Continued:
Let me explain a little bit of pest control for you. The fogger we were using was called Vaponite. A very strong fogger. But the magical ingredient in the fogger, along with the now-banned pesticide, was pyrethrum. This was a substance that is naturally derived from African Chrysanthemums. That is reason that every gardener knows that they can repel pests by planting chrysanthemums. As the chemical pyrethrum, it is a repellent that drives insects out of hiding places, irritating their breathing tubes and their exoskeleton. It can bother human skin also, but almost impossible to kill something with just pyrethrum, as it has no residual effect. Science lesson over!
As we set off the foggers and waited, Jim and I just stood there in the dark, it was very quiet. With our masks on and our hard hats covering our heads, we were not worried at all about the pesticide. So dark, so quiet. And then.....plink! Huh? What the hell was that? Plink! plink! on my hard hat, like pebbles being tossed at me. Plink plink plink plink plink!!! I turn on my light as did Jim, and we looked at the floor and each other. Uh oh. Yeah, they had a little problem here!
We were in a situation I call, "Raining Roaches", only with holy-shit truck-sized roaches, now coming out, climbing up us and falling all over us by the hundreds! "Get out, get the hell out of here!",, Jim yelled. I was with him there. We both dash up the stairs, schlepping our equipment and as I got to the top, I stopped. It occurred to me that there may be women on the other side of the door and we can't just burst in, can we? Mind you, this is with Mack Truck roaches falling all over us. Jim says, "What the hell are you stopping for?" I told him. He looks at me, "just go, to hell with 'em, they saw us before, anyway!" I burst open the door!
At first we got the same bored look we got before from the dancers. But they saw that we had masks on and were, well moving a little faster. I said, "You have to leave, there may be a smell iin here," and they left. We closed the basement door, checking to see if any straggler roach trucks were still on us. Nope, clean! That pyrethrum is great shit! Yee-haaa! But...what do we do now? Well, first, take off the full-face masks so we don't scare anyone.
We had to go back through the club, right passed the hook-umm-dancers. As we walk out, I see another dancer on the stage, maybe four people in the audience, enjoying their near-beer. And there, on the stage, were a few of the 3 inch long roaches running (dancing?) across the stage in a various stages of respiratory attacks. Oh, crap. We were carrying the traditional spray cans that most know of, the B&G, as it is known in the industry. They make them...that's why. The pesticide we were using was odorless, a powder in water, Ficam.
Jim and I both sneaked behind the curtain in the rear that hid the other dancers, trying to step on them with our big bugman boots, or give them a direct shot of Ficam, not really a great idea and not really legal use of the stuff. We chased the scurrying little trucks all over the stage, trying (ha!) to be discreet, but really, no fucking way! We wondered if we were going to hear or see any reaction of some kind from anyone. Nada. After a half hour of stomping (discreetly) and spritzing, it slowed and we decided that was enough for now, I mean, they were open! Not one of the patrons seemed to notice anything other than what was on the stage wearing a g-string. We went and got our signature and got the heck out of there. Bye, ladies and roaches!
Two weeks later, I go to do the first regular service. I walk in at 10am, and it's deja vu. A bored skinny, sorta cute and worn woman slowly moving on the stage like she was just warming up. Two Japanese tourists were in the audience, the bus outside. I guess only a couple wanted to go out that early. The owner told me what a great job we did and they haven't seen anything since the day we were there. That Vaponite is good stuff! The account was fairly easy after the first time. No real problems. I did once open the door to the basement and looked down in the dark....looked good to me! Not going down there again!
Peace,
Ken
Next Blog- Soon!
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