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Published at 6:27pm
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Insect assassins
If it crawls, flies or scurries, Thaddeus Mazuchowski has probably slayed it. Mazuchowski, an exterminator for the past 20 years, and the seven other employees of Nevernest Extermination (3644 W Diversey Ave, 773-772-9172) have gotten up close and personal with rats on the Blue Line, cockroaches in drug houses and mosquito infestations in housing projects—and they keep coming back for more.
“It’s not a job; it’s an adventure,” Mazuchowski says during a rousing game of What’s That Smell?—one of the trickiest and most common questions exterminators must answer for clients. For the next half hour, crew member Brian Schelberger will root through a tight, dark attic crawl space in a client’s Hinsdale home, searching for the source of a foul stench that will turn out to be the rotting corpses of a squirrel family. After bagging the cadavers and patching the hole the critters gnawed to get in the house, Mazuchowski and Schelberger call this an easy day at the office. They’ve seen much worse.
“Probably the worst thing I’ve ever seen is a dead person,” recounts Schelberger. “We were doing maintenance on a building and the neighbors kept smelling something strange. They thought it was a cat or something, but when they opened the door to let us treat the unit, [the body] was just there. It happened in his sleep and no one knew he died.”
Aside from corpses, Nevernest workers have also encountered bat colonies, skunk holes, raccoon hideaways, rats as big as small cats and roach infestations so bad they could barely see the floor. The animals and the waste they create, Mazuchowski says, are expected. It’s the human filth that gets to him.
“I went into a building once in a drug-infested area and there was a woman with 15 kids,” Mazuchowski explains. “It was the worst thing I’ve ever seen. There were human feces on the floor.”
Minus the people poop, the fact that his job is barely palatable to clients is precisely what makes Mazuchowski and several others in the extermination business feel satisfied at the end of an extra creepy-crawly day.
“My customers know that this is not something that they’re going to deal with, and they respect the heck out of me for doing it,” Mazuchowski explains. “One time I went to a job and I saw some chick standing in a laundry basket in the middle of the room because there was a mouse in the apartment. She had a phobia, and I had to go in and talk her out of it. Her husband tipped me $50 for it. Apparently she was ready to move in with her mother. I’ve saved a lot of marriages.”
Valerie
Sun, Jun 22, at 12:11am
Tyler - I hope you think past such a simple-minded response. They eat out of garbage cans - there will always be a food souce as long as there is garbage. They will not "leave" and trying to starve them is not the answer. Spaying and neutering is the answer. If people spayed and neutered their pet cats, overpopulation would not be a problem. The PAWS clinic, Anti-Cruelty Society, Treehouse and others have low-cost spay/neuter options if you can't afford your regular vet's fee.
Meg Martino
Sat, Jun 21, at 09:47am
To Tyler -- Where exactly do you think 400,000 cats are going to go when they "leave"? Evaporate into thin air? If you remove one set of cats from the area, a different group will just move in and you are back where you started. Trap-Neuter-RETURN (not Release) prevents the births of thousands of kittens every year, the majority of whom would die before they were 6 mo old. The cats are vaccinated against Rabies & for several feline diseases, so they are healthier and the community is safer.
Margaret
Fri, Jun 20, at 02:14pm
Actually, Tyler, they probably won't leave because they are in their established, familiar territory. For feral cats, that *is* their home. It is more likely that the cats would starve and get sick and die, but that wouldn't solve the problem, either --other cats (either from areas nearby or from thoughtless people who abandon them) would settle into the 'empty' territory and make it their own. The best solution is to do exactly what Ms. Pina is doing - Trap/Neuter/Return (not "Release"), or TNR
Lisa
Fri, Jun 20, at 01:48pm
It's not about HER feeding the cats, they find food themselves. Yvette is simply trying to prevent the further population of unwanted cats. If it was as simple as not feeding the cats then there wouldn't be a problem now would there.
Chris
Fri, Jun 20, at 01:15pm
She's not trying to get rid of the cats. The cats
she's trying to prevent them from bringing more kittens into homelessness.
Tyler
Thu, Jun 19, at 02:03pm
Why can't she stop feeding the cats - they they will leave!
