[00:00:00] Eric Goranson: It's Around the House

[00:00:05] Craig Williams: when people start talking about natural products, like have you, have you been on any, like these crunchy mom groups or anything like that? Uh, no. I try to stay away from those don't play. They're interesting. I mean, like, I, I kind of like to see like, you know, what they're claiming works.

[00:00:18] Craig Williams: Mm-hmm. Um, You know, because so much, so much of this stuff is like, Hey, we'll use this essential oil or use this. Like, here's, here's the issue is any oil will kill any bug every time. Yeah. And it's, it's just because like if you spray a bug with oil, like they, we breathe through our nose, they breathe through their whole body.

[00:00:37] Craig Williams: Yeah. So like, if you get any kind of oil on 'em, it's basically a suffocate them. And so like, you know, you're, you're getting that dopamine hit of effectiveness. Like I put oil on the bug. And when it comes to remodeling and renovating your home, there is a lot to know the, we got you covered. This is

[00:00:54] Eric Goranson: around the house.

[00:00:55] Eric Goranson: Welcome to the Round the House Show where we help you get the most outta your home through information and [00:01:00] education. Thanks for joining us today. Well, you know something, I've talked about pest control in the past, but it's been something that's been hyper local to where I'm located here in Portland.

[00:01:09] Eric Goranson: And I brought on a buddy, chief executive officer and founder at Terma, and owner at Excalibur Pest Control, Craig Williams. Also from the homeowners show welcomed around the house again, buddy.

[00:01:21] Craig Williams: Man, thank you so much for having me. It's a, it's been a, it's been a, a dream of mine to come on the show, so I'm, I'm excited to Deep

[00:01:28] Craig Williams: Yeah, . So, yeah, we, we've had you on a, a couple of times. I mean, so it's, it's exciting to get to be on your show, man. Yeah.

[00:01:36] Eric Goranson: It's been, we've been overdue to do this and I was like, all right, we're gonna start out 2023, so we're gonna get that, make that happen cuz it's should have happened a while. But you know, it's one of the things that, pest control is a big deal and across the country there are all these different things that people fight.

[00:01:53] Eric Goranson: You know, on the west coast where I'm at in the northwest, one of our biggest thing here is carpenter ants. That's kind of our [00:02:00] biggest, you know, as far as a insect past. And then we've got, you know, the rats, mice and, uh, get down towards the water. You get those war rats that look like possums, , but that's pretty much the main part of that.

[00:02:12] Eric Goranson: And

[00:02:13] Craig Williams: they, they've been crossbred with poodles at some point in time. So dude, those things,

[00:02:18] Eric Goranson: waddle man, when they get big. Yeah, those things are huge. But you know what, that, that's the thing is termites are such a big thing across the country in most areas, and it's one of the least in our areas, you know, one of the least threatening things compared to all the others.

[00:02:34] Eric Goranson: But that's not the case in most of the us

[00:02:36] Craig Williams: No, no term. I mean, uh, you know, the, the, the big number that everyone always throws out with termites is like annually they do about $5 billion worth of damage to people's homes and property. Um, and you know, it, it can happen, it can really happen at any time. You know, it's, it's December down here in Texas, and so, which usually means that there's not gonna be as much traumatic activity, but I, I just came from one yesterday where they had eaten the [00:03:00] entire wall of a room.

[00:03:03] Craig Williams: Um, yeah. You know, and it was, it was, there was, they were new homeowners. It was their second year in their home, and the guy had been using it as his office and he was like, there was this weird corner, it looked like there had been like some old water damage that they'd painted over. Mm-hmm. , which, I mean, probably was, what happened is they thought it was water damage and just painted it over it to sell the house.

[00:03:21] Craig Williams: Well, come to find out, that's where the termites were coming in and they just, there was a leak in the ceiling mm-hmm. . And so they just followed the water up the wall and then started working their way across the, uh, the cross beams at the top. Um, and, and so like, you know, it sucks for them because those guys have been in there eating for, for two years.

[00:03:39] Craig Williams: The, the good news for them is that it was subterranean. So they're a little bit slower working than some other kinds of mites. That's good. Yeah. I,

[00:03:46] Eric Goranson: I, I'll get the, I had some, uh, old carpenter, an damage in my house and I'd opened up, uh, doing my kitchen remodel, opened up some drywall, and I'm like, oh, there's a lot of sawdust up here

[00:03:56] Craig Williams: that's not there.

[00:03:56] Craig Williams: Is that the pictures you sent me? Yeah, that was [00:04:00] from like

[00:04:00] Eric Goranson: remember last year? Yeah. Yeah. I was like,

[00:04:02] Craig Williams: wow, that's cool. Which, I mean, the, the weird thing about that man is I was, I was doing a little bit of research cuz like I, I know that you're, you know, kind of up in the Pacific Northwest and we're talking to people across the US the number one pest in the United States.

[00:04:14] Craig Williams: Do you know what it is? Yeah. It's carpenter. Ah, okay. It's, and it's because everybody has 'em, like there's not a state that doesn't have them . You can't dodge 'em, like 66% of ant calls for pest control companies are gonna be for Carpentras. Either they think they're carpet rants or they have Carpentras, or somebody else has failed to deal with Carpentras or they're calling in another, you know, big hitter to see if they can get rid of 'em.

[00:04:36] Craig Williams: Yeah. Now

[00:04:37] Eric Goranson: if, if you want to identify those carpenter ants, those are not the little tiny sugar antses. See, run on. These are the big fat daddies that are running around that. Uh,

[00:04:45] Craig Williams: do you guys have the big black ones? We have the big black ones. So they're around here. There's two kinds, and I think this is true most, most of the Southern United States is there's the big black Carpent rats, which is just the standard carpenter rant.

[00:04:56] Craig Williams: Yep. And then there's the Florida Carpenter Rant. And most people, when they see [00:05:00] those, they think that they're fire ants. They look, they look very similar, but I mean, like, and they wearing like white, white

[00:05:06] Eric Goranson: leisure suits and hats and . Oh, sorry,

[00:05:09] Craig Williams: sorry. Florida . Yeah. No, they're very flirtatious. Yes. Um, . No, but they're, they're kind of red and black.

[00:05:17] Craig Williams: Okay. And, and, and they can do, they can do just as much damage. Uh, their colonies tend to be a little bit smaller than those big black ones. Mm-hmm. . Um, I love finding those big black ones, man. When you find the honey hole on those and you flush 'em out, it scares the, but Jesus outta

[00:05:30] Eric Goranson: people. Oh yeah. Well, and what's crazy with those is that you can have, you know, like I live close and kind in the woods.

[00:05:39] Eric Goranson: Mm-hmm. , you can have a tree out there that's not even on your property. This is where they're coming from and they've set up the secondary kind of nests inside your house. Yeah. And you can get it outta the house, but they're still trying to get back in.

[00:05:50] Craig Williams: Yeah. They, they will set up satellite colonies and, and really what's, what's happening there is mo most of the time people want you to come in.

[00:05:57] Craig Williams: They're like, what can you spray to get rid of them? And [00:06:00] like that you're asking me the wrong question. Yeah. What we need to figure out is why they're there. Yep. Because if you, if you can solve the environmental issue, then you can get rid of the ant. Like if, because a answer dumb, I mean, like, if you, if you spray chemicals down, they will make a highway of dead ants to, to get to what it is that they wanna get to.

[00:06:20] Craig Williams: Yeah. Especially carpenter ants. And, and like nine times outta 10, it's water. It's, and like I'm. And I feel like I have an dis, but that's okay. You know, I'm, I'm, well I feel like I'm even being disingenuous with that number. It's like almost a hundred percent of the time there's like a leak. Yeah. Or a moisture issue or something going on.

[00:06:36] Craig Williams: It's like if we can solve that, you don't really need the chemical mo Most of the time it's moisture. Yeah. So

[00:06:43] Eric Goranson: I've also noticed too, I had this in my house here, it looked like it was more wet wood when they had first, you know, done work on the house and it was like a fresh new thing because there was no water source that I could find around it.

[00:06:56] Eric Goranson: But it looked like it was an area that maybe was damp wood when they were first [00:07:00] framing it or something. Mm-hmm. that was, that's one time that I'm like, I don't know how water got anywhere near it cuz there's not a roof over it. Or that's close. There's not a, you know what I mean? It had to have been something that was uh, you know, maybe a pre infected wood or something at some point.

[00:07:13] Craig Williams: It could have been, it could have been something that wasn't killed very well. I mean, there, there's all sorts. I mean, it could have been left out in the yard when they were building the house and it just got soaked and they put it up anyway.

[00:07:22] Eric Goranson: Yeah. Well anything here, everything here in the Pacific Northwest, we get rain this time of year.

[00:07:27] Eric Goranson: I mean it's, it's, it's really bad. I can go by projects now, like, you know, the six story mixed use timber framed, you know, just wood framed buildings. The bottom floor is usually black just from the mildew on the water, on everything. Cuz they've been framing for six weeks in the rain, you know, and it's just, everything's soaked and then they drywall it and you know, everything just goes with the top.

[00:07:49] Eric Goranson: They sh you know, house wrap it, get it going. I mean it's, and there's not much drying. And then you got an environmental hazard there and that's prime category four, I

[00:07:59] Craig Williams: would imagine. [00:08:00] Impatience is the, is the enemy there? I mean like, people are just wanting to get their houses and so like, they don't care if they get dried out.

