Elusive Rodents Ignite Pest Control Business Start Ups

As the former district sales manager of a now defunct Internet business, the last place Mark Ayers expected to find himself was in the pest control business, hunting gophers before daybreak. Yet he recently found himself on a Healdsberg, California vineyard, the protector of 650 Zinfandel vines.

The gophers, which voraciously dine on plant roots and can produce up to three litters of young a year, lay entrenched in tunnels beneath Ayers’ feet across 2.5 acres of terraced vineyard. Wielding a wandlike device that injects a mix of propane and oxygen into the pests’ burrows then ignites it, Ayers took the fight to the troublesome varmints.

Five billable hours later, Ayers was $400 richer including a $50 tip the vineyard owner gave him for “sending the critters to gopher heaven.”

“Not bad for a first day’s work,” says Ayers, whose California-licensed pest management company Rodent Eradication Services is off to a roaring start. “In a few months of part-time work, I paid for the equipment. I recently made $3,700 for 5 days work. It doesn’t get much easier.”

Part of the allure of starting a pest control business for burrowing rodents is that the field is wide open. Anywhere plants, crops, or landscaping must be kept healthy or safe is a potential customer. This includes not only agricultural fields, orchards and nurseries but also horse stables, cemeteries, golf courses and schools.

Opportunity stems also from drawbacks in traditional pest control methods, such as time consuming bait traps, poisons that can cause collateral damage to pets that eat poisoned animals, the introduction of natural predators, and shooting.

Another glaring omission in all these traditional methods is they do nothing to remove underground tunnel systems, which new pests can inhabit. New propane-oxygen injection systems like the Rodenator Pro used by Ayers remedy this by destroying the tunnels along with the pests.

“Because oxygen mixed with propane is heavier than air, the mix sinks into the rodents’ tunnels and dens. When it’s ignited it produces an expanding force traveling at 5,000 feet per second,” explains Joe Costigan, a veteran fireman/paramedic in Northeast Oregon who currently runs his company, Underground Pest Control, with the help of his family. “The concussion collapses the tunnel network and produces first pass kill rates up to 90% when I follow up with trapping to catch stragglers.”

Costigan is using the Rodenator Pro to combat a recent population explosion of moles and gophers in Oregon’s Willamette Valley.

“I was trapping 40 gophers a week on one 10 acre property,” explains Costigan. “We cut that to three or four gophers after one pass.”

“When they understand what the Rodenator can do, most bring out lawn chairs, martinis, and invite their friends to watch,” adds Costigan. “As far as they’re concerned, it’s payback time for each gopher that may have wrecked their lawns or savaged their crops.”

Even at Costigan’s rate of $100 per hour, his pest control business has flourished. “Initially, rodent control was going to be a spare change business,” he explains. “But it’s turned into such a significant business opportunity that I’m considering hiring employees.”

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Ed Meyer
Meyer Industries
Phone 877-RODENATOR
Fax 208-355-0103
Web: www.rodenator.com
E-mail: sales@rodenator.com
P.O. Box 39
Midvale, ID 83645.