Creepy Crawly Chronicles

Follow Luka on his Monthly Pest Adventures...

Hi everyone my name is Luka and I am the field service manager at GreenLeaf Pest Control. If I were to guess, your pest issue is likely consuming more of your mental space than you’d like and may seem overwhelming. For us although each customer feels important, it’s a snapshot in our day and part of our insect and rodent filled life. If your own troubles aren’t enough to satisfy your creepy crawly fix then feel free to live vicariously through me as I will be writing monthly blog posts on various topics that may go in the direction of interesting field experiences, general education, or practical tips and tricks that I feel you could keep in your tool belt to better prevent and manage your home or business.

Also I’d encourage people to email or comment on any post with something you’d like to know more about. We will preview each blog with an Instagram post so commenting on that is a great way to get your ideas to me.

Story Time – Pest Expert Experiences

Today I’ll talk about how I got into pest control. Well it all started at a very young age, my first sentence as a toddler involved questioning my daycare about their sanitation conditions contributing to their pest issues with Dohrniphora cornata of the Phoridae family being particularly front of mind for me at the time and let me tell you I was having none of their excuses. Well maybe not quite like that, but honestly I had a few experiences as a child that I could look at as training experience for my current career. I was the household pest control technician. If we had mice, I did the gross and dirty things. When we got rid of the mice, I was the one chasing a solo mouse around my backyard with a shovel as my mom yelled “oh no we can’t let it get inside!”. To the relief of my mom, I actually caught that mouse and we didn’t get mice again. Now looking back, hiring a company would have been a lot easier. Also having a large, partially open and flapping dog door that fit my 150lb Rottweiler was practically invited them in. But at least that gave me job experience when I eventually applied for GreenLeaf.
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Pest Industry – A Lifetime of Learning!

How I actually got in pest control was right after school. I had just graduated from university with a bachelor in science in psychology with a focus on research, and I was looking for work as I took time off before I possible pursued further education. Pest control was not even on my radar, I don’t know that I’d ever even thought about its existence. But then my family home got carpenter ants for the second time. The first time felt like a apocalyptic event because out of seemingly nowhere, what looked like hundreds of winged carpenter ants entered our small living room and swarmed all at once. My mom was the only one at home and she ended up running out and taping up the door because they were flying at the door and squeezing out of the cracks between. It was pretty bizarre. Then the next morning, they were gone and we stopped thinking about them.

New Beginning

A few years later we moved and our next house had them too and my mom was not happy about her first encounter with them and this time decided to take care of it immediately. We called a pest control guy that we found online from Kijiji I believe. He showed up in car, pulled his equipment of out the trunk and knocked on our door in normal clothes. Now looking back he had no PPE (personal protective equipment), not many tools, and honestly not the most professional. He spent most of the time sitting on our couch and chatting, and there was no talk about us vacating the house after treatment. He wasn’t exactly a pest control tech role model, but he was my introduction to the industry and I didn’t know any better. Stay tuned for monthly unwanted pests tips and tricks with pest experts.

How I ended up as a Pest Expert at GreenLeaf Pest Control

Somehow it came up that I was looking for work and he suggested pest control. After we talked a bit I had made my mind up that I was going to purse becoming a structural exterminator. Coming out of university I was used to studying, so the thick textbooks that arrived at my doorstep were less daunting and I got right to it. Shortly after I had my license and was looking for work. Turns out a lot of the training comes from experience which I’ll be talking about in future blog posts. Anyways, GreenLeaf Pest Control was the first company that called. After a less than perfect interview they decided to give me a chance. I guess my mom must have called them behind my back and told them about my shovel swinging successes. Now that I have some perspective, I really lucked out getting hired by GreenLeaf. I’m proud to work here because of the professionalism, quality of training and service, and just due to the company genuinely caring about doing a good job and having high standards. That’s not an advertisement, I honestly mean it.

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To be Continued.…..

So that’s essentially everything that led me to now working at GreenLeaf. As I said before I will continue to share some funny, interesting, or gross experiences in my future blog posts and get tips and tricks with pest experts. I’ll also include tips and I am open to answering questions or speaking on topics that I receive requests for. Looking forward to further discussions under the broad banner of Creepy Crawly Chronicles!

 

About The Author

Luka Zimmer is the Field Services Manager at GreenLeaf Pest Control in Toronto and spends his days serving the community on a variety of pest issues. He finds that a rigorous and detailed approach is the key to solving pest issues that trouble people most. Like Ralph Wolf and Sam Sheepdog when he clocks out of work he sometimes likes to befriend the very animals he dedicates his week to fighting.

You’re in good hands – Protecting your home and business is what GreenLeaf does!