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Interviewer: If at any time during the interview you feel uncomfortable and you don't want to answer a question, you don't have to or if during the interview you have said anything that you don't want to have published, then you can stop or you can tell me at the end that you don't want to include it. Stiffler: OK. Interviewer: When did you first realize that Hurricane Andrew might hit Miami? Stiffler: It was really just a matter of a couple of days before we were struck by it. I don't think anybody in my area or in my house knew too far in advance. To my recollection, it was just a couple of days and all of a sudden it was time to prepare. Interviewer: What preparations did you make? Stiffler: Around the house, we storm shuddered everything. We had storm shudders for all the sliding glass doors, the front and the rear of the house and the side windows as well. What we did not prepare for was the timeframe to be without power so there was not enough food and water on hand. So that is something we sort of fell behind on whether we got lazy or just didn't think it was going to hit or be as bad as it was, it taught us a good lesson. Interviewer: What did you say the hurricane would be like before the storm? Stiffler: The last time I was in Miami and through a hurricane, it was Hurricane David, and that hit the Gulf Coast through the Gulfstream and went north, so all it was was just a lot of wind and a little bit of water and that was it. I really had no clue after being gone for ten years that anything like that was ever going to hit, so it was a complete surprise. I really didn't expect more than some wind and some water and tree damage--not to the extent we had which was just devastating. Interviewer: Where were you during the hurricane? Stiffler: As close to the two walls in the middle of this house--the safest place between the two walls in the main house away from the windows along with the rest of the family. We all huddled together in the hallway in the closet. Interviewer: Who was with you during the hurricane? Stiffler: My mother, my father, my sister, my sister's husband and their son. Interviewer: I know you work for Truly Nolen, and you are a pest control technician. Can you describe briefly what you do? Stiffler: I am an inspector and a pest control technician. I go to houses and give inspections for termite damage be it drywood or subterranean termites or also go into the house and assess what needs to be done to control a pest problem. I am licensed to do intensive service in the house which is top to bottom service with dusting, pasting, and powder to take care of any insect problems within the house. It takes about an hour to do a house. There are only two of us that are really qualified to do a full service. Anything to do with servicing an account whether it is through chemicals or through environmentally friendly ingredients which we use now (We don't use harsh chemicals unless we absolutely have to. It is like studying a whole new type of pest control.) Interviewer: What type of pests did you have problems with before the hurricane? Stiffler: Mostly small sugar ants and roaches. Interviewer: What kind of pests did you have problems with following the hurricane? Stiffler: Primarily, we had a lot more of the sugar ants and a few more roaches coming out of the ground because of the saturation in their homes in the ground. We also started getting many calls about mice and rats that were run out of their homes because of the downed trees. A lot more activity was seen after the storm because of all the tree damage because that is where many of the insects live. So everything we saw was just accelerated. Interviewer: Did you see more of certain pests than others? Stiffler: A lot more of mice than I have seen in a long time. The ant problem got very bad in parts of the Gables which was really bad and in Gables By The Sea and parts of the western areas around Bird Road and Miller Road around SW 137 Avenue. For some reason there just had to be more ant colonies in that area that came out after the storm. It was a really bad problem and took a lot of effort to control it, but we did it. Interviewer: What particular areas have more problems with pests? Stiffler: Gables By the Sea had many problems because they had the storm surge come in. There was so much more damage from water there that all the underground bugs' homes were destroyed, so everything was coming up. Any low lying area like Gables By the Sea which is so close to the ocean, flood-prone areas such as the SW l37 Avenue area between Bird and Sunset, they are prone to have a lot of problems after any storm but especially a hurricane. Interviewer: How did the destruction affect the way you normally control for pests? Stiffler: The biggest problem we had when so many homes were no longer a sealed unit with roof damage or walls blown in, or cracks around window and door frames made it very difficult to control for pests when you don't have a sealed environment. You can do all you want to inside a house but if holes still exist for passage, it is tough to control. You really have to do a good exterior spray around a house to keep insects from getting into the house to begin with. That is the primary