Carving a livelihood from battling bugs


Hour Correspondent

Who ya gonna call?

Um, Emmett Lee Jr.?

He might not be running around chasing spooky specters into the night, but over the past 25 years many Norwalkers have called on him to help get rid of some pesky, unwanted visitors that infest their homes and businesses.

Since 1985, Lee has been vice president of ABC Exterminating and Lawn Service, located at 12 Winfield Street in Norwalk. At 46, he's an average family guy, comes to work in jeans, work boots and a striped uniform shirt. He's athletic -- an avid runner and has run several marathons. He's definitely not the typical bugbuster -- like TV's "Orkin Man," running around with a jumpsuit and a backpack on his back. But a guy with bug sculptures on his office wall and an email address of "Killabug1" has to mean business, right?

"In the old days the mainstay was the guy walking around with a tank in his hand spraying," he said. "The approach now is Integrated Pest Management."

That's a nice way of saying it's now a shock and awe campaign against the bugs and rodents. While yes, there are still sprays out there used to combat the creepy-crawlies, included in the arsenal include things like baits and traps, and even computerized bait traps that can track the movements of termites underground.

A Norwalk native who grew on Hazel Street in the Cranbury section of town, Lee never intended to get into the exterminating business. A biology major at the University of Connecticut, he originally wanted to be a dentist. His father, Emmett Lee Sr., had started ABC Exterminating as a supplement to his career as a Norwalk Police Officer. Upon retiring from the force in 1983, he decided to open the business full time. His son, being a college student, worked with his father during the summers, and caught the, er, exterminating bug.

"Growing up around this, I always loved science and it just kind of tied in," he said. "I decided I didn't want to put my hands of some of the people's mouths out there."

So in 1985, Emmett Jr. took over as vice president. His father still handles business such as insurance and fleet issues, but Junior takes care of the day-to-day operations.

In fact, Lee doesn't like being called an exterminator. Pest Control Professionals, as they are called in the industry, are actually well-educated, well-regulated professionals. In order to keep his license in New York and Connecticut, Lee must attend a certain number of hours of coursework and seminars each year to learn about the latest products and techniques used to battle bedbugs and other pests out there. As for chemicals, the state of Connecticut requires him to make sure he is using stuff that won't pollute waterways and the ground. Many homeowners, he said, will try to rid their home of pests themselves with over-the-counter products, and don't pay attention to labels.

"By law, we have to adhere to the labels, but the homeowner can do whatever they want," he said. "If the label says mix one part, they'll mix 10 thinking more is better. If it says spray the foundation, they'll spray the whole house and the dog. They try it, and they'll call us to fix it."

After 25 years in the business, he knows his stuff. Go ahead and ask him what a Stinkbug is. He'll stop you and tell you that it's actually called the "Leaf-footed Pine Seed Bug" and it feeds on pine cone seeds. He'll then go to his computer and pull up a high-resolution photo of the stinker.

"We are educators, not just killers of bugs," he said. "So many people ask us to come kill all these beetles they have, but that might not be necessary. We have a lot of other tools in our arsenal besides a tank."

Most of the time, he'll just tell a client to cut some bushes away from the house or spray a mister full of water under their desk to create a moister environment.

The battle against the bugs is not an easy one to win, Lee said, and each season brings with it a new threat. In the fall, carpenter ants, millipedes, and spiders look for warm, dry places to hang out, and mice and other rodents look for a home for the winter. In the spring, it's the swarming insects.

Especially troublesome are termites, insects that can munch as much as two feet of wood a year and cause upwards of $1 billion of damage to homes and businesses. Entire colonies live in the ground and eat their way into the wood timbers of homes, slowly eating away at the structure that keeps the buildings up. In fact, Lee has a "goodie box" in his office that contains samples of different kinds of termites, and even shows a piece of wood that has been eaten through. The cross section looks like an ant farm you might find in a fifth-grade classroom.

Every day is different. One day he'll be in the projects of South Norwalk, and an hour later he'll be at a $20 million home in Westport tackling a pest problem. Maybe it's termites or bedbugs; sometimes it's a mice problem. Some of the nicest houses and cleanest restaurants can have the biggest pest problems, he said.

One day he was called to a home on Cove Avenue to take care of a termite problem. For about 20 years, the homeowner had taken care of an annual spring swarm of termites by splashing boiling water on them. Thinking she had taken care of the problem, she didn't realize that the rest of the colony was busy eating away at the timbers of her home until it was too late.

"The telltale sign was that the refrigerator was hanging through the floor," Lee said. "That's when they started inspecting and realized they had a problem."

Rodents are also a problem he deals with almost daily. To identify a problem, he uses detective work. If someone says they hear rattling in the walls, or that their dog stares at a spot all day, he takes it into consideration.

In a local office building, workers called him upon finding mice. He turned over a couch in the office lobby and found that mice had been living in the cushions.

"You don't realize how close you are to a pest problem -- this close to your buttocks," he said.

And don't even get him started on bedbugs, an almost impossible pest to get rid of. Since the 1960s, when travel became more widespread, humans have been spreading bedbugs everywhere. They hide in baseboards, beds, switchplates, on clothes, curtains and many other places. They travel everywhere, and Lee makes it a habit to lift mattresses and check every time he goes to a hotel.

"I've seen places that really should not be in business the way it is," he said. "Sometimes you just have to go in with blinders on."