First, a little history on the subject of getting “dog crapped”. Technicians in the wildlife removal industry are more vulnerable to stepping in a pile of dog crap than service technicians from other trades. The reason is simple, as we walk around the perimeter of a customer’s yard we are always looking up at the roof and roofline of the house looking for the hole/entry-point that the animals are using to gain access to the attic. So as we’re walking around the yard looking up at the roof we’re not watching where we are stepping and before you know it you just stepped into a huge pile of dog crap. It is actually better if it’s a big pile and you realize that you stepped in it. If it’s a smaller pile you don’t usually notice it until you’ve climbed up the ladder and got it on every rung of the ladder the entire way up. That is the worst because now you not only have to clean it off your shoes but also every rung of the ladder and you better hope that there is a garden hose nearby.

With that said, I am used to dealing with dog crap and i’ve been having a pretty good year avoiding it so far until yesterday morning. I arrived at a customer’s house yesterday morning to check some squirrel traps and when I stepped out of my truck onto a grassy area on the side of the road I stepped directly into the biggest pile of dog crap that I have ever seen. It actually got all over the sides and even the top of my sneaker it was so big. It also had the texture of vaseline and quickly covered my entire right sneaker. The smell was awful and I could not even come close to getting it all off my sneaker. It had seeped into the fabric on the sides also. The worst thing was that I still had two more appointments to go and I had to inspect attics on both appointments. That meant that I had to walk into two customer’s houses and I could not do so with these crap-soaked sneakers.

After a frantic search of my truck I realized that the only other footwear that I had with my was my knee-high rubber boots that I use in muddy/flooded yards. So I would have to show up for my next two appointments wearing shorts with knee-high rubber boots. Quite the fashion statement.

There was no way that I was going to show up at a customer’s house dressed like that. They would probably lock their doors and call the cops as I looked like an escaped mental patient in this outfit. So I decided that I would hit the nearest shoe store and buy some new sneakers.

After about 30 minutes of searching a found a mall and proceeded to the shoe store. As I walked through the mall wearing my shorts and knee-high rubber boots people were staring at me and parents were grabbing their children as they saw me walking through the mall. It was quite a sight. The guy at the shoe store asked what was with my awesome outfit and I told him the story about my dog crap fiasco. He then asked me “was it a big pile?” I responded “I am buying a new pair of sneakers because of this pile of dog poop, it certainly wasn’t from a poodle!!” All the guys in the store got a good laugh. I put on my new sneakers and was on my way.

Dog crap, just another occupational hazard in the wildlife removal industry.

Matt Grady

www.BatGuys.com

This coming August I’ll be riding in my 3rd Pan Mass Challenge. I am already looking forward to the event. PMC weekend has quickly become a very important weekend for my family. It’s just a great event that I look forward to all year long.

I have been training as I always do this time of year and everything has been going well. As we get older we all have nagging injuries to deal with but at the moment mine are all doing rather well. I have been having some very intense training sessions and I have been feeling great.

It didn’t take me long to figure out that the training was the easy part of the PMC. It’s the fundraising that is the hard part! I am off to a very slow start again this year as usual. I have some tricks up my sleeve but I could really use some help. If any of you could make a donation to my fundraising campaign I would greatly appreciate it. My PMC page can be found here 2010 Pan Mass Challenge and you can use the “donate to my ride” button in the center.

Ever since I got involved with the PMC my wife has expressed some interest in getting involved also. Her biggest issue is that she is not a cyclist and doesn’t have much experience on bicycles. She was going to be a PMC volunteer this year but instead she signed up for the “Susan G Koem 3-day Walk for the Cure” breast cancer fundraiser. This is a 60-mile walking event that is setup similar to the PMC. I am both happy and proud of her for getting involved in such an event. Of course this is going to put a serious dent in the PMC donations that I get from our friends and family bit I am proud of her anyway ;o).

Matt Grady

www.BatGuys.com

Last week I said goodbye to a cell phone that I’ve had for over 2 years. About a year longer than any girlfriend I’d ever had (with the exception of my wife). Before this phone I don’t think I’ve ever had a cell phone that lasted more than 6 months. This phone however was something special. It was an indestructible phone that was also waterproof. The first week I had this phone my son threw it into a pond and it sank to the bottom in 3 feet of water. I picked up the phone from the bottom of the pond and to my surprise it was working and I was able to use it right away. I’ve dropped this phone off no less than 2 dozen rooftops and even ran it over with my truck. Yet this little warrior kept on plugging. Right up until last Thursday.

Last Thursday I opened my phone to look at my missed call log and I got an error message that read “all calls history empty”. No matter what I did the phone would not show me the calls that I had missed. This is a big deal because during the course of a day I miss a lot of calls. I can’t answer my phone while I’m working on a roof or ladder and I can’t answer it while I’m with a customer either.

So I had to bite the bullet and buy a new cell phone. I bought the exact same phone and hope to get another two years out of this one.

Matt Grady

www.BatGuys.com

In the field we have been doing squirrel removal services almost exclusively. Every time we get a really cold day we get bombed with calls for squirrels in attics and rooflines. We’re getting calls for both flying squirrels and also gray squirrels. About a month ago I trapped a black squirrel at a home in Melrose Ma. A wild-looking critter for sure. Black squirrels actually an ordinary gray squirrel with “melanistic” coloring.

I was reading a newspaper article this morning about a pure white squirrel that has been spotted in Whitman Ma. A white squirrel on the other hand is an “albino”. A product of inter-breeding between squirrels of the same family.  As a certified “squirrelologist” I found this rather interesting. For no other reason than after trapping several hundred gray squirrels every year it is nice to see something a little different.

Merry Christmas

Matt Grady

www.BatGuys.com

So I apologize to anyone that has been trying to contact us and was not able to. Everything is fixed now and there shouldn’t be any more issues.

