As the senior operator at A-1 Wildlife Control, Inc., Allen Eckman tells a harrowing tale of Charlotte wildlife control. “Surprisingly, mine was the last company this person called in 10 years of experiencing what they thought was a wildlife problem,” Eckman begins.
“Ten years ago, this client called his first wildlife infestation and pest extermination company—Orkin.” The problem was this: The homeowner who called Orkin was hearing scratching and chewing sounds underneath his house. Orkin diagnosed it as a mouse or rat problem. Exterminators set bait and traps but caught nothing. “They couldn’t figure it out,” Eckman says.
Then the client called Terminix, another pest control company. “They couldn’t figure it out either,” says Eckman. After the inability of those two companies to get to the bottom of things, the client turned his attention to purely animal infestation specialists. “One critter control company diagnosed something wrong, too—but couldn’t figure anything out. The client continued to work through several other animal removal technicians. The guy was getting very frustrated,” Eckman relates.
The client moved on to Ace Animal Control. Can you guess how they did? They couldn’t figure it out either. “He went through quite a few more ‘experts’ before he finally got a hold of me,” Eckman says. “I asked him, ‘how’d you find me last?’ and he said ‘I eventually found you in the phone book.’ So after 10 years, 13 different technicians, and seven different companies later, I was the last and 14th technician the guy called.”
Eckman took his Charlotte animal removal gear out to the client’s property. He went through the same initial motions as all the previous companies, but then he went a little deeper.
“I got on my hands and knees underneath parts of the house,” Eckman says. He explains that he just sat there in a crawl space for 30 minutes. He sat and listened without making a single peep. “I lay perfectly still under that crawl space…listening…”
He noticed then that what the client thought was an animal chewing and gnawing was a very inconsistent noise. After putting his ears closely to different parts of the house near the noise, Eckman concluded that it wasn’t an animal at all. “I determined it was a half-inch or three-quarter-inch gas line,” he says. In gas lines, there are small metal fittings on springs. They’re little valves. “What must have happened was that the spring on the metal fitting got loose. As a result, the loose spring was tapping against the inside of the pipe as gas flowed through,” Eckman says. “A gentleman from a gas company came out and agreed with my decision.”
Eckman believes that all the animal removal companies before him couldn’t figure out what he did in one sitting because they weren’t patient enough; but Eckman’s ability to operate outside his profession made him practice his job better. After all, Eckman is not a gas-line expert; he’s an animal removal expert. But he was able to compare his understanding of how gas lines work with his deep knowledge of animal noises to succeed in helping his client. It’s always good for a professional to be able to think outside the box, and for this, one Charlotte homeowner was truly grateful.