DOUG JOHNSON, BANDIT TRAPPING, PEST CONTROL
 Joanne Pilgrim |
(11/14/2007) “Every day is an adventure,” Doug Johnston said. The owner of Bandit Trapping and Pest Control, based in North Sea, he fields calls from homeowners whose hackles have been raised by an incursion, he finds and removes the unwanted creatures, and he oversees the repairs needed to keep the scenario from being repeated.
“I’m just an outdoorsman,” he said. “I get to work with wildlife every day.” Mr. Johnston’s foes vary as the seasons pass. This time of year, he deals with “a lot of raccoons and squirrels.”
“The most exciting time,” he said, “is the raccoons’ breeding season” in the spring. “The female raccoons — they get so innovative about where to have their young.” They seek cozy nesting spots in chimneys, under decks, in attics, and in sheds, he said. “They’re very strong. They go through shingled roofs all the time. They capitalize on the weakness of a house. They will systematically check out a house, look for soft spots, and use it to their advantage. They’re very crafty.”
“Possums won’t break in as much as raccoons will,” he said. “Even at houses that are lived in year round [raccoons] will break in.” Soft soffits, uncapped chimneys, attic louvers, all can be entry points.
After tracking down and removing the animals, Mr. Johnston will either do what’s needed at the house himself or will provide homeowners with a list of tasks for a contractor to do. “When I leave the job, the house is always secure.”
His work entails careful observation of tracks or bits of hair left by animals squeezing in and out of their lairs, for instance. But it can be exciting, too.
“I’ve had raccoons fall through skylights before,” he said. Once, some raccoon babies, looking for a way out of an attic after their mother was killed, pushed a trap door open and fell into an empty crib. When Mr. Johnston came in, the raccoon cubs were sleeping in the crib, surrounded by the human baby’s toys. “I just picked them up,” he said. Other times, he’s been able to sneak up on sleeping raccoons and slip a trapping noose around their necks.
Mr. Johnston is licensed by and must follow New York State’s Department of Environmental Conservation rules. When possible, he releases animals on tracts of open land where he has been given permission to do so.
In the summer, his job focuses more on pest control, ridding houses of ants, earwigs, wasps, or crickets. From June to October, he said, “half my business is mole control.” (Contrary to what many people believe, he said, moles — which can tunnel 20 to 30 yards a day and cohabit, about two to three per acre — eat earthworms, not grubs. They don’t hibernate, but keep tunneling, beneath the frost line, in winter.)
“You do the rats and the mice in between,” he said. And yes, the East End has plenty of rats. In recent years, he’s noted muskrats making incursions into backyard ponds, often causing damage. Groundhogs are “mainly in Bridgehampton,” he said. They like to burrow under decks. Piles of droppings on a deck could indicate a bat is roosting above.
Traps are baited with different foods for different animals. For Bridgehampton’s groundhogs, Mr. Johnston sets out fruit. Raccoons love marshmallows and sardines. “They’re visual feeders, as well as going on smell,” he said. Peanut butter is “the old standby.” “And possums you can catch on anything.”
Mr. Johnston started his one-man business in 2003 after working for the now-defunct Eastern Entomology and then for the company with which it merged, Nardy Pest Control.
“I try to keep it personal,” he said. “I do all the work, the phone calls, the billing.” In late spring and early summer, he might trap 15 or 20 animals a week, and is constantly learning more about the critters he catches. “Every season, you pick something up and say, ‘I never saw that before.’ ”