I get a call from the office saying that I have to pick up a pitbull. I’ve been lucky at pitbull jobs so far but they’re always scary. The office told me the pitbull was 60 – 80 lbs. and at a residence. I touched base with the customer and set up an ETA.

Once I arrived my heart started pumping. It always does with a pitbull. I knock on the door and for some reason it was very quiet. Usually with an animal removal everyone is up, excited and watching my every move. They tell me that it’s in the basement.

I go in there cautiously and approach a dead pitbull. What? I go back upstairs and the man of the house says “yeah it’s dead.” “They didn’t tell you that?” Wow. So with his help I load it in the truck and I’m on my way. I will definitely let one of those office guys know not to scare me like that…. Lucky me, though…

Until next time,

Trapper Vic

So I go to a job that I’ve already set up a few days prior. This particular job had skunks under the house. Something we handle every day of the week. I get a call in the morning that they caught a skunk and that I need to pick it up. No problem.

Except I didn’t have a tarp. Our traps are exposed and we usually transfer skunks to a skunk box to limit spray coverage. In that transfer we approach the skunk in the “open trap” with a tarp and then put the skunk into the skunk box. So without a trap – I’m screwed. I was going back and forth for twenty minutes thinking how I could do this. I could go to a hardware store to get one.

Natural Febreeze

I put it in the GPS and the closest one was 45 minutes out of the way. I didn’t have and hour and a half so I just did it. Approached the skunk (it did spray me), put it in the box and drove off stinking like a skunk just covered me. Note to self – Don’t ever forget your tarp…

Until next time,

Trapper Vic

I get a call about a squirrel who jumped in an open window and is now running amok in the living room. I tell the customer that I’m on the way and I’ll be there as soon as I can.

When I arrive the squirrel looks like he’s waging war against this family and their household. Squirrel on one side of the room and the family on the other. I try to explain to the family that the squirrel is probably scared and they should move on to the next room and let me do my job. They go off into the next room and I grab my net. It is improbable to snare a squirrel in an open area so that’s why I opted for the net. After about 20 minutes I’m getting tired of chasing this squirrel back and forth so I go to grab a broom to chase it out of the front door that I left open. When I return from grabbing the broom, it’s gone. I let the family back in the room and tell them I flushed it out.

They couldn’t see me from the other room and I felt that I did have something to do with the animal leaving. So unless they read this I’m still a hero… Every job is unique…

Until next time,

Trapper Vic

So I receive a call about a mother pitbull under a house. I talk briefly with the customer and she says there’s a pitbull running around her yard. She also says that she thinks that the pitbull is a mother and her litter has passed under the house.

I grab a coyote trap and head out there. I go under and she’s right. There is a mother pitbull under there and a litter that has passed and naturally, the mother is guarding it. The crawl space has plenty of room upon entering, but tapers off as you go in deeper getting very tight. When we go in, the pitbull goes deep where it’s tight so we’re able to remove the litter. Phase 1: complete.

Now to try and remove the pitbull live with a snare. Once I get to the back she starts to growl and I’m not going to lie, I was extremely frightened. We were able  to get the snare around her neck and front legs. Now for the hard part. Pulling an adult pitbull our of a crawl space from laying on our bellies (I did bring help). Impossible. I’m a pretty big guy and so is my partner but there is absolutely no way that we could’ve pulled her out. After about 30 minutes we give up on that and try to get out of the crawl space unscathed. Once we’re out and putting the crawl space hatch back on, she violently approaches and barks. Close call.

We end up setting the coyote trap and baiting it. We caught it the same night. Off to pick up the animal, take it to an adoption center and do animal proofing repairs on the house so it doesn’t happen again. Whew! That was a close one…

Until next time,

Trapper Vic

What's for dinner?

Coyote removal job. Coyotes can be extremely elusive. They are predators and coyotes are used to preying on other animals for food. So when you set up a coyote trap you have to be aware of this.

I made sure that I didn’t leave any of my human scent on the traps or the bait. If they can smell you on the trap, chances are they aren’t going into them. Also, I was very sure that I set the trap in a place that was kind of hidden yet accessible. This way, they still think that they’ve found the food and it wasn’t left for them. After I did the               inspection, consult and set up of the traps I left very happy with what I did.

I had a very strong feeling that I was going to catch the culprit(s) responsible for killing my customers dog. Sure enough, the very next day I had a coyote pickup in my box. The customer actually called and left a message at around midnight letting me know how happy she was that we caught it. I explained to her that there might be others and we actually ended up catching one more. Catching a coyote is a feat in itself because of how smart they are.

So I did what anyone else would do. I took a bunch of photos with it and bragged about it for a week. Our other technicians did not find it as amusing as I did. But it sure felt great. And now our customer can go get a dog and not worry about potential dangers lurking around.

Until next time,

Trapper Vic

As always, I receive my work at the office in the morning for that day. I get the usual: couple animal pickups, raccoon setup and a bee estimate in Manhattan Beach.

After I pickup the animals that I caught the night before and knock out the raccoon setup, I mentally prepare myself for the bee job. I don’t particularly care for bees. I’m not allergic, but every time I’ve gotten stung in my life, it’s been in the head. So you can see why I don’t care for them.

The work order I received from the office for this job did not specify that this nest is on the third story of the house. I’m not very fond of heights either but luckily for me it was on a part of the chimney facing the house and not the edge of the roof. I have my bee suit on and all the tools I need to get the job done. I come back down to explain the situation to the customer. I let them know what was needed to solve the job and what the cost for that service was. They agreed and back on the roof I go.

I like honey...mmmm

I eliminated the queen (very important). After that, the worker bees are all over me. This is natural, the worker bees have a job to do besides pollinating and that is to protect the queen and the hive. After about a half-hour the worker bees are gone. All I have to do now is remove all parts of the hive. If you don’t complete this step, other bees will just inhabit the abandoned hive. I remove all parts of the hive, honey and honeycomb and head down the ladder to safety. I let the customer know the work that I’ve done and she was extremely happy as she said she has little ones who play outside a lot and she was fearful that they would get stung. I knew for sure that they wouldn’t because I just removed them. Another happy customer…

Until next time folks!!

Trapper Vic
p.s. Check out this beehive removal job we did about a month ago!

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