To watch a video version of this podcast, click here:
https://youtu.be/5yOQW18UmVA
In this episode, Reuben Saltzman and Tessa Murry welcome Matthew Eickman from Abra Kadabra Pest Control to discuss the intersection of pest control and home inspections. They explore the importance of community in business growth, the challenges of misidentification in pest issues, and the significance of building relationships between home inspectors and pest control providers. Matthew shares insights on preventative measures for homeowners, the costs associated with pest control services, and the unique challenges of wildlife control. The conversation also touches on Matthew’s journey in the pest control industry and his vision for the future.
Here’s the link to check out Inspector Empire Builder: https://events.iebcoaching.com/events
You can reach Matthew here: https://abrakadabraenvironmental.com/
Takeaways
Matthew emphasizes the importance of community in business growth.
Home inspectors should be cautious when identifying pest issues.
Building relationships with pest control providers is crucial for home inspectors.
Preventative measures can save homeowners from costly pest issues.
Misidentification of pests can lead to significant problems in real estate transactions.
Regular maintenance contracts can help manage pest populations effectively.
Understanding the biology of pests is essential for effective control.
The cost of pest control services varies widely based on the issue.
Wildlife control presents unique challenges compared to traditional pest control.
Matthew’s journey in pest control highlights the potential for business growth.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Guest Introduction
02:53 The Importance of Community and Business Growth
06:06 Understanding Pest Control and Home Inspections
09:06 Identifying Pests: The Role of Home Inspectors
12:13 Advice for Home Inspectors on Pest Issues
15:03 The Challenges of Misidentification in Pest Control
18:01 The Importance of Relationships in Pest Control
20:56 Preventative Measures for Homeowners
23:49 The Cost of Pest Control Services
27:04 The Difference Between Rodents and Bats
29:48 Wildlife Control and Its Challenges
33:00 The Role of Woodpeckers and Other Wildlife
36:05 Box Elder Bugs and Seasonal Pest Control
38:57 The Nasty Side of Pest Control
41:59 The Business of Pest Control and Growth
44:49 Matthew’s Journey in Pest Control
48:13 Closing Thoughts and Future Plans
TRANSCRIPTION
The following is an AI-generated transcription from an audio recording. Although the transcription is mostly accurate, it will contain some errors due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.
Reuben Saltzman: Welcome to my house. Welcome to the Structure Talk podcast, a production of Structure Tech Home Inspections. My name is Reuben Saltzman. I’m your host alongside building science geek, Tessa Murry. We help home inspectors up their game through education, and we help homeowners to be better stewards of their houses. We’ve been keeping it real on this podcast since 2019, and we are also the number one home inspection podcast in the world, according to my mom.
Reuben Saltzman (00:01.492)
Welcome back to the show. Welcome to the structure talk podcast Tessa. It has been a minute. How many weeks have we missed here? How many have we gone without a podcast?
Tessa Murry (00:10.37)
I lost track Ruben, but we have both been busy, busy people, which I feel like we should take a moment and I’d love to share kind of some of the things I’ve been doing the last few months and I want to hear what you’ve been doing too, but maybe we should do that on the next podcast because…
Matthew Eickman (00:27.995)
you
Reuben Saltzman (00:28.642)
Yeah, let’s let’s catch up later. We got a guest. We got a guest on today. And but before we even do that, I want to throw out. No, you know what I’m to take. I’m going to introduce Matthew first, then we’re going to mention our spouse sponsor. Then we’re coming back to Matthew. So today I’ve got Matthew Eichmann of Abra Kadabra Pest Control. Matthew and I have gotten to know each other very well through Entrepreneurs Organization and
Tessa Murry (00:31.532)
We got a guest.
Reuben Saltzman (00:58.55)
Matthew welcome to the show. How you doing today,
Matthew Eickman (01:02.459)
First of all, thank you for having me on the show. I’m doing fantastic today. Thanks for the warm introduction. I’m excited to hear about what y’all have been doing the last few weeks, though. Sounds like you’ve been busy. I know you’ve got some things going on behind the scenes there, Ruben, but…
I’m just excited to be here. I’ve listened to a ton of your podcasts over the last few years and over the last few months we’ve been fortunate enough to get a little bit deeper of a working relationship there. So I’m doing a lot of cool things here in the Twin Cities.
Reuben Saltzman (01:34.112)
And I’m a fan of your podcast, too. But Matthew is no stranger to this. He’s been doing a podcast really more on it. It really has nothing to do with past and all that. It’s more just business acumen and getting business leaders on there, which I find is just fascinating. Like, I don’t feel like I’m qualified to even do that. That’s fantastic.
Matthew Eickman (01:53.231)
Wow.
What?
Tessa Murry (01:56.59)
Thank
Matthew Eickman (01:57.421)
really happened, Ruben, is I was going to do a podcast similar to Structure Talk and I realized that somebody was like five or six years ahead of me and I had to come up with something a little more exciting to talk about than pest control and home inspections. all kidding aside, I’m really passionate about growing businesses in the local community. I’ve had a lot of businesses like yourself and others that have supported myself and my team along the way. So,
being part of that community and giving back is just part of who we are as an organization and how I was raised growing up. So I don’t know any other way but to give back and have appreciation for the opportunities we have.
Tessa Murry (02:39.32)
Hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (02:43.746)
Love it. Love it. All right. So let me get into our commercial here quick. Gotta give a shout out to our show, our show sponsors, IEB, Inspector Empire Builder. It’s kind of a coaching and peer to peer group for home inspection company owners, whether it’s a one person shop or you have a whole bunch of employees or you have multiple home inspection companies all over the country. I mean, we got a number of
Matthew Eickman (02:48.347)
Let’s do it.
Tessa Murry (02:53.624)
Thank you.
Reuben Saltzman (03:13.998)
people in our group with that size to them. And I wanted to bring that up because Matthew, you’re no stranger to IEB. You’re familiar with those guys. How do you know IEB? I thought that was an interesting story.
Matthew Eickman (03:24.676)
yeah.
Matthew Eickman (03:27.963)
It’s a good question. So IEB is like, it’s a very tight knit organization, right? Like a lot like the wildlife and the pest control industry. Maybe just our industry is a little bit more scaled up compared to the home inspector space. But I met with
can’t remember who it was, but somebody who is involved in the coaching program and they were rolling out the version of it that’s pest control related because the crossover is so clear and the opportunity for providing services is really easy. A lot of home inspectors are looking to add additional revenue streams into their businesses so they can really build the asset that is their business. So that crossover between home inspectors and that training platform that they
had and the introduction of the pest control offering. I was involved in a couple of conversations there just to kind of help give a little bit of an understanding of the horizon maybe. But I know a ton of home inspectors. We overlap in our local market a lot with the transactions that happen. Other than home inspectors and
and my guys when we’re inspecting a home, there’s not a lot of people that are going into attic spaces in any state, right? So having those relationships and a really clear understanding of how we align and support each other’s businesses, I think is really important to best take care of the homeowner or the home seller. So.
