Peskies Pest Control Birmingham Alabama Podcast

So today here on the pesky pest control podcast, we are going to be talking about my favorite subject, roaches, not just any Roach, the largest roach in Alabama, not in the world,

but before we now we dive off into the bug stuff, let’s acknowledge the obvious. It’s been a while.

Yes, yes. I completely just forgot about that. Yeah, yes. Well,

it has been a while, yeah, but for those of you who do listen on a regular basis, we apologize, but it has been a while. Things have things have been wild around here. The bugs have been non stop, and so we had to take a little hiatus, and now we are back. Yes,

it’s a lot harder to do everything you know than you’d think. So,

right? So anyway, American cockroaches, let’s talk about them. Yes.

So American cockroaches are in your house. It’s becoming fall, and they are going to find their way in through holes in the wall, holes in the brick, pipes, vents, tree branches touching, you know, the side of the house to let those guys bypass any products or anything like that to get into the house.

I mean, I haven’t seen any in my house. You said they’re in my house. Well, you

just said you had a smokey brown roach in your house that was

off record. We didn’t want to talk about that. That was off record. Much

harder to control, much harder to control. Yes,

so, yeah, the American cockroaches. And I tell a lot of customers this, the American cockroaches like to live underneath pine straw, underneath mulch vegetation areas. So they’re very typical to see them around the outside of your house where you’ve got landscaping, and they like to eat under that dead and decay that layer of dead and decaying vegetation up underneath all of that landscaping material so they can make a nice little home for themselves. And typically, they don’t usually want to come inside and they don’t usually want to infest a person’s house. But there are exceptions in the fact that sometimes they mistakenly wander their way in,

or they just weasel their way in because it’s a nice dry spot, and it’s been raining for five days straight,

right? And I also think, too, that sometimes with gaps, cracks and crevices around the house, whether it’s doors, windows, anything like that, that you end up, you know, at night, you got light coming through those gaps, cracks and crevices. I don’t think that helps your I don’t think that helps your calls either when trying to keep them out. No, 100%

I can remember as a kid, I was watching TV one day with my window open, and an American cockroach flew right in and landed on the TV and scared me after death. Going straight

for the light makes you, makes you think about those commercials that they used to have where you’re sitting there watching it looks like a regular, normal commercial, and then this bug goes and crawls across the screen and always looks so real, like you want to throw something at the TV? No, I know. I wonder if they were ever liable for someone throwing it, throwing something at the TV and breaking a TV, and like, you know, had to pay for somebody a new TV. Oh, I

almost broke my TV. So, yes, I can say that. But no, that that’s, that’s a great point. Turning off your lights at night. That’s going to stop any attraction to, really, any bug. I mean, spiders, because you’ve got your flying insects flying around that that that light. But roaches, you know, that’s our topic. So we’ll stay on topic. Roaches typically like to infest the lower portion of a house, like crawlspace, or, I’m not going to say infest. They like to gain entry to occupy, yes, I like to gain entry to crawl spaces, basements, like I said, the underside of houses, due to, you know, higher moisture content, much better. Survival, survivability, survivability, yeah.

So we know where they like to go. We know what they’re searching after. Let’s talk about a couple things that maybe you know you can do to prevent that. We’ve talked

about it before. Try to keep your bushes, your branches, anything touching the the roof line or the side of your house, because you can put down product after. Product. If that Roach is crawling a tree, and that tree is hanging the the roof or touching a window, or it’s just going to be easy access for for that little guy or a little girl,

right? They can circumvent right over anything that you or that your pest control company, that your technician applies, that they just have a route to go around it or over it.

Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, like, we’re talking about roaches right now, especially American roaches, because it’s fall, that’s when they start really getting into people’s homes again. You know, the pine straw around the house, just keeping everything nice and dry, trying to divert water away from your house, is going to stop them from feeding on that organic matter up under the pine straw and around the mulch,

right and some other common entry points that we can talk about sealing up, you know, HVAC entry points, where your HVAC lines go into the house a lot of times, there can be gaps right there. You can also seal up around vents. If you have a crawl space, you can seal up around those vents, you know, but you don’t want to block any airflow. You want to make sure that you have good ventilation and airflow inside the crawl space, too, gaps and cracks around plumbing. I know sometimes we see houses where there’s some master drains that are exiting the outside of the house that maybe aren’t buried underground, or have some other kind of plumbing or drainage pipes coming in and out of the structure somewhere or another. So sealing up any of those access points can keep you free from American cockroaches as well.

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Hey, so today on the pesky pest control podcast, I’d like to focus on termites. Termites are something we do a lot of we see a lot of termites, small jobs, big jobs. And today I’ve got my friend Jay Campbell with me. Jay, it was funny, because whenever to Jay’s house and talked him into let me do a termite inspection, got up under there and found the, probably the worst one of the worst termite claim damages I’ve ever seen. So Jay, tell your story, man.

It was bad.

where the termite protection?

Yeah, it didn’t have the Sentricon and all that kind of good stuff. You know, so younger dogs, just let it go. You started your business and everything. And I was like, Hey, man, come on out. Check it out. And everything. And you know, I had to get under there to where do you kind of crawl? Yeah, that was fun. Yeah.

It’s always good. It’s always good when a homeowner comes under there with us, because I’m like, Man, you can experience this. Yeah. Great.

So got up under there. And I’d had some water damage. I think there’s

water down. Yeah, we started noticing a lot of mold. And yeah.

So it was a lot of moisture and everything, you know, know what I know now that drops in the termites. And yeah, it was bad. It was really bad. When you’re doing your tap test, or whatever, you could take a screwdriver, just drive it to the side of the, you know, through the side of the home, you know, two by sixes or two by eights or whatever they were, yeah, in the floor joists and everything. So yeah, it was bad. And then we ended up you know, having to tackle the situation, you know, so it was bad. Yeah. But we got it though.

I remember we were sitting there when you when we found out you know, you were telling me about the boat you’re about to buy? I mean, you might you probably gonna have to hold off on the boat. Yeah, I had a lot of plans. there with that. But yes, yes. But it

was it was, you know, it is what it is. And you know, that’s what learned a lot. I’ll say that learned a lot. So yeah, it’s crazy. Well,

so as far as having a termite bond, I mean, do you think you would ever not have a termite bond termite coverage on another house? I’ll

never do that again. Yeah, I mean, honestly, you know, tell me that, because if you did have if, you know, correct me if I’m wrong, if you have the termite bond, and that happens, the company covers it. I think

maybe it depends on the type of coverage you have exactly. A repair bond if you have a retreat only retreatment only bond. Yeah.

So, yeah. So yeah, word of advice. Get your bond.

Well, so, um, walk me through the process of repairing it. I think it’s amazing that you repaired your own house. I mean, you know, you literally took the initiative to tear your floors up, and I mean, just walk me through that.

Well, I had a guy come out, there’s actually a buddy of ours. He’s actually a friend of mine. Now here originally your friend. Yeah, buddy of mine. Yeah, Greg Kane, good guy. He come out and looked at it and everything and, um, you know, gave me a quote and everything and I was like, a little bit steeper than I wanted to go you know, and you know, that you know, this obviously, but you know, I work on cars for a living and I talked to my wife and everything and I was like, you don’t really want to spend that money or should I just try it myself, you know, if I can rebuild a total in the backyard in the shop at home, surely I can do something with the house and everything and I got a lot of friends and construction and all that kind of stuff. And, you know, people that I can bounce ideas off of, you know, like, I have a concept of how to do it. Yeah, it’s like a hey, what would code code thing to do here so that way whenever that date does come sell the house and you know, am I in the right in my going down the right path of fixing it and everything so

I’m good Josh. Yeah,

Josh you know at the end there’s a lot of people I’ve talked to a lot of people with my bad my bad he knows a lot actually learned a lot that he that he knows a lot about that type stuff and I didn’t realize that Yeah. So yeah, got with dad. He’s got a bunch of friends I’ve talked to my good buddy Josh. I’ve talked to people at work but no friends and you know, they got people and also it was kind of like a and YouTube you know, we were talking about YouTube. Yeah, definitely YouTube a bunch of stuff and yeah, just got in there and just did it just started small and worked my way into it and obviously pulled the floors up and everything and I don’t think I sent you pictures but so the biggest reason I had to jump on it pretty quick was you know Benji was being born. Yeah, he found out we were pregnant. Everything is like, let’s talk I want to get on it now. Right? Right. Um, I don’t think I ever showed you pictures but in his room which you know where it’s at, yeah. The termites that ate into the sub floor itself. It was within a foot of the actual main beam of the house like the main I guess you I call it beam but but main

structure? Here’s some structural damage.

Oh yeah, it could have it could have went about another foot, it would have been really, really, really bad.

Well, that’s why I wanted to bring you on here. Because I mean, this is that house is the worst case I’ve ever seen. And I don’t I don’t mean to be mean. I get it. It’s like one of those things. And the cool thing about it was, and I was thinking about this, and I was like, you know, I really started my company. And it was like, what, two years three? I think it was like, after two years, we started doing termites. And your house was like the fourth or fifth house that I kind of inspected. You know, did all that training all that book, we’re looking at all these pictures, and I’m secretly screaming like, yes, you’re excited.

I can see it all over your face. You’re excited. Which I mean, it was cool, though. You know, it was Yeah. So the whole time being like,

It was somewhere around there. I mean, you know, I was I was extremely green. And like I said, Do it try to do everything I could do to learn without actually getting in the field and getting out there and finding something like that?

Well, that was probably what once in a lifetime, maybe not once in a lifetime,

but it’s a that’s a rare. It’s hard to find a termite, you know, infestation that completely tears down, you know, almost, really the front side. I mean, and we’re talking the room size was like 203 100 square foot

room. Yeah, things like a 10 by 12. And it was

on their wall side of the window. You

had or had his room. But then if you it was like his room, but then it was like, in the living room as well. So it was he was there the whole front side of the house. Yeah. So it was bad. Yeah. But then to come to find out there was another water leak, too, that I saw that brought him in, right on the front side from the porch, you know, you know, I’m talking about what the porch came up. So I think that’s what brought them in, originally. Yeah, well, it’s funny. It was it was one man tear of it. She when she you know, obviously, we’re serious and our relationship, so she kind of started staying more at the house and everything. And at that time, it was my daughter for him. Yeah, yeah. Jay, what are these bugs? Oh, no, baby. I think that’s just please dance.

You remember? Yes. I do remember that.

I was like, oh, no, it’s all good. Well, then the next year, they came back. And I was at work or something. And she looked it up. That’s when I sent you a picture. So what are these? Like? Do those are? What are you calling warmer? Warmer? Yeah. Oh, Lord, then I think that’s when you came out shortly after that. Yeah. If it was in the sheet rock in the in the two by fours and the walls and the floor joists in which you got the pictures, everything. It’s in the, like, the big window frame and the header in the header? Yeah, almost to the to the roof and everything it was? Yeah.

Well, that’s why I’ve been so excited to bring you on here because it’s, it’s awesome. Getting your perspective because like you own a home, you pay for that home, you worked hard for that home. And to understand, you know, I would never not have a termite bond on my house. Obviously, I know a guy so yeah, but it’s just it’s that important, because that process you went through if you don’t mind? How much were the quotes that you were getting to repair your home house.

I’ve had a couple people come out in the highest now. I think the highest now there was some damage in the back as well. And I think all together. Like 50,000 That’s the quote you were getting. Yeah, I got a $50,000 quote. And then I had a guy just for the front side was like 30,000 I think it was Oh, wow. Yeah. So it was pretty expensive. Right

was the highest though.

Yeah, I don’t want to throw him under the bus. But Now granted, that was for everything. Right? Right. And I just I didn’t want to swing that. You know, couldn’t swing it. You know, you know I think I’ve got with me doing the work. This is front and back. I’m maybe have eight grand in it.

That’s That’s incredible. What’s that a

fifth of what it was a call? Steena? Yeah,

that’s Wow. Yeah, it

was maybe eight. Now granted, I had about some tools and stuff to in that. So materials. Probably like six.

