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Mick Ffrench is used to getting up close and personal with spiders and other creepy-crawlies. After more than two decades as a pest controller, Mr Ffrench has spent plenty of time crawling through roof cavities and navigating his way under people’s houses. “I’m not the sort of person who could sit in an office all day. I tried that once and I lasted about two weeks,” Mr Ffrench said. This year has seen a spike in the number of spiders trying to share the homes of Canberrans, who have been calling in the professionals to evict their unwanted guests. “It’s definitely been a busier year than normal this year. We’ve had that rain we haven’t had for a lot of years. We’ve finally got rain again, so you’re getting a lot more insects around,” Mr Ffrench said. Mr Ffrench, who manages pest control for Residential Reports, said he was completing about four of five jobs a day at mostly residential properties. Other pest control businesses contacted by the Sunday Canberra Times this week also reported a similarly busy period across the capital. Mr Ffrench said most of his work was annual treatments, but this year he was working on more new customer’s properties. “We’re getting a lot now where – because it’s been such a bad season for the spiders – getting a lot of phone calls from people who just want to get it sprayed, because they’ve got a lot more spiders than what they normally have,” he said. Mr Ffrench said the busy period ran from October to March, and he was booked between three and four weeks ahead. “It’s just that time of year, that’s when they’re most prevalent. It’s just flat out,” he said. While usually timid black house spiders could be found everywhere, there were other less friendly spiders too. “Redbacks, they’re pretty common at the moment. A few white-tails. And you get your normal garden, orb-weaving spiders and those sorts of things out in the garden. But they’re not really a nuisance,” Mr Ffrench said. “If you’ve got a lot of overgrown vegetation and if they haven’t had it sprayed for a few years, you get some houses where you start to spray and they just crawl out of everywhere.”
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Mick Ffrench is used to getting up close and personal with spiders and other creepy-crawlies.
After more than two decades as a pest controller, Mr Ffrench has spent plenty of time crawling through roof cavities and navigating his way under people’s houses.
“I’m not the sort of person who could sit in an office all day. I tried that once and I lasted about two weeks,” Mr Ffrench said.
This year has seen a spike in the number of spiders trying to share the homes of Canberrans, who have been calling in the professionals to evict their unwanted guests.
“It’s definitely been a busier year than normal this year. We’ve had that rain we haven’t had for a lot of years. We’ve finally got rain again, so you’re getting a lot more insects around,” Mr Ffrench said.
Mr Ffrench, who manages pest control for Residential Reports, said he was completing about four of five jobs a day at mostly residential properties.
Other pest control businesses contacted by the Sunday Canberra Times this week also reported a similarly busy period across the capital.
Mr Ffrench said most of his work was annual treatments, but this year he was working on more new customer’s properties.
“We’re getting a lot now where – because it’s been such a bad season for the spiders – getting a lot of phone calls from people who just want to get it sprayed, because they’ve got a lot more spiders than what they normally have,” he said.
Mr Ffrench said the busy period ran from October to March, and he was booked between three and four weeks ahead. “It’s just that time of year, that’s when they’re most prevalent. It’s just flat out,” he said.
Pest controller Mick Ffrench at Queanbeyan on Thursday. Picture: Dion Georgopoulos
While usually timid black house spiders could be found everywhere, there were other less friendly spiders too. “Redbacks, they’re pretty common at the moment. A few white-tails. And you get your normal garden, orb-weaving spiders and those sorts of things out in the garden. But they’re not really a nuisance,” Mr Ffrench said.
“If you’ve got a lot of overgrown vegetation and if they haven’t had it sprayed for a few years, you get some houses where you start to spray and they just crawl out of everywhere.”