[00:08:05] Craig Williams: They just want to move. Yeah. Is that what's going on?

[00:08:08] Eric Goranson: Yeah, it is. You know, and, and especially on those commercial projects, they're just trying to get done. They just want to keep rocking. Yeah. You know, keep moving. We gotta a schedule to hit and, uh, you know, now there's products out there, you know, not to get too off on the side note, but products like zip and some of these other ones, you can get out there and you just don't have to worry about it.

[00:08:26] Eric Goranson: When the, when the sheeting has got its own barrier on the outside, it just keeps it, you know, keeps the house dryer, which means it's better off on the inside. You don't have as much of that moisture intrusion.

[00:08:37] Craig Williams: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and, and I think we're gonna continue to see more and more products that, you know, do seal.

[00:08:43] Craig Williams: I mean, like, there's, there's a huge market, uh, there's like a, I forget the name, I think it was called Dber Stopper. This, this new product that I stole mm-hmm. . And it, it, it's just a cover for your drain lines on your home. Cool. To keep mud dabbers from getting inside, which I mean, like, it's, it's, it's cool.

[00:08:58] Craig Williams: But like, I mean like, they're [00:09:00] mud dabbers, I mean like, Yeah. Really. That's, that's your thing. I mean, the, the, what they're trying to prevent is that that line back flowing, you know, because they'll get up in there and, and put mud, um, just

[00:09:11] Eric Goranson: plug up that, like that

[00:09:12] Craig Williams: vent, right? Yeah. Yeah. And, but you know, at, at some point, like, it's like you just gotta realize the house has to breathe.

[00:09:20] Craig Williams: Like there's, there's gonna be entry points. Um, and, and so like, do I wanna spend a hundred dollars on a product that covers a pipe when I can just stick a stick up in it from time to time and knock the mud loose? Yeah. Yeah.

[00:09:33] Eric Goranson: And basic maintenance, you know, and that's what they're trying to do is, okay, we're gonna make it so as this can be as maintenance free as possible, all while selling a hundred dollars pieces.

[00:09:41] Eric Goranson: Right.

[00:09:42] Craig Williams: Yeah, that's right. Yeah. No, we want, we want, everybody wants their pound of flesh, I suppose.

[00:09:48] Eric Goranson: Absolutely. Absolutely. . So what are the Okay. You know, I'm not experienced with termites, cuz I'll be honest, I have not seen in the Pacific Northwest west here in my boy [00:10:00] 30 years. Mm-hmm. , I've think I've seen one tented residence in 30 years.

[00:10:07] Eric Goranson: Yeah. In thousands of projects. It just

[00:10:09] Craig Williams: doesn't happen here. Well, and, and so there's, there's probably a good reason for that, uh, tenting one, it's really expensive and it's really dangerous. Um, you know, the, the reason you tent is because you don't want that stuff to escape and get out because I mean, like, they're using the kinds of chemicals that when you smell, by the time you smell them, it's too late.

[00:10:29] Craig Williams: Ah, you're gone. Got it. Um, and there's really only a couple of termites that that works with. So it's damp wood and dry wood termites. Okay. And tho those are really the only two. Regular termites here in the US that we see those kind of applications with. The, the other two are the subterranean and then foren termites, and those are both, uh, in the ground.

[00:10:51] Craig Williams: Okay. Um, and I, I think one of the reasons that we're starting to see a little bit of a resurgence in, in some of the termite [00:11:00] talk, and it like, not that it ever went away, but you still have guys today talking about chlorine, um, , which was a product that was banned like almost two decades ago. I was gonna say 20 something years ago.

[00:11:13] Craig Williams: Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, like, you still have guys talking about it today. Like, man, I wish we still had that. And the reason is, is because that product would last about 20 years. Yeah. And, and so if it was banned about 20 years ago, which means that it probably stopped being used on a regular basis about 15 years ago.

[00:11:30] Craig Williams: Yep. Um, if we're being honest, um, yeah. Which means that we're kind of coming up on the tail end of the efficacy of that product. For, for a lot of properties. And so you're gonna start seeing some properties that haven't had issues in years, start to have them. Yeah. Um, because they've been able to ward it off with that residual.

[00:11:48] Eric Goranson: Yeah. 15, 20 years ago they went nuclear on it and Yeah. Made a wasteland and all of a sudden it's like, well, those days are over. It's parked by

[00:11:57] Craig Williams: the house. They're fixing to do the same thing with Rod genocides. I mean, we're [00:12:00] getting, we're getting news down the pipeline that we're about to lose a lot of our really good products with Rod Genocides.

[00:12:04] Craig Williams: Um, oh man. And, and, and, you know, to, to a certain degree, it's like, well, you, I mean, we shouldn't have made them available to the public. You know,

[00:12:12] Eric Goranson: it's funny and sorry, public and all of our listeners out there, and. That's where things tend to go sideways is that you get people out there, you know, most of the professionals know they're licensed.

[00:12:25] Eric Goranson: They go out and do their thing if, you know, depending on where you're located. And yeah, people know what things are good for and what they're not, but when you can go down to the home center and use it, all of a sudden people treat it like it's latex paint and they can go anywhere. Yeah.

[00:12:37] Craig Williams: Yeah. And they'll, I mean, you know, they don't care if they poison the neighbor's cat.

[00:12:40] Craig Williams: Um, yeah. The

[00:12:41] Eric Goranson: lake the, the lake house that they're on or whatever. Yeah.

[00:12:44] Craig Williams: Yeah. And they, yeah. Leave it there unattended un in an unweighted box or not even in a box. I've seen them, I've seen people just put like massive bait blocks and just throw them out in the yard. Um, and that's not healthy. No, no, no. Um, no.

[00:12:59] Craig Williams: So anyway, [00:13:00] that aside, we have good products now. I mean, like the best liquid one out there is probably Tomado, but I mean, they will only warranty it for 10 years. Um, okay. And that's still like, and in a long time though. It, it, it is a long time. But they, it's a numbers game, right? Yeah. So for my, my customers down here and I'm, I'm in the Houston area.

[00:13:22] Craig Williams: Yeah. And it's, it's pretty much the same in Houston, San Antonio, Austin, dfw, all like termites are pretty much the same. What I tell everybody is on average, like you, you have, you know, a seven to 10,000 square foot lot, right? Yep. You've probably got 20 colonies of termites living in that yard, Wow. On average.

[00:13:42] Craig Williams: Right? So the likely, like the numbers are actually on your side. Right. Unless you have like a really heavy, conducive condition, like a leak mm-hmm. or something like that, the likelihood that you're going to get them is pretty low. Yeah. You know, I mean, it's, it's a one in 20 [00:14:00] chance and that rarely happens over the course of home ownership.

[00:14:03] Craig Williams: And most, you know, I forget how long the average home, I think the number has gone down for how long people are owning houses, but most people rarely have to deal with it. . Um,

[00:14:11] Eric Goranson: all right. So is there a, if you can, uh, you know, most likely scenario, is it somebody that has a, you know, let's get into house construction if they have a basement versus a crawlspace versus like slab on grade.

[00:14:24] Eric Goranson: Is there one that's maybe more conducive to termites than the other? Or is it pretty much just a, um, roll the dice. It's

[00:14:30] Craig Williams: your turn. It is a roll The dice. It's your turn situation. Um, okay. Now I will, I will say, um, the likelihood of you getting damage from termites based off of your, the, the structure type is different.

[00:14:44] Craig Williams: Mm-hmm. , because if you're, if you're living in a blocking beam or a pi beam, the, the likelihood that you're gonna go around and in inspect 360 degrees on each one of those piers very low. Not happen. I'm not doing it. No. I mean, you, you can't pay me enough to crawl underneath those houses. No, I, [00:15:00] and I won't do it.

[00:15:00] Craig Williams: No. Um, so I mean, I, if you get them and they're on one of those, the likelihood that they have time to establish and actually do some damage is pretty high. Um, sure. So, so that once, once to get going, there's nobody there to stop 'em e Exactly, yeah. And there's, there's really not much you can do. I mean, like those, those kind of jobs, uh, are very time consuming.

[00:15:20] Craig Williams: And it, it, I mean, like if, if we're being honest, I mean, most of the time, uh, it's not all the time, but mm-hmm. , people who live in pier and beam houses don't tend to be in the higher income bracket. And, and so it, even though they're in a, that kind of a home, they tend to garner a more expensive treatment when it comes to something like that.

[00:15:42] Craig Williams: And so mo a lot of people will just end up walking away from it. Yeah. Does that mean it'll, it'll cost. See, you're, it'll cost twice as much to do that. Then it will a traditional slab.

[00:15:52] Eric Goranson: Got it. Got it. Yeah. We've got a lot of sixties and 70 homes here that were built in that, uh, that pure and beam kind of system [00:16:00] here.

[00:16:00] Eric Goranson: Oh, yeah. On, on crawlspaces. We've got a lot of those. And I think it was just because they were trying to build so many homes fast. Okay. And that lumber was so prevalent that you could go and do, what they would do is they'd do that pier and beam, so they'd have like four foot in between the beams, then they'd put two by six car decking down, you know, at a diagonal mm-hmm.

[00:16:21] Eric Goranson: and then another subfloor on top of it.

