Cockroaches, bedbugs, rats and a mouse – all before my morning coffee.
With bedbugs sweeping across the country, I joined vermin expert Luke Summers, of Northern Pest Management for a glimpse into the world of extermination.
A freedom of information request to Oldham Council last month revealed how many bedbug incidents it had been called out to in the past five years.
Since the beginning of the year to October, the council’s dedicated pest control team were called out to 77 incidents – that’s the same number of treatments they delivered in 2021 and 2022 combined, with two more months left of the year.
In 2021, they dealt with 32 incidents, 35 in 2022, while 2020 saw them treat bedbugs 53 times, 10 less than the previous year.
I joined Luke at 8am and spent the whole day with him, until 4pm, and I was shocked that you can find cockroaches in Oldham.
Speaking to Luke about the bedbug epidemic, he said: “That is just the council. I get three or four bedbug callouts every week.
“The problem is we’re seeing a lot of people moving around the world, and some people are stopping off at three or four destinations before they settle – that’s a lot of stops where bedbugs or cockroaches can creep into luggage.”
Due to the sensitivity of Luke’s business, I am not able to identify where we visited – other than mention where a premises is geographically located in Oldham i.e., north, south, east, west.
We put more than 30 miles on the clock of Luke’s pick-up truck, with heated seats – which was needed as Storm Debi battered Oldham, visiting houses of multiple occupation (HMOs), a school and even Oldham Athletic, as he gave me a tour of his duties.
Our day began with a visit to a nursery in east Oldham, where mice have been squeezing through the gaps in this old building to shelter from the weather.
The traps laid in the kitchen were empty, although one had nibbled at the bait, but outside the kitchen door lay a dead mouse.
Explaining the callout, Luke said: “It is a public health issue having mice, but they aren’t always dirty places where you see them.
“For this nursery, they are doing everything right. Someone spotted a mouse, so they called me in – rodents like rats and mice want to come indoors when it gets cold mid-September so that’s all that’s happened.
“That was the third week of an intensive treatment and we’ve made some real progress. After next week, I’ll return on a monthly basis.”
The next gig was at a HMO in central Oldham where a mother and her young daughter, who asked Luke to “please make them go away”, share a room infested by bedbugs.
It is the final visit of a four-week intensive treatment, Luke was supposed to be checking the area before giving it the all clear, but discovered a juvenile German cockroach at the head of the bed caught in one of the four traps, while a bedbug was found in another.
The discovery meant that another job opened up, and he had to then lay cockroach traps in the communal kitchen as well as the bedroom.
We then drove around the corner to another HMO, but not before Luke checked some rat traps set out at a nearby construction site – which did not appeal to the vermin.
Rats are once again the issue here, they make their way through the brickwork and under the basement doors.
We’re crouched in the basement, no taller than three feet high, the stench of rat urine overpowers the room where a single dead rat lay among thousands of rat droppings. Poison is scattered across the floor and it’s time to vacate – he’ll be back next week.
Luke jokes: “You start off on Sky Sports and now you’re on your hands and knees searching for rats!”
Luke is a die-hard Latics fan, born in Oldham he grew up in the Coppice before relocating with his wife Helen, to south Rochdale – to be closer to their parents who live in Shaw.
The pair have two children Primrose, aged three and 17-month-old Posy.
He started the business seven years ago after featuring on Sky Sports News when a reporter interviewed him as the head falconer, someone who uses a falcon to deter animals like seagulls and pigeons from an area, for the Royal Open at Birkdale.
He said: “They wanted to know why I was on the course, and I just explained that I was keeping the fairway and the VIP areas free from seagulls.”
His career snowballed from then. Luke has featured on, and still does work for, Channel 5’s Filthy Homes SOS, ITV’s coverage of the influx of rats in town centres, and Sky News… but in the eight hours that I had been talking to him, I picked up that the highlight of his career is being Oldham Athletic's official pest partner – but more on that later.
Back to the visits and our next stop was a house in Werneth that Luke had treated in February, setting traps around the house as the owner had noticed a rat on a drain outside.
He told the customer that he could give her pointers free-of-charge on what they can do to secure the house from rodents, including putting drain covers on and sealing any small holes in the house, but he would not take the custom due to the issue solely being the environment, with the property positioned by Werneth Park.
As we prepare to jump in the truck, a large rat appeared and started eating its way through litter fly-tipped outside the house.