Matt

I was pleasantly surprised to receive these drawings in the mail last month from one of our recent customers. Like most of the families we work for the this customer’s kids were very interested in their bat problem. They had all types of questions for Mike about what he was going to do to get the bats out of their attic. They wanted to make sure that the bats would not be hurt etc etc. Mike answered all of their questions and evidently made quite an impression on the kids. Mike and I were both very happy to see that they took the time to create these drawings for us and we promised them that we would post them on the BatGuys website for them.

Matt Grady

www.BatGuys.com

About two weeks ago I got a call from a woman in Fall River that asked me if I could come out to remove a boa constrictor from the roof of a house. I politely declined the offer telling her that I don’t deal with snakes and suggested that she call the town animal control officer. Of course the whole time I was on the phone with her I was thinking that she was completely crazy. A boa constrictor on the roof of a 3-story house in Fall River? In October? That’s a good one!

Well you can imagine my surprise a few days later when I was surfing through some local newspaper stories and stumbled across a story about a huge boa constrictor at a home in Fall River. The snake was a pet and somehow got loose from a tenant’s apartment. The snake got into a wall and made it’s way up the the attic of the house. From the attic the snake was able to make it’s way out of an opening near the gutter and was seen soaking up the sun on the South side of the roof for several consecutive days.

Over a period of several days several people tried to capture the snake to no avail. During this period the snake was traveling through the attic and making it’s way up and down the walls of the building. That’s right an 8 foot boa constrictor living in the walls of a house……and my customers freak out over a few bats in their attic??!!! Imagine going to bed at night knowing that this snake was in the walls of your home? ‘

After a few days the homeowner finally caught the snake inside the attic of the house. The article in the newspaper didn’t say exactly HOW he managed to catch it but I can only imagine the tactic that was used.

This was one crazy call that I was wrong about. The lady that called to report the 8 foot snake on the roof in Fall River wasn’t crazy or lying.

Matt Grady

www.BatGuys.com

One of the most common questions that I’m asked by customers is “have you ever been bitten by an animal?” The answer is no, I haven’t. In all the years I have been removing wildlife from people’s homes I have never been bitten by an animal. I’ve come close to getting gouged by raccoons a few times but I’ve always managed to get out of the way.

Two years ago I arrived at a customer’s house to perform a bat inspection and was met at the door by the customer and also his cocker spaniel. The dog was barking and very excited as most dogs usually are. The customer told me “let him sniff your hand and he’ll calm down” So I extended my hand toward the dog’s nose and she lunged forward and bit my hand and would not let go. I finally managed to get my hand out of the dog’s mouth and saw that I had 3 puncture wounds from the dog’s teeth in my thumb. That was the first time I had ever been bitten on the job. By a dog of all things!

Last week Mike joined the dog bite club. In a very similar situation he had a golden retriever take a chunk out of his hand while inspecting a customer’s house for squirrels. A quick thump with the flashlight made the dog let go of his hand. He also had 3 puncture wounds on his hand. Luckily the dog had just had his shots and the customer had the paperwork to prove it.

I find it amusing that we can remove angry gray squirrels by hand and wrestle raccoons in hand to hand combat in attics but the true danger that we face in this business is from our customer’s dogs. Would would have thought?

Matt Grady

www.BatGuys.com

This summer was about average for us in terms of calls for bats. We did see a dramatic reduction in little brown bats. In previous years we would normall deal with little brown bats in 15-20 houses each year. This year we have only seen little brown bats in 2 homes. This reduction in little brown bats is due to white nose syndrome which has all but wiped out the population of these bats in New England. Thankfully our resident population of big brown bats seems to be doing fine.

We are getting ready for the fall and i’m looking forward to dealing with squirrels and mice again. I don’t have anything against bats but after dealing with them for the last 4 months I could use a change. Once we get the first cold nights where the temperature dips down into the 30’s the calls for gray squirrels, flying squirrels and mice will start to pour in.

I completed my 2nd Pan Mass Challenge back at the beginning of August. Once again my family and I had a great time at this event and I had a great ride. The PMC is something that I will always be a part of. Once you have done it once it is very hard not to continue doing it. I’ll have a page complete with pictures and a story posted here shortly.

I’ll be updating my blog on a weekly basis so check back soon.

Matt Grady

www.BatGuys.com

We often use text messaging to communicate between ourselves while working in the field. When this first started a couple years ago I couldn’t help but feel like a teenager doing it but at the same time I found it very effective. We use it mainly for simple messages that aren’t worth a phone call. Things like “bring me a coffee”, “got bit by a squirrel, bring bandaids”, “this customer is a lunatic, he locked me inside his attic” and things of that nature.

Two weeks ago Mike was working on a house in Upton Ma. The town of Upton is the worst town in our area for cell phone reception. In 90% of the town you can’t get a shred of reception. While he was working on this house he couldn’t make or receive any calls on his phone. However he did have just enough reception to send and recieve text messages.

I had sent him a text message asking him if hehad called his 3pm appointment to let the woman know that he was going to be15 minutes late. He told me that he forgot to call her before he lost reception but don’t worry because “I sent her a text message”. I had to laugh, I said “you did what? you sent a customer who we haven’t even met a text message?” He simply said that he had no choice.  I asked him how she reacted to receiving a text message from the animal removal guy and he said that she responded to the text message, thanked him for contacting her and never mentioned it again.

At first I thought sending a customer a text message was a bit unprofessional but I guess not.The customer didn’t mind at all and all was well. With that said we’re not going to make a habit out of sending text messages to our customers but it’s nice to know that we can if we have to. I just thought it was funny how the customer wasn’t surprised or taken back by it at all.

Matt Grady

www.BatGuys.com