[00:16:23] Craig Williams: And yeah, it's, it's a great way to build a house, don't get me wrong. Yeah. I mean, like, it's, but it,

[00:16:28] Eric Goranson: it's not conducive for inspections. That's for Darner.

[00:16:31] Craig Williams: No, no. Nobody wants to go underneath there. . I mean, not, not even plumbers. I mean, like, and that's, that's kind of what they do.

[00:16:38] Craig Williams: I mean, like, and, and like, I, I think that's one of the upsides to like a pure and beam is like, it makes plumbing jobs a lot easier. Oh man.

[00:16:44] Eric Goranson: It's beautiful. So H V A C, all of it is so much easier to do. Yeah.

[00:16:49] Craig Williams: So, but I, I've seen them, I've seen them be bad in basements. I've seen weird basements too, man. Like we, we, and we don't really have basements here.

[00:16:57] Craig Williams: I

[00:16:57] Eric Goranson: was gonna say, is basements aren't that big a deal, you know, down in [00:17:00] the Houston area,

[00:17:00] Craig Williams: is it? No. And like the, the few people that I've found that have them have had them built after the fact, and they're mostly wine sellers. Gotcha. .

[00:17:10] Eric Goranson: We're here, it's probably 40%, 30%. 40%. So we're not, not too bad here on the West coast where we're at.

[00:17:18] Craig Williams: Yeah. People, people that have been moving here, that have been buying houses, they're like, where's the basement? They're like, we don't, we don't do that here. Yeah. They're like, well, where do you keep your stuff? It's like, like, well, we don't park houses. Well everyone here. It's like no one parks their cars in the garage.

[00:17:34] Craig Williams: Which is weird because the sun just beats the living tar out of them. Yeah. Um, but that's how it, everyone just throws stuff in the garage. Interesting.

[00:17:42] Eric Goranson: Interesting. Yeah. That's, uh, That's wild. We've got another pasture that we have. We have these, um, boring beetles that'll come through and, and, uh, create a, a light sawdust too as well that we'll get into, uh, into, uh, the wood here that tends to go into the older dry wood.

[00:17:59] Eric Goranson: We'll see it. Not [00:18:00] really wet wood, but it just goes after that. You know, I see it a lot in that, uh, that, you know, that pure and post types foundation stuff. I've seen a lot of those in that older stuff, not so much, you know?

[00:18:11] Craig Williams: Yeah. And that, that is where you'll see those, and there's, there's different kinds.

[00:18:14] Craig Williams: There's like cigarette beetle and powder post beetles, and I mean, like, the, like powder posts is the most one we see here. Yeah. Yeah. I would imagine. So. Most, most people are the, uh, the victims of nostalgia when it comes to those guys, because they will, I've, I've seen 'em where people brought like old driftwood into the house that had been, you know, set out in the sun and dried for a long time.

[00:18:34] Craig Williams: Yep. Um, and then they bring it inside and the air condition, and all of a sudden the, you know, the beetles start feeling good and they start hatching out and all of a sudden they've got a real problem and they're getting into, you know, Grandma's, uh, I dunno, I don't even like old, you know?

[00:18:49] Eric Goranson: Yeah. Uh, getting into the old wood chest or the

[00:18:51] Craig Williams: Yeah.

[00:18:52] Craig Williams: Furniture, your heritage pieces and things like that. So, and like when people start doing these, um, barnwood walls,

[00:18:58] Eric Goranson: oh my gosh. That's, [00:19:00] that's, that's a guilty one on, on a lot of different reasons, but Yes. Yeah,

[00:19:04] Craig Williams: totally. Yeah. And so, like, you can, you can, you can bring an infestation in that way. I mean, most people don't even realize that, you know, the, the reason that you end up paying a lot for that stuff at the store, like if you go to like one of the big box stores is because it's probably been treated.

[00:19:17] Craig Williams: Yeah. So that, that doesn't happen. But if you're, you know, rolling out into Kentucky and finding some old barn and just taking it apart and then bringing it in and building a wall in your house, good luck.

[00:19:28] Eric Goranson: Yeah. See, I always, we got lucky. We used to have a, a company here, I think they, they closed down during Covid, but there was right in the middle of Portland, there was a kiln dried place.

[00:19:37] Eric Goranson: So they would take all of their, Wood. First thing they'd do is they'd grate it, make sure it was usable, they'd send it down and, and get a kiln dried, which would kill everything inside of that. Cuz you're just baking the snot out of that thing.

[00:19:50] Craig Williams: Heat, heat is one of the best treatments for just about any kind of bug.

[00:19:53] Craig Williams: But yeah, I mean, you have to get it really hot. Yeah. Um, I, and you know, if you, if you ever go to a hotel, you'll see [00:20:00] guys rolling through rooms with heat machines. Um, now they're not, they're not using pesticides as much, especially for the, you know, like when, when the bedbugs were so big for a while. Yeah.

[00:20:09] Craig Williams: Um, they've really gotten, I'm sure

[00:20:10] Eric Goranson: they're still bed, they're just not reporting on '

[00:20:12] em.

[00:20:13] Craig Williams: Well, no, I mean, most, most big hotels have a maintenance program now and, um, ah, okay. And, and so what they'll do is they'll just, they'll kind of shut down a room for a day. They'll go in and heat treat it. Um, gotcha. And it's, it's so much easier to do in a hotel because there's not a whole lot in there that can melt, you know?

[00:20:30] Craig Williams: Yeah. Because if you, because you go into someone's home, they're typically gonna have like candles or something made outta plastic or you know, whatever. Exactly. You know, you heat it up to like 180 degrees in there. It's gonna melt anything. It's gotta, you gotta a little melting,

[00:20:41] Eric Goranson: you got pictures and everything

[00:20:43] Craig Williams: going crazy.

[00:20:44] Craig Williams: Right. Hotel, eh, you know, not much to move out. Pull the electronics out of it and go, right. Yeah. And you're good to go. You know? And you can, you could probably knock out, you know, six to 10 rooms in a day if you're really moving. So, I mean, like, they, they, they've just made it part of their [00:21:00] good hotels have made it part of their maintenance, I'll put it that way.

[00:21:03] Craig Williams: Nice.

[00:21:04] Eric Goranson: Yeah, that was a, that was a huge problem there for a while. It seemed, I don't know if people had just gotten off from doing it, but it was all over the news. People were having serious bedbug infestations and it seemed like people that were traveling would get it. Mm-hmm. and then taken to the next hotel

[00:21:18] Craig Williams: room with 'em.

[00:21:20] Craig Williams: Well, yeah, and we, and it was, it was a problem because like we knew what the best treatment was, which was heat. Yeah. But the equipment, the, the equipment had just gotten outta hand. Like it was, I think, I think at the time it was somewhere between 10 and $12,000 just for like a single piece of equipment.

[00:21:35] Craig Williams: And, and so, but you know, as. You know, with any issue that begins to get reported, it becomes more and more viable for companies to invest in that kind of stuff because they know that the work's gonna be there. Yeah. Um, whereas, you know, like, why would I buy this huge piece of equipment when I don't have any calls coming in for this kind of stuff?

[00:21:54] Craig Williams: True. So,

[00:21:55] Eric Goranson: get some competition. All of a sudden that $10,000 machine is 2,500 bucks three years later. Now [00:22:00] everybody's out there doing it. Right? Yep.

[00:22:02] Craig Williams: Yep. Yeah. And that's true, like, as, as people do more and more work, they sell more and more equipment so the equipment gets cheaper, you know,

[00:22:08] Eric Goranson: and there's always somebody around the corner that's gonna come in and make it

[00:22:10] Craig Williams: cheaper.

[00:22:11] Craig Williams: That's right. Capitalism can be beautiful.

[00:22:14] Eric Goranson: It can be when you're trying to get into that specialty stuff. That's for sure. That's for sure. Well, yeah, that makes sense. And you know, that's, and that's one of those things too, and I wanted to talk too, and we'll go back to termites here in a second, but Sure.

[00:22:26] Eric Goranson: Man, out here in the West Coast where I'm located, we have such a homeless issue, an outdoor camping issue in our cities. That our rodents have gotten so out of control. Yeah. Unless there's just trash

[00:22:44] Craig Williams: everywhere. Well, I mean, uh, GERD, your loins, man. I mean, I'm not kidding because they are, they are taking away some of the best products that you guys have to deal with this kind of stuff.

[00:22:54] Craig Williams: Um, like on, on a, on a broad spectrum because, you know, at the, at the end of the day, like if, if it's at [00:23:00] your, if it's your home, Victor's is a great option. Yeah. You know, most people just don't have the stomach for it because it can be a little gruesome sometimes. Yeah. Um, but you know, as far as like treating big pieces of property where, and, and in areas like that mm-hmm.

[00:23:16] Craig Williams: like if you, and, and it always start, and this is, this is just kind of the rule in our industry. It always starts on the west coast and then just moves its way across the us It's like West coast and then northeast, and then it just kind of converges on Texas. Um, and, and so that's, they've, they've already banned a lot of them in, in California.

[00:23:35] Craig Williams: Uh, and, and, and, you know, and so like we, we just sort of watched the regulations in Cal and then expect them to come here in about 10 to 15 years. Gotcha. Um, so, which, which unfortunate, um, one, one of the things I, I did want to, to people that listen to your show, I, I wanted to impress upon them the, the importance of using a local pest control company.