Our next stop was over in Failsworth, where Luke has been treating an ongoing rat problem in a residential home.
He said: “There were about 40 rats in a wheelie bin, and I had no clue that they were all in there. I opened the lid, and all these eyes were looking at me.”
He explained that while he was treating the issue half of the rats had died from the poison, while the other half had begun eating each other until there was just one left – and what we were doing on our visit was making sure there were no more signs of rats in the area.
After we finish up, we take our only trip out of Oldham, to a primary school in north Manchester – which Luke pointed out did not have a cockroach infestation, but a “cockroach issue”.
“There was a sighting of a cockroach by a teacher four weeks ago, so we've treated it with gel and cockroach traps,” Luke said.
We crept into a classroom mid-math lesson, where kids no older than 10 were learning what 40 plus 10 equals, to check the traps he laid last week a visit.
In the corner of the room, where at least 30 children sat, lay around 100 dead cockroaches which took Luke’s bait, while dozens more lay beside them.
He continued: “When we did the treatment, they had new flooring done in the classrooms, so ripping up the old carpets have dispersed them - cockroaches you see like to hide in holes and dark places."
Next, we walked down the hall and into a second classroom where young children were learning equations. This time only one cockroach was caught.
The final stop in the school was the kitchen, where a trap caught two nymphs - baby cockroaches, with the fear now that a female cockroach is roaming free.
Luke added: "They were found in a classroom first, so that means they've been brought in unintentionally from someone's bag or clothing because they should really start in the kitchen.”
As we leave, Luke calls the British Pest Control Association, which he pays £1,000 a year to be a member of, for their assistance to tackle the issue together in a week’s time.
Driving to a café by the canal in Saddleworth, I notice is that Luke hasn’t used maps on his iPhone once – much like a taxi driver he knows Oldham like the back of his hand.
We reach the café, where we were to discreetly enter, but it was closed. Again, the problem was rats, this time Luke clarified that the rodents had been coming up from the canal for a bite to eat but he had it under control.
Northern Pest Management has around 185 commercial and residential clients, around 60 to 70 of those are in and around Oldham. Luke averages about eight or nine callouts a day, seven-days-a-week.
Speaking about what he treats, he said: "You always have your rats and mice, but we do fleas, bedbugs, cockroaches, pigeon control, ants, wasps, bees - all crawling and flying insects.
“I'd still say rats and mice are the most common pest, but bedbugs have been a curveball this year. I never thought bedbugs would overtake cockroaches."
I had a preconception about pest exterminators, that was that they were weird and creepy – but what I found was quite the opposite.
Luke was a chatty, kind man, he made time for his customers, and they made time for him – quite bizarre if you think about it, this man comes to your place of work a handful of times and he’s built such a relationship that he’s asking how the kids are and vice-versa.
Back to it, leaving Saddleworth we drive to another HMO with an external rat problem, in south Oldham.
"We've had an ongoing rat issue there for four years, it's not necessarily the premises but it’s the environment and location," Luke said.
"It's a case of servicing the external bay stations. We put in five separate bags of bromadilone, in five separate bay stations and we'll be back next week to inspect."
Finally, we drive to Boundary Park, the home of Oldham Athletic – where, as mentioned earlier, Northern Pest Management is the official pest partner.
Luke wants to show me what he does here at his boyhood club, we tour the stadium checking for pigeons in the rafters as we go, and inside we check rat traps positioned in all the kitchens and kiosks – not that there is any, but it is the club’s proactive approach to tackling vermin.
Oldham Athletic has had historical rodent activity at the ground but since Luke began working for the club it has been eradicated.
As we wander around it is clear that Luke doesn’t see the Latics as work, but more of a haven. He points out every picture we walk past, who is in it, why they are a club legend, who they were playing against that day and so on.
As we enter the main stand, we spot bird poo on the floor by the old directors’ seats and a nest above it, while an injured pigeon hopped around the seats.
We finish up, and as we drive out of the stadium and head back to my car, I ask Luke how does he feel about killing animals? He replies, “I don’t like doing it at all”, but pointed out that pests are a danger to our health.
To conclude, I learned a lot in the short time on the road with Northern Pest Management, mainly about the pest control industry, but also about the rich history of Oldham – and why the borough means so much to people like Luke.
Do you think an insight into your work will benefit readers? Or do you simply have a story? I cover every aspect of journalism, including business openings. Email me at joe.yates@newsquest.co.uk or direct message me on Twitter @JMYjourno
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