100 years of service: our technicians’ most memorable finds

From inside a coffee machine to the top of a hotel, no space is truly safe from a determined pest. You may have heard that we’re celebrating our 100-year anniversary here at Rentokil, and as part of our celebrations, we wanted to ask our front-line team of pest control technicians the weird and wonderful places they’ve discovered pests. Join us as we explore their stories from around the world.

Pests in strange places

We often think of pests as creatures of habit, confined to predictable behaviours and environments. But as our technicians around the world can attest, they have a tendency to turn up in the most astonishing and unlikely places.

Take rodents, for instance, some of the most audacious intruders. Their search for food and shelter drives them into the heart of our daily routines, sometimes hitting very close to home — one technician even found a rat in his own laundry basket. Hear him tell the story in his own words in the video below.

A few of our other technicians, such as Mayowa Onadipe from Nigeria, have mentioned finding these pesky pests hiding inside AC units, while Colin Beirne in Ireland even discovered a rodent in a car's glovebox. And it definitely was not the morning brew Ricardo Félix in Portugal was after when he found a rat in a coffee machine! Their ability to travel is just as impressive; a mouse stashed itself away in a holidaymaker’s bag and was only discovered when they unpacked on the 5th floor of a hotel.

Sometimes, the situation is far more dramatic, as Tamir Luvaton in Israel discovered when four rats suddenly fell from the ceiling, and he was forced to act fast, catching the rats with his hands and a whole range of traps.

While rodents are certainly one of the most common pests our experts deal with worldwide, our technicians had just as many tales to tell about intruding insects. In one case, Bilal Al Ayyal from Lebanon discovered an entire ant den thriving completely unnoticed underneath a client's mattress. Can you imagine that? Over in the US, it wasn't ants that were causing our customers' discomfort, but bed bugs. Angela Miller found that a nurse's shoe had become a mobile home for a community of them.

Imagine a bride trying to find the dress of her dreams, only to find an infestation of termites has made it into the dressing room first! It wasn't somewhere you'd imagine finding pests, but our technicians sure have to expect the unexpected. For Arvind Patel in Kuwait, that meant a full-blown cockroach infestation in a kitchen microwave. And over in Norway, Ole Kjartan Larsen recalls being called out for a job only to discover the biggest spider he’s ever seen, which had been brought in with some equipment from the United States.

These stories remind us that no matter the country or continent, pests will consistently find new and surprising places to call home.

The most challenging pest situations

Certain pest situations truly stand apart in a technician's career — the ones that test their skills, knowledge and determination. We took the opportunity to ask our experts what some of those most challenging pest situations were and how they overcame them. And there were some interesting answers.

In the US, there were swarms of fruit flies baffling our team of technicians who were searching high and low to find out where they were coming from. The mystery was only solved when they took apart a dishwasher and found thousands of eggs hidden inside. Similarly, an automobile factory had spiders appearing in new vehicles, and it took a lengthy investigation to realise the cause was simple: cutting the grass outside was driving the spiders indoors and onto the production line. Hear the full story of this surprising discovery directly from Wanderson Do Nascimento in the video above.

A century of service

Our history is rich with stories of pests showing up in the strangest places, challenging and surprising the experts, but what do all these stories have in common? The unwavering dedication of our expert technicians. For 100 years, they have been the heart of Rentokil, applying scientific knowledge, practical ingenuity and often real courage to solve pest problems in the most unexpected places. They solve the mysteries of hidden infestations and bring peace of mind to our customers, resolving the immediate issue while preventing it from happening again.

Their experiences, gathered from every corner of the globe, not only define our history but also fuel our future innovation in pest control. Join us in celebrating a century of expertise led by our incredible team here.