thing--the outside barrier--from getting into the house. That was really hard to control at first because of the damage to homes. Interviewer: Were you advised how to handle the influx of pests after the storm by your company? Stiffler: Yes, we have training sessions every month with Truly Nolen anyway. We had a meeting with all of our technicians, the ones that have been doing this for 15 to 20 years, and we all put our heads together and came up with ideas for what would be the best process. It is interesting to spray around for the sugar ants a simple trick of putting some powdered sugar in your drop tank which is on your truck, a 25-gallon tank used to put the chemical in. Putting a little bit of powdered sugar with the spray around the house is a basic trick for the ants and it will kill the ants and will keep them on the outside of the house. That was one thing that became very important to us with the influx of the ants. As far as other bugs are concerned, we just compared notes on the best way to handle things. Interviewer: Was there any type of pest control you were not able to do because of the storm damage? Stiffler: Yes, I have some accounts right now with real problems with possum and with raccoons. The problem there is that you can set traps outside their houses to catch the young ones walking their house or getting into the ground, but unless the homeowner actually seals up some of the socket vents where the air conditioning ducts go through the house, we are fighting a losing battle. It is hard for us to control something after damage from the storm unless the homeowner becomes involved in the repair also. They have to do their part to help us otherwise we can't do our job. We need to work as a team, and this has been a real problem for us with all of the damage. Interviewer: Did customers call for the use of tents to protect their houses from further damage from the rain that came after the hurricane? Stiffler: Yes, definitely. Our tent crew obviously wasn't going to be tenting for too much termite damage, so we sent them out. They had tents on their trucks already, and many homeowners did call for just that purpose. Our technicians had set territories, and they would go check their own neighborhoods and their customers and see how their customers were doing. If they needed a tent, we made sure the customers got one and put it up. The crew was kept busy helping people dry themselves in the best they could. It was very lucrative. Interviewer: Was their any priority given to your customers over the general public? Stiffler: No, not really because we even had food drives up in our office, and anybody that knew about it or stopped by and needed ice or food, there was a sign up and could partake in it. You did not have to be a customer of the company. For Truly Nolen, it was a situation where they wanted to help all the employees, and we had a line set up between 12 and 2 in the afternoon for food, clothing, ice, water, fuel for camp stoves, and things like that. It was available to anybody. If we knew a good customer or a friend of a customer, we said to bring them on down and we helped everybody out. It was a very good effort. Interviewer: How did you see the effects of the hurricane from the pest control technician? Stiffler: Wow. The immediate effects for me from what I see as a technician were that we lost a lot of accounts. We had many accounts in Country Walk. We gave a lot because of other companies that could not handle the problems. The major effect that I found was that I was doing a lot of new accounts for people who were moving up from Homestead into other areas where people were transferring their service to our area. So even though we lost a lot of homes to storm damage, we gained a lot of people moving into the area and were transferring service because they had to relocate because of the storm. That is what I had to do because that is what I do as a technician. Interviewer: What about damage? Did you see a lot of damaged homes? Stiffler: A lot of damage. Some areas were amazing. I did not even go past Country Walk until just three days ago, and it is really hard to describe seeing some of it. It is so spotty in some areas. I have seen some homes with a few shingles off the roof, and some homes are with no roofs whatsoever. It just amazes me. I do cover a lot of territory. There are many stories out there I wish I could tell you about. It's really incredible, incredible. I am still in awe of the whole thing. Interviewer: Did the insurance companies call on you for information? Stiffler: A lot of our customers wanted to get pest control as a one-time special service for $125 or $250 for a rat or mouse contract or whatever. A lot of that had to do with giving a letter pending on approval of the insurance company or they would contact us or we would give the customer the bill saying that it would be up to the insurance company to prove that we would get payment. We had to have payment upon the service, so many people that went that route wanted it as a one-time service because of the damage caused by Hurricane Andrew. I don't know if the insurance companies made direct contact with our secretaries or not, but I say many contracts that came across our desks that were pending State Farms' approval. I