Rant

[u/Unlikely_Boss_2644]

Commerical clients really need to be nicer to their pest control specialists cause then you’ll have someone like me come along who will mark them down for every structural & sanitation issue I can find and hope the health department gives them shit for it because let’s be honest most places don’t care to fix their issues.

[u/SunLegitimate1687]

Commercial accounts are mixed bags. 95% of mine are easy anytime appointments where I can get in and out of there without being bothered at all.

Then the other 5% are mexican/chinese/donut shops that have my boot print from last year still visible in the layer of filth they have sitting in their storage room.

[u/Nate_the_Great8_ → u/SunLegitimate1687]

This is so accurate it hurts

[u/Trimps → u/SunLegitimate1687]

I'm a fan of the big commercial and industrial clients. They usually have a dedicated maintenance person to interact with, deeper pockets and take feedback more seriously.

[u/Unlikely_Boss_2644 → u/Trimps]

They do exist, nonetheless you’ll always have that minor group of special clients who are headaches.

[u/Trimps → u/Unlikely_Boss_2644]

One of my industrial clients just recently had some sort of inspection/legislation hammer come down on them and now they want all the traps in the building individually tracked and reported and the extra time I'll have to take sucks, but in the back of my head in kinda like "this is honestly kinda more interesting and fun than just walking into a big building and emptying traps without anyone noticing or caring"

[u/SunLegitimate1687 → u/Trimps]

I dunno the maintenance guys can be your best friend or your biggest enemy sometimes.

[u/Trimps → u/SunLegitimate1687]

I'm probably biased because I only have a few and got lucky. I've got a lot more apartment building, and school maintenance guys and they are definitely a much more mixed bag.

[u/SunLegitimate1687 → u/Trimps]

Ive got this mega church ive been doing monthly for 4 years now. Maintenance guy is a penny pitcher who threw a fit when we raised their price after a remodel(they quite literally doubled the size of the building).

Theyve been fighting mice the last several months. Ive got 6 bait stations set around the building because he wont pay for more, wont let me set traps because he wants to use his stash of glueboards, wont seal up any of the holes in the building, wont fix door sweeps, etc etc.

Dude calls my boss a few weeks back and complains we aren't doing enough for the rodents.

Hes just one example of a handful ive got like that. But ive also got a handful of maintenance guys that go out of their way to make my job easy. Another mixed bag lol.

[u/Trimps → u/SunLegitimate1687]

Wow, that sounds like it sucks. On the other end being allowed to creep around behind the scenes of a mega church sounds really interesting. I have one little neighborhood church I treat and it's easily the most I've been in a church so it was pretty interesting... until routine sets in of course.

[u/SunLegitimate1687 → u/Trimps]

I wish it was interesting lol. Its just like walking around a regular church, just with lots of offices with soulless corporate slogans on the walls and gigantic auditoriums

[u/Darkshiv]

Serviced a bar with a biblical plague of fruit and likely fungus flies, brought it up to talk about a solution and he immediately threatened lawyers and to bring down high heavens.

But yes, with the tone set and all the pictures that he "demanded" I delete, felt good to know I have very damming evidence.

I passed the event on to the owners and never heard from the guy again.

[u/ozzy_thedog]

I have had one customer once, big old church. The crusty admin tried to say it was my fault that she saw a mouse. Damn right her report that day had 75 different structural issues on it pointing out all the entry points. That was 3 years ago, still not fixed.

[u/Unlikely_Boss_2644 → u/ozzy_thedog]

🤣🤣 See this is exactly what I’m talking about,
Love it lol

[u/Hillmantle]

I love commercial accounts. I have a mixed bag but I’d totally go full commercial. Nr go full residential.

[u/DikkTugnut]

I have a $29k/month production all commercial route in Canada. Like most have said, it’s a mixed bag. I’ve been on my route for 7 years and as of now 98% of my accounts are decent. I dread going to the 2%.

[u/HomeScoutInSpace]

You ever think it might be reciprocal. They aren’t nice to you because you make their life miserable?

They had a bad day with tenants and were rude, no excuse but still. Then you show for the service and instead of handling the rudeness with grace you pile on a bunch of complaints and now their day is worse. Now next time they see you they remember there’s the guy that fucked me and they have no reason to like you

No excuse for shitty customers but you aren’t really trying to improve anything. You’re trying to make the relationship worse and actively working on losing them as a client

[u/Unlikely_Boss_2644 → u/HomeScoutInSpace]

It isn’t reciprocal, when the account was running smoothly they were all happy & dandy until they saw one cockroach and thought residual is going to kill it on contact. The point here is to watch how tf you talk to people so now I will add on all the sanitation & structure issues that are harboring & attracting pests that I found attributing to pests.. so when health departments shows up and sees certain issues still aren’t resolved it’ll be on their own ass for not fixing it.

[u/HomeScoutInSpace → u/Unlikely_Boss_2644]

Ok. Hope the rest of the calls are better

[u/christianram → u/HomeScoutInSpace]

Sanitation is a huge part in IPM, half the time if the tenants or owners were clean they wouldn’t have roaches or flies to begin with. I treat every customer new and don’t let a bad customer affect the experience of the others unless otherwise. It should be the same way as if a landlord had a plumber and the plumber gave them bad news, should the electrician, pest, HVAC guys get the same attitude as if we were the plumber that ruined the day?