Well, it’s also I mean, it’s like I said manage Just you went out and you did something that you didn’t know how to do at all. You’re just like, hey, I’m gonna, I’m gonna just I’m gonna go through this and I’m gonna fix this myself. Dude. I think that’s awesome. Yeah, appreciate it, man. I can’t like when you told me you were doing I was like, I can’t wait to see these pictures, videos. All this so there’s a lot of late nights. Oh, dude. Yes. A lot of late night. I know. I know. I I can’t wait to get on YouTube. Like I said, where we can talk show the pictures and all that because really? I think talking about it doesn’t do it justice unless you can see it. Oh, yeah.

I was I was thinking about too. I got some more pictures I’ve tried to send to you too, before you put them up there. But

so let’s talk about the the flying ants. So when when they when they flew out? Did you just spray him with something or how did you treat it? Willy?

They I don’t know exactly how termite works and everything. But they were did for some reason. Yeah. Okay. So it was like, assuming they made it and they died after they laid their eggs. I’m assuming not real sure. I’m talking kind of just

so kind of guessing here. Most time they’re flying out. Their wings are gonna break off. You probably saw a ton of wings sheds all around like the windowsill on the floor. I mean, tons tons. It’s amazing. How many of you see, and then they’ll just die. Yeah, they’re just they won’t make it. Yeah,

I mean, they didn’t get far. I guess they kind of just hung it. There was so much right there. I guess I just hung out right there. Because it was almost like you have like ladybugs in the house. Yeah, it was just like that. But quote, unquote, flying ants, right? Being swarming termites. So

well. And I mean, do we get so many phones, we get so many phone calls in the summertime when they start swarming? And it’s always, hey, I’ve got an ant problem. There’s an ant problem, or, Hey, it’s a termite problem. It’s an ant problem, because they both can fly the summertime. So yeah, I always call it professional and you know, just get an opinion.

Yeah, cuz Honestly, I thought there and yeah, that’s kind of odd to have. You know, was it the queen that has wings and everything? Reproductive care? Okay. I was like, see that many? In the house? I was like, but, of course, the wife she Googled, I was like, Oh, well. All right.

Well, and like I said, it’s just one of those things where you don’t, you don’t pay attention to it. And then, of course, a lot of people don’t get in their crawlspace.

Well, that’s the biggest thing is who really wants to get the crawl space? Well, I

don’t have to know. I hate it. Yeah.

So it was once I got down there with you. Yeah. And I saw what was going on. I was like, you know, I need to make it more of an effort to get under there. I was I needed to do now speaking of that, just to get into there and check everything out. Yeah, um, yeah. Word of advice to people. If you have a crawlspace get in there and just check everything. And if you don’t feel comfortable, call some

of it. Go check it. Yeah, I agree. Like somebody you trust? Yeah. Yeah. So

for us, it’s not going to, you know, try to pull one over on you. Yeah. You know, um, I’ll never forget that. You laughing? I’ll never forget that. Like pictures. I got, I

know. So excited from from a very small YouTube channel. But what was it going with that? Oh, yeah. So like, you know, not know what’s on your crawlspace. I mean, we’ve gone on jobs before where crawling the crawlspace looking at termite damage, and all their pecs lines are just leaking. It’s just a water hose under there. And there’s a swimming pool, and I have no idea. So I would say, you know, just with as our termite inspection, we’re also looking for mold growth. I mean, we’re gonna let you know, things that you can do to fix problems like that, because we’re not a Water Restoration. Come on. Now. Of course. I mean, we have people that we can send that way. Yeah. But I think it’s very important as doing an inspection, you might as well just do everything, you know, make sure that there’s no major leaks you’re seeing, I mean, I’ve seen air ducts, you know, people cooling and heating the crawlspace instead of their house, because the air duct came on, it fell down. So yeah, I would agree with you on the problem, the crawlspace. And it’s, yep,

it’s worth it. And if you’re older, if you’re, you know, whatever, not able to at least get somebody you trust to get up under there and just look.

Oh, yeah, I agree with that. So

yeah, it’s still a lot to do, but it’s a work in process a work in progress, that’s for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Like the like the room and everything like everything’s done. It’s just you know, honestly kind of straighten it up out there now because it was in such a hurry just kind of cleaning up the debris and stuff like that.

Well in the amount of damage that they did and the amount you had to replace. I mean, that’s a lot of work like cutting the wood out. Like I said, we keep you know, kind of emphasizing on the on the amount of damage and it’s really the time that it took I mean, this took like, nights and weekends. Yeah, I mean a lot of time.

Well then also the damage that that the termites did. That wasn’t just a one year deal. Oh, that was uh that was years worth of you know? Yep because what I bought the house 21 Something like that. Yeah, so I was early 30s When I saw that oh man so yeah younger younger No Yeah,

well you live and you learn man that’s it. Well Jay I appreciate you coming on the podcast might have been like through sickness and kids and all that kind of stuff it’s

glad to get together on it

yeah Glad we could talk about your your you know I think just victory from from having your issue to fix it that’s all that and like I said can’t wait to get those pictures out there. So again, thanks. No,

of course man course. Appreciate it.

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Hey, thanks for checking out our video today as we wanted to go ahead and take a quick moment to discuss the official Alabama wood infestation inspection report. So what this form is, is for real estate transactions, whether you’re buying or selling a home, whether you’re refinancing a home, most of the time, mortgage lenders are going to require a wood infestation report what infestation reports are done in search of wood destroying organisms that may be affecting the home and this inspection is done so that it can be fully disclosed to the purchaser, as well as the seller. And then that way they can make an informed decision before they actually sign the dotted line and by the house. So as you can see on the this is the very first page of the report, man with the title official Alabama wood infestation inspection report, part A. And it does consist of a Part A and Part B. And then there is a third sheet, which is an addendum, but we’ll show you all that here in just a moment. So the first portion, the top part of part A labels, the company name, license number, address, and all the information for the company as well as the date of inspection and the date of issuance. It also has a spot for the sellers name, purchasers name, and it also list the inspectors name. Now another very important part to this is the scope of inspection. So this actually details what it is that the report encompasses. So you know, it lists out that some portions of the structure may be covered and not visible, list out if there’s any mold like conditions, or there’s concerns about molds and fungi in relation to indoor air quality and that it’s not covered. And then you know, you should have that inspected by someone else who’s certified in that type of inspection. So it’s really important to read the scope of inspection so that you really clearly understand what it is that has been inspected by this report. As you can see here, there’s also a list of the address of the structure and whether this report is only for the main structure itself, or whether it may include you know, some sort of outbuilding shop or shed that you have on the property. And there are some mortgage lenders that will require you to have all of those building inspected, instead of just inspecting the main structure that is for sale on the property. And then there’s also a spot for evidence of previous treatment, which is right here. And that is just going to be up to the inspector to see whether or not they found any evidence such as drill marks around the house bait stations for termites around the house and that sort of thing as well. So moving down to the next section, you have findings. So inspection reveals evidence of subterranean termites, powderpost beetles, wood boring beetles, dry wood, termites, wood, decaying fungi. And you can see there’s checkboxes to mark active or previous infestation. What you can’t see is right here, there’s a section that says remarks and additional findings. This is a spot on a fillable form where the inspector is able to put their remarks, you know, maybe they didn’t wanted to elaborate on something that they found or elaborate on what they checked. And so typically, they’ll type something in or write something in right there. So it’s always a good idea to go ahead and look at that remarks. And additional finding sections just to make sure that the inspector didn’t put something that was you know, very relevant or that might not want to be overlooked by the person who’s buying the house. Directly beneath that, there is a section for treatment. And it shows if any treatment was done on the structure. Now, sometimes this can be done in conjunction with this wood infestation report or it can be done previously well before the wood infestation report was issued. So in this case, the company that’s doing the inspection may have at one point in the past done treatment on this house and this allows them to showcase that to the new buyer. So they may have the above structure was or were treated by this company as follows and they may check this box and then you know they’ll write the date of treatment and the date that the treatment expires on these lines. And they will also note whether or not that is transferable or not transferable to a new property owner when the house is being purchased. And then at the very bottom of that is the last check box which is the above structure is are are not covered under a treatment contract by this company. This is a very important pour Part of this form. And the reason it is is because this tells you whether or not the house you are buying has coverage with the company that is doing the inspection. Now, just because this box is marked, that there is no coverage does not always mean that your house does not have termite coverage, there’s a possibility that your house could have termite coverage by a another company, and that that company is just not the one doing the inspection. But this box will tell you if the inspecting company does have coverage. And if it is marked that it is transferable to the new home buyer, it is a very good idea on your part, to reach out to that company after the closing of your home and ensure that they have updated contact information for you. That is one problem that we do run into occasionally, where contact information for the new homebuyer is not relate to us or to the other company that holds the termite coverage on this house. And if it comes time to renew, and they’re unable to contact you unable to get ahold of you, because they don’t have your proper contact information. And maybe they sent mailers and never heard back from you, then your termite coverage may actually lapse or be canceled altogether, at that time of renewal. So it’s always a great idea to go ahead and reach out to that company after closing, and just update the account information so that they have some sort of contact information for you. So right here, at the very bottom of part A, there’s a buyers signature form. And that, of course, is just going to be where the new buyer signs accepting the results of this report on part A. And then these boxes down here on the bottom are simply checkmarks were the people filling out the report, the company filling out the report can request that copies be sent to either the buyer, the mortgagee, the real estate agent, the seller and as well as the pest control company. So the next page is labeled as Part B. And part B starts off with, of course, showing the address and the date, just to make sure that this report goes along with that same address structure. And these conditions are very important to they kind of spell out a little bit more about what the extent of the report is. So it’s really definitely a great idea to read over these conditions and understand them. So that when you close on the house, let’s just say you close and that very same day, you start to move in and you walk into the house, and then you find something that maybe doesn’t look right to you. It’s a good idea to know what was either a not covered under this inspection that wouldn’t have been listed or be maybe unfortunately, somebody missed something during their inspection that should have been covered. So it’s a good idea to read the conditions governing this report just to ensure that you’re aware of what was covered and what to look for just in case something was missed. A little further down under the conditions governing this report is three checkboxes and it says inspection of accessible areas of this property indicates visible evidence of active or previous infestation as follows. Now this section should go right along with the section from part A, where the inspector was able to mark whether there was an active or previous infestation. So this should mirror whether there was anything found on part A it should mirror on Part B. So the inspector has the opportunity to say that there was evidence observed and that either control measures were performed, or control measures were not performed. And then as well as it should tell you that the evidence of an active or previous infestation exists below. And then they should be able to list that out. Now directly underneath that you see there’s more checkboxes for active and previous. And then it has the five wood destroying organisms that the report looks for. And in these blank lines to the right, the inspector should list a more detailed description of exactly where the wood destroying organism was found. So let’s just say hypothetically that there were subterranean termites found there were active ones, and the company did not provide any control measures. So they would check the boxes up here to mirror that, as well as check active by subterranean termites. And let’s just say for the sake of this video, that the termites were found in a wall, near a window seal in, for example, the living room, so the inspector may list out to the right of subterranean termites. The exact location of the activity, window seal on front side of the house and the living room. May be a little more specific than that. And so they’ll list that out. And directly below that is a diagram. So this diagram will actually give you a visual of where that activity or where that wood destroying organism was found in the structure. So this diagram should have it clearly marked. And then directly below this is a legend, or a key that shows you what the markings mean. So for example, if there were active termites found on that graph, where the termites were found, you should see something like S T, and N A, so that should stand for subterranean termites active. Now, if it was previous damage, you would see S T, with a P for previous subterranean termites previous. And then directly to the right of that key, you’ll see the construction type of the home, whether it has a basement, whether the house is on a slab, or whether the house has a crawlspace. And it does say check all that apply, because we do have some houses that have multiple, if not all three of these items, or construction types. So you may have just a slab checked, or you may have a crawlspace and a slab, or you may have all three. On the bottom of form, Part B is another location for the buyer to sign and date. And then directly beneath that is an authorized agent signature with a date of inspection, then that authorized agent signature is just going to be the inspector signature. And then again, the section that allows them inspector to check where the reports need to be sent or where copies of the reports need to be sent. The very last page which may or may not be included in this report is the wood destroying organism and best station inspection addendum. This is simply an addendum form, we typically do not include it unless there is some sort of change or addendum that needs to be done to the actual initial report itself. And it’ll allow for the inspectors name, date and file number. And then as well as any other relevant information that may need to be added. So let’s just say that the original wood infestation report showed that the house had an active termite infestation. And maybe before closing, the company was asked to treat that, excuse me that termite infestation. So maybe the company would issue a or an addendum, and maybe be able to graph out on the bottom underneath the information portion here and show that they treated. So that’s just a hypothetical as to what can be done with this. But typically, this will not be included unless there’s something additional done after the original inspection was completed. So this was just a overview to tell you kind of what the purpose of the official Alabama would infestation inspection report is, and to give the homeowner, someone who’s buying a home or a business or just any property in general in the state of Alabama, to give you a good idea of what each section means. And to give you a good idea of what you should look for. In terms of reading this report. I always tell my customers and I always tell anybody that asks, Please do not go to the closing table, and just sign the paperwork without reviewing the report. Once you sign this and you close, you’re accepting that report. And you want to make sure that it is acceptable before you sign it and before you close on your house. Know that property. homes and businesses can be the most expensive investment that a person can make. Their home is usually their most expensive investment more than cars or any other items that they may buy. So it is important to make sure that you protect your investment. If you’re dealing with any type of wood destroying organism, whether it’s subterranean termites powderpost beetles, wood boring beetles, dry wood, termites, and even wood destroying fungi. Give us a call at Peskies Pest Control. We’ll be more than happy to help you. You have a question about your wood infestation report or your existing termite coverage. We’re happy to talk about that too. Our Montgomery number is (334) 595-9055 and our Birmingham location is (205) 470-8161. We hope that you found this video helpful and if you have any other questions about this report, give us a call today.