don't know to what degree. Interviewer: Did you or your customers do anything to prepare for the storm? Did you call your customers? Stiffler: No, not really. I found everything came to me so suddenly there was nothing you could do but take care of your own needs. That is the way I perceived it. I got a lot of guys I work with who were in the Homestead area. That is all they were concerned with what they could do to save themselves. They have no homes anymore. I just think it took a lot of people by surprise and there may be some technicians out there who live in their own territories so they are in contact with their customers. I don't know that for a fact, however, because we did everything we could do to take care of ourselves. Interviewer: Knowing what you know now about the storm and how it affected the pest population, would you call your customers and tell them any tips? Stiffler: Yea. It's funny because we were talking about the sugar ant problem and I had forgotten about it and the old wives tale and the influx of sugar ants and the crazy ants could show a bad storm season. We had such a big ant problem prior to the storm. I was telling a lot of people that they really needed to be careful. The stories that we heard in our dealings with pest control--this could be a sign of a heavy storm season, and we should take it seriously, and here the first storm of the season tears us apart. It is amazing, and I do not know if we see an ant influx like that before a storm season. There is only so much you can do with pests--There isn't a lot that people can do except trim trees away from homes because that is the walkway for pests to eliminate the problem in your home. But when a storm hits like the one we had, there is not much you can do to prepare for it. Basic mechanical exclusion is what we call it, and that is the part of cutting trees back and sealing up the holes around your home to keep bugs out, and getting a good spray around your home--that is all a part of keeping the bugs out to begin with. The homeowners needs to this. We try to tell people that during storm or no storm season. It would behoove a technician to go back and follow up with his customer the same thing. This is not something anyone expected this to happen. It was like a whole new set of rules. Interviewer: Had you ever experienced a similar situation to what the storm brought about? Stiffler: No, no Interviewer: Not even with a single house? Something that had happened to it in a fire? Stiffler: Not on a personal level. Interviewer: How is the storm going to affect the pest population in the future? Stiffler: I have been told by people I work with that in a situation like this, the insects tend to realize that something very drastic is going to take place either prior to a storm or during a storm, and believe it or not I have heard that they tend to pair up and recolonize and try to increase their own kind--basically to mate and to take care of any--they may have within their own colonies. It is interesting. I never realized this. Some people actually saw this in their own homes. They saw a lot more activity. They saw swarming of certain types of insects prior to the storm where they mated, paired up, and went back into the structures of the walls. They would call us because they had this swarm of ants. This is usually what they are doing. The ants come out, they pair up to mate, and they go back and start a new colony, and this is what we found them doing as if they understood there was going to be something happening to take away from their population, so in an effort to save that, they increased. They did this in an effort to save the species. It is really incredible. Interviewer: Is there anything else interesting that happened to you that you would like to add, any other story that you found particularly interesting to you or to others? Stiffler: When I was talking about the possum and raccoon, I was thinking about one instance that really amazed me. I went into this lady's house, and she said she had the biggest possum she had ever seen in a cage. When I got to her house, she had the biggest meanest raccoon I had ever seen. I went to get the cage and put my hand on the handle of the cage, and these two paws came out of the cage, and I said this guy is not a happy camper--I'd better move back. I got back and I got a hook from the back of the track which is just a long piece of metal with a hook on it. I tried to pull the cage over, and he was fighting to get away from it. He was really bad. I finally had to put a rope on the cage and put the tailgate down on my truck and pull him up that way. He was doing everything he could to get a hold of me. He was spitting, clawing, and scratching. I pulled him up on a rope. The following day I had to turn him loose somewhere way past Saga Bay. I had to use the rope again to get the cage off the back of the truck. I had to remove the rope to where the door was to open the spring door. This cage is the type where it traps the animal but does not hurt the animal. But to open it up again, you have to get close to the animal to push a screen door in and up so the animal can get out. The animal was waiting for me to open it as if he knew. He had me up on the back of my truck. I had to kick the