Reuben Saltzman (04:50.339)
Yes.
Tessa Murry (04:50.914)
Good.
Reuben Saltzman (05:04.887)
Yes, yes, love it.
Tessa Murry (05:06.072)
Peace.
Matthew Eickman (05:07.727)
That overlap probably just because I’m really involved in building my own business and I’ve got some coaches that I think work a little bit deeper with IEB and PEB as far as like how are we going to build this out so more inspectors can actually bring this into their business and have it impact the future of their business or their life oftentimes depending on the size of the company.
I know a few people locally, obviously, that are home inspectors, but even across the country on the West Coast, like Glennon Quinn and his wife, they run an awesome company up there in Northern California. And what’s interesting is in some markets, Minnesota aside, the overlap for home inspections is built in because of the pest pressure, like termites and things like that. Minnesota’s in the Midwest is a little bit of an anomaly because we’re missing that.
Tessa Murry (05:47.274)
Andrea?
Reuben Saltzman (05:48.566)
Andrea, yep.
Matthew Eickman (06:06.507)
wood destroying organism part. I kind of wish we had them. Like I think a lot of people, right? But it’s good for the structures up here, right? And there are some pockets of it, but until it’s really high level of pressure, I don’t really see that shift in the licensing changing any anytime soon for termites. So, but taking care of people’s homes, that’s the name of the game, right?
Tessa Murry (06:11.414)
It’s a good thing.
Reuben Saltzman (06:11.554)
Same here.
Reuben Saltzman (06:26.552)
Yeah, yeah.
Tessa Murry (06:29.23)
Thank
Reuben Saltzman (06:31.564)
Yeah, I hear about home inspection company owners all over the country and how how much they do with pest. it’s just it’s an integral part of what they do. And it’s a recurring revenue model, which is really sweet. I mean, as a home inspection company owner, when we do a home inspection, we do it one time and we may or may not hear from these clients for, I don’t know, five, 10 years, whenever they buy another house.
Tessa Murry (06:32.119)
Hmm.
Matthew Eickman (06:45.146)
Yes.
Matthew Eickman (06:50.256)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (07:00.418)
That’s it. It is always a one on one and done. But with the past, it’s like you’re in there all the time. You are their past guy now. And so many home inspectors all over the country do that. That’s a that’s a big part of what they do. And here in Minnesota, I don’t know of anybody in Minnesota who’s doing that to you.
Matthew Eickman (07:01.573)
So.
Matthew Eickman (07:21.027)
So companies offer it, but it’s offered only because the lender or the mortgage provider requires it as part of their lending agreement. So it’s wood destroying organisms. So up here, it’s going to be like carpenter ants, mold, a few other type of beetles. They’re hoping for termites. They want to make sure there’s no termites, but that part of the inspection is usually the easier part.
Tessa Murry (07:21.294)
Thank
Reuben Saltzman (07:31.943)
sure.
Reuben Saltzman (07:36.547)
Bye.
Matthew Eickman (07:50.615)
some operators just think we don’t have them up here and that’s not true. It’s just not as prevalent. It’s not like Florida where if you don’t have some type of termite service completed, you’re getting termites, period. One flavor or the other. Again, that’s why I kind of wish we had them.
Reuben Saltzman (08:06.414)
Okay. Well, I’ll be honest. I fall into that camp of the people who think we just don’t have them here. Educate me, Matthew. Tell me, what do we have?
Matthew Eickman (08:16.397)
Mm.
Matthew Eickman (08:20.411)
So we’ve got small pockets of Eastern subterranean termites that do exist. And there is a little bit of an increase in them being reported. But when I came into pest control about 10 years ago, I was taught by my father-in-law and a lot of other older operators that they just weren’t here. Never seen them 20, 30 years in the industry, never existed. We’ve done five or 10 services here this year. And now that’s not a lot compared to other markets, but…
Tessa Murry (08:30.478)
Thank
Matthew Eickman (08:49.721)
is more than we’ve had in the past. And that trend keeps kind of going in that direction. Now there’s some theories that are out there, but really until there’s a bigger sample size showing that type of evidence, it’s still kind of an anomaly in this market. But it doesn’t mean that we’re in the clear. Some homes in like St. Paul and Plymouth is where we really kind of see the active pockets of Eastern subs. It’s really…
Tessa Murry (08:52.256)
Tessa Murry (09:06.307)
Hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (09:16.876)
Interesting.
Tessa Murry (09:17.166)
Hmm.
Matthew Eickman (09:18.169)
And I don’t know why. wish I knew more of the why, but the mild winters helps because they’re not going to get frozen out. They can go down deep enough to survive that. So if they continue, maybe we’re going to see an increase in Eastern subterranean termites. But I’m not a scientist. I’m not any type of entomologist. I just love taking care of people’s homes. we enjoy educating customers on the things that…
actually matter and try to stay away from the fear tactics and all that that can kind of happen within the pest space, especially when somebody’s not educated about it. And so I’m excited about coming on here because some of what we have to overcome as a service provider is misinformation from a home inspector that’s being passed along to this new homeowner, right? Because they’re taking that as like fact, like that’s the Bible. This is the home.
Tessa Murry (10:11.502)
I’m going to…
Matthew Eickman (10:16.766)
this is the list of things I have to fix over the next few years. So little things like misidentifying droppings in a attic, that makes our life a nightmare because now we have to prove to them essentially that we’re the expert on the droppings. But that’s like a little thing. Termites, it doesn’t happen as much, but those type of instances where there’s overlap from home inspector fines,
Reuben Saltzman (10:34.242)
Yeah. Yeah.
Matthew Eickman (10:46.649)
whatever the problem is, now the next service provider is gonna come in and ideally, whatever you guys said is 100 % true and now we just move forward and solve that. So yes, Tessa, sorry.
Tessa Murry (10:52.174)
I’m
Reuben Saltzman (10:58.136)
Go ahead.
Tessa Murry (10:58.542)
Well, I’m just curious, what would be your advice to home inspectors then who are maybe stepping kind of out of their lane into yours and creating more work for you? What would be your advice to us home inspectors when it comes to dealing with pests and identifying these issues?
Matthew Eickman (11:13.573)
So it’s a great question. So the National Wildlife Control Operators Association, I believe, just created a training course that’s offered with InterNACHI on their training platform. So really high level, like here’s some basic identification type of things, like droppings in particular for bats compared to mice, that’s where we see the issue happen.
Here’s a quick tip. If you pick a dropping up with a gloved hand, obviously, and it like turns into dust or falls apart, 90 % chance it’s a bat dropping. Bats eat bugs. Those are going to be kind of dry and it’ll kind of be a little shiny in the dropping. But number one indicator, if you pick it up, turns into powder, it’s almost always going to be a bat. And if it’s in the attic where you find it, like a hundred percent chance.
Reuben Saltzman (12:13.048)
Sure. OK.