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Hey, so today on the peskiest Pest Control podcast, I have my personal friend Drew baby AK, and he owns rescuer, LLC. So we’re just promoting his business and kind of bringing his business to light what he does and what he can do for you. Take it away, Drew.

Hey, good morning. Appreciate you having me on excited to kind of shine a light on an important subject. And I appreciate you bringing me on today.

Yeah, definitely. So let’s talk about, you know, my favorite part about a business is kind of, you know, where’d you get your start, you know, as an entrepreneur, what, what, what just made you want to start this business.

So me and my business partner, Joseph Patton, we spent a lot of time working together at one of our fire departments, I left that second fire department. And we were just kind of discussing different things that we could do to with our free time, instead of working in a second fire department. And we were discussing CPR and kind of the needs for it, we knew a couple guys that taught a class here and there just were discussing it. And we kind of thought that a good idea to go after it because it was a need that we saw, we were going on scenes and seeing where people were either afraid to do CPR, or they weren’t doing CPR. And it’s just something that as firefighter paramedics, we know very well. So we’re like, we could go and teach this with extreme confidence, bring real life scenarios and real life knowledge to people. And hopefully, you know, educate people so that the they would act in scenes rather than be scared to help someone, especially when it comes to a loved one. Yeah.

100%. And I mean, there’s no right or wrong CPR when somebody is down on the ground dying. I mean, as long as you’re pumping on that chest, you know, something’s better than nothing. Absolutely.

That’s, that’s what we try to get out of everybody’s just the confidence to at least act.

Yeah, yeah. Well, watch, come up with a name. So rescue

came around, we were talking about just different names. And we were, we kind of rescue we’re stuck. Because we’re like, when we teach the class, and you are now knowledgeable in this skill, you become a rescuer on the scene, you are the person that’s making the difference. So we felt like it kind of had a good meaning behind it, it kind of is catchy, it makes sense. So it was simple. So we wanted to we ran with it rescuers, just just that act of to helping somebody. And that’s what we want people to do. Awesome.

Well, how did you get so what made you want to start just being an entrepreneur? I mean, what what got you kind of enter that, in that mindset.

So in the Forest Service, most guys, you know, they start with one job. And with our schedules, we work 24 hours on 48 hours off Well, with that other 48 hours, a lot of guys, you know, either find another side business, but what kind of comes naturally seems like people go work a second fire department, because the scheduling allows it. And when we got into it, we wanted to prevent people from working to fire departments, we, I left my second fire department because I loved it so much. But I was missing so much, so much on life, you know, being gone for 48 hours, you know, doesn’t sound like much to some people, but to other person, it’s a lot, you know, that’s as two nights away from being being away from your home from your family. So we went after it, because we wanted to kind of get away from that. See, try and best way describe it that what people that natural thing that people do. So we left got into it, and now you know, we get to work normal hours and spend more time with our families and enjoy, you know, improves our, our quality of life. So, rescue has definitely been a blessing to both of us.

Oh, 100% I mean, I you know, I was in the fire service for 15 years. And I mean, you’d see these guys working 48 hours coming in like zombies. And it’s just, it’s not healthy. I’ve always been against it, I’ve never worked 48 And I always said I would never work 48 So I love that you’re giving these guys a chance to stay in that their field and be able to make some extra money in something that they already know and are good at. Absolutely.

Um, it has been great. Right now we we’ve we’ve been hiring just firefighter paramedics. Like I said strict goal is to get the guys away from the 40 eighths and we’re slowly working towards it. As we grow, I think we’ll be able to get more and more guys involved. Teaching. That’s our our ultimate goal is only to hire firefighter paramedics, just because that is something that they’re so knowledgeable in fire. They’re confident in that skill. So when we send them out to teach classes, you get a really good experience. You’re gonna leave with someone that was able to answer all your questions about CPR, you know, people start asking questions, we didn’t just go take a class to teach you. We took the class and we’ve used it so when you ask your questions during the class to, to kind of give you that comfortability or confidence, we’re able to answer the answer in the best way possible.

Well, that to your class is fine. I mean, you got a lot of firemen teaching the class. So we know how firemen are they like to joke and have a good time. It’s not something that’s going to be boring, it’s going to be, it’s going to be entertaining, and it’s going to be educational at the same time. So Oh, yeah, we

definitely. So we know everybody, no one loves to sit in a class and just be read to from a PowerPoint, we, we try to make it as involved as possible, you know, we like to cut up and crack jokes and make it as light as possible. And you know, when we get in the hands on, we’d like to, to make it a little more fun. We don’t just sit there and ask you to do this, we give you a little fun scenarios and make you think, and it’s also a really good team building thing. So we, you know, we bring these companies in that like to invest in their in there people. And, you know, in the beginning, they might be a little, you know, unsure of what’s going to happen by the end there. Everybody’s laughing and having a good time. And while learning something that is so valuable. Yeah. So it’s it’s a lot of fun. These classes. I love teaching them.

That’s great. So let’s talk about how important CPR is. I mean, you know, I know the American Heart Association says about 350,000 people die per year in cardiac arrest. And it’s something that’s, that’s pretty preventable. I know. You’ve got some stories, I’ve got some stories. So give me a scenario of a real life event where you know, you saw CPR work right then and there?

Absolutely, yeah, I have. This story is just, it’s unreal. So to put in perspective, the importance of CPR, I’ll start with that. So CPR, we do CPR when someone’s heart completely stopped. So if someone is not breathing and doesn’t have a pulse, we start CPR, what we’re doing is we’re mechanically pumping the heart to move the oxygen that’s inside the body, to perfuse the organs to keep them alive. So for every minute that we’re not moving the oxygen through their blood, their chance of survival drops, 10%. So put that in another perspective, when you call the fire department, and they’re dispatched to you, you know, a good response is going to be three to five minutes. Well, if you’re not doing anything, if you’re not performing CPR, well, they’re their chances, survivability has now dropped to 50 to 70%. So that’s something that we want to kind of change, we want people to act immediately so that whether it’s just a bystander or a loved one, we want to give them the opportunity to survive, you know, there’s only so much that we can do. But if the difference, you know, then walking out was just CPR. We want to if that’s that’s something we can control. The craziest story that I’ve had as a firefighter paramedic, we were dispatched to a cardiac arrest to a triathlon athlete, this mill, this was a male who was roughly, you know, young, early 50s, super healthy guy, he was running a triathlon, I mean, this guy’s an athlete. Well, he goes into cardiac arrest, mid mid race, to his look. And I mean, to his luck, a pediatric doctor was running in the race, and she was behind him, she witnessed him collapse and began CPR. She starts doing compressions, she activates the emergency system by calling 911. The paramedics that were on scene work in the event, got to the patient, put them on their ad, and they administered a shock to the patient. By the time that I got on scene, which is roughly eight to 10 minutes after the initial call, the patient was no longer in a full arrest. He was still, you know, still kind of having the effects from it. Well, I just went to a party. Yeah. He went from a really bad day. So to put in perspective, most time when we work, cardiac arrest, even if we get what we call, raw score, you know, get their heart rhythm back, most time, they still stay kind of unresponsive and just a different state. Well, this mill had immediate CPR, immediate defibrillation or shock to the heart. And by the time that I’ve got on scene, and we were loading him in the ambulance, somebody asked, Hey, what is this Mel’s name? And he lifted his head up and answered the question to us. I had never seen that and that and we give all the credit to the doctor that started immediate compressions. And our paramedics who were able to get on scene and give a quick defibrillation or shock to the heart. So that was a huge success story. This guy went to the hospital to get checked out. And by the next day, he was released and was able to go home to his family because of good CPR and quick action from bystanders. That’s

awesome, man. Well, I mean, you have to understand, I mean, with the fire department, you know, they have to get in the truck, they have to go they have to get there. You’re talking one two minutes as fast as they can get there. But you know, and then you’ve got to take into account of when the person went down. And when that when the person that called found them. So you know it time was you can be five 610 minutes before before CPR has even started. Oh, absolutely.

If it’s been five minutes, like we said, if every minutes 10% We’re already down 50% And we want to give everybody the best chance possible.

Oh, yeah. Well, man, I love the business. I mean, helping people and bringing someone’s you know, office together. teaching them a very valuable skill that they can help one of their co workers, one of their family members, you know, a random person rent running a marathon. So tell me tell everyone where you can work. What What areas do you service around here, local. So,

we are a Birmingham based company. But we are fully mobile. So we traveled to your business, to teach the classes that creates a huge convenience, especially for scheduling and trying to get your people together for these kinds of classes. But we’ll travel anywhere, we’ve traveled to Tampa to teach classes, Atlanta, Pensacola and Destin so there’s really not a spot that we won’t go we we like traveling and we really enjoy, just bring in our, our, our class t you know, we, we provide a really fun class, you know, we’ve got some good stories to bring and good attitudes that make this class a lot of fun. So we’d like to go wherever we’re needed.

That’s awesome. And hey, I mean, I was looking on your website. I mean, you teach all of Alabama so that’s, that’s the

University of Alabama nursing. We teach them their BLS at the beginning of every semester. So the nursing students have to have what’s called basic life support, which is just the fancier version of CPR, but it’s for medical professionals. But they have to have that before they go do their clinicals in the hospital. So it’s really fun. The the Alabama nursing classes, a really great class to teach just because they’re all so young, and fresh in the profession. They’re super eager. And so we go teach these classes, they eat it up there. They’re super excited to learn that new skill.

Well, good deal. Well, um, so anybody that’s looking to, you know, start a class with you, where can they find you phone number?