[00:23:55] Craig Williams: Yeah. Not, not cuz that's what I do. But you know [00:24:00] what, what goes on in my state is completely different than the regulations in your state in all 50 states because I can't do business in any other state except for Texas, unless I'm licensed in that state. Each state has their own rules and regulations when it comes to this kind of stuff.

[00:24:14] Craig Williams: And so the reason it's important to use a local pest control company is cuz when you start using some of these big guys, and I won't name any of 'em, but you all know who they are. We all know 'em. Yeah. They, they have their own rules and regulations that are very broad and, and, and, you know, they're not specific to your area.

[00:24:30] Craig Williams: Now their guys have to be licensed in your area, but they're operating off a whole different set of rules and regulations that they have to follow, which in some instances really hamstrings them from, from what they're able to do. Um,

[00:24:43] Eric Goranson: amen. I used to have a big sponsor in my radio show in Portland here.

[00:24:46] Eric Goranson: Uh, that was that. And a lot of these big name companies that are the chains that are the franchises around there, they walk in and they go, okay, well I got four boxes to check. Mm-hmm. to do. We can do plan A, plan B, [00:25:00] plan C, or plan D even though those aren't really great for my area. That's what they're gonna try to pitch you every time where your local people are like, Hey, I know it works for this, we gotta go this direction.

[00:25:11] Eric Goranson: Yeah. And like you said, those, those national ones, you're, you're kind of stuck because you're, you're, you're at the McDonald's of, uh Yeah.

[00:25:19] Craig Williams: Of PE control and they want you on, you're not getting the custom burger and they want you on the contract. Yep. Other than that, they, I mean, like, they legit don't care.

[00:25:28] Craig Williams: Like No, it's not to say that the guy on the ground doesn't care. No. The guy standing behind him doesn't care. He just wants him to, to get the, to get the account, to get the contract. Um, and, and I've heard too,

[00:25:40] Eric Goranson: like, like with carpenter ants, that there's a lot, they're starting to use a lot less pesticides with that kind of stuff, where they've got things that kind of more naturally fight them than they did maybe 10 or 20 years.

[00:25:52] Craig Williams: Yeah. I mean, I don't, I don't know about like natural products. Mm-hmm. , when, when people start talking about natural products, like, have you, have you been on any, [00:26:00] like, these crunchy mom groups or anything like that? Uh, no. I try

[00:26:02] Eric Goranson: to stay away from this

[00:26:05] Craig Williams: I don't play. Interesting. I mean, like, I, I kind of like to see like, you know, what they're claiming works.

[00:26:09] Craig Williams: Mm-hmm. , you know, because so much, so much of this stuff is like, Hey, we'll use this essential oil or use this. Like, here's, here's the issue is any oil will kill any bug every time. Yeah. And it's just, it's just because like, if you spray a bug with oil, like they, we breathe through our nose, they breathe through their whole body.

[00:26:28] Craig Williams: Yeah. So like, if you get any kind of oil on 'em, it's basically gonna suffocate 'em. And so like, you know, you're, you're getting that dopamine hit of effectiveness. Like I put oil on the bug and it. So now you think that lemon grass is the solution to everything . And it, it's like, well, yeah, it, it killed that bug.

[00:26:44] Craig Williams: But like, if you just, you know, spritz it around your kitchen, it's not gonna do anything other than smell like lemongrass. Yeah.

[00:26:50] Eric Goranson: And probably put a bunch of VOCs in your air and make an unhealthy home, by the way.

[00:26:54] Craig Williams: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:26:55] Eric Goranson: Thanks Caroline. I learned a lot of that stuff from her, so . [00:27:00]

[00:27:00] Craig Williams: But yeah, so there, there are, and, and then even then, like we, we have a, I'll just, I'll give you a for instance.

[00:27:07] Craig Williams: We Sure. We install a lot of mosquito misting systems. Okay. And the, the main product from that is derived from an African marigold. Oh wow. Right. But if you get it on you, it will burn you. Ooh. I mean, like, it will light you up and it's. Especially in concentrated form, you know, like, you know, we typically dilute it in like 50 gallons of water.

[00:27:34] Craig Williams: Sure. So, and even then, once you dilute it, it it'll irritate you

[00:27:38] Eric Goranson: a lot. What? It's supposed to kill something. So that makes

[00:27:41] Craig Williams: sense. But it's a natural product. Right. And so like, there's, there's a big confusion when people start saying, well, what about more natural products? Well, like that can, that can mean just about anything.

[00:27:53] Craig Williams: Yeah. Now be, and, and the reason they're able to say that is because we have so many synthetics now True. That we're using, [00:28:00] um, yeah. Sue

[00:28:01] Eric Goranson: people to point that Sue, just natural doesn't mean need to use it. Right. , I mean, let's be

[00:28:05] Craig Williams: honest, no needs to bathe in it. Yeah. So, so yeah. So yes, that's true. Um, but at, at, at the end of the day, you like that specific product that I just mentioned that's derived from the Miracle Gold and there's lots of different brands in that, so I won't Sure.

[00:28:21] Craig Williams: You know, say what it is cuz there's, you know, anyway. You can use that to flush carpenter ants out. It's, it's used as a flushing agent sometimes. Got it. So, but at the end of the day, environmental issues is what saves the day. Because if you can eliminate the source of what's causing them to be there, then all you have to do is follow them back to the nest.

[00:28:45] Craig Williams: Now, when you get to the nest, you know, there Yeah. Follow the label, but sure. There's plenty of pesticides, you know, and, and, and the big one on the market right now. And like, you can, man, you can kill ants all day long with b [00:29:00] Yeah. And, and there's, I mean, everybody's making bifenthrin right now. Yeah. So for now, for, I, I like, honestly, man, that's, that's been such a good product to us.

[00:29:11] Craig Williams: I mean, I, I'd throw a fit. I absolutely would. Yeah. But I mean, like, they've, they've made it increasingly available to the public. Um, And it's, it's used irresponsibly. Uh, e eventually be because they've made it available to the public. Eventually we're gonna start seeing it in our waterways, and as soon as that happens, it'll go away.

[00:29:30] Craig Williams: It's done.

[00:29:31] Eric Goranson: Yeah. I had a way there. I was fighting mosquitoes in my house. Um, not this one I'm currently at, this was a couple houses ago in it. Mm-hmm. It's a mile from here, so it wasn't that far, but I had this canal that was behind my house that fed the lake, but it was stagnant most of the time. Mm-hmm.

[00:29:47] Eric Goranson: And so it was a, you know, probably a 24 foot wide canal that was, you know, so, but it was green, you know, and yeah. When they'd go fill the lake up or need to add water to the lake, of course water moved through it. But other than that, it was the [00:30:00] fill for the lake. It didn't really do much. Mm-hmm. . And so the only way I could do it without really new and stuff was I was throwing out those enzyme little donuts thing over the fence into it.

[00:30:09] Eric Goranson: Yeah. Those that are

[00:30:10] Craig Williams: like the little rice, those cakes, those are, those are super effective. Uh, those, those are actually a microorganism that eats the mosquito larva. . Yeah. Um, and like those are great. Uh, you can, I mean, you can put those in stock tanks and it's safe for horses and goats mm-hmm. and cows to drink.

[00:30:25] Craig Williams: I mean, you can drink it, it tastes weird. Yeah. Um, but yeah, it's that, I mean, that, that is , that is an all natural product. I mean, you're, you're ba there's a microorganism in the water just like there is in, you know, any standing bottle of water. Sure. You're just, you're just adding one that's beneficial.

[00:30:41] Craig Williams: Yeah.

[00:30:41] Eric Goranson: I would just get out there probably once a month cuz it'd kind of float up and down the thing. It moved a little bit mm-hmm. and I'd just haw 'em over the fence each month. I'd go to the home improvement store, grab 'em, huck 'em over the fence and yeah, it was still, you know, 30 feet down to it and, um, man, that, that cut my mosquitoes down by probably

[00:30:57] Craig Williams: 80%.

[00:30:58] Craig Williams: I don't doubt it. I mean Cause you're [00:31:00] getting 'em at the source. Yeah. They, they don't like to travel very far. So that's where they're breeding, that's where they're laying their eggs. It just makes sense and it's. Yeah,

[00:31:09] Eric Goranson: it was a simple solution. The other thing, if I was gonna be there longer, I probably would've gone into, I've seen some of those big mosquito machines you can put in the backyard.

[00:31:17] Eric Goranson: Mm-hmm. . Do those

[00:31:17] Craig Williams: even work? Well, it depends on which ones you're talking about. Like they, they have like the ones that they have with the big box stores that are like the light, that has the fan that, you know, kind of draws 'em in. Yeah. That's, um, and I, those, they're not ineffective. I mean, they catch mosquitoes, but I mean, like, if you wanna be able to go out in your backyard and enjoy it when it's really bad, then No.

[00:31:36] Craig Williams: No. Um, I mean, so there's, there's basically two forms of treatment. You can, you can fog the yard mm-hmm. with like a hand fogger, you know, we have like, you know, big backpack units that we use. Sure. Um, and that can be really effective, um, because you, you combine a pesticide with an, what they call an ig. Um, and the IGR affects the reproductive cycle, um mm-hmm.

[00:31:59] Craig Williams: [00:32:00] and then you also add a surfactant so it sticks to the underbrush and things like that. Or you can spend a bunch of money and put in a misting system, um, misting and they're expensive because now there's a lot of parts involved, a lot of labor involved, but they're also really effective. Um, and they're, and every single one of 'em is custom.

