Hello- i recently joined the forum. the ADC section is where most of my interests lie. my trade is carpentry & i also do real estate inspections. that business sometimes leads to occasional pest animal control requests. the animal calls have grown to the point that i created a l.l.c , bought insurance & started investigating the process of getting licensed. so far it's mostly been squirrel, coon, opossum, feral cat, & mole work. i'm thinking about keeping bees again so that might expand to bee swarm removal. with a record october rainfall her in missouri i've been getting a lot of moles calls. to date i've only used spear traps but have been researching & plan to expand my mole trap arsenal to include several different types of traps, including steve's. my best spear traps are some ancient reddick branded traps. the man i got them from is 85 & these were his dad's. i knew his dad in the 70's so i'm guessing these are from the 50's. they are taller than the newer ones & hit harder. anyway i just thought i'd introduce myself so that if i add or reply to any posts here you aren't too suprised. my name is robert zack but i mostly go by zack.......

Welcome Zack! Hope you learn lots, and enjoy yourself here!

Welcome aboard.. ..We can use all the help we can get.. ..OR at least I can.....

Welcome Zack.

Okay Zack, you're a carpenter, a real estate inspector, and have kept bees. Sounds like you're much better suited to this business than me; and I've been doing it for 20+ years.

back in the 70's i had an 1860's log house, barn, sheds on 5.5 acres. tried my hand at several things then including keeping bees & dairy goats. that all came to a screeching halt when i divorced.i consider my main trade to be carpentry. i also repair stringed instruments: mostly guitars, violins, & mandolins. the real estate inspections go hand in hand with the carpentry. most of my carpentry work in the last 20 years has been on the commercial & industrial side, including bridge & some millwright work. i hunt & fish & helped my grandad run traps in central illinois as a kid so i have a reasonable understanding of the habits of SOME animals. the pest trapping started out as battling squirrels at home. on average i ship 300 squirrel tales per year to mepp's fishing lures. while doing an inspection a problem coon was mentioned & i offered to help. caught the coon the 1st night ( lucky ) & the realtor started referring me. construction & inspection work has bottomed out for awhile. st louis lost 2 car plants so a lot of millwright work dried up. critter control has the best propspects right now. so here i am trying to learn something from the people who do it best.

Welcome!

welcome my friend!

Zack, I know what you mean. According to the headlines in our largest paper, we lost 49,600 jobs since last September in my work area alone. Somehow I don't feel stimulated!