Tessa Murry (12:13.294)
Yeah. Okay. So that’s helpful. So there’s some trainings that home inspectors could take through InterNACHI to learn more. I was going to say, Reuben, I remember when we were putting our training course together for new home inspectors, there was a module where we covered environmental hazards and we spent a few hours talking about identifying different types of poo droppings and potential pests, red flags.
Matthew Eickman (12:35.541)
Yeah
Reuben Saltzman (12:36.973)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (12:40.398)
so that our inspectors could identify at least that there’s something going on and then recommend further inspection by pest control company to come in and figure out what’s going on and fix anything that needs to be fixed.
Matthew Eickman (12:51.419)
Yeah, and really making sure that you have a good relationship with the pest control provider, whatever market you’re in. If you have that good relationship and it’s kind of on the cusp, being able to text somebody a picture of something and get very accurate information, it makes you look like a genius, first of all, and it speeds up any type of back-end problem solving that you might have.
Tessa Murry (13:07.212)
Hmm.
Tessa Murry (13:16.824)
the tip.
Matthew Eickman (13:17.879)
That’s another thing I could recommend that would really help anybody out there that wants to kind of remove any questions they have there. Just provide a resource that is somebody who is a subject matter expert on it. Unless you’re planning on firing up a pest control business.
Reuben Saltzman (13:28.77)
Yes. Yes.
Tessa Murry (13:33.902)
Do we trust like chat GPT or any of these new like AI technologies you upload a picture of a piece of poo for it to tell us what it is?
Matthew Eickman (13:44.827)
I feel like that’s a good tool to build. I’ve never tried it. I might give it a whirl after this because I’ve probably got more pictures of Poo in my photo album than anybody in the world, which is weird when I say that. I mean, we might be the only industry that rivals you guys for how many photos are taken on site during our process. So.
Tessa Murry (13:51.982)
of
Reuben Saltzman (13:58.766)
You weirdo.
Reuben Saltzman (14:11.225)
my gosh, you should share photos with me.
Matthew Eickman (14:14.235)
I think it’d be a very interesting photo collage collab, like a picture says a thousand words, right? So when you’re trying to explain something to a customer, like that allows us to deliver the information that’s from their home and it’s accurate. And now we can speak to the home, not to just the idea of the problem, which is where a lot of those conversations become kind of disorienting for the homeowner.
Reuben Saltzman (14:19.502)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (14:19.63)
You
Reuben Saltzman (14:37.752)
Yeah.
Matthew Eickman (14:42.479)
Like there’s so much in this new home. They’re just trying to get the doc signed and get the moving company in oftentimes. So I could talk about poop all day though guys. If you want to keep going.
Reuben Saltzman (14:48.856)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (14:50.051)
you
Reuben Saltzman (14:53.656)
Well, well, you know, yeah, we do. I do want to keep going because that was one of the main things I wanted to talk to you about today. I don’t think I even told you that, but I’m glad you’re bringing that up. No. But so here’s here’s here’s why this is such a big hot button for us. It’s it’s funny how you said the home inspector identifies it as this type of home inspector says.
Tessa Murry (14:53.76)
It’s back.
Matthew Eickman (15:03.279)
You did it. I came ready.
Tessa Murry (15:06.51)
It’s just.
Reuben Saltzman (15:21.654)
It’s bats and then you come in, you know, it’s mice and then you got to convince people. Well, I feel like I’m on the other side of that coin, Matthew, where if we come in and it’s bad dropping, so we know it’s bad dropping. So let me just set the stage a little. I’ve got a couple of guys in my company, Scott and Corey, who both worked in the pest control world. They they were doing this day in and day out, going on addicts and they know their stuff.
Matthew Eickman (15:30.363)
Mm-hmm.
Matthew Eickman (15:45.721)
Mm-hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (15:51.744)
and they’ve taught all the rest of us the same thing you just said, like, you know, have a gloved hand, try to crumble it if it turns to powder and it’s in an attic. Those are bad trappings. But, you know, so they’ve they’ve educated us all. We know how to identify the difference. And we’re accurate when we describe it in our reports. But I’ll tell you what, if a past company comes in after us and they say, no, it’s mouse trappings, it’s the way
from my lens, the past dude is the past God and whatever they say goes and we are wrong. I mean, whether we’re right or wrong in everybody’s eyes, the home inspector is wrong. You don’t know what you’re talking about. And the latest one that got me was we were in an attic and you know, there’s these drop ins and we said, got some bad stuff going on and they ended up
Matthew Eickman (16:22.395)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (16:31.48)
Just kidding.
Thank
Reuben Saltzman (16:50.252)
having a pest company come out and the pest company says, Nope, it’s mouse drop ins. Next thing you know, the home the deal falls apart. And part of it was that the people buying the house, they had their own problems. Like, I mean, they went back to the seller and they’re like, Hey, we want $100,000. Because you got bad drop ins is going to be expensive. You know, I’m exaggerating, but they may, they got some outrageous number, and they couldn’t come to terms and there was egos involved. The deal fell apart. And then
Matthew Eickman (17:07.963)
Mm-hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (17:20.066)
The sellers came back to us and they said, we’re suing you guys. We want several months of our mortgage payments because now we can’t sell our house or our house is stale and we want you to pay for this. And they they gave us some ridiculous number. And it’s like, OK, now we’re being sued for properly identifying the poop. And but if a parker says we’re wrong, we’re wrong. So what do we do? And what we’ve resolved to do is
Matthew Eickman (17:41.103)
Yeah, fascinating.
Tessa Murry (17:41.39)
Bye.
Matthew Eickman (17:45.275)
Mm-hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (17:48.672)
Unless we’re going to actually have photos of us crumbling feces and going way above over the top to document what it is. I’ve told my guys, I don’t even want you to identify what it is. I want you to say there’s droppings in the attic. Could be mice or bats. Get a pest specialist out here to figure it out and fix it. What do you think about that?
Tessa Murry (17:53.837)
Thanks.
Tessa Murry (18:02.071)
- Wow. Mm-hmm.
Matthew Eickman (18:10.179)
it.
I think it’s a smart business move. That’s what I think. If I’m in your shoes, it hedges against the nightmare that you just described. But like we’ve been on the on like part of a lot of conversations like that, unfortunately, we’re coming in after another service provider came in and started this big argument. Right. But because of the level of expertise that we have in the market, we’ve kind of become just known as the best.
Tessa Murry (18:11.607)
Wow.
So I’m going to.
Reuben Saltzman (18:34.648)
Uh-huh.
Matthew Eickman (18:41.405)
So
we get brought in into these messes and we kind of have to just clarify what’s actually going on there and really show everybody the reality of the situation, which really is if you got a home and it’s been there for more than five years, I can get really darn close to 90 % chance that you’ve got mice or some type of animal activity somewhere in your home. And if I take a look in the attic space, it’s usually a slam dunk for me to be able to show that information.
Reuben Saltzman (19:12.654)
Hmm.
