Highland Park's Dirty Little Secret
Highland Park is the 3rd wealthiest location in Texas per capita. This pristine gem of a town has some of Dallas' most beautiful real estate including Turtle Creek and Hackberry Creek just to the east. In good weather, visitors come from across Dallas to drink in the beauty. Photographers drink in the scenery. However there's another group that comes here to drink... the water! Every creature needs a source of water to sustain life, and that's why rats are Highland Park's dirty little secret.
No city is exempt from invasive species and that's exactly what rats are. They defy ordinary prevention measures and frequent yards, attics, porches and patios each night and leave behind a trail of waste wherever they go. Anywhere you see rat droppings, you're looking at a surface contaminated by infectious rat urine which can spread 35 diseases. Once rats have marked an area with urine, it tells the whole rat community the area is safe from predators, provides good food, and sex is available. As a conservation company, our four-step holistic approach to rat infestations deals with all factors that create the problem in the first place.
In answer to this problem, Sgt. Poopers provides a new kind of rat control in Dallas, Texas. Everything we do is all-natural and non-toxic. Our proven protocol involves cleaning, disinfection to remove the germs and the marking scent, and finally we apply an all-natural essential-oil blend to repell rats from the area. It works well.
"This whole neighborhood has a terrible rat problem because we're right next to Turtle Creek. At night, they congregate on our patio and leave droppings. We tried everything to get rid of them and absolutely nothing worked. Sgt. Poopers came with a fresh approach and we noticed a complete difference the very next day. The rats have cleared out of our yard." KB
In the process, we also eradicate the germs that rats being. A study released in April 2008 by Dr. Charles Gerba, microbiologist and professor at the University of Arizona investigated the role of shoes in the movement of bacteria from contaminated floor spaces to other surfaces. He found that when we walk upon a surface contaminated by fecal matter from animals, the remaining bacteria adhere readily to shoes and hitch a ride into our homes.
Shockingly, they found that up to 99% of the bacteria traveled safely onto clean tile and carpets of kitchens, bedrooms and living areas.
One gram of waste contains millions of germs, bacteria, viruses, pathogens and parasites. And these diseases remain alive and viable on the ground for weeks and even months. Round worm eggs from dogs can remain viable for up to 3 years and maybe more.
In the University of Arizona study scientists gave volunteers a pair of clean new shoes and asked them to wear them for 2 weeks. At the end of that time, the shoes were taken to the lab for analysis. They found an average of 421,000 live bacteria on shoe soles. 27% was deadly E. Coli bacteria indicating frequent contact with fecal matter. Also detected was Klebsiella pneumonia, which can cause pneumonia and wound and bloodstream infections and Serratia ficaria, which can lead to infection of the respiratory tract. And as to the source, taking a walk on a poop-decorated sidewalk in Highland Park would do the trick.
Dr. Charles Gerba knows what he’s talking about. As a professor in the Departments of Soil, Water and Environmental Science (College of Agriculture), and Epidemiology and Biostatistics (College of Public Health) at the University of Arizona he knows germs. He obtained his Ph.D. in Microbiology from the University of Miami, Florida and was a faculty member in the Department of Virology and Epidemiology at Baylor College of Medicine from 1974 to 1981.
Today, our society is continuing to learn about the role of germs and improve hygene. But change doesn't always come easy. Have you ever heard the strange and tragic story of Hungarian physician Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis? Semmelweis is known today as a pioneer of antiseptic medicine and the “savior of mothers.” In 1847, he found that the cause of Puerperal fever (or Childbed fever) was a lack of cleanliness. In hospital maternity wards in the seventeen and eighteen hundreds, the mortality rate for young mothers soared as high as 25%.
Semmelweis discovered the cure: doctors needed to wash their hands. As a result, he was not only ignored, criticized and ridiculed, but dismissed from his position as director of Vienna’s largest maternity hospital. 14 years later he began speaking out in open letters, going so far as to tell his fellow doctors that by refusing to wash their hands, they were in fact committing murder. For all his trouble, Semmelweis was incarcerated in a mental asylum and murdered by his peers!
Years after his death, the medical community finally discovered “oops, he was right” and by simply washing their hands saved millions of innocent young lives. Today, Semmelweis’s portrait graces postage stamps and gold coins.
If it took society decades to accept the fact that doctors can save lives simply by washing their hands, it is likely to take time before some society realizes they are putting the health of neighbors, children and pets at risk by leaving waste on the ground.
Sgt Poopers is here to help. Our customers include residential, commercial and home-owner associations.