[00:32:20] Craig Williams: So it's, it's gonna be designed to how your property works and where you want to be. And most of the time they're on remote control. Um, yep. And they're, they're super reliable and, and what's great about 'em is like, they can be there when my guys can't Yeah, that makes

[00:32:36] Eric Goranson: sense. And so they can get it. That just goes and it does it, and yeah, it's just like anything else that's

[00:32:40] Craig Williams: automated.

[00:32:41] Craig Williams: Yeah. Well, and like with the remote, I mean, you can be like, Hey, we're gonna have dinner outside in an hour. I'm gonna run it for 30 seconds right now. And just, you know, clear the area. Um, yeah. So it's, it's actually using less pesticide. To, to get a desired

[00:32:55] Eric Goranson: result. So I'm gonna share my screen here. Okay.

[00:32:58] Eric Goranson: And this is what I grew up with as [00:33:00] a kid in Eastern Washington. And, um, how I'm still alive from this is amazing, but you can look at the screen here. This is how they used to do mosquito control when I was a kid, they'd honk the horn and you'd probably have to go inside for a minute. Mm-hmm. . And they had an old army jeep that was just fog in the neighborhood.

[00:33:19] Craig Williams: Oh yeah. So we had a fleet of those. Oh, really? Cool. Yeah. We, we sold it about 12 or 15 years ago now. Um, and we had four, four trucks and we were, we would do anywhere from two to six neighborhoods per truck every night. Mm-hmm. , uh, through the season here in here in Houston. Um, here, here's, here's the deal with that stuff, man.

[00:33:50] Craig Williams: Like, I, I, I am unconvinced that it's effective. Yeah. And like they're, they're still doing it. Yeah. Um,

[00:33:59] Eric Goranson: I love the [00:34:00] byline on this. Kids today just don't know the joy of running behind the one of these in the fog .

[00:34:04] Craig Williams: Well, like, even, even my folks talk about riding behind their bicycles on those cuz they would run under the daytime.

[00:34:09] Craig Williams: Right. You know, and when we, when we were doing it, you know, I, and this is, this is actually how I started in our company. I, I started working for my dad when I was 15. Mm-hmm. , um, you know, working on little engines to, to operate those things and Wow. Like we would only do it at night. Like, and you Well, yeah.

[00:34:28] Craig Williams: Just because

[00:34:29] Eric Goranson: there one, they're out and two less people

[00:34:31] Craig Williams: safer away. Right? Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So, but like, if they're doing it like they're supposed to, what's coming outta the back of that truck? Mm-hmm. is mostly diesel. Oh really? Yeah.

[00:34:46] Eric Goranson: Okay. So that, that's what it looks like. It looks like a diesel fog now that think about

[00:34:49] Craig Williams: it.

[00:34:50] Craig Williams: It, that's exactly what it is. It's not heated. It's pressurized. Yeah. And then, and then put through a, a fogger essentially. Yeah. And like, man, it's, it's, it's [00:35:00] a cool, I mean, like, you're using like medical grade pumps. It's, it's a mm-hmm. , it's a intricate system. Um, and it takes a lot of maintenance to maintain those things.

[00:35:08] Craig Williams: Um, but dude, it is, I, I, I, I just can't, I can't get my brain wrapped around. Okay. It's like we're all gonna agree for me to pump out gallons of diesel throughout a neighborhood con, you know, that's been connected to a pesticide. Yeah. Which back in the day, I don't know if they're using the same one, but the one we were using back in the day was called Scourge.

[00:35:32] Craig Williams: Yep. You know, and we had to put on like a respirator and full rubber gloves mm-hmm. with the thing in order to even get it out of the, the barrel. Um, so I mean, like, it, it's, it's stout stuff. And, and then to like, combine that with diesel and then just like, you know, we're just gonna pump it out willy-nilly into the neighborhood.

[00:35:50] Craig Williams: Um, I'm happy to not be in that business anymore. I mean, like, there's, there's like, you, there's no controlling drift.

[00:35:57] Eric Goranson: Well, and here's the thing. Let's, let's do some [00:36:00] simple math here, right? Mm-hmm. , you're driving down the road and doing this, think of the cubic volume of air in the neighborhood, right? And you're driving down these little streets that are 24 feet wide mm-hmm.

[00:36:13] Eric Goranson: and making a little fog there. But you're missing 90, 95% of the, the area. Yeah. Yeah. So it, it's, it's not really working that much by volume if

[00:36:26] Craig Williams: you think about it. No, no. And here's this'll, this'll blow your mind, man. And this is a conversation I had several years ago, but it was a, uh, a professor down at, uh, Mississippi.

[00:36:36] Craig Williams: And he was in charge of environmental responses through the, through the government with natural disasters. And I think this particular instance that he was talking to me about was, uh, after Katrina. Okay. Um, and I don't know if you know, but like hurricanes will displace mosquitoes like crazy. Um, so Oh, I bet.

[00:36:56] Eric Goranson: Because one, it pushes everything up, you [00:37:00] know, the other way. Right. And then two, it dumps water and fills up everything that can take water. So now you've got this feeding ground. I can only imagine what

[00:37:08] Craig Williams: that does. Oh, yeah, yeah. And, and you know, in Texas we'll get those marsh mosquitoes from Louisiana and they'll be with us for like six months after that.

[00:37:16] Craig Williams: Mm-hmm. . Um, but anyway, what he was telling me, because he was, he was showing me pictures, he was flying around in a helicopter because there was parts of Mississippi and Alabama, Louisiana, all that area without power. And so people were living without air conditioning. Their windows were open and they were just getting decimated by mosquitoes.

[00:37:34] Craig Williams: And so they were worried about malaria, Zika, mm-hmm. and all these transferrable diseases that you get from mosquitoes. And he was telling me, he's like, he's like, look, we went through and treated, and what most people don't know is that they know how to eradicate mosquitoes. Like they have done the math and they know that we could.

[00:37:53] Craig Williams: Eliminate them permanently. Yeah. They're just un like, we ha it's . It's like the billion dollar, the million dollar [00:38:00] man. Right. We have the technology. Yep. Like we can do it, but they don't know the consequences and so they're unwilling to pull the trigger. And I say kuda good for them. I mean, like, but like, let's never let anybody else know what that is.

[00:38:11] Craig Williams: Yeah. Because I, I don't, I don't wanna know the downstream of what it is that, you know, their mosquitoes are keeping in check. Yeah. Um, but it, it was, well it's interesting,

[00:38:21] Eric Goranson: you know, when you, when you're getting into that kind of, Bioscience of engineering, and I'm not this guy, so I'm by no means an expert

[00:38:31] Eric Goranson: You can, you can keep the, uh, hate mail away from me on this one. But , you know, you think about it, you know when, when you start messing around with stuff, and I, I, I, you know, my friend Caroline, former co-host here the other day, she posted the thing up about honeybees, and I went, and you realize that honeybees in the US are not native to the us That they were brought here from Europe in the 17 hundreds.

[00:38:51] Eric Goranson: Yeah. Before that we didn't have honeybees here.

[00:38:53] Craig Williams: Didn't. And we, and like everything grew is fine. Yeah. So, and I'm also,

[00:38:59] Eric Goranson: well, honeybees by the [00:39:00] way, I'm just saying that, that's, they're not, some been here for a thousand gunny years

[00:39:04] Craig Williams: thing either. Yeah. No. Well, and like, I'm, I also, I mean, honey bees are triggering to me.

[00:39:10] Craig Williams: I, I keep bees. I, and yeah, I love bees. I, I love 'em too. But like, when people start telling me like, oh, they're in danger and they're in decline, and I'm like, no. Have you actually like, looked at the numbers? Like they're doing great? Yeah. Like they've, they've adapted. . Um, and, and I can That's how they got it.

[00:39:26] Craig Williams: Replace Well, yeah. They're, they're highly adaptable. And not only that, I mean, like they, where you would think that they would have the hardest time, they are thriving. Like if you go to a metropolis city like Chicago, right? Yeah. Chicago should be death to Bees One, it's crazy windy. It's cold and there's not a lot of habitat and they, why, like I saw that in the

[00:39:48] Eric Goranson: movie, the Bee movie too, but yeah.

[00:39:53] Craig Williams: that's, that's where we go to get truth. Jerry Seinfeld. Yeah, that's

[00:39:59] Eric Goranson: But yeah, [00:40:00] that, that, that is what, what you would think would be the most inhabitable place for a be to live. And they do

[00:40:06] Craig Williams: great. Yeah, they do great. And not just them, I mean there's like bumble bees and mm-hmm. , you know, there's, there's all kinds of different bees that we have around, but like honey, honey bees are doing just fine.

[00:40:16] Craig Williams: Yeah. Um, you know, and it's, it's not to say that we shouldn't be responsible with pesticides. And there's, there's like, here, here's the other thing that really bugs me about this, this honeybee stuff, man is bugs you. They, what? They, they call it colony collapse disorder. Do you know why they call it that?

[00:40:32] Craig Williams: Okay. Why? Because they don't know what's causing it. Oh, nice. It's, it's literally a made up disease because they don't know what was causing colonies to literally collapse. Wow. And, and so like, and, and so like all they're doing is speculating. So they would say like, well, we think that it's probably happening because neonicotinoid, you know, pesticides Well, they don't know that there's, there's no link to it.