Yeah. So, you can reach us at our through either through email, our email is info inf o at rescuer, r e s e u e r llc.com. And you can reach us at my phone number is 334-595-2737. We take phone calls, text email, you can go to our Facebook at rescuer LLC, Instagram, whatever your choice of contact is, we we can respond through any of them to book classes, we just ask you to reach out and we will we’ll talk, you know, some people like say, hey, Mondays are a great day for us, because we have staff meetings from 10 to 12. We’re like, Well, great. So how about we meet you at? You know, 1231 o’clock. So our scheduling is super flexible with our you know, being firemen, where we don’t have a set schedule once our off days, or we’re off days. So you know, we like to create that convenience of coming to you and working around your schedule. We know that scheduling part of getting a lot of people together like herding cats, we know it gets tough, so we want to make that as easy as possible for you. Well,

good deal. Well drew, I really appreciate you coming on the podcast and again, I know it took a little while I was getting our schedules together but again, thanks, man.

Absolutely. Thank you for having me on.

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Hey, so today on the podcast, we want to talk about something we’ve been seeing a lot of and that is just creepy crawlies in the attic, anywhere from Asian lady beetles stinkbugs pretty much your too generic that they were getting a lot of calls on. And I think the best thing to talk about what this problem is just that, you know, homeowners always can we seal up the attic, can we still have the attic? No, you cannot seal up the attic. The attic has to live and breathe. You know, as your house is getting hot getting cold, it’s venting. So there’s really no way to completely seal up an attic. So those bugs are still going to be able to get into your attic. So Travis, talk about some treatment plans.

Well, unfortunately, like you said, we’re getting those calls and and tis the season I had a very long conversation with someone about two or three days ago in reference to the Asian lady beetles specifically, but you can kind of bundle the stink bugs into that same conversation because they’re, they’re about seeking the exact same thing. So they’re both seeking out a place to overwinter. They’re seeking out a place to just basically make home until it’s time to go and get back out, you know, in the springtime and whatnot. So, but yes, you’re exactly right. Houses need to breathe. And, and I’ll take that even one step further. Even if you have spray foam insulation in your attic, these insects will find a way to get in. I don’t care how good of a spray foam job that you have had. If you go up into your attic, you know in the late or early fall and going on into winter, you’re gonna find some form of either stink bug or Asian lady beetle, it just there’s no way to either a completely seal up your attic. And like you said, nor should you really necessarily want to because that air exchange has to happen. Or else you’re going to end up with more problems than just insects, you’re going to end up with moisture problems and everything up in that attic spaces which you definitely don’t want.

100% And another thing I’ll say to what we’re getting a lot of calls is ladybugs, ladybugs in the attic. They’re not ladybugs, they’re Asian lady beetles, super aggressive. They bite ladybugs, or just cute little, you know, red bugs with dots on them. They don’t

Well, and I’ll say this too. While we’re on the topic of that. Ladybugs are beneficial. Yes, Asian lady beetles are not

they don’t. They sorted they serve no purpose,

Other than being a nuisance. But the unfortunate thing is, is that if they if you’re seeing them if you’re seeing them in your house, if you’re seeing them in your attic, surprise they’re already there.

Oh yeah, definitely. Well, it’s funny I saw a video the other day of somebody letting an Asian lady beetle crawl on their finger and a bit them

You know, people can actually be allergic to their bites, I do have a customer that is allergic to their bites and and so you know, they, they definitely are more concerned about the Asian lady beetles than the average homeowner, and rightfully so. But like I said that they’re so small, and adapted to getting into these little tight places, and they want to go live in your wall voids and in your attic. And and if you start seeing them in your house, they’re already there. The the thing that I recommend most to my customers is being proactive, especially in that late summer, going towards fall to try to be proactive and treatment. And what little bit exclusive that you might can do around doors and windows and cracks and crevices that don’t involve completely just sealing out something that needs to ventilate. But being proactive and treatment and exclusion early on to try to keep them from getting in in the first place.

Oh, yeah, definitely. I mean, I know my house was built in the 70s. And we had the old style windows a couple of years ago. And every every time and this time of year, we just got stinkbugs galore. And we got new windows put in and that you know it was cut down to I mean, almost almost none coming to the windows now we still get some of the attic. And we still have to treat but that just door seals something something as simple as just replacing your door seals if your door seals are wore out, or your windows or anything like that is going to help tremendously.

Yeah, and we do have some other options too. In terms of treatment and products, I did have another customer that actually swapped over from a larger company to us under the I guess under the agreement that I would be able to take care of his stinkbugs and that was a big thing for him. That was really the only problem that they were having was stinkbugs consistently being an issue. And I went and inspected located the fact that they were coming in through around the eaves of the house and getting up into the attic and then coming down to the living space in the attic. We were able to treat that addict with a dust. And they were pleasantly surprised because they didn’t have any more stinkbug issues after that.

Oh, yeah, it’s huge. And I mean, standing behind our work, that’s just what we do. But yeah, I love how you brought that in. So I mean, when you’re, when you’re getting getting in the attic, you have to the dust is going to be the best way because you’re going to be able to get all those cracks, crevices, those voids where those bugs are going to try to enter, and that dust is going to linger. Another great thing about the dust is that there’s no sunlight in the attic. So it’s not going to break down, it’s going to stay there. Most of the time, when we do a treatment in an attic like that for stinkbugs or Asian lady beetles, or ladybugs you know, it, they don’t have a problem the next year, the next year, the next year until that product starts to break down, which takes a very, very long time and the attic or a wall void or anything like that.

Yeah, that product is definitely there for the long haul. And definitely, like you said, undisturbed by sunlight undisturbed by large amounts of moisture, it will be there and it will be effective there for quite a while.

Yeah, and another deciding factor that I’ve kind of found just from from homes with these issues. It’s always light colored homes white, light gray. So I just recommend everybody paint their house black and they probably wouldn’t have this.

Well, maybe so maybe not. I do know that especially stinkbugs to you know, if you go out on a warmer day on the side of the house that’s facing the sun that you get a decent amount of sunlight you may even catch some of these inbuilt insects sunbathing and and there’s a higher likelihood to that that’s the side of the house that they’re going to be more of an issue on you’re going to see them more often. Because of that, that heat from the sun they’re searching that warm place actively so you know they’re going to be in those wall voids they’re going to be in that portion of the attic more so than others. That’s not to say that you’re not going to see them in any other portions of the house because you will but they’re going to be on the sunny side because they like the warm

Yeah. And like said for this for this podcast I’d say the takeaway is just you know, you just if you have this issue going on, just know that don’t go up there and just try to follow them every every void in your in your attic and like, like Travis said, You’re gonna cause a lot more issues than good.

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Hey, so today I want to talk about blowflies. blowflies are disgusting. They’re disgusting fly, they come out of dead animals they come out of poop, or feces. Travis take it away on the discussing both blowflies

I like how you said that they are they are disgusting. Unfortunately, if you find yourself with blowflies, that can mean a number of different things, from the very basic of you have pets in your yard, who may use the bathroom in your yard, and you know, blowflies will use that excrement in your yard as a something to feed off of, and continue to survive. And that’s really gross, even on up to the more harsh things which they typically like dead things dead animals, dead rotting flesh. And so they’ll seek that out and they will go and they will lay their eggs on that. And the larva when they when they come out, they’ll you know, they’ll feed on that and continue to grow until they grow into adult floss so and then they want to come and they want to land on your surfaces are laying down your food, you know when you’re around your house and contaminate those items before you eat them or touch them.

And that’s how we get salmonella,

E. Coli, Salmonella. I think even cholera, just a home just a whole slew of just nasty things that you don’t want gastrointestinal problems that you don’t want. All from a little bitty, fluorescent colored fly.

Yeah. So here on the podcast, we always talk about real life events. So I’ll just tell a story about you know, last week well, right before Christmas, had a customer call, we had done a rodent job for him. She called she flies all in her basement, she had them flying around her TV at night, they were just everywhere. So whenever inspected, and she had blowflies. So we knew that we had an issue with a rodent problem. So we had controlled the rodents, one may have died somewhere around the house.

I even had a customer several months ago that had blowflies is like she woke up one morning. This is this kind of hotel and it but she woke up one morning. And it was just like an explosion of flies very large, all over the place inside her house. And that was what was very strange for us is that there were no dead animals. No dead animal smells. We checked the whole house, we checked the attic and couldn’t find anything. She did have a dog that lives in the house, you know, which would go to the restroom in the backyard. But it wasn’t like there were large amounts of flies that were lingering around in the backyard was just like all of a sudden an explosion of flies in the house. Which we of course, like you said, baited. We took care of the problem. And she hasn’t had any more issues like that since but if you’re experiencing these flies, just like I said all of a sudden overnight, or even, you know the dreaded inward maggots. If you find yourself, you know overwhelmed with not just flies, but maggots, you might want to check your garbage, you might want to check your your yard, you might want to check your walls or your attic or what have you. Because something has brought them there. And that’s why they’re reproducing and showing up.

Yeah, and they can fit at the tiniest crack and crevice. So just your typical window they can fit through, especially if it’s an older style window, your doors don’t have proper seals on them, you’re going in and out, you know, especially taking out the trash or something like that, you know, they can enter in. And then of course, if you have something dead in your attic, or your crawlspace not a problem at all for them to fly into your home or even the maggots to to get into your home and then turn into flie.

And they just reproduce so quickly. One female can lay hundreds of eggs, you know at one time, and where you started with, you know, just a couple over a very short time span, especially in warmer climates. I mean, it can just balloon out of control and balloon to this very, very big problem.

Well, and again, I mean, the it’s always best to find the source of your issue, whatever pest problem you’re having. There is a source. There’s a reason that that pest is there and like I said with flaws, especially with blowout loss. Typically it is going to be something dead inside or around the home. I know I’ve had them in my house before. I’ve had a rat issue at my house before so I had to seal that and get rid of it. But that’s that’s always going to be an indicator of something bigger the flies are are showing you that you have a bigger problem.

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Hey, so today I want to talk about powderpost beetles. And if you have ever experienced powderpost beetles, then you know exactly what they do they leave a fine frass powder on the floor, it’s normally white, yellow, and that is the signs of powderpost beetles.

You know, a lot of the the crawl spaces that I’ve inspected in, in older houses have been prone to having some sort of old identifiers that there were at one time powderpost beetles, and typically, you know, on the floor joist floor members inside the crawlspace, I mean, little holes everywhere. But the key thing there is that powder, that identifier that there’s activity going on, and that usually looks like a, like you said a whitish yellowish colored powder that’s kind of been pushed out of those holes. So it makes like a, almost like a rain down effect on the side of the wood. And that’s always usually an indicator that there’s activity going on inside of the wood in that crawlspace.

Yeah, that’s right. And then, you know, a lot of times people freak out about powderpost beetles, typically, they do not reinvest. So there’s really not, not really a need to just, you know, I’ve worried more about termites and I would powderpost beetles, because we see it all the time. And if they’re if you just see the holes, and you don’t see any of the powder, then that’s old, there’s really no need to worry about it.

Yeah, definitely. Although I will say this, you know, I think there’s some misconceptions out there from people. I had a customer this is back probably a year or two ago, that called us because they had had an inspection from another company. The other company said, Hey, we think you got powderpost beetles. And I assume, I guess that the other company declined to do the treatment on the house. And of course, this gentleman was very concerned about it and wanted it treated. So he ended up calling us and I went out to inspect the crawlspace. And sure enough, there were holes and powder coming out. And the The interesting part about this is the wood in question, the wood that was infested wasn’t the old wood underneath the crawlspace, it was actually new wood that they had put inside the crawlspace that they had recently bought from a big retail store. I’m not gonna say any names on retail chain, but they had just bought it and had it put in and a couple months later, lo and behold, they’ve got a powderpost beetle infestation coming out of the wood in this wood was supposed to have been treated wood.

Well, let’s talk about that. So when when the wood is brought into the sawmill, it’s not invested from from the forest or whatever it’s brought into the sawmill and then that wood is stored. That is when that wood starts to become infested. And they’re supposed to go through treatment styles, they’re supposed to put a type of bore care on it, or they’re supposed to do a heat treatment. But it’s heat treatments just aren’t as effective. And they take forever. I mean, you have to heat wood up for I think it’s 24 hours at 124 to 135 degrees. And that’s just, that’s, that’s hard to heat that much lumber. But, you know, 111 bundle at a time, I guess you’d say?