Matthew Eickman (19:13.468)
But oftentimes for pests until the issue is visible and they can see it or it’s audible and they can actually hear it just doesn’t exist. Right. The best way for a homeowner and for a real estate agent to get in front of that is to make sure that the home is under some type of service agreement with a good provider because the provider should be identifying that on the front end. Right. So think about this. You’re going into you’re going into an inspection.
Reuben Saltzman (19:21.976)
Sure, sure.
Tessa Murry (19:22.412)
Hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (19:35.64)
Okay.
Matthew Eickman (19:41.251)
That home’s been getting serviced by a provider for the last five years and the entire five years it’s been serviced. They’ve done nothing about what’s been noted in the attic for the rodent droppings that have been there for five years, right? So now as the homeowner you have all of this evidence that shows to the new purchaser. Hey, this activity has been here. We’ve been taking proper proper precautions to get in front of it and our providers saying that it’s not active, but it’s old.
Tessa Murry (19:56.046)
you
Matthew Eickman (20:11.565)
That kind of minute that minimizes the problem down to maybe we need a couple more inches of insulation rather than This big lawsuit that I don’t think anybody wants to be part of especially you, right? So
Tessa Murry (20:25.39)
Bye.
Reuben Saltzman (20:26.158)
Yeah, yeah.
Matthew Eickman (20:28.717)
Having those relationships in place, just understanding that animals and pests are gonna be in the home and it’s the homeowner’s job to prevent that. That’s how the home insurance company looks at it. That’s how the real estate agent looks at it and how the purchaser looks at it. So it’s a very cheap insurance for that transaction to go through.
Tessa Murry (20:48.302)
Every single one of
Reuben Saltzman (20:53.368)
Go ahead, Tess. I wanna back up, but before I do, you got a question on that?
Tessa Murry (20:56.43)
Okay. Well, it’s more just a comment kind of just realizing that I feel like, you know, our trades are becoming so specialized that it’s like as a home inspector, you have to know enough to be able to recognize that there’s pest activity in the house. But like, we’re actually pulling back from being specific about what it is we’re seeing because of liability issues. And we’re handing it off to the company that specializes in that to be able to identify it. So it’s interesting just kind of
I guess that it’s taken this long for StructureTech maybe to get to this point, but it, mean, it’s sucks. It feels like we’re taking a step back, but I understand why we’re doing it too.
Matthew Eickman (21:35.323)
It’s not just structure tech, it’s like the entire real estate industry as a whole. Like it’s just not established that homes should have pest control as a preventative maintenance type of service. No.
Tessa Murry (21:51.566)
At least not in the Midwest. Maybe areas like you’re talking about that have termites, it is just burned in their brains. Yes, we need a service and it’s just part of how we live down here. But up in the Midwest where it’s usually mice or something else like that, we just don’t think about it.
Matthew Eickman (22:08.379)
So MICE is probably the one thing that I would say in Minnesota, like the number one reason why everyone should be on some type of recurring program, especially right now, October.
We’re having a nice warm week this week, but the two weeks after that when the temps dropping our phones are going to be ringing off the hook with people that could have been preventing that issue for the last six months realistically. But that people make purchasing decisions how they make them. But the best thing for any new homeowner is to right when they move in, get that contract and any other type of recurring maintenance contract set in place so that the things that are going to break because they’re going to break right now things.
Tessa Murry (22:47.714)
and
Matthew Eickman (22:50.683)
going to last forever nowadays, like, let’s get in front of that and have a plan so it’s not a big budgeting concern and an issue down the line. And that’s where we see it causing problems is they haven’t built that into the budget for the home. And it’s five years down the line and now they got a $5,000 bat job that they’ve been ignoring for five years. Right?
Reuben Saltzman (23:13.919)
Is that what’s what’s an average cost for a bad job? I mean, what’s a good range? I’ve just heard it’s really expensive.
Matthew Eickman (23:19.483)
It’s a loaded question right here, Ruben. So for us, a bat is like, it can get into any crevice that’s larger than a quarter inch. So three eighths of an inch or larger, just like a mouse, they can get it. yeah. So unlike mice, I don’t get to nerd out about pests very often. So this is good for me. Thank you. So.
Tessa Murry (23:23.566)
Thank
Reuben Saltzman (23:34.808)
What?
Tessa Murry (23:44.632)
Do it.
Matthew Eickman (23:46.605)
Bats have very long lifespans. can live for 10 to 15 years, depending on the species, sometimes longer. And if we kick them out of a home one year, they’re going to be coming back and trying to get in that home the following year because they’ve become established and that’s their summer roost or whatever you want to call it. So in order to effectively evict bats and make sure that they’re not going to be coming back, you’ve got to seal it all.
Tessa Murry (23:49.826)
and
Matthew Eickman (24:11.757)
the first time and then really you should be coming back and inspecting what what was done and making sure that it’s still intact because if some ice or some type of freezing and thawing cycle has opened up a gap they’re gonna find it and that bad issue is gonna come back so it really comes down to a good relationship and the quality of work what we’re gonna do is not what most pest control companies do most pest control companies
Reuben Saltzman (24:29.027)
Mmm.
Tessa Murry (24:33.048)
Yeah.
Matthew Eickman (24:39.725)
Sorry guys, but I don’t really like the way that you do it and it makes the rest of our industry look like we’re bad at it. Like spray foam and steel wool, like those are two really cheap tools that a homeowner can get, but I don’t believe that that’s what a professional should be doing.
as a service to the homeowners. So we’ve, don’t even use those tools. We use like what a roofer or exterior contractor would install to actually animal proof with metal and construction grade materials for long-term solutions.
Tessa Murry (25:13.474)
you
Matthew Eickman (25:14.679)
and that’s gonna take more time and it’s gonna cost a little bit more. So our average bat job right now is between about $1,800 and $4,500 depending on the size of the home. And now the bigger homes around Lake Minnetaka can get quite a bit more than that. But it really comes down to…
Tessa Murry (25:25.486)
so
Matthew Eickman (25:35.771)
Are they gonna, like is the provider you just paid 1800 to $4,500 to, are they gonna come back in a year if there’s an issue? Like is there some type of assurance that they’re not just gonna check a box this year so I feel good, but this problem’s actually going to be solved long term? if that relationship isn’t there, what I see a lot of times is homeowners get duped for 4500 bucks with another provider that can.
Tessa Murry (25:45.495)
Mm-hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (25:53.582)
Yeah.
Matthew Eickman (26:03.675)
get out there faster or whatever but then in two years when they have a warranty issue and they call that guy doesn’t answer and he never comes back and helps them so now we gotta now they gotta pay another $4,500 plus oftentimes to get that solution that’s that’s what I really don’t like is when
Somebody sold something with a big warranty attached to be the hook that gets the customer, but there’s nothing behind that warranty on the service provider’s stance, if that makes sense.
Reuben Saltzman (26:37.804)
Yeah, yeah. And I got to ask you, talked about mice and it sounds like you’re kind of talking about a regular maintenance plan for mice. And I think of like setting bait stations and poison and traps and things like that. But why can’t you just do the same thing that you do for bats? Like if you’ve got mice in the attic, why don’t you just seal all the entry points one time and be done with it?