door in with one foot and pull the door with the rope on the back of my pickup truck. Raccoons are known to come after you. He walked out of the cage and stopped and turned and looked right at me. He got up on his hind legs and stretched. It was a standoff. I'd rather a possum any day. You shake them in the cage and they don't know what end is up. But the raccoon is very smart. He almost did try to come back at me. I left a note on the lady's door that this was not a possum but a raccoon. She didn't have any idea. She was more concerned that there may be others in her house. I told her she had to make sure she sealed up her house. Anything could go in and out of the house if it is not sealed. My boss had recently been bit by a raccoon, and I did not want to have that happen. Interviewer: With all the debris on the side of the roads, have you seen more raccoons? Stiffler: Yes. Possums primarily. We have some areas where there are a lot of rats and mice. Some areas still have not been cleaned up yet. Here we are at Thanksgiving Day, and it is incredible that certain parts of Coral Gables and South Miami and the outlying areas still have a lot of debris in the roadway. That becomes more of a breeding ground. That's just another thing. That is something that we would not normally see if it had not been for the storm. There are many aspects to this. The houses are damaged; there aren't seals around the houses; it is a priority to keep insects out. The other thing is the exclusionary part. Keep trees from touching the house since those are pathways for the bugs to the roof. You can't see insects getting into your house if they are coming from the roof because who is going to look up. The branches overhand the tiles and you can have a trail of ants running all day long, but unless you get up and look, you will never know they are there or where they are coming from. People tend not to look up, and this is a real priority. Interviewer: Are people who have extensive damage to their home and just left their homes and are planning to come back when the prices go down and services are available--are they going to have more problems after they rebuild their house than the person who has started rebuilding directly after the storm? Stiffler: Yes. I would say in most instances the person who just vacates the house for a long period of time and doesn't make an effort to do anything will have problems. We have a lot of cancellations in our accounts because of the hurricane and most of it has been people that aren't going to do anything for a couple of months. We need to get them off our books, but we tell the people to please let us know in advance of their return for one month of service. We will give them some sort of spray for inside treatment to help fend off whatever may be trying to live in the home. You have colonies of ants and other bugs there. People say they don't want to pay for pest control for one month, but it is another thing to say you are going to have to pay twice the effort to get rid of pests after the fact. We haven't seen this problem yet because some people have vacated for a month or two. We will not get into these homes for a while, and it is going to be interesting once you get in there. When people do rebuild, it is good to contact us while they are in their early stages of rebuilding, there are dust, powders, and chemicals you can use in the home that are natural and don't dry out like a spray. They are a natural ingredient. They can go into the walls behind the electrical outlets and under the carpets and under the floors and they last longer. A good time to do a house is in the reconstruction stage because we have more access to the walls and pockets where insects can live and in cabinets and sinks where they stay. If a whole kitchen is redone, it is good to call us before the cabinets get put in. We can do a more effective job. People are just trying to save that fee for that month while they are have the house redone. There is a certain science to it. Interviewer: I think it will be very interesting to find out later on down the road what you find in some of these houses where people have just left. Stiffler: It is one thing if people are selling to someone else, but when they have to move back into their own home and put up with the problem, it is going to be an interesting problem. There are questions I have in my mind about what is going to happen because this is again a situation where nobody here has experienced to this degree before. We aren't filing any guidelines. This is a whole set of new circumstances and that is what I find fascinating. Even normal pest control around the house is no big deal, but this stuff we use is totally different type of product and we are learning about it also. This type of dry powder pest control and friendly safe things for two years, but we have never had it in a storm like this to compare it, so we are learning as we go along. The ingredients are very good and last a long time. Houses that have had water in them, of course, will have to be totally rebated because everything has been destroyed, but that goes without saying. Volumes will be written as to what to do in the future. I find it very fascinating.
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