Well, and you also, you know, with wood, there’s there’s other factors to consider more so than just heat to you’re talking about heat, you’re talking about moisture content inside the wood. And like you said, whether or not the wood itself has been treated with some sort of pesticide or bore a type substance that’s going to, you know, penetrate down inside of that wood and have a long lasting effect. But like I said, I think that there’s just a common misconception that, well, if you go to a store or a retailer, and you purchase wood, well, it’s been treated. So it’s good to go, you know, and that’s not always the case, you can’t always just act under that reassurance that that there’s not going to ever be a problem.

Right. And then but the customer you had that they were emerging. I mean, there was no structural damage done to the wood, it was just a couple pinholes that were that were coming out. So I know you traded it, and typically likes that they don’t reinvest any, any beetles that are emerging out of that are going to die. So pretty easy to fix.

Yeah, and like I said, a good if someone has that problem has that issue in their house with their wood. It’s nothing that a bore a treatment cannot, you know, go ahead and take care of them. And the other good part about that is these these treatments like say with borides products, like board care, I guess or Tim bore or one of those products is that once that wood is treated, I mean that that product absorbs down inside of that wood and that product is there for a very very, very long time. And so it’s not just effect against things like powderpost beetles or other types of beetles, it is also effective in helping to prevent infestation for things like termites as well.

Yeah, that’s right. So I want to talk a little bit to about some miscommunication between people thinking they have powderpost beetles and people thinking that they have are actually having stored product pests. So I know, you know, a lot of the flower beetles and powderpost beetles can be, you know, that you can think you have one in the other.

Yeah, you know, and the other thing that I will say to differentiate is your powderpost beetles are your going to be less likely to actually see the beetles themselves. Most of the time, they’re going to be inside of that wood. They’re very rarely are you ever going to actually physically see the beetles themselves. Whereas a confused flower beetle or other type of stored product pests crawls around a lot of people will have a mis misconception that that weevils are beetles too, or some type of beetle. So you’re usually gonna see these pests. I’ve had a customer that had some confused flour beetles at one time. These things were everywhere, when I tell you the room that had them. They were crawling all over the counters. They were they were they were just everywhere. And actually, they they had bought these like wicker, some type of scent, a material baskets from a home decor store. And then they put these baskets in their house, and then all of a sudden, they’ve got confused flour beetles everywhere. So it’s kind of interesting, but like I said, typically with the powderpost beetles, you just you just don’t physically see the beetles very often at all.

Yeah, that’s right. And I mean, they’re not going to they don’t have a pupa either. So you’re not going to see that that little cocoon up in the in the corner of the pantry or anything like that. Also the powderpost beetles that come out at night so that’s another reason you don’t see the beetle.

Learn more about the Sleep Soundly Sweepstakes! Click Here!

Hey, so today on the podcast we want to talk about something we’re doing kind of a Christmas giveaway. It’s called the sleep soundly sweepstakes. And what it is, is it’s a free heat treatment to anybody that applies, wins the contest, and they are going to have a bedbug free home. So come in hate, hate the house and get rid of any bedbugs that you might have.

Yeah, I’m excited about this. I really, really am. I’m excited about putting it out there to somebody in need, because let’s face it, bedbugs Okay, let me start off by saying I wouldn’t pick any insects to live with. Okay. I mean, roaches, ants silverfish earwigs. I wouldn’t I wouldn’t pick any, any insects to share my home with but if I was forced to pick, I definitely wouldn’t pick bedbugs. You know, whether it’s the fact that they are literally using you as their food source or the stigmatism that surrounds bedbugs. They’re just something that I don’t want and I wouldn’t wish that on anybody else.

Well, it’s funny you say that I’ve actually I had a customer the other day asked me you know what’s worse, German roaches are bedbugs. And by far bedbugs. I mean, really, at mites. In other things I can think of parasitic, you know, insects, fleas, anything like that bedbugs are worse. I mean, there’s, there’s nothing worse than, you know, the, the horror stories we’ve heard where customers laying in bed, and they can just feel these things munching on them, or they wake up and they can, you know, see him crawling in the sheets, or just just the, the stress that they that they bring on.

Yeah, you know, I think a lot of people limit their view of the problem that bedbugs cause to only to only really thinking about the physical aspect of it and in terms of like, like you said them feeding on us and, and maybe the allergic reaction calls from their bites or, or that sort of thing, but really, there’s just a whole other. There’s just a whole other problem with bedbugs. More so than just the baits. Like I said there’s the social aspect the stigmatism around having bedbugs. And then there’s also a mental aspect of it too. You know, bedbugs. They don’t, they’re not limited to just one socio economic class there. They’re not limited to one group of people, people who own a million dollar home can have on people who own a, you know, $90,000 home can have them and everything in between. And so if you end up with these insects, they can affect you mentally from affecting your sleep. That can make it harder to sleep because you dread laying down in your bed or dread laying anywhere in your house because you feel like you’re going to become a meal. And then that can affect your your day to day, you know, at work or with your family. I mean, it’s just there’s just a lot more than just the physical feeding aspect.

Yeah, you definitely don’t want to like go over to your your family’s house for Christmas if you got bedbugs because then potentially, you know, you could bring it to them so, and

Your family’s not gonna want to come hang out with you either. Especially if they know!

Exactly what and you know, we’re joking about this. But But really, I mean, we’ve seen it so many different ways that people get bedbugs. I mean, we’ve had, you know, somebody’s mother in law stayed with them. They they she had bedbugs at their house. They had no idea. They were infested. We had a lady that was traveling really nice hotels, all throughout Louisiana and all that and she got bedbugs brought it back to her condo. We’ve had Travis you’ve had some that

I had a good friend of mine, same thing. He in his previous job. I mean, he traveled three, four or five nights out of the week, sometimes in different states. You know, working for a national company, and ended up bringing them home to his own house. And you know, it he didn’t stay and nasty hotels either.

Yeah, and I think the biggest thing too, is once you get them, people don’t know what to do people just they think that they can treat them with these, you know, store bought products that really don’t work. I mean, they’re gonna kill the one you spray. Just like roaches. They’re gonna kill the one you spray but they’re not going to take care of the problem bedbugs can get in cracks and crevices. I mean, I remember you telling me a story Travis and you were at a gas station and you saw one between the crack and crevice of like a sign. We’ve seen them in firearms. We’ve seen them just all kinds of the tightest little crack they can fit into.

Well, I did an inspection a couple of weeks ago at a house and they they had initially somehow gotten the bedbugs back and I want to say June or July of this year. And they went bought a whole bunch of like you said over the counter products labeled, you know guaranteed to kill bedbugs. Bla bla bla bla bla I sprayed everything down, sprayed everything down in the bedroom that was affected, and then thought they were in the clear, you know, didn’t see any more, didn’t seem to have any more problems. And now, you know, all of a sudden here it is November into December, and they’re back. And what I tried to explain to the customers, they never left. You know, you have bought these over the counter products. They’re they’re over repellent nature. So like you said, they’ll kill on contact if they contact. But, you know, what they didn’t understand is that bedbugs can go a long time in between feedings, they can survive for a long time before they need to feed again. And so if they had to go and hunker down and hide because of an over the counter product that was treated in there, they can they can wait it out.

That’s right. And so I went to a CEU class and I remember the teacher talking about a boy’s home, and the boy’s home all the beds were metal tube style, you know, they’ll bedframe that we’ve all had his kids just hollow on the inside, and they infested with bedbugs. And that’s why we chose hate because he is going to penetrate everything. So they could not they had to throw all these beds away because they were doing liquid treatments. They’re these boys, these boys homes, and they had to throw all the beds away because the bedbugs were so deep inside the cracks and crevices of the tube metal frame, they could not get the product in there. So that’s why we chose heat because heat is going to penetrate the walls, it’s going to penetrate all cracks and crevices the bed pretty much anywhere that bedbug can hide.

Well and a lot of people have a common misconception. So you know, we go and we meet with people, we do inspections, people that have bed bugs. And I would be willing to say the majority of the time, all of a sudden you’re looking in the room where they’re having the problem. It’s like where’s the mattress? Where’s the box springs? Or the or the headboard? Or where are these items that are supposed to be in the bedroom? John? And you know, so there again, the one that I went and inspected a couple of weeks ago, they had just bought the lady that lived at the house a new mattress? Well, you and I both know that didn’t solve the problem. And yes, these insects are called bed bugs. But the mattress is can only be just a small portion of the problem. Usually people don’t realize how far these insects will crawl away from you and then back to you to feed on you. And while yes, they can live in a mattress and live around the seams and parts of the mattress and even the box springs to the headboard but you’re also talking about living under baseboards living in nightstands, behind wall plates for plugs and light switches and just all these other cracks and crevices so they’re not just limited to the bed. And I hate to see people go and throw away a perfectly good mattress, or headboard or or whatever article that they’re away thinking that they’re helping. When realistically one you just moved that item out of the room that was infested or that is infested. So now you run the risk of investing another room in your house. And then God forbid somebody picks your furniture up off the side of the road or or the mattress or you give it away or what have you. Because now they’re probably going to have bedbugs too. So you’ve just spread the problem, when if you just leave everything in that one room, leave it in that place. And let a company like us to come in and treat you get to keep all your stuff. So you’re not out money trying to buy, you know, new items of clothing, new furniture, new anything like that. And we we can guarantee to get into every spot like he talked about the boys home because the heats not gonna miss or neglect anything.

That’s right. So let’s let’s dive into the sweepstakes. So, again, you know, we’re putting on Facebook, but on Google, we’re putting it on all these platforms that we we can because we really want to help somebody that’s in need. And, and there’s having this issue and doesn’t know where else to go?

Yeah, definitely this. This is something that we’ve been talking about now for several months and being able to give that gift to somebody. And that’s really what it is. It’s it’s us here at passkey. He’s giving somebody the gift of a bedbug free home. And you know whether that individual has one or two rooms that are infested, whether that individual and their family have a whole house that has issues with them. These heat treatment that were given away can can remedy that situation. And in in one day, and I can’t think right, exactly, you know, going back back and laying down in your bed that very same night and knowing that the problem is gone, the infestation is gone. And then being able to anticipate those family gatherings and and having company over as so many of us do during the holiday season, just being able to give that peaceful sleep. And that ability to believe that you can get together with your family and not have an issue with this insect. I mean, I think that’s huge.

Yeah, I agree. And, you know, I’d also like to just kind of get rid of that stigma of, you know, just that that common Oh, well, their house must be disgusting, that, you know, they’re living in filth, you know, all that kind of stuff. I mean, I brought back fleas to my house, a couple of months ago.

Inherent risk of the job by the way!

Luckily, I know a guy. So, and bedbugs are no different we worry about that. When we when we do services. I mean, we have to, we have to take our clothes off, you know, right outside the garage or around the back the back of the house and, and take, you know, really, really high precaution on that so

Well and I hate that because I think as a society. I think that there are a lot of people out there who, like you said have this negative connotation or negative view on someone with bedbugs, but all of the cheese, all of the heat treatments that we have done so far, have not been in some stereotypical house that’s unkept and not clean. I mean, like I said, it’s so easy to acquire an insect like a bedbug. You don’t have to, you know, have a filthy house or what have you. I mean, it can it can literally happen to anybody. And just knowing that there’s kind of this societal stigma about it, where people just think that someone is lesser than because they had bedbugs is just completely not true.

Hey, so today on the podcast, we’re gonna be talking about real estate and I’ve got my good friend.

Hey, I’m Chancie Rogers with Chancie Rogers Realty brokered by Keller Williams Hoover.

Well, Tennessee. So a couple questions for you what got you into real estate?

Well, actually, I had already had our, at the time three year old, and my husband’s a fireman. And so we were looking for a way for me to be able to stay at home and not have to be away from him so much. So I started in December of 2013, getting my license. And then we found out in February of 2014, that I was pregnant with our second child. So no, that’s not right. 2015. And so I decided to go all in with real estate. I was working for a paper company in Birmingham, eight to five. And I fell in love with it, and it took off. And it’s been a roller coaster ever since.

