Canadian Contractor - July-August 2015

EDITORIAL
IN PRAISE OF NO-NAMES
By Steve Payne
When a bunch of squirrels invaded my family’s townhome last
month (well, our attic), the condo management firm sent in one of
the biggest North American brand names in pest control to deal
with the situation.
The friendly, reassuring franchisee who waddled up a ladder
to our roof put a live-trap by the access hole in the fascia. The
next day, he’d caught a squirrel, whereupon he took the trap
down and sealed up the access hole with sheet metal. Never to
contact me again.
The whole thing took just 24 hours – to prove that he was
totally incompetent and his company’s brand name didn’t
mean squat.
The squirrels who remained inside let us know all weekend
that the clock was ticking on the stink they were going to emit
when they died.
I asked the property manager to send us a competent operator
to fix the mess. Two young lads arrived, without logos, a one-off
firm that was not a franchise. No brand name but their own.
They first walked all the neighbouring townhouse roofs for
20 minutes, trying to find out if there were other access points
before they dealt with ours. Then one of them entered the attic to
check things out – the brand name firm hadn’t even bothered.
Only after about an hour of these inspections did they go
about unscrewing the sheet metal from the original access hole.
They then screwed on an exclusion door – a one-way funnel of
wire – rather than a live trap. All the remaining squirrels exited
on their own in the next few days.
No brand name, no logo. Total expertise and attention to
detail. Problem solved.
Contractors, you don’t need a purchased brand name if you
operate like these pros.
”
No purchased
brand name
was necessary.
”
Steve Payne
Editor
spayne@canadiancontractor.ca
Voices
www.canadiancontractor.ca July/August 2015 9