Glenn Patullo

Prokill Suffolk West

It's Monday morning and I set off on my journey to a food production client to carry out their monthly service visit. With me is my chocolate labrador Bailey who accompanies me a couple of days a week.

Arriving on site, I have a short meeting with the company representative to see if there were any concerns voiced during their BRC inspection the previous week. Their pest control passed with flying colours again, so it's back to the van to kit up for the control point checks. The company is based on a large industrial estate where Prokill is responsible for the external and internal servicing of a number of companies. Due to the surrounding fields, the estate has a year-round problem with rodents. As it's a quarterly visit, there are more jobs for me to undertake than compared with those on a monthly visit.

After completing all of the checks it's up to the office to do the paperwork and discuss any issues. Due to a potential threat that was discovered on a delivery pallet, a dedicated quarantine area and a sample tent was discussed, as well as a request for Prokill to supply a Pest Awareness session for all of their staff. Now that's complete, Bailey gets a quick run and a handful of treats before we head off to service a large meeting venue in the centre of Cambridge.

Straight forward and simple, the service visit takes just over an hour to complete with a request from the client to supply two electronic fly killers for the kitchen. A dead mouse was also found in the cellar, so I gave them advice and completed a thorough inspection of the area to check for other possible ingress points.

After this, we head to a possible bed bug infestation in a domestic property. Sure enough, I find bed bugs behind the headboard in the bedroom and it turns out, they had come back from holiday last week and had suffered what they thought were mosquito bites in the hotel. As bed bugs are notoriously difficult to eradicate, I try to manage my client's expectations and advise her of the actions they must take prior to treatment starting and an appointment is made to carry out the initial treatment the next day.

Next, we head off to a call with a suspected rodent in the loft. After a thorough inspection, numerous mouse droppings are found and I begin the first treatment phase before completing the paperwork with the client and heading off home. Then a shower to be had, clothes to be washed (you can never be too careful with bed bugs) and paperwork to be completed while dinner cooks. Although, I forgot to feed Bailey, and doesn't she let me know it!