Tessa Murry (26:38.938)
huh.
Matthew Eickman (27:04.197)
So a critical, it’s a great question Ruben, a critical step in making sure that we’re effectively excluding a home. That’s the wildlife control terminology. We like to use animal proofing because it’s a little bit more clear to the homeowner of what we’re doing. sorry, what was the question? I got lost.
Reuben Saltzman (27:25.326)
Why can’t you just block out mice? Why do you have to have a recurring plan with traps and poison and all that? Why don’t you just do the same thing you do for bats?
Matthew Eickman (27:28.293)
Got you. So.
So.
Awesome question. So rodents and bats are very similar. They’re both mammals. One key difference is bats can fly, right? So that’s that’s obvious, but mice can crawl and get up into the attic just as well as they can. But the thing that mice and other rodents do that bats don’t is they their teeth are constantly growing, so they have to be gnawing on something or their teeth will literally grow up and back into their skull like. So if they’re not gnawing and chewing on something, their teeth will
Tessa Murry (27:57.94)
Literally.
Reuben Saltzman (28:01.837)
Heard that.
Matthew Eickman (28:04.655)
literally kill them. So that gnawing behavior, it’s kind of like a nervous twitch that they have and they can gnaw through like darn near anything if they want to. So in Minnesota, cold weather comes every year. Well, the last two years may be an exception, but it comes and…
Reuben Saltzman (28:22.107)
Yeah, true.
Matthew Eickman (28:23.999)
and mice and other rodents, terrible at thermoregulation. So when it starts getting cold, they’re not good at keeping their bodies warm. So in order for them to survive, they have to have something that’s either going to insulate them or provide heat. And if it’s not readily available, they’ll gnaw and chew and do whatever they have to to get to that thing that’s going to help them survive. So the heat loss from the homes,
That’s where a good population on the outside of your home, even if it’s been animal proofed, if we’re not controlling that population, they’ll chew their way in somehow if they need to. Does that make sense? So the best solution for rodents is we get out there, take care of the population, we animal proof the structure, and then we come back on a regular basis for…
Reuben Saltzman (29:02.156)
Okay, okay, all right.
Matthew Eickman (29:15.875)
ensuring the work we did is staying animal proof and there’s no gnawing around it. But then we’re also managing the population that’s just, it just exists there, whether we like to think about it or not.
all these beautiful homes around the lake and in these brand new developments that used to be a lot of wildlife habitat and mice have just evolved alongside us and they exist there in a very easy way because we provide so many things that they require for survival.
Standard protocol just manage the exterior population seal up the real easy gaps in the main entry points on your home and It’s pretty easy to keep them out after that But when it’s we’re gonna wait for the problem to come now things become more costly damages can get a little bit bigger as opposed to Having a service provider come to you as a homeowner and say hey, we’ve had a lot of a lot of activity our bait stations were cleared out and I actually saw a gap
on the back left corner of your home that opened up over the last winter, we should probably take a look at that and make sure that’s included in sealing up your home before we get to the next rodent season. Now you can be a proactive homeowner with ongoing inspections that the information is coming to you.
Reuben Saltzman (30:29.111)
Okay.
Matthew Eickman (30:36.351)
That’s what you all do that provides so much value to new homeowners is you’re the experts. You take the time to look for and how to document it and then articulate that to the homeowners so it makes sense of what they have to do. Because they don’t necessarily have to know everything we know, but they got to know how it impacts their home. That’s place of peace. They should make the decisions there.
So every service we do starts with an inspection where we’re documenting what we see as activity and any other type of like home repairs or damages that maybe they just don’t notice because they got three kids in a busy house. So that was a really long-winded answer to your question there, Ruben.
Reuben Saltzman (31:17.966)
Yeah, okay.
Tessa Murry (31:19.096)
So.
Reuben Saltzman (31:24.108)
Well, there’s a lot to it. appreciate it. Tessa, did you have anything else on bats? Because I had more questions, but.
Tessa Murry (31:31.694)
I was just gonna say I thought it would be more than what you quoted. I was expecting 5,000 plus and those are some of the numbers I recall from years ago when I was doing inspections, people would get quotes and I’m not sure if maybe that included the actual cleanup and removal of the bat feces and then re-insulating too. Maybe, I don’t know if that’s included in your quote or if that’s just cleaning up the house that you’re talking
Reuben Saltzman (31:36.965)
Me too.
Matthew Eickman (31:54.521)
So the numbers, again, the numbers I kind of just threw out there that wouldn’t include any of the attic insulation removal and disinfection. That’s usually the final step. And sometimes we don’t have to go to that length to solve it unless it’s going to be some type of risk to the homeowner or…
Tessa Murry (32:12.974)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (32:17.335)
Okay.
Matthew Eickman (32:18.157)
or somebody just can’t live with the idea that there’s a bunch of mouse droppings up in the attic, right? Like my wife’s not gonna let that fly for sure. So at a certain point it comes down to is it a risk to the homeowner, like the zoonotic diseases, the droppings, are they gonna be going up there in the attic, really? Not a lot. So at a certain point that’s on them if they want to get it up to code for insulation.
Tessa Murry (32:23.564)
share.
Tessa Murry (32:27.256)
You
Tessa Murry (32:37.57)
Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Matthew Eickman (32:45.773)
And that’s important. We can do that for a lot lower cost than a complete attic remediation, which unfortunately that’s what some bigger pest companies is their go to because it’s a high revenue, like it’s a high dollar amount.
Tessa Murry (33:00.942)
Well, that’s interesting. It makes sense. You’re not pushing that the whole attic be remediated and cleaned and reinstallated if there’s been bats up there. It depends on the situation, depends on how bad, depends on the comfort level of the occupants, all of that. That makes a lot of sense.
Matthew Eickman (33:16.601)
Bats, very exciting.
Tessa Murry (33:18.67)
So
Reuben Saltzman (33:18.732)
Yeah, yeah. No, let me ask you. Do you guys take care of insects too? Like, box elder bugs. I’ve got them all over my, I had them all over my house until two days ago. You take care of those too.
Matthew Eickman (33:24.827)
.
Matthew Eickman (33:30.189)
Yep. Yep. our, so the company I purchased from my father-in-law was just Pure Play Pest Control. So one guy, a truck, couple spray cans or backpack sprayer and…
Tessa Murry (33:30.37)
Oof.
Matthew Eickman (33:44.955)
It’s a rodent bait. That was the business that we bought. what I’ve found is a consumer thinks that that guy is the same guy that solves a bat problem or a raccoon problem, and it’s not the same guy. They don’t have the same tools. There’s just a little overlap in the consumer’s mind. But we were spending money on marketing and probably referred out like 200 grand in wildlife work my first winter. So I was like, we should
Reuben Saltzman (33:48.663)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (34:13.667)
Wow.
