Like many professions, there’s no telling what you might find when you work as an exterminator. I’ve had jobs I thought would be an absolute nightmare and they turned out to be a breeze, and jobs I thought would take no time at all that ended up being beyond time consuming. And like most professions, some clients or customers stick out more than others. For me, the one client that I remember most of all is Julianna Becker.
It was a bright morning in the middle of summer when she made an appointment. According to Julianna, she could hear buzzing sounds in the walls as she watched TV, and she wanted it checked out as soon as possible. I had an opening, so I headed out that afternoon.
Julianna lived in a small, but elegant house with a nice garden. Once I let her know I was there, she came out and greeted me with a friendly smile while holding a cup of coffee.
“Can I get you one?” She asked while raising the cup.
“I really appreciate that, but I actually just had some.”
She chuckled. “I understand.”
“So what seems to be the problem Julianna? You’re hearing buzzing in the walls?”
“Yes, as I’m watching TV. It hasn’t been going on long, but the noise is obvious.”
“I understand. May I step inside so I can try to listen for myself?”
“Absolutely.”
She led the way inside and pointed to the wall in question. Sure enough, when I put my ear to it, I could hear the low drone of buzzing on the other side.
“I can hear it too. From the layout of your house, it seems there’s a crawl space near this, correct?”
“Correct.”
So I grabbed my flashlight and headed for the crawl space. And sure enough, in the middle of the crawl space under the house’s foundation was a large hornet’s nest that would’ve been close to the sitting room where the TV was. Unpleasant no doubt, but manageable and simple enough to fix. And it wasn’t the biggest nest I’d ever seen. I’ve seen nests that were taller than I am and that required help from my colleagues to safely get rid of. As I finished looking around, I noticed that the only thing in the crawl space aside from the nest was a flashlight. The kind you can get at virtually any store.
So after I took pictures of the nest to show Julianna, I got the necessary equipment and gear out of my truck, made sure everything was ready, then I took care of the nest while Julianna stood outside and watched from a safe distance. When I was finished and it was safe to approach, she cautiously walked towards the crawl space and peered inside.
“Well done, Jackson.” She nodded approvingly. “I appreciate it very much.”
“You’re more than welcome,” I said while taking off my gloves. Julianna was cheerful as she signed a check for my services and even gave me a generous tip for coming out on such short notice. Then I thanked her and went on with my day.
It was clear that she was beyond grateful, because two weeks after that, I got a call from a woman on the other side of town who claimed to be a friend of Julianna’s who claimed she highly recommended me for a job. So I loaded up and headed to meet Julianna’s friend, a woman named Cheryl French.
Cheryl French lived in a nice neighborhood on the edge of town situated near the woods, and after briefly chatting with me, it didn’t take me long to see that Cheryl called me over a significant ant infestation located in the kitchen. Nor did it take me long to see the source of the issue was what looked like the remnants of food gone bad under the deck. Since the deck was situated near the kitchen, it made perfect sense that the two were connected.
As I got out from under the deck to get the proper equipment, I noticed something. Under the deck near the spoiled food that was drawing the ants, there was a flashlight that looked just like the one I’d seen at Julianna Becker’s. But that wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. I’d seen a million flashlights just like them before. And I knew from experience how easy it was to forget flashlights.
So I went on with my job without a second thought. It went off smoothly, and Cheryl and her husband were pleased with the result. They were slightly surprised when I told them about the spoiled food I found under the deck, but they admitted that any number of animals could have been responsible, as they were used to seeing them because they were close to the woods.
About a month after that, I got another call from Julianna. Due to the heavy rain we’d been experiencing, she’d had an issue with flooding, and the mold it temporarily caused had led to a variety of flies, mosquitos, and gnats that seemed to never go away.
I was happy to pencil Julianna in for an appointment, so I went out to see her early the following day. But unlike last time, she couldn’t seem to figure out the source of the problem. So I simply had to do a little exploring.
Naturally, since it was the source of the last issue, I started with the crawl space. I had barely ducked my head down to peer inside when I saw something at the far end of the crawl space. At first, I had no idea what it was.
Then my eyes adjusted, and my stomach clenched as I realized what I was looking at. A person was lying there in the crawl space with their back to me. I couldn’t make anything else out apart from what they were wearing, which was dark clothing.
The sight was beyond creepy and rendered me temporarily speechless. It said that something was seriously wrong. Taking care not to alert whoever was there that they’d been seen, I slowly and quietly crept away from the crawl space and walked over to Julianna, who was outside watching like last time.
I could tell she could see something was wrong the moment she saw my face, but her expression changed from concerned to shock when I told her that there was a stranger hiding in her crawl space. Then it went to fear as we both quietly went inside, and she called the police.
Then the only thing left was for us to wait in what felt like a painful silence. We tried to act as if nothing was wrong in the hopes that the stranger wouldn’t realize we knew, but it was beyond difficult. Who was down there? What was going on? Was I seen? And was anyone else lurking nearby?
Fortunately, when the police arrived, they were careful to arrive quietly to not alert the stranger. Julianna and I both silently watched as they called out to whoever was down there to come out.
After a brief commotion, they pulled out the stranger who’d been lurking there. From the confused expression on Julianna’s face, it was clear that it wasn’t someone she recognized. It was an ordinary looking man who looked at everyone with a vacant expression. When police searched him, they didn’t find anything, ominous or otherwise. He had no phone or keys. But his eyes gave me the creeps. There was something hollow and lifeless about them.
So when the police told me what he was wanted for, I wasn’t surprised, but I was terrified. The man found in Julianna’s crawl space was a suspected serial killer, and the reason I saw the same flashlight at Julianna’s and Cheryl French’s was because he’d been using it both places and simply left it. Just like he was responsible for the food under the deck because he’d been eating while lurking there and simply left whatever he didn’t eat.
Everyone involved was stunned by the implications of this. Especially when the guy eventually confessed to killing 6 people. Not surprisingly, the next professional Julianna and Cheryl both called was someone to install a security system. Although I did manage to fix Julianna’s issue with mold a little while later. Then she insisted on paying me double, because as she put it, I got rid of all the unwanted intruders.
I’ve never been quite the same after that job. I’ve always been careful, but seeing someone crouching there where they shouldn’t be, just waiting for something, is a sight that always comes back to me now whenever I go to examine something for the first time while on a job. And had Julianna not called me because of something completely unrelated, I would’ve never seen him lurking there.