PCOs simply go and look at what the client says is the problem. A good PCO will look around the area and extend that inspection. A really good PCO will go vertically and check product movements as well.

Where does that hole go?

Are they really coming in under the door or is there a source inside the building?

How often is the baiting/trapping system checked, but no real effort put into looking for droppings, footprints in dust, smear marks, or other telltales of mouse activity

It is remarkably seldom in my experience that a mouse problem in a building will be associated with a gap below a door. Mostly, it is due to an established population (which can be 2 to 200) living inside the building. It is our job to find out where they are, and not just assume the seemingly obvious.

Occam's razor is sharp - and can cut you!!

Websites

I have just finished (for now) updating the company's website. It's a bit old-fashioned in its construction, using frames and tables (a la Dreamweaver 4), but I think the new layout is cleaner and fresher. getting rid of a lot of the extraneous blurb was difficult. I realised how wedded I was to stuff that I had originally written, but I do think it's better overall.

Going to be really interesing to see if traffic increases, and how well it works for us.

BRC v6 hits - again

BRC v6 went live at the end of 2011 and the new standard is being audited against at present. So far, we've had pretty good experiences with it, but I had am aaaargh! moment today.

The auditor informed the client that he expected to see 8-10 pages of inspection  report from the site. Now this is probably the cleanest, tidiest and well sealed site I have in my portfolio. The staff there do what we recommend, and the level of hygiene is exemplary.

What do these auditors want?? Are we supposed to manufacture action points just to bulk up a report. What a ridiculous statement from an auditor!

He did come up with some interesting interpretations of the standard, and we'll need to change our systems slightly to meet these. However, that is tweaking - it is the insinuation that our quality is poor that really has me fizzing! 

Even the client was dumfounded by that.

Pest control aphorisms

I've found myself using a lot of old pest control related aphorisms recently while talking to clients and training people.

Knees that bend.

Where are they now?

Look up as well.

These go back so many years - and I associate Graham Crowe (Rentokil) with most of them. Although, I have coined a couple myself over the years (I think!)

If you can't see it, you can't clean it.

Analysis needs commentary, not just numbers.

Is this my legacy? :)

Torches

Looking at a new torch. We used to be told you need three things to be a pest controller: knees that bend, the ability to look through walls, and a brain to think like a pest. It's clear in the food industry that many firms expect their people to clean without proper illumination.

Trying to inspect a site without a decent torch is totally impossible, so I need a good torch.

One of my clients has sent me a link for the PA20 torch. Really powerful, nice and small, but really quite expensive. Will keep looking and let you know!!

Getting the paperwork right

How frustrating it is when you realise that you've missed a bit of paperwork in a client's folder. I've forgotten to sign off a completed action and it has been picked up. The thing is, they're right and I'm wrong. Being human and making a mistake only goes so far in the modern world of audited specified pest management systems.

Get it right first time!

The start of the Ants

So, the first call-outs for ants. How I love ANT-STOP. WIthout a doubt, the fipronil bait is the most efficient way of sealing with minor ant infestations, especially when in small shops or houses.