Matthew Eickman (34:14.979)
probably figure out how to do this whole wildlife thing if I really want to grow this company. So we brought that into the company back in 2018 and it’s really hard. Like it’s not an easy trade to get into. It’s like 40 or 50 years old as an industry. So there’s not an established growth trajectory or training protocol even for
Tessa Murry (34:33.486)
Thank
Matthew Eickman (34:40.091)
how to do this. So we’ve kind of had to learn some of those things the hard way, but we’ve been fortunate to be part of building some of those trainings with the National Wildlife Control Operators Association. And really, we want to be able to solve the problem that the customer calls us with. It shouldn’t be on them to know that there’s two or three providers that take care of this. That’s way too much education. So.
Reuben Saltzman (34:41.486)
Mmm.
Tessa Murry (35:06.008)
Hmm.
Matthew Eickman (35:06.039)
If we’re going to solve problems and that customer’s problem is a raccoon in the attic, I believe as a service provider, it’s either our obligation to have a referral for them or a solution for them.
Reuben Saltzman (35:17.92)
And for you guys, it’s basically you have a solution for pretty much anything coming into your house that you don’t want in your house.
Tessa Murry (35:18.83)
Mm-hmm.
Matthew Eickman (35:24.827)
I don’t want to knock on wood. don’t want to jinx myself here, but we’ve built it to that point. Yes. And now we’re helping other operators bridge that gap too, because it allows them to better serve their customer. And if you do that, you can grow your business in a very healthy way.
Tessa Murry (35:28.75)
you
Reuben Saltzman (35:32.3)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (35:32.792)
Wow.
Reuben Saltzman (35:45.614)
Sure, sure.
Tessa Murry (35:47.394)
When you’re talking about, there’s not a lot of people out there that do wildlife removal and finding training is difficult. I I kept having flashes of seaver when coming to mine because now that I’m down in Florida, alligators are a real thing. You don’t have to deal with that up in Minnesota though. You probably, what are the most common kind of like, I guess, wildlife calls that you get? Raccoons, squirrels, what else?
Matthew Eickman (36:05.539)
Sorry.
Reuben Saltzman (36:12.59)
And yeah, we’re not talking about bats and mice. We’re talking about bigger.
Matthew Eickman (36:16.975)
Bigger, okay. So the most common ones are gonna be squirrels, raccoons, woodpeckers is another really big one. And a lot of times people think they’ve got like flying squirrels, red squirrels, greys. They think they have that because it’s really noisy, but sometimes it just turns out to be mice. Cause that type of call for us when we get it, it’s, hey, I’ve got this noise.
Tessa Murry (36:17.422)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (36:26.478)
Mm.
Reuben Saltzman (36:27.182)
Mmm.
Matthew Eickman (36:46.573)
Right. It’s not. Yep. So we’ve got flow charts that kind of help like narrow it down, like what that noise could be. But without us being able to really identify, get in the attic.
Tessa Murry (36:47.246)
Scratching the other chewing the running. Yeah, you can hear it
Tessa Murry (36:57.55)
Hmm.
Matthew Eickman (37:00.079)
get our boots on the roof, it’s hard to give that truly accurate information to the homeowner. Some other fun ones we’ve had are like some wood ducks in attic spaces, found a couple random eggs. Yeah, like there’s weird stuff you find in attic spaces. And then one that’s coming a lot more, especially in these new developments are starlings. So it’s an invasive bird species.
Reuben Saltzman (37:16.127)
my.
Matthew Eickman (37:28.857)
and they’ve got kind of like my nervous twitch where they just gather nesting material constantly. So if you as an inspector go into the attic space and there’s like a bed worth of grass or something, it’s not rats, it’s not a raccoon nest or anything, it’s starling nesting behavior. yeah, we’ve seen some interesting reports like.
Reuben Saltzman (37:48.403)
and shrifting. Okay, all right.
Tessa Murry (37:49.038)
Huh. Huh.
Matthew Eickman (37:56.257)
home inspectors calling it like raccoon nests or there’s rat eggs and rats don’t lay eggs. So it wasn’t a structured tech inspection, but when you see something like that, you kind of scratch your head and you wonder if that was intended for insulation at times, right? Because there’s so much, but just having that little bit of information about the species, can…
Tessa Murry (38:03.502)
You
Reuben Saltzman (38:03.95)
Hahaha!
Thank goodness.
Tessa Murry (38:07.714)
I hope not.
Matthew Eickman (38:23.203)
make you look really, really good to a homeowner or can really put you out and potentially create a nightmare of a scenario for you. So.
Reuben Saltzman (38:29.902)
Yeah. Yeah. All right. So you talk about these different critters getting up there. What about what’s the biggest one you found first? What’s the nastiest thing you had to deal with?
Matthew Eickman (38:46.799)
The nastiest thing, my guys love when we get calls like this, like, like essentially a deer got hit by a car and it’s like on the cusp of being the city’s responsibility, but the city has a line where the responsibility ends. And if it’s halfway into the homeowner’s yard, it’s their responsibility. So.
Tessa Murry (38:47.246)
Thank you.
Tessa Murry (38:57.634)
the topic.
Reuben Saltzman (39:05.23)
Okay.
Matthew Eickman (39:10.265)
going and removing those animals is probably our least favorite. But nobody really does it. It’s not a service offering that companies offer, but there’s a pretty big need for it, really. So that would be like, there’s a lot of random wildlife things, but the biggest one, like raccoons, when there’s a female raccoon with a litter of kits,
Tessa Murry (39:14.763)
Reuben Saltzman (39:22.86)
Yeah, yeah.
Tessa Murry (39:23.936)
Wow. I didn’t know. I didn’t think about that. I’ve never, I didn’t realize that. Yeah.
Matthew Eickman (39:39.021)
That’s like the craziest type of chess game you have to play against a family of animals. Like it seems like, you just like, you put a trap up, you catch the female and then you go get the kids. Well, it’s not always that easy. sometimes they’re running away from you in the attic and you got to chase them. that time of year, it’s usually July. So it’s not cold in the attic either.
Tessa Murry (40:00.812)
I’m
Reuben Saltzman (40:02.252)
Yuck. Yuck.
Matthew Eickman (40:02.905)
So that, those type of jobs, it kind of can seem like a three ring circus at times because you don’t really know what’s gonna happen until you get there and you get in the attic and try the removal. But raccoons are incredibly intelligent and they are not afraid. If they’re in a corner, they’re gonna come at you type of thing. raccoons.
Reuben Saltzman (40:06.382)
Thank
Reuben Saltzman (40:26.168)
Yikes. Yikes. All right. Okay. What do you do about woodpeckers?
Tessa Murry (40:27.314)
my goodness.
Well.
Matthew Eickman (40:33.891)
Woodpeckers, how many other good questions do you have like this?
Tessa Murry (40:39.598)
Enough to fill up probably another show, but…
Reuben Saltzman (40:42.85)
I got a lot Matthew. I should have booked you for two hours.
Tessa Murry (40:47.011)
That’s it.