[00:40:57] Craig Williams: And, and, and so like there's, it's just pure [00:41:00] speculation. It like, look, you could, you could claim that a colony collapse and all it did was swarm and you didn't notice.

[00:41:06] Eric Goranson: Yeah. It took off and swarmed and all of a sudden you're like, Hey, what happened here? Oh, they moved down

[00:41:09] Craig Williams: the street. Yeah. Yeah. And like, and you'll, you'll hear stories all the time of vandals that just go through and knock over people's beehives just cuz they think it's fun jerks.

[00:41:19] Craig Williams: You know? And it's like, So, you know, the, the reporting on this stuff is just weird. Yeah. Um, and it's, then I got the

[00:41:25] Eric Goranson: murder hornets up here, man. I'm, I'm murder Hornet territory.

[00:41:29] Craig Williams: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think, I think you guys had like the only live capture of a, of an actual murder hornet.

[00:41:36] Eric Goranson: Yeah. It was just north of me here by eh, five or six hours, but yeah.

[00:41:40] Craig Williams: You shocked the nation man. Yeah. And the

[00:41:42] Eric Goranson: cool thing is, is I think they've got it watching them go in and, and we'll keep this on subject here, but watching them go in and try to capture that hive mm-hmm. and keep 'em in there was interesting. Oh yeah. They came in like was their video two and there's some video on it [00:42:00] co I'll find it and sent it over to you.

[00:42:01] Eric Goranson: They came in with CO2 and then wrapped it up and literally cut the section of the tree out. Took it in a refrigerated thing. And I mean, they wanted to make sure that they got every, they didn't want one single one getting out of

[00:42:15] Craig Williams: there. They, I guess they did it at night, I'm guessing. Yeah, I think they did.

[00:42:19] Eric Goranson: I've, there's, I'll find the video on it. It was, it was fascinating to watch. And, uh, they've been doing traps for a couple years now, so I think, uh, they, they did not find them in 2022 anywhere. Yeah. So they're thinking that, uh, and there's thousands of traps around the area. So,

[00:42:34] Craig Williams: have you, have you ever seen a picture of a cicada killer?

[00:42:37] Craig Williams: No. So do you, you should pull that up. Okay. And then, and then enjoy what has been the last two years of my life.

[00:42:46] Eric Goranson: Cicada killer. Okay. I gotta pull this up now

[00:42:52] Eric Goranson: as I pull

[00:42:53] Craig Williams: it up here. So, after that story ran about murder, dude. Yeah. At least twice a [00:43:00] week. I think I've got, I think I've got the murder. Hornet. . Wow. .

[00:43:07] Eric Goranson: Dude, those things will carry you off. They,

[00:43:10] Craig Williams: they are, they're completely benign. Really? Yeah. Like there's. They, they don't, I mean like, like, like any wasp man, like, it's just like, yeah.

[00:43:21] Craig Williams: I'm

[00:43:21] Eric Goranson: not a fan of WASP by the way. I, I, I, I, we can eradicate those personally and I'd be totally cool with that. .

[00:43:28] Craig Williams: Well, is it? Well, okay. Like, and I'll, I'll go, I'll, I'll, I'll say something about that here in a second. Yeah. I mean, cuz they look Yeah, I see it on your screen now. They, they look like if you saw a picture of the murder hornet and you saw that in your yard and it's, man, it's like two inches long.

[00:43:41] Craig Williams: It's, it's massive. I got a baby murder Hornet. Yeah. Yeah. And so people are like, I think I got 'em. So, but like, they, they dig holes in the ground and they, they don't, they're not aggressive at all. I mean, like, you could squat. Okay, cool. They could, they would care less. Um, but they're just big and scary looking and Yeah.

[00:43:58] Craig Williams: So people, people freak out and they're like, [00:44:00] no, they, they've been here for thousands of years now. Um, all right. But,

[00:44:05] Eric Goranson: but, but the news grabbed it. Oh,

[00:44:07] Craig Williams: for sure. For sure. So, but like, you know, wanting to eradicate wasps. I, so this, this is something I talk to people all the time when you start talking about like natural pest control mm-hmm.

[00:44:17] Craig Williams: um, you know, like, like a dirt dobber. Yeah. Um, they're unsightly, they, you know, make a, I don't know if you guys have 'em, but like, they make, you know, eastern eastern side of our

[00:44:26] Eric Goranson: state has 'em. Yeah. We don't get too much here. We're just too wet.

[00:44:29] Craig Williams: Yeah. That, well, that makes sense. But like, they make u ugly mud balls on the side of your house.

[00:44:34] Craig Williams: Yeah. Well if you ever break one of those open, what you'll find inside is a lot of spider carcasses, cuz that's what they eat. And then, so it's like, which, which one do you want around? You want a, a, a non stinging mud dobber or giant spiders. All right. You can, yeah. Big. I'll

[00:44:48] Eric Goranson: take the, I'll take the mud Dobber.

[00:44:50] Eric Goranson: Yep. I get it. . Yep. Uh, talk about spiders. I learned about crazy spiders. I was down in El Salvador out in the jungle. Working down there. Uh, this [00:45:00] cabinet company I worked with, we, uh, sponsored a village down there, so for two years ago. Oh, cool. Went down there and spent a couple weeks in the, in the, in the, uh, El Salvador and Jungle.

[00:45:09] Eric Goranson: Oh. And we'd be walking around these, the right down these things, these roads kind of mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. and all of a sudden, holy smokes, this red tarantula would pop up out of the ground and these guys would go over and kill it. And I'd go, what's that? And they'd go, those are gonna kill you, so be careful.

[00:45:29] Eric Goranson: And it was like, holy smokes. Not, I'm not a fan of the red tarantulas. Well, like they,

[00:45:33] Craig Williams: they're like the trap door spiders. Yeah.

[00:45:36] Eric Goranson: They pop out of like a pencil size hold.

[00:45:39] Craig Williams: Oh. So they're not very, they just pop out. Were they not very big, uh, the size of my hand. Okay. Yeah. That's, that's big enough. Big enough. ,

[00:45:49] Eric Goranson: I'd always let those guys walk ahead of us cuz they'd usually see something and they'd kind of jump up and run away and they'd pop out of the dusty ground and I'm just dirt over there just, and I'm like, whack.

[00:45:58] Eric Goranson: Wow. Okay. Yeah. [00:46:00] This is not

[00:46:00] Craig Williams: cool. Yeah. No. Well, you know, anytime you have a sp, like one spider's. Okay. But like, if you have like a spider infestation Oh, like that? I, no, I mean, like, I've been doing this for a long time. I don't like it. I don't like it at all. No. Mm-hmm. I, I was funny

[00:46:16] Eric Goranson: story was with my wife and she's gonna kill me for telling this story.

[00:46:19] Eric Goranson: When she was in high school, maybe early college, she jumped out of her moving car in the driver's seat cuz there was a spider in the car. like, jumped out of it. Her friend went over and jumped in the car and stopped it literally five miles an hour. She's like, I'm out. I'm done. Didn't even put, didn't even stop it.

[00:46:37] Eric Goranson: Just . I'm out.

[00:46:39] Craig Williams: It's not worth it. No. .

[00:46:44] Eric Goranson: We'll drive by a house that burned to the ground. She goes, see, they had a spider. That's right.

[00:46:47] Craig Williams: That's the, it's the only reasonable solution. Yeah. .

[00:46:52] Eric Goranson: I'm like, well, so anyway, I'm, I'm the spider killer in my house. That's how it goes. It's good to know your role. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:46:59] Craig Williams: You gotta be the [00:47:00] Somebody's got, you're the dragon slayer man.

[00:47:02] Eric Goranson: There we go. There we go. I know, but like three o'clock in the morning, it's not my favorite roll . Oh, okay. Hold on. You know,

[00:47:09] Craig Williams: we, we don't know what it's home from college shoes when we want, when we're heroes. That's Yeah, absolutely. In the dead of night.

[00:47:15] Eric Goranson: So what are your solutions? I mean, like, for instance here and, and pest control gets beyond just bugs, but mm-hmm. , you know, we, we. That neighbor. Sometimes with birds, you've got a lot of birds, like a lot of people do in the neighborhoods. But yeah, you get that neighbor that goes out there and decides they're gonna feed all the birds and they're, they're taking the 50 pound bag of bird feeding, pouring across their concrete patio and just leaving it out there.

[00:47:38] Eric Goranson: And now they're feeding everything from squirrels to, to large rodents. Right. Yeah. What are some of the best solutions for keeping that stuff outta your life? I mean, you're not gonna go out and kill every rat and Rodin down there, but you have some good peop, some good advice for people to, uh, manage that

[00:47:53] Craig Williams: Well with, with squirrels, they're a little bit different.

[00:47:56] Craig Williams: I mean, even though Sure. Like we've always called them rats with better [00:48:00] pr. Um, yeah. But you know, you, you can capture a squirrel. Yeah. Like they're, they're a live captures for, for squirrels and any, any animal that you capture that you, you know, that you don't want to dispose of. Yeah. The, the best method is five miles plus, and then just release.

[00:48:19] Craig Williams: And usually if you, if you have access to a state or national forest, it's, it's perfectly fine to re to release 'em in there. Um, got it. So you can do that. Rats and mice is a different story. Um, you know, there are, there are a lot of cool innovations when it comes to, uh, kil traps for, for rats in particular.

