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BENTON, La. — Navigating through tight, dirty crawlspaces, using ladders to reach otherwise inaccessible areas, up-close encounters with wildlife pests…it’s all in a day’s work for pest management professionals. This job description also is why pest control is a perfect fit for the Discovery Channel’s “Dirty Jobs,” a new series that, according to the station, “profiles the unsung American laborers who make their living in the most unthinkable — yet vital — ways.”
Tune to the Discovery Channel on Aug. 23 at 9 p.m., for the premiere of a “Dirty Jobs” program featuring Vexcon Animal and Pest Control, a company from the Shreveport, La., area.
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Vexcon is a 9-year-old business that is owned and operated by Bill Bretherton, a former U.S. Air Force sergeant who learned the trait from his family and also studied under Dr. Austin Frishman. The company has made a name for itself by offering not only general pest and termite control, but an assortment of wildlife and animal control services. Bretherton told PCT his company is called upon to control everything from rodents and ants to regional problems like nutria and snakes
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For this particular segment, TV crews filmed Bretherton and co-owner Jack Skaggs at a pair of accounts. The first account was a single-wide trailer infested with cockroaches. Vexcon used a flushing agent to eliminate the cockroaches and then followed up with baiting. The second account was a farm that was formerly used for cockfighting (which is legal in Louisiana) that had rat, snake, flea and squirrel problems. Bretherton explained to viewers the complexity of performing pest control in environments with non-target pests such as farm animals.
Bretherton said the film crew followed Skaggs and him while loading trucks, performing the inspection and making applications, all the way to the follow-up explanation of the work that was performed. Bretherton said he tried to get viewers to see the world from the perspective of a pest management professional.
“When you work in pest control, you get a perspective of the world most people don’t see,” he said. “We work in accounts such as railroad yards, hospitals and farms and we see the successful, the rich and the poor. We also see how people react to us – and the work we do - from a social, political and religious perspective.
“We tried to give them a better understanding of what we do, so that they would know what to expect from us – that we aren’t there to eliminate but to control.”
So how was Vexcon chosen?
It all goes back to Vexcon’s marketing approach. Vexcon prominently displays the skull-and-crossbones insignia on its trucks, literature, and black military fatigue uniforms. While some pest management professionals have purposely moved away from this image, Vexcon has embraced it, believing it to be a smart and creative marketing tactic. It’s also what caught the attention of an executive for Pilgrim Films, producers of the reality TV shows “American Chopper” and “Monster Garage.” Pilgrim Films was interested in developing a reality TV program about a pest control company whose image was similar to that of the companies on those two shows. A Web search led Pilgrim Films to Vexcon.
Bretherton said he’s been told that if the first episode generates enough ratings that there is the potential for this program to be turned into a reality TV series.