Matthew Eickman (40:47.141)
So woodpeckers are their protective species, right? So we can’t legally remove them without following a certain set of guidelines. our goal is always to that again. Yes and no. So like bats, they’re protected, like we don’t ever, I take that back, like 99 % of the time we’re not going to physically remove them and euthanize them.
Tessa Murry (40:58.71)
like bats, right? Like bats.
Tessa Murry (41:16.91)
Mm.
Matthew Eickman (41:17.187)
like we want that to survive and continue to contribute to the ecosystem. Woodpeckers, they’re also protected, but they’re not becoming endangered like a certain species of bats are. So there’s protocols you can follow where you can remove them, but you have to show US Fish and Wildlife that you’ve taken proper precautions to deter and prevent them from coming to the structure.
Tessa Murry (41:42.889)
Mm.
Matthew Eickman (41:46.275)
With that, our process is make sure all the food source is gone. So again, get onto a pest control program. Sometimes they’re just coming there for easy food source.
Tessa Murry (41:56.558)
remove all your wood siding. Just kidding.
Reuben Saltzman (41:59.15)
Yeah.
Matthew Eickman (41:59.483)
You can do that, but depending on the species, they might go right through the hardy board or whatever you put up after. again, following the steps can save thousands of dollars here, but sometimes people just get frustrated and they jump to that solution. So once you have the service, a big thing, if they’ve come to your home and there’s holes somewhere on the home, have you ever been in the woods where you see that one tree that’s got like 400 woodpecker holes on it?
Tessa Murry (42:02.909)
yes.
Tessa Murry (42:07.02)
you
Reuben Saltzman (42:07.15)
Cheers.
Tessa Murry (42:13.356)
I really don’t know you want to watch this, but it’s just…
Thank you.
What’s up?
Reuben Saltzman (42:27.937)
yeah.
Matthew Eickman (42:28.953)
So that’s actually, it’s an eye attractant for them. to them, it’s telling them, hey, this is a tree that is gonna let me tell all the females in the area that I’m here, or this is an easy food source. So they actually come back to that. So one of the key steps for us is to seal up any of those holes and remove that attractant. And then the last critical step is having like a bird flasher or some type of bird scaring device that
Tessa Murry (42:29.474)
the high rise. Yeah.
Matthew Eickman (42:57.775)
has the, what we use, creates random reflections that just scare them. And you just put it up there at the peak, it goes with the wind and reflects the light in a random pattern. So it makes them freak out pretty much because they see a full spectrum of light unlike us. So it looks like a bunch of disco balls and maybe like a festival going on for them. So they just go to your neighbor.
Tessa Murry (43:04.782)
Hmph.
Tessa Murry (43:13.582)
Pfft.
Tessa Murry (43:25.558)
to get a woodpecker that really likes partying. Most of them.
Matthew Eickman (43:28.859)
Right. And those would be the pilliated woodpeckers. They do not care sometimes. And at that point, if the homeowner really wants to go forward with the removal, the process is they have to apply for any permitting and anything like that. We can help them through it, but we can’t apply. And then they have to use a licensed provider to do the removal.
Reuben Saltzman (43:29.02)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (43:35.118)
Which is
Matthew Eickman (43:53.987)
It’s not our favorite job, but these things cost thousands and thousands of dollars of damage. And it’s like, I don’t like spending thousands of dollars on anything in a recurring manner. So we hear a lot of stories about guys stepping out in their backyard with a cup of coffee and just shooting them. And I don’t like to hear that, but I can’t tell people what to do at their own home.
Tessa Murry (43:54.552)
Hm.
Tessa Murry (44:08.736)
No.
Tessa Murry (44:17.749)
You get it.
Reuben Saltzman (44:20.686)
Yeah, yeah, okay. All right, and I got another one for you. I brought it up briefly, but I brought up Box Elder Bugs, because right about this time of year, it was like two days ago. I mean, just bam, out of nowhere. My house is covered in Box Elder Bugs. I got a couple of guys I got some advice from. said, I’m just throwing out what I do, and then you can criticize me and tell me what I’m doing wrong. I’m throwing it all out there.
Matthew Eickman (44:28.741)
Mm-hmm.
Matthew Eickman (44:33.931)
yeah.
Matthew Eickman (44:37.733)
Mm-hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (44:49.326)
I bought this product called Demand CS. It’s like this. This I don’t know this goop. You buy a quart of it for like a hundred bucks or something. It was really expensive. And then I get it. I get it in the mail. I think about it on Amazon. And then it says, yeah, you need like a half ounce to every gallon. I’m like, I just bought a lifetime supply of this. This is going to last me forever. But.
Matthew Eickman (45:13.743)
guys.
Tessa Murry (45:14.542)
Thank
Matthew Eickman (45:16.421)
You can start a bath control company with that. I mean, that’s…
Reuben Saltzman (45:19.03)
Yeah, yeah, I didn’t realize how much I had bought, but you put just a little tab, little tiny bit, and then you put in two gallons of water and you spray the stuff all over your house around the windows and doors. And they even got videos on the website of the guy spraying inside the house. So like it’s safe to use indoors. And I’m like, no way. So I wear my respirator and all that when I use it I’m paranoid. But what do you think about doing something like that?
Matthew Eickman (45:45.381)
part.
Reuben Saltzman (45:48.885)
And what do you do?
Matthew Eickman (45:50.851)
so kind of described a less sophisticated version of what we do. but, essentially what you described is that’s a pest that they are a lot like mice. need somewhere to survive the winter. So next spring they’re going to wake up and go continue doing box elder things. So the key thing with box elder bugs is having a product on the home that when they come, cause they’re going to come,
Reuben Saltzman (45:57.644)
Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (46:12.785)
huh.
Matthew Eickman (46:20.605)
it works so they die before they make it in the home essentially. And that with box elder bugs can be difficult for a service provider to explain because a homeowner doesn’t care if you tell them they’re gonna die in 12 to 24 hours when they have 2,000 bugs on the outside of their home, right? But that’s how that pest operates. It only comes for like…
Tessa Murry (46:42.274)
Mm-hmm.
Matthew Eickman (46:46.379)
four weeks out of the year. It’s like two weeks in the spring, two weeks in the fall, and for the rest of the year they’re pretty much non-existent. So, Elder bugs, really, again, just get on a regular program and that type of preventative maintenance should be built in where you’ve got somebody coming out prior to the issue really becoming a big, hey, we gotta take Reuben from everything he’s doing so he can pretend to be a pest control guy for a few hours, right?
Reuben Saltzman (46:53.847)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (47:13.23)
That’s what happens, yes.
Tessa Murry (47:14.094)
Thank you.
Matthew Eickman (47:15.643)
But you just showed how easy it is to do pest control. Like it’s not that hard. The science has made it so easy as a business. So home inspectors out there that think it’s hard, it’s really not. But it’s this simple. The label is the law and that’s it. So if you can follow the licensing requirements to be able to apply any product in your state, you can run a pest control business and build like a
Reuben Saltzman (47:41.986)
Okay.