[00:48:38] Craig Williams: Mm. Mm-hmm. . Um, we, we actually lease out some CO2 charged, uh, traps. Oh, that's cool. That are temporary. And they're, they're really cool. Um, and, and it's, it's a, I mean, like, as, as humane as it can be, it's very similar to like a victor Snap trap, um mm-hmm. . And what you do is you put like some gooey peanut butter or chocolate up inside the [00:49:00] thing.

[00:49:00] Craig Williams: Okay. And there's a trigger that they hit with their nose and when they hit that trigger, it breaks their neck. Wow. And, and so, and it's a multi kill. And so you, you mount it to like the side of, you know, inside a warehouse or outside your house mm-hmm. or something like that. And you know, like only, only a rat or a mouse could stick its head up in there that you, like your cat couldn't stick its head up in there.

[00:49:20] Craig Williams: Yeah. Or your dog or anything like that. So it's, it's, it's relatively safe in that regard. Now you, like your kid could stick its finger up in there. Well, um, but, you know, do that once they don't learn . Yeah. So, um, but yeah, and like it's, it's cool to test it. I mean, you can do it with like a number two pencil.

[00:49:36] Craig Williams: You stick that mm-hmm. and then it'll, I mean, you'll see how it breaks the number two pencil and Okay. And it actually has , it has a scorekeeper on the outside. That's amazing. You'll amazing. You'll know how many times it goes off because you know, like you gotta clean it out at some point. Well, no, it just, it just drops the body underneath and so Oh,

[00:49:53] Eric Goranson: okay.

[00:49:53] Eric Goranson: So it just, it shows up. It's like, ah.

[00:49:56] Craig Williams: Yeah. I'll show you the next one now. Yeah. Well, there's a digital counter, but rats [00:50:00] don't, I mean, they're intelligent, but they're not intelligent to go like, Hey, there's a dead rat here. Maybe I shouldn't hang out here. Yeah. They'll, they'll just, they'll just stack dead rats on top of one another.

[00:50:08] Craig Williams: But what can happen is like a raccoon will come along and carry 'em off, or like a Sure. A bird of prey or something like that. Yep. Um, and for people that are concerned about transference of poisons from it's good solution, you know, from, from like when like you kill a rat and like another animal eats it.

[00:50:26] Craig Williams: Um, even though we don't, we don't have a whole lot of evidence that that ever happens where it, like Yeah. It poisons, I mean, it's gonna get some of it, but the, the LD 50 on it is so much higher for those bigger animals than it is for the rat. Yeah. That it's, you know, it's really not gonna bother any of them.

[00:50:41] Craig Williams: Mo most of those poisons are blood thinners. Yeah. And what an anticoagulant is what they call it. Exactly. Yeah. Um, and, and so, but this is a, is an effective way that you can do that. Without poisons.

[00:50:57] Eric Goranson: Uh, and I think it's much more humane than the [00:51:00] glue traps and everything else

[00:51:01] Craig Williams: that you see out there. I hate glue traps, man.

[00:51:03] Craig Williams: I hate them. Those bug me. Not Okay. I will say it's, I mean, I, I hate to say it, but it's about the only effective way to catch blind squirrels. Well, sure. Um, and, and that sucks, but like, yeah. Yeah. What do you We don't have to worry about those here. Oh, really? You guys don't have

[00:51:21] Eric Goranson: those? We have squirrels. We got squirrels everywhere.

[00:51:24] Eric Goranson: No. Flying SELs. We got more squirrels and cars. . Well, but I got, you know, I've got fur trees that are, you know mm-hmm. 200 feet high in the yard here. So, I mean, they're. I've got probably four that are four to six at rummage through the half acre property I have. Yeah. So they're pretty popular around here,

[00:51:42] Craig Williams: but they don't, I mean, do you guys, do you guys have a lot of pe Where are they get in people's houses like they do down here?

[00:51:48] Craig Williams: They

[00:51:48] Eric Goranson: ha not as bad, just cuz there's so many places for them to be, all the trees and all this stuff, they pretty much would rather hang out there than in somebody's house just because, you know, they, they kind of want their own space. So it [00:52:00] happens, but it's pretty rare.

[00:52:02] Craig Williams: Yeah. Well, and and you guys don't have like a lot of oak trees and stuff like that there either.

[00:52:05] Craig Williams: No. This is all

[00:52:06] Eric Goranson: like, you know, this is all like hemlock and fur and, you know, so pretty,

[00:52:11] Craig Williams: pretty tall and straight, right? Tall straight. Yep. Yeah. See that's, that's the, that's the issue here. It's like we have pine trees, but then we also have like those, those low live oaks. Yep. And what happens is, is people like, you know, again, this is, this is property maintenance, but like you want to keep the branches trim back from the roof.

[00:52:27] Craig Williams: Sure. That's how, that's how ants, carpenter, ants in particular are gonna get in your house. Mm-hmm. , that's how squirrels and rats are gonna get into your, onto your roof, you know, and like we have roof rats, then that's primarily where they want, they want to go up high, you know, and, and so keeping, keeping branches trimmed back, one, it's gonna, you know, keep it from potentially getting damaged by the tree, but also it's, it's, you know, reducing the amount of highway access that the any critters have to your house.

[00:52:50] Craig Williams: Yeah. Um, because they'll go, you know, if you let 'em grow, they'll eventually get up tall enough where you know they're gonna provide the shade that you want. Yeah. It's just not gonna be immediate. So you just gotta keep those [00:53:00] branches trim back. It's smart. And

[00:53:02] Eric Goranson: it's also good just, you know, for here we tend to do it just because, you know, we get fires and things like that, so you'd really trying to keep that stuff back from the houses and give yourself a, a little bit of break there.

[00:53:12] Eric Goranson: But, uh, yeah. Anything up against the house, bushes, trees, any of that stuff, you're just, you know, you've got the freeway exit right into your house for all those pests.

[00:53:21] Craig Williams: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, and, and you know, like if you. I mean, there's, there's lots of things that you can do around your house that are non pesticide related to help prevent pests, you know?

[00:53:31] Craig Williams: Yeah. Like, if you're talking termites, like a good rule of thumb is six inches of exposure on your slab, right? Yeah. I mean, because what they're gonna do is they're gonna tube mm-hmm. . And so as long as you can see the foundation, you're gonna be able to, you know, you know, once a month do a visual inspection on the foundation.

[00:53:48] Craig Williams: It's like, okay, there's no tubes. Uh, it's not the only access. I mean, they can come up through like a bath trap and, you know, if there's a crack in the foundation, I've, you know, sure. I've found them in an island in a kitchen before. So, I mean, I, you know, it can happen, but [00:54:00] it's very rare, um mm-hmm. . And so what I, what I encourage a lot of people to do is to put in a rock barrier, you know, ah, give, give yourself, like, you know, go down about 10 inches Yep.

[00:54:11] Craig Williams: Put in, you know, uh, a weed guard, and then come back through with rock and give yourself about a foot edge. Because what happens is that so many people, you know, they don't, when they go through and mulch. Like, yeah, they're flower beds. They don't pull out the old mulch, and so it just gets higher and higher.

[00:54:28] Craig Williams: Yeah. They just stack higher keeps. Yeah. And, and so if you do that up against your foundation, eventually you're gonna lose sight of the foundation really quickly. Yeah. And, and, and, you know, then who knows what's going on in there? And, and like, it's not just termites, I mean ants and, and everyth everything else that lives underneath that mulch, which is cockroaches and earwigs and silverfish and, I mean, you just going down the road.

[00:54:47] Craig Williams: Yeah. They're, they all have access. If you have a brick home, really good access, cuz you have weep poles and you're

[00:54:52] Eric Goranson: probably covering up the weeper highway there too. Yeah.

[00:54:55] Craig Williams: Yeah. And you're, you're probably covering up the weep pole, which means you're probably creating a, a [00:55:00] moisture issue inside the house.

[00:55:01] Craig Williams: Um, so I mean, you know, it just, things cascade. Yeah. Without, you know, thoughtfulness on, on how you're gonna maintain the yard.

[00:55:11] Eric Goranson: Man. Craig, before we go, what else did we not talk about with pest control? I mean, we could do hours of this and we probably will, but,

[00:55:18] Craig Williams: Uh, I, man, the only thing I, we didn't mention, which is something I talk about all the time when it, especially with termites, is CenTrak.

[00:55:25] Craig Williams: Okay. Uh, it's, it's the product I use 95% of the time when it's, when it's dealing with this kind of stuff. Um, you know, and don't, don't listen to me go do your own research on it. But there are incredible studies coming outta University of Florida right now. Okay. Talking about how, what's great about it is it's, there's no pesticide in the soil.

[00:55:45] Craig Williams: Cool. You know, the, the, the termites have to come to the station in order to, for it to be effective. Yeah. But the, the reach of that bait is almost three times what liquid chemical in the ground is. Oh, [00:56:00] that's cool. Yeah. And, and so like, you know, if you live in a neighborhood where your, your houses are kind of tight, if you put a system like that, and you're not only helping yourself, but you're helping your neighbors out.

[00:56:10] Craig Williams: Um, and so like when, earlier when I was talking about, you know, on average you've got about 20 colonies in your yard, . I mean, like that's a barrier around your home that all those colonies are now feeding on Nice. That you can potentially eliminate. Um, and again, like so that's why

[00:56:24] Eric Goranson: you wanna become friends with your neighbors and get everybody under the same plan with those.

