`They say the three most common phobias are mice, public speaking and going to the dentist,” says pest controller Dave Oeters, 36, of Hinckley. “So, the worst thing would be to give a speech about mice to a group of dentists.”
After 14 years in a trade that ranks near used-car sales in terms of respect, Oeters has learned to cope by combining humor and professionalism. As owner of Batavia-based Chem-Wise Ecological Pest Management Inc., Oeters oversees four other pest controllers. Each makes 2 to 10 calls a day, residential and commercial.
“The stereotype of the bug man on TV is the disheveled guy who makes you leave the house for 48 hours while he bombs your house with pesticides,” says Oeters. “Truth is, we’re intelligent, handsome, trustworthy. And the products are odorless, so you don’t even know we’ve been there.
“Over the years, we’ve evolved from exterminators to pest managers, using prevention now instead of spray-and-pray. But it doesn’t bother me to be called `the bug man.’ “
When a client calls Oeters, he usually makes a bug ID over the telephone, based on the homeowner’s description. “I give them a ballpark price on the phone,” says Oeters. “I charge by the project, not the hour, but I usually know how long it will take.”
Although Oeters is on call 24 hours a day for emergencies, he says the definition of “emergency” varies. “A rat running through a restaurant dining room is an emergency. A swarm of ants in someone’s yard is not,” he says.
Oeters and his crew service their residential clients during business hours and their commercial clients–restaurants, hotels and offices–early in the morning or late at night. “I can’t walk into a restaurant during the day with `pest control’ on my shirt,” he says.
In his Silverado pickup, Oeters carries a flashlight, a screwdriver to open outlet covers, a hand-held duster for squirting dust bait into crevices, a syringe for applying gel-type bait, silver-dollar-sized bait disks, a 50-gallon sprayer with a hose for treating perimeters of houses and traps for live rodents.
For bees and wasps, he has mesh veils and arm-length canvas gloves.
Oeters’ first order of business on a residential call is to find the source of the bugs or rodents, which is usually outside. Zapping the scouting bugs inside the home doesn’t solve the problem, says Oeters. His target is their thousands of elusive friends back at the nest.
“I don’t randomly spray baseboards,” says Oeters. “For most types of bugs, I apply poison bait where they enter the house. They take this back to their colonies, which, for some types of ants, can be as far as 250 yards away in the neighbor’s yard.
“For every bug, there’s a different formula and different application method. But I use products that are the least toxic yet most effective because there are usually pets or children in the house.”
Each residential call includes some schmoozing–assuring the client he has seen messier basements elsewhere, listening to their bug stories and educating them about bugs and rodents. “I tell them how to prevent the pests from coming back–caulk around windows, cover basement window wells, clean the gutters, scoop the dog poop, keep the recycling bin clean, weather-strip the bottoms of doors, store firewood away from the house, trim trees that touch the house and keep bird seed and dog food up off the garage floor,” says Oeters. “But the best way to control pests is sanitation. There is a direct relation between the degree of housekeeping and the number of pests.”
Oeters says the most common pest is the ant, although few homeowners realize the variety of ants on their premises or what they crave. “Carpenter ants like decaying, moisture-damaged wood like firewood in the garage,” he says. “Pavement ants come inside through small cracks to find water, proteins and sugar. Crazy ants are like pavement ants except they walk in an irregular pattern before they find the trail back outside.
“The less-common pharaoh ant lives inside the wallboards and comes out in bathrooms and laundry rooms to eat tiny skin flakes. The worst thing to do to the pharaoh ant is to spray it with an over-the-counter ant spray because that causes it to go back and divide its colonies and spread.”
Pest populations are cyclical, says Oeters. “Last year was a bad year for box elders. This year, it’s yellow jackets,” he says. “Compared to years ago, lady bugs are more of a problem because so many gardeners buy them from garden supply catalogs. In many neighborhoods, there are so many, they cover whole houses or get inside. Fleas, on the other hand, are not as much of a problem anymore. The preventive products that the veterinarians sell work well.”
Oeters says he didn’t intend to become a pest controller after collecting a biology degree from Valparaiso University, but a job offer from a large, Chicago-based pest control firm was too good to pass up. “I told myself I’d give it six months. That was 13 years ago,” he recalls. In 1992, he left the company to form Chem-Wise.
In Chicago, Oeters says he sees 2 1/2-inch cockroaches in the sub-basements of department stores and rats the size of dogs in sewer lines. (“That’s the only time I’m squeamish–when I’m surrounded by rats,” he says.)
Although his suburban calls are usually tamer, Oeters says the ‘burbs are not rat-free. “Where there are people, there are rats,” he says. “And, suburban restaurants are not necessarily better than those in the city. It depends on the manager.”
Pest control, sanitation and improved pharmaceuticals have improved our lives a great deal in the last 50 years, says Oeters. “We’ve come a long way since the days when the presence of rats and insects were normal,” he says. “Now, chemicals, including pesticides, are essential to maintain our quality of life. It is the misuse of pesticides by untrained people that poses the hazard.”
The upside of his business is the lack of routine, says Oeters. “Every day brings a new challenge.” The downside: Little feedback. “People don’t call to say the bugs are gone,” he says.
Someday, Oeters plans to retire and relax with his son, now 3, and his wife, Melissa, who doubles as an office manager for another company and a part-time Chem-Wise employee. “This is physical work with lots of climbing and crawling. So when I retire, I plan to goof off and play golf,” he says.
Meanwhile, Oeters spends his free time writing his “What’s Buzzing” newsletter for clients and reading “Arthur” books to his son. Aside from an occasional pavement ant, the Oeters home is bug-free and the dog flea-free. The two Oeters cats, he says, are responsible for rodent control.
For more information, contact Dave Oeters, Chem-Wise Ecological Pest Management, Inc., 2 1/2 W. Wilson, Suite A-1, Batavia, Ill. 60510; 630-879-1520.