Well, and you started at the perfect time for housing because the market was just on fire.

Yeah, I had six months of just a normalized market, where things sat for, you know, 30 days. And then we went straight into COVID market. And it was it blew up fast.

Oh, yeah, I remember you were calling me daily 567 times a day. So

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And it was it was, hey, how fast can you get out there?

Well hey, um, any advice for someone getting into real estate Now, as far as you know, the good, the bad, what you what you’ve seen?

Yeah, you just have to really be dedicated, you have to have, you have to have goals in mind, you have to know that this business runs off of what you do, what you put into it is what you get out of it. And I’m definitely seeing that now, outside of COVID market. You can’t just they’re not just sailing now. You You have to work, you have to mark it. You have to be disciplined and discipline yourself. I mean, it’s a lot of fun. It’s a lot of joy, because you’re helping people with one of the biggest decisions of their lives. But you have to you have to really be dedicated.

Well, and also there’s kind of that law that you have to have to worry about, you know, if there’s no houses on the market, then you’re

Yeah, I don’t think what people realize is real estate is all commission. It’s commission based and if you’re not selling, you’re not making money, a brokerage just hold your license to, you know, to represent you and to be there for you if something was to go awry. But you know, you’re all commission based, you get no money unless those houses sell when when those houses are sitting and you have to plan for that.

Oh, yeah. So what’s what’s the average commission that you would get off of a home?

It just depends on the area. So I work man, I mean, of course, I’ve sold everywhere in anywhere, but I’m mainly represent mainly due them a call area and here, you know, commission, you’re looking about $4,000 to $5,000. Once it’s split it, the usual split is anywhere between two and a half to three and a half percent for buyer and seller. So you’re looking you know, your your average commission, right here in the Mccala. area, unincorporated Mccala, you’re looking at about four to 5000.

That’s not bad.

Not bad, but then you have to take in the taxes and put it back into the company. You know, people look at it, and they’re like real estate agents make so much money. And I’m like, let me show you.

Like, that’s like being a business owner, you know, so

Yeah, I mean, you are like I’m an LLC, I own Chancie Rogers Realty. And it I mean, yes, Keller Williams is my home office. But I own my own business. So you pay those business taxes. And luckily, again, I’m you know, I’m blessed to be married to a fireman. So we have state and health insurance, but I know plenty agents have to pay for their own health insurance. So that’s another fee that rolls into all of that on top of our sons and our marketing and everything we do to make it a seamless transaction.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. So um, I know, we’ve talked about this a lot. But where do you see the market? Or how is the real estate market now? From COVID to now, you know, what do you what do you see in

You know, some, I think all agents have it different. Again, where I work, the areas that I work that I’m mainly in, we’re seeing a very slow market, we’re seeing houses sitting for a lot longer than what they were which is the norm. They call it the shift we’re in the middle of a shift and what’s so strange is usually everyone shifts together and you’re seeing more of the city’s not so much in a shift right now. Where the county the rural areas are in the shift. And I think that just due to who’s buying right now and who’s not buying right now you know, you have your your people who aren’t wanting to aren’t want to be around all the things in the rural areas. And right now they’re like, I’m just going to hold my money and see what happens. And I mean, I truly feel and anything that I’m listening to fills this same way I do my lender partners feel the same way I do. As soon as we see those interest rates start dropping a little bit, we’re gonna see a crazy market again.

Well, it’s crazy, because prices haven’t changed.

And they’re going up still.

I mean, I’ve seen some some around here, you know, we’ve got some, some older people that are leaving their home and go and go in other places. And they’re selling them for 20 30,000 less than than what they were going for, and they’re still sitting on the market, not not going anywhere. I mean, it’s, it’s crazy how it’s just flipped.

Yeah, we went from here, you know, just in my neighborhood alone, we went from houses selling for 170 to 180 a square foot, and now we were barely getting them over 150 a square foot. But keep in mind 150 A square foot is still a whole lot more than what they were even four years ago. So we’re comparing with a market that is unprecedented to anybody if you ask them. And and the market is trying to level itself out a little bit, but at the same time prices are still high, and now you throw in the 8% interest rates. So we’re just in a little right now, I think.

oh, yeah, it’s crazy. I mean, like, we just talked about $130,000 houses now for almost $500,000 house. It’s I can’t wrap my head around, you know, what it was?

Yeah. Um, yeah. I mean, you know, like, like you and I were talking about I mean, we purchased our homes for right now people. I mean, at the time, we were like, Man, that’s a steal. And now it’s like, was it condemned? Was it falling in? Like, how did you get it for that price? And now, I mean, you and all those can sell our houses for double what we paid for them. And we we’ve lived in a we bought ours in 2014. So, you know, I mean, that’s not a huge gap. from the, from what we’re seeing now. And I mean, have we done a lot of work here? Absolutely. We put everything we can back into it. But does that make it to where we should be able to sell it for 300 1000s? I don’t know. You know, and that’s the market that’s trying to reset itself a little bit because kids now you know, that are getting out of college getting into high school and they’re wanting to buy. I know, when I was getting out of college in high school, it was a starter home was $89,000. You know, and you’re getting a starter home now if you’re lucky, brand new build 250 260 You know, and brand new build starter homes, three bedroom, two bath brick, you know, to get get go when was $89,000 easy.

Oh, yeah. I mean, it was to me, it was a lot easier. And that’s, you know, you’re talking about the 252 70. That’s, that’s a little ways out. I mean, you’re not going to be in your, in your county, you’re going to be more unincorporated. So

yeah, you’re gonna you’re looking at out and clear. And those areas that have all that booming new communities, you know, the Dr. Hortons, the the new Castle’s all of those building, the brand new houses side by side, I mean, they’re still in the 250s to 60s, easy. And a lot of those new builders are giving all of these all of these specials and the bad downs and everything because they’re having to to be able to keep going because it’s hard. Yeah, you know, it’s hard. And when taxes tell you that your house is $3,000 more than what it was two years ago. You know, you have to incorporate all of that when you’re selling as well. And it’s, you know, it’s just people are it’s a shell shock for everyone.

Oh, yeah, definitely. Definitely. So So where do you see the market going? I know we talked about, you know, in the next couple, maybe a year, maybe six months, we really don’t know, where do you see it going?

Yeah, I mean, you know, I always hate this question because I never want I want people to look back and be like she was wrong. You know, what? We listen to Nora, which is the the real you know, that’s where real estate’s get all of their information from that’s, that’s where we get everything National Association of Realtors. We listen to investors who’ve been doing this for years. And if real estate agents aren’t doing that you should be because that’s literally my lifeline. Because, again, I’m four years in. And I’ve seen three different markets in four years. And I feel truly we’re about to see a whole nother market again, where housing prices are still high. 6% is the new two and 3%. And we’re going to go into another feeding frenzy for 15 people per house because you have to think about it. We had those people that sold their home and kept the cash because their house was worth the most it’s ever going to be worth kept the cash. Well, we’re just going to live in our RV or we’re just going to rent for a little while they’re still living in an RV, they’re still renting. And so once that drops just a little bit, which I think will be closer to election time. Maybe spring late spring, I think we’ll see a feeding frenzy again and we’re all going to be exhausted. I pray anyway, I’m ready for Then, after I’ve done that I don’t thrive in how long is it gonna take my house to sell? It’s been sitting for 15 days. But I do feel that that’s what’s coming. And buyers need to brace themselves to be ready to battle again.

Definitely. Hey, I love getting a phone call from you on Thursday night being like, Hey, I got a closing on Friday. I need you to do it Friday morning. Yeah, I’m with you. It’s,

That’s really what we’re seeing. So that that domino effect was, you know, just to give an example of how crazy it is right now. We had been under contract for two months on that. But because you and I both know that, you got to get paid. And I was just waiting because the person that was buying that house was having to sell their house, and they were doing a cash deal. Well, the closing date kept changing, which of course, adjusted our closing date. And then I was doing this as a gift for my seller clients, but I don’t want to pay out of pocket because I’ve had to do it before that didn’t sale. Um, you know, for a termite bond when it’s just sitting there. So we you know, we were having a play domino effect. And then I get the phone call, Hey, we’re not closing next Tuesday. We’re actually bumping it up to this month, this Friday, because there’s people want to be in the house over the weekend. And I’m like, oh, okay, well, because we I think we had it scheduled for like that Monday or Tuesday. And I’m like, Hey, we gotta get this done, like yesterday. And that’s what we’re seeing, like, it’s still moving so fast. And once you get to that process, because the lenders are just banging stuff out, right? But we have to get to that process first. And everything else is kind of slow down. Because these people are waiting for this to happen, and this to happen and this to happen. And with the interest rates changing daily, we never know if we’re gonna make it to the closing table right now. Because they might wait. I mean, if they don’t walk in, like they’re supposed to, they might, they might wake up one morning and be like, Hey, we can’t afford this, because the interest rates went up. 5%. You know, I mean, it’s just it’s, it’s been it’s been crazy. And we’ve literally seen it all in the last six months.

Oh, yeah. I mean buying a house, then you can’t afford the furniture. So.

Right. Right. Don’t care about that before we close because

Exactly. Well, that that brings me right, next question. So that’s perfect. So what sets you apart? I know you just talked about and if you want to elaborate more on that, because when you called me and said you were doing that, I mean that I thought that was awesome for you to do for your customer, great customer service. So what sets you apart?

Well, I mean, that’s it, like, you know, people are, this is the most joyful, yet stressful time of their life. I mean, they’re making the biggest purchase of their life. And so you want to make that as seamless as possible. Of course, in this case, this is a reoccurring client, for me, a good friend of mine, she’s also starting to invest. So she’s going to be an investor client of mine. And, you know, I just wanted to make sure that she knew how much I appreciated her how important it was, and I didn’t want them to I knew coming down to it. The last thing we were going to need was the termite, Vaughn and who are and you know, you guys are always so great to just be like, yes, we’re on it, like, don’t worry about it. But I knew that that was going to be stressful, and I didn’t want her in the picture at all. So I just took care of that. But you know, I also am huge on social media. Absolutely love marketing. You know, background, my dad has been a marketing manager for AMS for golf. 40 plus years now. So the marketing for me is just huge. And I enjoy it. And you can see that in my job. I also give back to the fire department with any closing that I have. That’s huge to me, and not only my married to one, my granddaughter of one, I’m a daughter of one all my family is in the medical field. So giving that to them is so important to me. And it’s a huge staple in our life to make sure that those guys and gals are taking care of so that’s important too.

Oh, yeah. And they deserve it.

Yeah, absolutely. They work way too hard.

Yes,I know. Yes. Yeah. Well, um, so let’s talk about some good and bad about real estate. I mean, you know, obviously, during COVID It was it was great. Now, it’s now it’s bad. What are some just horror stories that you have?

I think that’s a little bit of the downfall that we see in this, you know, in this business, a lot of people are like, they’re just trying to get to that closing table, not really not understanding that you literally are in charge of one of the biggest decisions and people’s laws and their about the sun over literally their life, and every bit of money that they have. And just using that as I gotta get money in the bank is just not that’s not how this should work. That’s not how that’s not what real estate was meant for your your debate, you’re to be that backbone, and that that person that is there to guide them through the whole way. And when you you can’t be that if all you’re looking for is a paycheck. So if you’re getting into real estate, and but you know what you need, make sure that you have that something to fall back on, so that every paycheck isn’t like, I’ve got to have it no matter what the situation is.

Oh, yeah, well, and, you know, the biggest thing is trust to I mean, like, we work, we work with multiple real estate agents. And like, I’ve voiced my opinion, you know, some of us, some of them have, after we’ve given them the wood infestation report, we’ve never heard back from them, we’ve never, we’ve never been paid. So you know, just just having that trust with the person you’re working for. And being able to vouch for that person is huge.