[00:56:28] Eric Goranson: Exactly. And that way you've just got a, you've got an island there of, of protection.

[00:56:32] Craig Williams: Yeah. Yeah. And it's, you know, again, termites are extremely beneficial. I mean, like, this is, this is how we break down cellulose in the wild. Yeah. Um, and so we wanna keep the termites, we just wanna keep 'em off the house.

[00:56:42] Craig Williams: Yeah. Um, so yeah.

[00:56:44] Eric Goranson: Awesome, man. Well, how, how do people track you down if they're, uh, listening in your area and, uh, they're like, man, I gotta get this guy to get, have his people out to my place. What's the best way for people to track you down?

[00:56:55] Craig Williams: Yeah, I mean, you can reach me on Facebook, uh, pretty much on any of my pages.

[00:56:59] Craig Williams: I [00:57:00] mean, you can, you can find me under my name, Craig Williams. You can find me homeowners show. You can find me, Excalibur Pest Term. Save any of those. I'll, I'll respond to any of them. If you need to email me, it's just craig excalibur pest.com. Um, and I'm, I'm, I'm on pretty much all the socials, but really more active on Facebook, cuz that's, there's a lot of pest control happening on Facebook.

[00:57:21] Craig Williams: You got it.

[00:57:22] Eric Goranson: Well, hey, let's talk about, uh, homeowners show here real quick before we go. Yeah. Because, uh, that's another topic here that I love heading over and, uh, jumping on your show from time to time, , that's been a lot of fun in the past. Yeah, no,

[00:57:34] Craig Williams: and my it is, it is a labor of love. That is for sure. So it is, no, it's, it's, uh, we've been, we've been at it for four years now.

[00:57:42] Craig Williams: Uh,

[00:57:42] Eric Goranson: how's it been? Four years. Oh, wow.

[00:57:45] Craig Williams: Yeah. Yeah. Um, I think we figured that out the other day because how old Kevin's laptop was, uh, there you go. . That'll do it. When did you get that? Oh yeah, about four years ago. Four years ago. Um, Uh, but yeah, so we, we have an [00:58:00] episode come out every Tuesday. We're kind of a long form podcast.

[00:58:02] Craig Williams: We love doing interviews, but we, we do product reviews from time to time. Um, and we also just talk about life in general. So, we'll, I mean, we'll just go about an hour and a half. Um, yep. But we started doing a lot of live events. Uh, we've got another live event coming up on the 19th. We're gonna go talk to Nice, a bunch of contractors and HVAC and flooring guys, um, and interview a bunch of them.

[00:58:23] Craig Williams: Uh, so I mean, it's, it's been fun, man. Like we, we, we started, uh, I say we, I mean, like, I, I took the idea to Kevin and said, Hey, would you do this with me? Um, the, the whole concept behind it was I was, I was pretty good at marketing in, in my area. Um, sure. And I noticed that there was a lot of guys that I was networking with, you know, that are kind of in my orbit of pest control.

[00:58:46] Craig Williams: You know, whether that be like HVAC flooring, uh, plumbing, electrical, what, whatever it is. Like there were so many talented guys. Yeah. And their marketing sucked. Um, and it was like, if people just knew who you were, [00:59:00] they would use more, people would use you, but you, you don't, you don't have the tools in order to get your name out there.

[00:59:05] Craig Williams: And I was like, how, how could I help them with this? And so that was really the initial poll was to like, I wanna, I wanna ring my friends in. I wanna interview 'em so that people know how awesome they are. Um, see, and that was, that was really it. And, and from there, four years later, here you go. Yeah. And, and so now we're, I, we're in all 50 states.

[00:59:24] Craig Williams: We're in 12 different countries. Um, you know, it's, it's been fun. Um, and my, my, my wife lovingly refers to it as my hobby. Um, which it is. Cool. Hey, ,

[00:59:37] Eric Goranson: there's a lot of work in this and if she can call it a hobby, then uh, take that as a compliment and smile cuz you're not getting trouble for it.

[00:59:43] Craig Williams: It, it bothered me at first, but then she was like, look, there are a lot worse things you could be doing.

[00:59:49] Craig Williams: Fair point. Yeah. And I was like, fair point. I'll run. You know, as long as you're, as long, long as you're happy with it, I'm fine. .

[00:59:55] Eric Goranson: Yeah. I mean, and here's the thing, and as people know out there that Haveve ever done podcasts, it's a labor of [01:00:00] love. You have to put years into it for it to become, you know, anything zero as far as financially for you.

[01:00:08] Eric Goranson: So yeah, there's a lot for sure of work to do this just to get to, to square one.

[01:00:13] Craig Williams: Yeah. And, and we've, we've always appreciated your support, man. You've been a huge encouragement to us. Cuz I mean, you know, you're the, the, the godfather of this, of this space. . I dunno about that, but thanks . Uh, but yeah, man, it's, it's, it's, it's cool to get to be friends with people who are, uh, you, that that's the, that I think that's one of the coolest things about podcasting, man, is like, there's, I've rarely met a competitor.

[01:00:38] Craig Williams: Yeah. You know what I mean? I mean like, like a hundred percent agree. And there's, there's so many people that you meet that like want to do what you're doing. Like, I mean, I wish I could do that. And you're like, you totally could. And like I've, everyone that I've ever met in podcasting has been encouraging.

[01:00:53] Craig Williams: Like that is like, well, you can do this, you could do that. You could totally have a show. I'm like, what would I talk about? I was like, what are we talking about right now? [01:01:00] Yeah.

[01:01:01] Eric Goranson: That's it. That's it. No, I mean, it's such a cool community and I just have to say I agree. It's, it's so fun because it's an interesting group in that this is a very interesting way to create a living as well.

[01:01:17] Eric Goranson: You know, I do this for a living. Yeah. But it's very lonely as well, because you don't see the people you're talking to unless you're doing live mm-hmm. . Yeah. You record it, you send it off into the ether and you see numbers. Yeah. Then you get social media feedback, but that's really all

[01:01:35] Craig Williams: you get. That's it.

[01:01:36] Craig Williams: Yeah. And that, that it, it is, it's like, What, what, what does that mean? I mean, yeah, it could be like, it was a complete train wreck and so everybody's, everybody's slowing down to watch the , the aftermath. Yeah. You know, it could be or it could be like, Hey, that was really good. I had, I had something going there.

[01:01:55] Craig Williams: Yeah. Um, but you, like, you're absolutely right. You have like, un, unless [01:02:00] somebody leaves a comment or a review, like you have zero clue as to how you did. And it's like, no, without a feedback machine. I mean, like, this is, this is, I think this is why comics are so much quicker on their feet, right? Because in order to practice the craft, you have to be in front of

[01:02:17] Eric Goranson: people and you gotta get stuff thrown at you first.

[01:02:20] Craig Williams: Yeah. And like we have to be in front of no one. So like we can just suck for years. And , you know, and, and, and no one would say anything. Yeah. Well,

[01:02:31] Eric Goranson: yeah, potentially, usually those, what happens is those people get burned out cuz they start watching the numbers, they watch the numbers and they're like, okay, we're, we're, we're losing people instead of gaining And then about show eight, they're gone.

[01:02:43] Craig Williams: Yeah, yeah. That's, that is the average, right? Yeah. Yeah. And, and so like, like this is, this is, and I think you've probably looked at this too, I mean like, you know, like you and I are in like the top 1% of all podcasts. Yeah. And it, and it has nothing to do with like our numbers as much as it is we've just put out consistent content for [01:03:00] years.

[01:03:00] Eric Goranson: Yeah. It's crazy. I mean we're, you know, around the house here, and I know you guys out there listening to this too, around the house. We're at 1464 as far as 1,464

[01:03:12] Craig Williams: episodes. Oh my gosh. Yeah. That's cra like we got excited the other day cause we were like fixing a bounce two 30. Yeah, .

[01:03:19] Eric Goranson: But you know what I mean with this has been, this is a radio show that's been going on for 34, coming on 35 years this year.

[01:03:26] Eric Goranson: So, yeah, it's when podcasting started, we were on it.

[01:03:30] Craig Williams: Well, yeah, you, I mean you're the the, the pump was primed. Yeah, it was ready go. It's like, what, what's, what's one more place to send our content? We're already recording

[01:03:40] Eric Goranson: it. Let's just throw it up on the web, see what happens. And we are throwing it up on SoundCloud, cuz that's all you could do back then.

[01:03:45] Eric Goranson: That's

[01:03:45] all

[01:03:45] Craig Williams: you . That's right.

[01:03:47] Eric Goranson: That's what we did. Craig Williams. Thanks for coming on today brother. How do people find the homeowner show?

[01:03:53] Craig Williams: Uh, homeowner show.com. But you can find it on any podcast platform. Uh, we actually just, uh, uh, hit our, we just [01:04:00] started using YouTube the other day. Uh, nice. And so we, we've got our first thousand subscribers on there.

[01:04:05] Craig Williams: Um, so I mean, if you wanna watch us, we're not, we're not much to look at, but people like video. They do. No

[01:04:14] Eric Goranson: question. So we're doing it. Awesome man. Congrats and best of luck with that. We'll have you back on again next time. Appreciate it, bud. Alright, he's all right. I'm Eric G and you've been listening to Around The House