Matthew Eickman (47:44.879)
very valuable asset if you do it right. Like that’s what I love about home and home inspection companies is you are the leading edge of the transaction for the waterfall of any other service provider after the fact. you’re bringing a customer in, you’re ROI positive on the inspection and now if you can bring additional value to them ongoingly, you just got a customer that
paid you to sign them up for a service that you’re building your company off of. And like that, from a growth standpoint, it makes it a very healthy way to grow a pest control business because buying leads is expensive. And in your case, they’re paying you to sell it to them if you do it right. And that’s best case scenario, ideally.
Reuben Saltzman (48:26.722)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (48:35.736)
Yeah, yeah, very different.
Matthew Eickman (48:40.88)
Anyway, I’ll get off my my business soapbox. We don’t need any more pest control competition out here, so
Reuben Saltzman (48:47.886)
I love it. Well, Matt, Matthew, I started the show backwards. didn’t even really introduce you. I just said we know each other. Let’s close the show with you just talking a little bit about how you got into this. I mean, you already said you’re associated with your father-in-law. It was just like the two you guys talk a little bit about your growth path and where you’re at today, if you would.
Matthew Eickman (49:13.755)
For sure. And I’m used to doing things backwards, so backwards is really forwards for me right here. So my story is kind of a unique one for the pest control space, greatly because people usually fall into this industry. They end up getting a job in the pest control industry, and that job becomes a career because of the opportunity it creates. So for me,
I kind of saw it from a distance. When I was eight years old, my parents moved into a home across the street from my now wife and my future in-laws. And my father-in-law had started a company after working for another local provider. He built a little business that he could go to all of his kids’ sports and have revenue coming in and still provide for his family. So I got to see the business grow.
Tessa Murry (50:05.096)
sports.
Matthew Eickman (50:12.701)
early on. But I went to college, I was gonna play baseball or be a doctor. I didn’t do either of those things and that’s where Pest Control came in. I started working with my father-in-law to get in front of the student loans and all that that was on the horizon and I really just kind of found like I found a little niche. I found out that was really good at communicating with people and
could build trust and show the value in what we were doing. So in that first couple of years, we tripled the business from what my father-in-law had. And then in 2017, my wife and I purchased a company from her parents and we’ve just scaled it up since then. So it was just pest control. were about, I think we had about 120 contracts where we’re going out four times a year. So very small.
and we added mosquito control to that, which was huge. We did that before it was cool. So we added that and we added wildlife and that took a lot of learning, but we found out that it really was a differentiator for us. So we built that into its own standalone division in 2020 is really when that split out. And currently we’ve got
Tessa Murry (51:11.672)
Thank
I’m
Matthew Eickman (51:36.933)
Close to 30 team members, two divisions, it’s going to be three next year when we stand up Mosquito as a standalone and then our insulation divisions come right along as well. We’ve expanded unintentionally at first into the commercial space and then we’ve really just doubled down because it’s been really easy for us to grow there also. So we’ve got…
Reuben Saltzman (51:51.096)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (52:03.512)
Hmm.
Matthew Eickman (52:04.301)
over 3000 recurring accounts right now. We inspect about 250 homes for wildlife issues every month. And we’ve actually built a program that allows us to kind of help you guys in the transaction where we, once we animal proof a home and kind of give it a seal of approval, as long as we can maintain that work, that
Reuben Saltzman (52:14.859)
Wow.
Tessa Murry (52:15.765)
Wow.
Matthew Eickman (52:32.527)
that warranty we have stays in place with the home, not with the homeowner. So if it’s sold, part of the transaction and part of what we’ve done at the home will get passed along and the warranty will get passed to that next homeowner as well. And I truly believe that’s the direction that this industry is gonna be moving. Otherwise, we’re gonna keep screwing up real estate transaction for you guys. And I don’t think anybody wants that. But.
Tessa Murry (52:46.414)
Thank
Reuben Saltzman (52:59.138)
No.
Matthew Eickman (53:00.475)
Our big thing is like bringing some innovation to industry that’s been trying to build a new mousetrap for the last hundred years, right? Like at some point you can only innovate so far, but we’ve been able to bring these a little bit more like home repair, home maintenance type of services into the pest control space and have a lot of success there. It just changes up their business model a little bit, a little more training, a little more biology.
Tessa Murry (53:08.568)
Thank you.
Tessa Murry (53:25.326)
Hmph.
Matthew Eickman (53:30.043)
But when you know that, it makes your job easier. So my hope is that we’ve got an abracadabra branch in every state in the next 10 years and just keep spreading the good word of pest and wildlife control.
Tessa Murry (53:35.054)
Thanks
Reuben Saltzman (53:46.252)
Love it. Love it. Well, I think that’s a good note to end on. Tess, you got any more questions before we wrap up here?
Tessa Murry (53:46.68)
Wow, that’s Very cool.
Tessa Murry (53:54.99)
You know the answer to that Ruben I do but we’ll have to save it for another another show we’ll have to have you back on Matthew
Reuben Saltzman (53:57.418)
Of course, always. All right, Matthew. Yeah, we’ll get you back on for another part two because, you know, we talk.
Matthew Eickman (54:07.279)
Thank you all for having me. You guys are doing something really special. The conversations you’re having, they bring a lot of value to those businesses. But I know a lot of homeowners that listen to this stuff too, because they don’t know who to trust and having some type of resource out there, even if you don’t know who’s gonna get the information, you’re bringing a ton of value. And so kudos to you all for doing that for seven years going. And I just hope somebody got like one little tidbit of value out of this. I know I had a lot of fun.
Reuben Saltzman (54:29.187)
Love it.
Reuben Saltzman (54:35.732)
I got a lot. I got a bunch of them. Yeah, yeah, it was really helpful.
Matthew Eickman (54:37.669)
Good. We can talk poop more next week, Ruben. don’t have to, we can talk poop anytime. You just give me a call.
Tessa Murry (54:37.9)
Me too. Me too.
Tessa Murry (54:44.876)
Bye!
Reuben Saltzman (54:45.838)
I love it. We’ll do that. Matthew, if people want to get ahold of you, how do they find you?
Matthew Eickman (54:51.291)
Social media, abracadabra, environmental, we’re kind of all over there. Same thing for our website. And then the Homegrown Hustle podcast, we’re on any podcast channel or social media as well. So we’re pretty easy to find, but if worse comes to worst, just hit Ruben up and he’ll get you in contact with me.
Tessa Murry (54:53.102)
So thank you.
Reuben Saltzman (55:07.021)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (55:11.682)
I’ll get you connected to Matthew. That’s exactly right. And if you want to hit me up or Tessa, you’re welcome to email us. It’s podcast at structuretech.com. We read them all. And thank you so much for coming on Matthew. We’ll catch you listeners next time. Take care.
Tessa Murry (55:11.96)
Thank
Matthew Eickman (55:23.995)
Love that. My pleasure.
Tessa Murry (55:27.17)
Thank you.