Stories From Your Techs – #1 “Why Did the Rat Cross the Road?”

This blog series captures the craziest, funniest, and most bizarre pest problems that your local technicians have encountered. This story comes from one of our General Managers and former technician, Dan Seymour, who began working with us at Green Pest Services in 2019.

“Why Did the Rat Cross the Road?”

Back in 2006, I met a client by the name of Andrews who had a particularly bizarre pest problem on his hands. He was the Property Manager of a complex of luxury condos in Arlington, VA that happened to be in close proximity to the Ft. Meyer Army Base. On the Base’s property were a set of stables housing horses that pulled carriages for official military funeral ceremonies. These stables had gotten old and were recently torn down to make room for new infrastructure. Unfortunately, Mr. Andrews told me the demolition led to an unexpected side effect. When the stables were torn down, hundreds of rats ran across the road to escape… and ended up right at the doorstep of the luxury condos.

The massive population of rats made quick work of the condos. They had managed to burrow into the ground around the condos, then back up through 4-inch-thick concrete flooring in order to access the units. I arrived on site to access the gravity of the job and was met with a sea of holes littered across the grounds. It took a while to complete my survey of the property, but once I had, I informed Mr. Andrews that we were ready to tackle the massive invasion.

With two other technicians by my side, we got to work treating the condos and sealing the burrows. Due to the gravity of the situation and the significant danger that the rats posed to the residents, we took extra precautions to ensure our treatments were very thorough. Then, after waiting a few days for the applications to take effect, we returned.

Upon arrival we were met with the overwhelming sight of our success… 287 rats had been eliminated. The clean-up required 6 technicians in full protective gear, ten 55-gallon trash bags, and a few hours. After cleaning up, we reapplied treatments where necessary and sealed all new burrows.

Over the next few months, the remaining rats were all “served eviction notices” for the luxury condos, and residents were no longer plagued by the dangerous pests. Mr. Andrews was a very satisfied customer and thankful for our help. In total, we removed over 400 rats from the property.

True Story from Technician: Dan Seymour

Written By: Katalina Dawson