The Inter Cooperative Council's Pest Management Web Site

Welcome to:

The ICC Pest Management Web Site

(500K Adobe Acrobat Files)

Howdy! I'm Ernie the BugGuy, and no I don't mind being called that.

I am the pest management resource person for the Student Buyer's Association/ Inter-Cooperative Council at the University of Michigan. My family's company (PESTCO) has worked for the SBA/ICC since 1980, providing pest management services for the various Coops, Frats, and Sororities on the campus of UoM. We work through the SBA, which is a buying cooperative for these houses. By working though SBA, we are able to offer each house a much better price for our services--as is true for all of the vendors who work through SBA.

What do I do?

I spray each of your houses monthly with a powerful, long-lasting pesticide which is perfectly safe to you and the environment....

Oppps! I forgot--that line is NOT my gig.

Actually, I have been doing this work for you (the ICC) since I was rather young and impressionable--over 20 years now. I could always count on one of those crazy college kids at the U of M Coops to get in my shit over what I spraying in their house. The ICC folks were among the first to challenge my paradigm--or as our long time ICC friend Charlie Van Boven explains, you made me question my presuppositions. This, combined with the fact that I couldn't solve many problems, regardless of what pesticide I was spraying, forced me into my current path of low chemical management strategies.

Today I manage more than just the Co-ops at UoM. I specialize in pest and sanitation management for the food processing industry. I work in local food plants, and I consult internationally, specializing in the organic foods industry. I presented the first scientific paper on organic structural pest management at the International Federation of Organic Agricultures Movement's (IFOAM) 17th conference in Denmark in 1997. For more background on me, and to meet my family, please visit my personal home page, 4otters.com. See if you can figure out why they really call me Ernie the Bug Guy! (Hint: click on Charlotte)

Or you can go back to the main Pestco.net web site.

What do I do I really do for you?

I come through most of your houses on a regular monthly basis, and look for the common signs of pest activity.

When I visit, I look for:

People complaining about a pest problem (most obvious),

Physical evidence (visual inspection and continuous monitoring),

Conditions which may cause pest activity, so as to prevent it!

When we determine that there is a problem, I help you:

Determine the cause(s) of the problem,

Determine what practices or products can be used to correct the problem.

Finally, I help you to live without pests and pesticides by educating you.

Ernie's Axioms:

Cleanliness is next to buglessness... or something like that.

Pests are not the problem, they are the symptom of the problem.

Pesticides do not solve problems. People solve problems.
(Corollary: Think practice, not pesticides).

Pesticides are not the value of my service, information is.

...and no, I cannot spray the two legged ones!

Thanks for visiting this web site,

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.

734.769.6444

or

734.591.6565

eotter@pestco.net