Well, and we’re not in a business to where you burn those bridges. You know, like, I mean, I depend on you just as much as you depend on me, you know, you’re like, hey, you know, I know that she’s gonna call me when she needs a termite, if it’s up to her. And you know that, like, there’s no doubt. But you know, at the same time, I need to know that the work, the job is getting done, and I don’t have to worry about it. And I never have to. And it’s the same way with all of my partners, if at the end of the day like, and I’ll use this for Prime example, one of my lender partners, their marketing person is literally my best friend, like my ride or die. And she knows that, like, I love her Absolutely, with every inch of me. But if one, if I have a client that I know is not going to mix with them, I’m going to send them to one of my other lender partners. And if if I have a client that comes to me, and they’re like, hey, this just isn’t working for me, again, absolutely love her. But we’re flipping on to someone else, because they’re my client. And they’re what’s important to me. It’s the same way with my my title company, you know, I have all these preferred people who I rely on them, and they rely on me, but at the end of the day, if my clients not happy with anybody that I pick, we switching gears, of course, because they are my number one priority. And that’s the way it should be in real estate. But at the same time, you do have those bonds with certain people, you’re a team. You know, in real estate, they think that, you know, it’s just the real estate agent, I have 50 million million people, including you who I have at my back that I have this team and we’re ready to go and I give my people the sheet and these are who you need to call. Let’s get the ball rolling, right? I’ve built a team of people that I trust, so I don’t have to worry about it. That’s right. That’s right. And if you don’t have that team, you don’t have that backbone. You don’t have that structure. You’re not running a true real estate business. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you’re making it work. And when you burn bridges like that, like you know, with me, and you I wanted to make sure that there was a paid situation. So it was paid in full, and then when you were reimbursed, you reimbursed me. That’s the way it should be like that’s the way this business should be ran Not while I’m gonna call a person, and if it didn’t work out, well, I’ll just move on to the next that’s not a team that’s not running a true business.

Well, that’s something else, you know, with with us and you you know, a lot we’ve we’ve heard of a lot of other companies that they go through email and all that I like that that personal touch with, with my customers with you with with anybody that I’m working with where it’s it’s a conversation Hey, yeah, we’ll get it done. I really don’t like the filling out a form type thing. And I guess it’s old school.

Yeah well, and you know, I mean, I think I mean, there are really truly haven’t had many buyer clients or seller clients that haven’t used you. And so and that’s coming from buyers who already have contracts that it was someone else because they’re buying from someone, but my people trust me so much. And we have such a good relationship. And we’re a team that they’re like, I want to flip to your guys because I know that I can call you you can call them if there’s something wrong Whereas with there’s other people, I’m going to be on hold for 15 minutes waiting on the next customer service representative. You know, like, I guess, you know, it all boils down to I mean, you can use big companies. I’m not saying big companies are not a good option. Go ahead, you know, if that’s what you’re comfortable with, and that to your team is, I do better with small town team because I’m a hometown Country Girl lender. I mean, look at my house. But, you know, it just works better for us. It works better for my clientele, I’m not in the upper areas where they don’t mind, you know, somebody’s going to take care of it for them. So they don’t mind sitting on hold for 15 minutes. I know who I can contact, I know who I can go to, and I know it’s taken care of. And that’s something off my real estate plate that I don’t have to worry about.

Right, right. Well, Chancie I really appreciate you coming on the podcast. So how can how can we find you? You know?

Yeah. So my cell phone is always the best way to get in touch with me calls or text messages 205-260-8286. I’ll literally answer anything. It could say spam risk, and I’m still going to answer it just in case. And then I am on Tik Tok, the fancy agent, Instagram, the fancy agent and then just Chancie Rogers Realty on Facebook.

Perfect. well hey, again, I really appreciate you coming on.

Click here to visit Chancie Roger’s website!

205-260-8286

Hey so today on the podcast we want to talk about dryer vent cleaning and I have my good friend Matt Parker with job town dryer vent cleaning Matt how you doing?

Good man how are you?

Doing great man doing great. So um let’s dive right into it. Tell me a little bit about your story your business how you got started all that

Awesome yeah so been a fireman for 15 years and were originally started out pressure washing so we I was pressure washing me and another guy at the current fire department and he had a pressure washing business as well and one night he ran across a basically it was a tick tock video I think he’s like hey, what do you think about this and it was dryer minute Cleaning Guy was just you know running a run into air compressor with a hose into somebody’s retirement sling and went all over the place he’s like I think there might be something there so that that piqued our interest so when we were going to houses both he and I both we get houses pressure wash we start looking at dryer mats and seeing are the vent caps and see and lots of just clogged stuff like we could we saw something that we could actually help band firemen we’ve both of us had been on actual dryer fires. So we kind of saw a need as well. And so we basically can just started doing research. We reached out to companies in Tennessee reached out to coffees in Arizona companies in Texas, there’s some there’s Texas as a lot bigger than it is here. There are several guys that are actually farming as well. So had a you know, we reached out to guys in Atlanta, we’re just, you know, doing our research, doing our due diligence, trying to figure out if this is something that we feel like, you know, we could sustain and, you know, everything just kind of kind of fell into our lap. Honestly, we we found out about certifications that we want you guys to see that certification that allows us to you know, we we know exactly what we’re doing now with driving and cleaning. So that was a huge get getting that see that stuff. And, you know, so it’s just been slowly and surely grow. And it’s been amazing. That’s basically where it started. And you know, we just like we saw a need. And you know, being being firemen, we can we know the dangers of not cleaning out your dryer, but what it can lead to, and we just wanted to you know, make a difference.

Yeah, man. That’s awesome. It’s funny, because, you know, that’s how I started Peskies I mean, I took a part time job. I was firefighters. Well, you know, we work together. Yeah. And it fell into my lap started a company and here we are. So, yes. And I’ve I’ve also been on driving fires, it’s it’s very, very common. I think people just kind of don’t know how common it really is. So

Right. Yeah. The NFPA the last, the last numbers that I’ve seen, you know, obviously this is, you know, in our research, we found this out last numbers I think were from, I want to say 15. So they haven’t done a survey, but there was like I want to say close to 15,000 structural fires that were due to dry vents.

Wow. Wow.

Yeah, it’s it’s a lot more common than you think.

Well, and that lint is so I mean, it just it lights on fire so quickly. I mean, it’s the best kindling for really any fire. And hopefully, it’ll burn your house down quick. So

Yeah, yeah. And you have an appliance. It’s pretty good. It’s providing heat to it. Yep. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So

Well, so how’d you come up with a name?

So the name is you know, just going back to the our firefighter route. So when you when around the station, if we get a fire we get a wreck or any anything that is going on that we get toned out on? We it’s called a job, you know, we’re going to a job. So we just kind of just some slang, honestly, that came about at the fire station. It’s just job town. We’re going to Job town. So me and the guy that started this company with both Vironment and hey, what do you think about Georgetown? And it was kind of, you know, kind of tongue in cheek just something different. Honestly, some of this kind of sets us apart what you know what is job town so we can tell our story, but anyway, so just being a fireman, Fireman run and operated business. It just fit job sounds just kinda like okay, yeah, I like it. So we just ran with it. So that’s where it came from.

I love it. Love the logo, love the name. I love the story. So it’s great. I mean, come from the firefighter background, you know, of course. So why why should we clean our dryer vents? Obviously we talked about the potential structure fire, but what are some other issues that you know, like we talked about before? Not a lot of people think about drive ins is something that needs to be maintained clean. I know I certainly didn’t until I got in the fire service and started seeing, you know, the repercussion to that.

Right! Yeah, well, I mean, honestly, I, it’s something that I never really thought about either, you know, most of my dryers were on exterior walls and in that I’ve had personally and never really had an issue myself. But like you said, we’ve run it, we’ve seen it, we know the dangers of it, we’ll see there’s numbers that are out there. And, you know, the main things that there’s, well, there’s a ton of things that have happened, I’ve been to somebody’s house that had several bands, and they had a break in their dryer vent, and it started creating a water issue. So this link gets in there. And the if it’s not able to get out, you know, all it is, is moist air that is this getting pushed to this dryer, and eventually it becomes dry over time, you know, over that 60 minutes of dryers running, it becomes dried, it dries out. And if you’ve been so just rolls out of your mint. If it’s not, if it’s not venting properly, all that motion just sits in there, and it finds a low spotlight waterwheel and then it’ll just start leaking. So they had they thought they had a plumbing leak, they didn’t know what was going on. Like I think I got like two gallons of water out of this diagram. Wow, dryer vent. Yeah, lint wetland just sitting there, it’s just soaking that stuff up. It was disgusting. So it’s not just fires, you can have water issues, you can have just, you know, if you’re in a crawlspace, and you’ve got a broken lint, a broken pipe, you just got lint, and just moisture and mold can start building up, you know, it’s just, it’s just a giant mess. So one, it’s can just be messy and an irritant to its, it can create mold issues in your house, I’ve seen several, there’s another one that I went to, I don’t know how they didn’t have that standing water, when I got in and cleaning it still that there’s just really nothing that I could do about it. Yeah, I can’t run a sponge up in there, you know, it’s just the one of these things were used. There was no airflow at the end, they had a huge clot at the beginning. And it was just sitting in there, there was no air movement. So it’s just water and moisture is building up over time. And it just hasn’t worked yet. So once we get that cleaned out or moving over it, eventually it’s going to dry out and it’s going to do what it needs to do. But there’s a lot more problems. So you know, you start you can burn dryers, several several dryers is burnt up, you know, that’s an expensive appliance that if you just do some proper maintenance on it, you can the thing, last thing, you know, they’re supposed to last a long time, you can get it last 10 years, just by taking care of this, like, the only thing it wants to do is also pull air in and most heat it and it wants to move it out like it is as long as it can do that it’ll last for a very long time. So that’s, you know, it’s cutting down on energy, you know, it’s more energy efficient if the driver can run like it’s supposed to. There’s, there’s several benefits to not tell people, it’s probably one of the most neglected areas in our homes that require normal maintenance. You know, it’s kind of like the old in all change for your house is basically where we’re what we’re talking about,

Well, that there’s nothing worse than you’re going to, you know, take out the wet clothes, because I’ve had this happen to me. So you’re going to take out the wet clothes from your washer, throw them in the dryer, and then it doesn’t work or it doesn’t heat your clothes. And now you get you know, sopping wet mess. So

Absolutely.

So just for the typical homeowner, you know, what are some signs before they would call you what are some signs that they would see their dryer, you know, that knowing that it needed to get cleaning, you know, what,

Lint stuck inside a dryer vent hose

Right so there’s, there’s three major ones and the like the one you were just talking about, you take wet clothes to your dryer, and they don’t get dry, you’re running, you’re running several loads, just to get some sheets dry, you know, I had to run it three times. First time. second sign is. So when we get a clog in our system, we get a clog in our vent that dryer, that hot air can’t move out. So if you go and touch your dryer and it’s hot to touch, it should like it should be warm. It’s not like you know, you go put your hand on and not a big deal. You know your drivers work and it’s good. Hot, like this thing is really hot. This is normal. That’s another sign that you’ve got to drive in this year. And your third like your room will just heat up like the I had a lady who’s been president was broke. It’s just like he just gets so hot in here. I’ve even heard of people having their wall sweating just because there’s so much moisture in there. So if you have any of that stuff going on you really have a you have a real problem so hot you dry hot to touch dry multiple loads room is warm. If your wall start sweating, those are all those are all signs that you got to issue with your dryer vent. So it’s not you know, most people are gonna it’s gonna say I got a dryer problem. No, you don’t have a problem dryers do what it needs to do. It just can’t breathe the vent problem yet you’re not allowing the dryer to do what it wants to do. So

Well like I said with the analogy of a car I mean, you cover the exhaust it’s the same exact thing you’re not gonna, it’s gotta breathe somehow.

