Who Knew?
One thing I have learned over the past thirty years of pest management is that the average person sees a pest management professional simply as the bug man (that being one of the nicer things we may have been called). For example if I were to say first responder, what comes to your mind? No doubt you would say courageous and self- sacrificing and you would not be alone. These are individuals that run into dangerous situations while the rest of us are running in the opposite direction.
Bubonic plague, hanta virus, murine typhus (comparatively mild, acute, endemic form of typhus and characterized by fever, headache, and muscular pain) typhoid fever, cholera, diarrhea, dysentery, tuberculosis, salmonella and parasitic worms. What do all these diseases have in common? They are transmitted by either an insect, a rodent or both. This reality has made this point clear early in my career as a pest management professional. I have been on the front lines protecting the public’s heath.
Like the first responders, the pest management professional runs into situations that the rest of us run away from. How many times have we heard someone say “It’s a dirty job but someone has to do it?” That may be true in some cases, especially when referring to heading into a room infested with bed bugs. The idea of heading into an insect or rodent infested condition is the things of nightmares. It takes a special kind of person to be willing to run into that kind of situation.
Who knew!