I hired David Noble to deal with a rat problem. Having rats inside is very stressful and needs to be handled ASAP. Hiring Noble was worse than a waste of time.
Rats multiply quickly, so Noble's failure after TWO MONTHS to eliminate the problem resulted in a much more serious one -- many more rats. The period that David was "on the job" was increasingly stressful as the rats became increasingly fearless, boldly pulling insulation from the crawl space to build a nest behind the dishwasher! Finally it got so bad that a rat ran right past me inside, it had even come upstairs.
On his first visit David explained that he does not look for and close entry points because he believes it's not worth the effort as it's "impossible" to find them all. Rather, he puts poison bait stations inside and outside the house - bait stations you can easily buy yourself. While the previous company I'd used did a thorough inspection to locate and seal entry points, I figured Noble must know what he was doing. Wrong! During the 2 months David was "on the job," he came to my home 4 times. A rat was killed in a snap trap right after his first visit - the only progress he made. He offered to put poison powder inside. I explained I didn't want rats to die in inaccessible locations inside the house, but he said it wasn't a problem and that if they did, the smell would only last a few days. SERIOUSLY?!
Additionally, I felt David (who's the owner and the only one who provided service) was dismissive and condescending. A week or two after he started, I told him that my dog kept barking at the same spots in the kitchen (dishwasher and for 10+ minutes at a time, which was new behavior. I was fairly certain this meant there were rats behind these spots. His reply? "I can't help what your dog does, he could be barking for many reasons besides a rat." I should have cut my losses right then, but hesitated because I'd agreed to an annual service agreement and had prepaid for the first 3 months. Had he bothered to pull out the dishwasher, he would have seen the rat's nest.
David continued to "gaslight" me - making me wonder whether I was imagining things - and insisting he saw no sign of rats. One night I accidentally left bird seed in a closed plastic bag on the table, and the next morning discovered rats had gotten into it. David came and admonished me for leaving food out -- I repeated that it was an oversight but that I was glad I'd forgotten since it proved the rats were still around, like I had been telling him for some time. Luckily, right when I had decided to give up and cancel the contract, he quit and gave me a refund. He said "it was obvious he was not going to be able to satisfy me" - as if I were demanding - ignoring the fact that he'd completely failed to handle the rat problem. Better than nothing but I would have MUCH preferred if he'd done the job and kept the money. The 2 months we lost while David dickered around allowed the rats to multiply big time so the problem got much worse on David's watch, not better.
His last visit is telling - he had finally agreed to look for entry points in the crawl space, which is where critters had entered the house about 5 years before, but all he did was move a rat trap from inside to the outside crawl space. I had come home to meet him since he said he needed inside access, another waste of my time. I told him that the point of hiring him was for him to do things I couldn't easily do myself, such as move a trap. At that point, he said that he believed he couldn't satisfy me and would refund what I had paid.
Not only did he not eradicate the rats I had when he first came (the poison bait in the bait boxes was untouched each time he checked) but they multiplied dramatically over 2 months. I later learned that rats have babies every 3 weeks. Wikipedia says,"The gestation period is only 21 days, and litters can number up to 14, although seven is common. They reach sexual maturity in about five weeks." So David's method actually allowed them to have three litters, meaning for each pair of rats when he started, there should be between 21-42 babies, plus their babies, two months later.
If you've read this far, you get the point - don't hire Noble for critters like rats, mice, bats etc. He may be fine for ants or crickets, etc but for them he uses glue traps which is the cruelest option. The pest company I hired immediately after David quit pulled out the dishwasher first thing (my dog had been barking at it for months) to discover rats had started to build a nest in the space behind. David didn't, though I'd asked him to. The new company called a handyman who removed (and replaced) a kitchen baseboard, locating and closing THREE large holes. Right at the spot where the dog had been barking. The dog was right all along. read more