And the beauty of these newer ones now like they’ll they’ll give you code Yeah or older dryers they’ll just keep rocking until they buy Turn up, the appliance burns up or your house catches on fire or, you know, whatever. So these new ones, they’ll they’ll throw a D 80, which are, do you know, that’s just one of the hear about a lot. So it’s like 80% block. Okay, they know that they have a problem, you know, D 90 D 95. I mean, it gets, they’ll get hot. So,

So it actually tells you the blockage in the unit itself?

I think, right, I think they have a pressure, they have a pressure reader, I think built into the dryer. So once it stepped back pressure starts hitting it. And it just it, I guess it can register. That’s another thing I can think of, that’s the only way I know that it’s just, it’s recognizing that there’s an issue in the event.

Well, that’s pretty cool. Right there. So walk me through your process of how you do it, you know, you get on scene and you start, you know, working what is your process?

Sure. So we think another thing that separates us too, is, you know, we’re we want to provide customer service like that is that is first and foremost, what we want to do. So we were going to show up, we’re going to introduce ourselves, and we’re going to get you to take us to the jar, once we get there, we’re going to cut it on, and we’re working our way outside. So we’re gonna go outside and the thing that we’re looking for the most, and that tells us, you know, it points us in the direction of where we need to go. So we’re getting an airflow reading. So, you know, there’s a standard that a dryer has. And we know real quick, if your dryer is not performing to that standard, you know, just by therefore reading what’s coming out, we’re looking at your Vent Cap as well while we’re up there. So those things clog up and can create a huge problem. I’ve seen several that just have a mint cap issue, like there’s nothing wrong with the dryer Mint is fine. But the mint cat is completely blocked, and you start getting that blockage and you start getting those problems like we talked about earlier. So while we’re up there at your at your termination, we’re going to get an airflow reading, and we’re going to clean everything from there. So that’s, that’s the first thing we’re going to do, then we’re going to come down most of them honestly, to err on roofs. And that’s another thing. If you have a dryer and an area of convenience, this is a necessity that you get your job and cleaned out. If you’re on an exterior wall, and it’s just blowing right out, your biggest problem is changing your transition hose and making sure that it’s good. I kind of went off on a tangent there. But like we have most of our homes now that are being built, they put an area there dryers in areas of convenience. And that’s where you start getting these problems. So like so most of them are on roofs, that’s where I was going with that. So we’ll go up on the roof, clean that thing out, come back inside. Once we come back inside, we pull the dryer away from the wall, we clean up anything behind the dryer, we’re vacuum and we’re walking down microfiber cloth we’re doing, you know, we’re just taking care of taking care of that, that area that just once again is just neglected, nobody’s pulling the dryer away from the wall and cleaning it. So we go ahead while we’re back there, but we’ll vacuum baseboards, we wipe everything, wipe all the walls down all the witnesses collected back there over the years or years, how long has it been since has been moved. And then we pulled the transmission hose off and we inspect that well make sure that it’s good. You know, check it out, make sure that the code no major holes or anything like that, that can be causing problems. And once we do that, if it’s in good shape, we’ll clean that and set it aside, then we’ll go to the back of the dryer with a dryer, actually the bit is on the dryer where the air actually exits. And we will clean that as well put a vacuum on that. And that’s another thing too, we have a vacuum system that we’re backing everything up. So there’s no lint or anything’s getting blown throughout your house, everything’s getting pulled to a vacuum system that has filters and bags. So it’s it’s super clean. So we’ll clean the back of your dryer out. And then we have an inspection camera that will run the entire length of your event. So your event you know depending on how long it is we’ll we’ll go through checking out all making sure all your terms are in safe and intact, making sure that there’s no real, nothing intruding into your dryer man, that’s a big code violation. And it just creates a you know, it’s just it just grabs lint and creates problems. So we’ll look for that. And then we’ll just make sure that it’s you know, it also allows us to know the length. So you can only have a dryer, man, if it’s a straight around from the back of your dryer all the way out of your house, it’s 35 feet, that’s code. That’s all you can have 35 feet, so in every bend and every 45 it cuts down on that just because it creates so much friction. So we get an idea of how long your vision is. And we can tell you stuff like that too. So it’s an we get some good before pictures so we can share with everybody everybody likes to see we like to show our work too. So you can call us for a fact what you’re getting. So it’s just another it’s another thing that we know just providing that that service for those customers. So we’ll get that. We’ll get all this before and after pictures, make sure everything’s good with the bin. Bring everything out and we have a brush we agitate you know you see all these YouTube videos and all this stuff or these guys put blowers or backings on their vents and they just blow a bunch of lint out. It works great but there’s they’re not agitating that stuff that stuff will stick especially if you have dogs, dogs and cats. I’ve got two. So I mean, like, I understand their hair and lint becomes like concrete, like you can blow all that loose stuff that’s just in there, yeah, it’s gonna come out, it’s still stuck to your walls, if you don’t have a way to agitate that. And to get that and scrub that off the walls, it’s just gonna stay in there, especially if it’s wet. exists. Exactly right, exactly right, yeah, it’s not gonna get blown out with a blower up. So we take a brush system and a drill and we agitate, it’s a four inch brush that hits all the way up the on all sides of your race round. So it hits the hits everything and your job, then we pull everything to it, if it’s a vertical, we kind of let gravity help us out, it falls down, we vacuum everything up. If it’s a horizontal drive, if it goes up and kind of out the side of your house will actually get to the outside of the house, put the vacuum on and we push everything in to the backing system. So it’s cleaned. Once we’ve done that, we rerun the camera, make sure that it’s good shade to get after pictures, and then put everything back together for you. So that is what you know, that’s what you get. When we come out to your house and give you a drive and cleaning. That’s what you’re getting. We’re not cutting any corners, and everyone gets that same service.

I love how you run the camera, I love that you’re showing your customer. Exactly, you know what you’re seeing before and after. So, you know, and I love your I mean, you’re offering a free inspection to make sure that there is no, you know, code violation, because you talked about with me there, you run into a lot of code violations.

Absolutely, yes, huge code violations, which create lots of lots of problems, you know, I mean, that’s where your fires typically come from. So good to know that, if you have if you if your event is up to code, and everything’s good, it needs to be cleaned. If your event is added code, and you’re running transition hose through walls, you know, just as well as I do how friction builds up, and you’ve got, let’s just, you know, my, my old partner called it Slinky Dog House is that, you know, it’s aluminum foil rat, you know, it’s just wire wrap aluminum foil, essentially, I mean, everything that we put on is UL certified. So, you know, it’s, it’s been tested, but that does, but it’s for, you know, it’s a transition it is to transition your dryer to your mitt, it is not a dryer meant transition hose, you know, it says that it’s in the name. So when you run transition hose into a wall, in, down and out, and it’s got all these terms, and it’s not, we like to pull it as tight as we can, and then make it as short as possible. So like when it’s super tight, we connect it with warm drives, and then as we push the dryer together, it’s super short, there’s not a lot of friction in there. And it it does well, you know, it’s serves its purpose, but when you run it into a wall, and run, it’s extremely long runs, you know, these things are 30 foot long, and you’re doing that and now you have all these all these ridges that are creating friction, not allowing that man to flow like it needs to, you’ve got lint built up in there, and it’s super thin. So we’re going back to now if we get a hole in this, you’re gonna create, you’re gonna be blowing lint everywhere. Best case scenario, worst case scenario is is correct is capturing moisture. And now you have you have water in your home, wherever this man is, you’re getting a moisture issue. And honestly, that’s where your fire is coming from. So they start in the dryer, now you have all this lint built up in a super thin, you know, aluminum foil wrapped vent. So it’s just going to burn, it’s got air coming from the outside, it’s got air, which is you know, it needs fire needs a couple of things it needs steel in it needs oxygen, and it needs air, I mean, it’s an ignition source, basically. And heat, you’re given, it’s got all of it, it’s got everything that it needs. So once it starts, it’s got everything it needs to grow, it’s got fuel in there, it’s got air, and it’s got a heat source that has been provided by your dryer. So all those things are just a really bad combination. And that’s why this transition hose is a huge Kabbalist because that’s where your fires are going to come from is collecting that when it’s getting you know, if it starts in the dryer, it makes his way out, makes his way out of that dryer and starts collecting this lint. And now it just has this basically like a fuse that it can just run all the way through your house.

Well, and that’s it, you know, once it gets in the attic, you know, as well as I do. It’s a it’s a loss. Absolutely. Sign it off. Yeah. Well, and that’s it’s funny you say that because we do a lot of termite work. So we’ll crawl crawl spaces, and I see it all the time where you’re you’re talking about you know, that hose is broken apart or it wasn’t it wasn’t meant to be there in the first place. It wasn’t done right. And they’ve just got dryer lint throughout their entire crawlspace Oh, absolutely.

I mean, if you go especially if you go to a nicer home that that hasn’t that hasn’t been addressed and never had an issue with it. And it’s encapsulated here like I just wanted to ask crawled one crawlspace man, you could go down there and I like it again. They’re super nice, but the vendors are nice. Yeah, it was super nice. I was like, Man, this is fantastic. But I mean, let’s bro the dryer vent was broke off and I just got lint and some like said moistures in there and like you spent all this money, you’ve done all this to do, you know, to do your preventative maintenance on your home and to keep it nice and clean and fresh air and all that stuff. And now you’re just pumping crap in it. So it’s just, you know, it’s a problem.

Well, we preach preventative maintenance on everything with pest control termite I mean, it like we talked about anything you do, you have to keep it, you know, maintained or it’s gonna fall apart.

Exactly.

So, alright, so what’s what’s something? What’s the most interesting thing you found in a dryer van? I know, you know, in my business, we find all kinds of things. bird nest, rats, dead things. So since you’re getting a camera up in there, you get to see a lot more not do.

So, you know, we’ve seen some very interesting things. Lots of birds nest lots what we’ve found we’ve actually found we rescued three birds and took them to the the lady was awesome. We got those out. And she took them to I want to say she took them to a mountain. And like, you know, they say, yeah, yeah. So the birds could go and in live so we found several birds nests. We, we run in a camera after we clean this one out and pull the camera back down. And we’d been back there working on this jar for a while and there was a frog. I think he I think we put the camera out it was at the big gap. And maybe he just crawled onto it and rode that camera off my back down to that Jarvinen so we found a frog. I guess I don’t know how frog got back there. But birds, nests frogs. And one of the most interesting things that we used to clean out the were the lint trap goes into your dryer, we used to clean those out. We had a bad experience with that. So we don’t do that anymore. But I found a toothbrush in one of those. So that was pretty interesting. Pull on toothbrush and somebody’s dryer.

I guess I got left in a pocket or something like that. I bet you find a lot of coins.

Yeah, yeah.

So where can people find you? So you know, listen to this. What’s your phone number? You know, email address, all that kind of stuff?

Yeah, so this phone number is 205-881-9115. And we have website. It’s a job town cleaning at. I’m sorry, that’s the email the email is gonna be [email protected] If you want to shoot us an email, and the website says jobtowndryerventcleaning.com. So we’re on Google as well. So this is probably the easiest way to find us honestly. So you can just Google you know job town driving cleaning or just Google Drive and cleaning. We’re, we’re on the Google’s as well.

Perfect. What are yours do you service?

Man? Well, we will go anywhere we try to stick within the 30 minutes of Birmingham right now just because we’re limited on manpower, but if you’re having an emergency and we have to, we’ll charge slightly but we’ll go outside. We’ll go pretty much anywhere if somebody’s having a problem we can get to him with you know, I’ve been called I had to tell lady no that was in Gordo, which I mean that was like an hour away. So it was a little outside of it. But you know, I don’t we don’t like say no a lot. So we’ll go just about anywhere. Well, good

deal why Georgetown love the name. Again, Matt. I appreciate you coming on and hopefully, you know, some might give you a call and get that dryer vent cleaned.

Heck yeah man they awesome. We love helping people out reducing risk and people’s homes. And that’s that’s the name of the game.

Lint cleaned out of a customer’s dryer vent by Jobtown Dryer Vent Cleaning Company

Facebook: Jobtown Dryer Vent Cleaning Company

205-881-9115