The Stakeout

(from Whitney)

There is an older couple that we have as regular customers. They have an extremely nice house located off of Ward Parkway (a very nice area in Kansas City, MO). It is an older house so they contact us with small rodent problems on a regular basis. The woman in the couple, we'll call her Rose, called and wished to talk directly with our owner. She was experiencing a bit of a problem (to say the least, the very least) and she need his help immediately. Here is how she started her story for the owner...

One morning Rose awoke to look over at her husband, we'll call him George, and saw scratches all over his face. They are an elderly couple and he is a little handicapped with movement. She got a little nervous for him and decided that it was maybe time to cut back his fingernails, because she assumed that he had scratched his own face in his sleep. The next night they are in bed asleep when she wakes up after feeling some sort of rodent scurry across her face. She then freaked out and jumped up out of bed. She was in a deep sleep and didn't see anything around the room. She figured that she must have just been dreaming because no way was that really happening in her own bed. The next night, it was a Saturday night, Rose and George went to bed and she awoke again with the same feeling of something running across her face and when she turned to look at her husband she saw blood covering his pillow and his face. She called the police and when they had gotten to the house one of the officers had seen a large rat run across the floor and into the wall. This is when she called us.

Basically the rat had been getting into the bed at night and basically eating the face of this poor elderly man. The rat had experienced the taste of blood and unfortunately this was going to make it hard for us to do our job. The couple temporarily moved into a hotel and refused to be back in the house until the rat was dead. Jeff started with setting traps throughout the house. The bait that was used was regular raw meat, not peanut butter or your stereotypical cheese. The rat needed the blood taste to be satisfied...ridiculous, I know! This was a very smart rat because he was able to take the bait and not set off the traps. It was like he was possessed!! At this point, Rose was irritated and told our owner to do WHATEVER it took to get it out of the house. Let me tell you, our owner has had some crazy ideas, but when I heard this one I couldn't help but to crack up.

Our owner decided that the only way we were going to get this rat was to do a traditional "stakeout". He was going to get this rat even if it meant shooting up the place. Armed with pellet guns and a pistol, the owner and one of our brave technicians went to the house overnight and watched for the rat to come out. The owner sat on the counter in the kitchen while the technician sat in a closet of the bedroom. The tech said that it was so creepy staring at the bloody bed (the couple got out of the house as quick as possible) waiting for the rat to come out. The first night was unsuccessful, due to the fact the rat would not show it's face. The owner decided that he would go out and do his own "stakeout". He started by creating his own natural blind with a couple of dining room chairs and a quilt. He sat in the kitchen, disguised by his blind, throughout the night awaiting the presence of the demon possessed rat. The rat started to mosey on out in the middle of the kitchen floor in the middle of the night and that is when he took his shot. The rat was hit with the first shot and then drug itself to the kitchen island and disappeared underneath the floorboards. He was never able to actually find the body of the rat but due to the amount of blood that was lost after the shot, we believe that it is dead... as a door nail.

Sleeping with the Enemy

(From Whitney)

I received a phone call from a young woman, probably in her 30s, who was having difficulty with an animal in the actual living space of her house. She stated that she had something that would come up into her bed at night. She could feel it moving around the mattress. She also said that she would also see an animal go across her bedroom floor and into the bathroom. She said the animal would mess with the purses that hung on the bathroom door. She sounded pretty legit and like she was really having a problem we could assess until…

She stated that she had a previous company, an actual competitor of ours, who came out to her house for an initial evaluation. She said that she was concerned about having our company come out because of the way the previous company had dealt with the situation. She told me that the owner of the other company had gone out to her house and after evaluating her bedroom he walked out in a red speedo. She said that she had to make him leave her house because she was worried that her boyfriend would come home and be jealous of this guy standing in her house in a red speedo. Please know that the man who is the owner of this other company resembles a lumberjack. He’s not a small guy, has a long beard and is probably in his late 40s or early 50s. There is no way this guy walked around her house in a red speedo!

