overcoming pesticide resistance (feat. Doug Wampler)

Hey, my pleasure.

Glad to be here.

So you kinda did like a whole 180 of kind of roles, I would say.

Um, you went to college, got your PhD in computer engineering, and then came into, um, the pest business.

So was this something that kind of was like an opportunity that came up and you decided to try it out, or was this something that you were kind of passionate about all along?

Uh, well, I, [clears throat] you know, I did get a...

I mean, I did go and get my PhD.

I worked in the IT industry for, you know, many years, 30 years or so.

Uh, and I got too old and started making too much money, so they, they encouraged me to retire, which I, which I did.

Um, and how, how did I get started in pest control? We had some ants [clears throat] around our house, and we called, uh, one of the big pest control companies to come out and, and spray and get rid of them, which they did.

Uh, and you know, they always want you to sign up for monthly or quarterly service, uh, which we did.

And I now know for ants that's totally unnecessary, but we, you know, we did that.

[clears throat] They'd come back every month and spray for them.

And, you know, they did get rid of them and keep them away, but I was paying them probably about $100 a month.

And, uh, they'd give us an invoice when they came over and would treat.

[clears throat] You know, and it was about $100.

And I looked at that invoice, and they were using a product called...

Well, it's not its trade name, but the chemical was, uh, bifenthrin.

You know, 100 bucks a month I'm paying them.

So I, I looked on Amazon and I figured out that I, I could buy bifenthrin on Amazon.

I get a whole gallon of it for about, at that time, probably about 40 bucks.

And to put that into perspective, uh, you know, a gallon of bifenthrin is enough to treat your, uh, house every quarter for, uh, about 30 years for about 40 bucks.

Uh, so I, you know, did away with that with our pest control company that we had, and I started applying that bifenthrin every quarter and that keeps the ants away.

Uh, so what happened then is You know, word got around and I started doing it for my [clears throat] for a few of my neighbors, uh, spraying their places and started doing it for some family members, and people started offering to pay me.

Uh, and I, you know, I s- I thought, "Well, maybe I should, uh, go ahead and get my license before I get caught," you know, operate, [chuckles] operating without a license.