Since the woman was willing to spend the money to have our company come into her house, I figured I would send our owner out to do the job. I warned him to leave his clothes on and be prepared for this lady to be a little out of it. He went into the house, saw college degrees hanging on the wall from very high standing schools and was confident that she was sane. He said that he really found no entry points and found no droppings so he wasn’t really sure there was an animal in the house. He set traps to ease her mind and said to call him if she had anything in a trap or anymore activity. She called him and swore there was something in the mattress. She swore up and down that the animal would tap on her shoulder in her sleep. She said that sometimes she would feel like it was even massaging her back. She made our owner go back to her house and lay on her mattress, with the lights out, to prove there was something there. As uncomfortable as it was, he did that and still there was nothing.

A month or so later we got a call from a furniture store here in town asking about the inspection. The woman had called the store claiming that the store had put an animal inside her mattress. Miraculously, this animal had survived the entire time in there!

The Break In

(From Erica)

I received a call one day from a customer concerned about something in the attic. I foolishly assume it was an animal. I do not go into great detail with the customer about what they are hearing or what makes them think something is in the attic. I assume this call is just like any other call I receive thinking its either raccoons or squirrels. The technician goes to the house and starts talking with the homeowner. Come to find the homeowner thinks people are getting into the attic. This person was convinced that a person/people some how would get onto the roof and pull off a roof vent and would hang out in the attic of their house. The technician informs the customer this situation is probably better suited for the police. He is told by the homeowner the only way they would investigate this situation would be if the homeowner could explain to the authorities how these people were getting into the attic. I guess the next logical step is this situation was to call a wildlife control company.

The technician proceeds with a whole home inspection; including climbing on the roof and thoroughly inspecting the vents to discover they are securely attached to the house (the homeowner was convinced these people would pull the vents off the house and climb into the attic). He then goes into the house to access the attic. On his way to the attic the homeowner wanted to make sure he had drill because the scuttle hole had been screwed shut. The homeowners had screwed shut the attic access because while they where away on vacation someone had come from the attic into their home. My first thought “Was how do they know that happened?” Apparently, when they returned home they found several pieces of insulation in the closet that was not previously seen. Needless to say the technician found no possible point of entry for people or wild life to access this house and explained to the homeowner that maybe they just heard a large bird on the roof. As I’m typing this I get a phone call from a person that has some animal in there home. I ask some more questions and find out this person has some animal in her house that she only sees at night but can smell it during the day…she thinks it lives under her bed. Nice.

Just another day in the office...

We decided to start this blog because of the over abundance of "crazy" calls that we deal with on a regular basis. We work for a wildlife control business who helps people when they have wildlife getting into or around their homes. When introducing ourselves and our job titles in our real lives, we are constantly asked, "what are some of the weirdest calls you've gotten at your job?" Well, some of these stories are just too good to forget and too good to not pass on. We've also realized that not only are some of the animals we hear about crazy but some of the people who call are crazy as well. Here's a little taste...

(From Whitney)
I answer calls for two separate locations, one in Kansas City, MO and the other for Springfield, MO. We had just opened our Springfield, MO office, so I wasn't completely familiar with all of the animals and situations we would possibly be dealing with there. So, an older gentlemen calls me stating that he has had a sort of dinosaur thing that crawls across his floor. Just wait, it gets better. He said that this reptile crawls across his floor, but only when he is sitting or laying on his bed in the basement. The reptile would have little bubbles on its back that carried smaller dinosaur creatures. He assumed these were it's babies. I put the man on hold, I had worked here for about 2 years at that point. I decided, just for shits and giggles, to check with my boss on the possibility of this occurring. My boss chuckled and said "Well, I don't know, I guess just quote him a service call price and we'll go out and check it out". I returned on the phone with the customer, again an older gentleman, and priced a service call. This is how he replied, "Well, let me check it over with my Mom first and call you back, it's her house." Never received a return call.