Roaches and rats have plagued countless numbers of homes and businesses. Residential pest control is important for keeping a stress-free environment in your home. Imagine a business where it is not just a stress-free environment on the line, but your reputation. Commercial pest control is equally important, or even more so, for keeping a stress-free, functional, professional, and reputable environment for your workplace.
Whether you work in an office, professional building, doctor’s office or even a police precinct – pests do not have a place inside and when they do, they can wreak havoc. We see an excellent and comical example of what can go wrong if your business does not hire the right commercial pest control company to help them maintain proper control and prevention of pests in NBC’s Brooklyn 99.
In the beloved series Brooklyn 99, the 99th precinct is shown to be plagued with rodents in several different episodes. Today, we will examine what happens, why it happened, and what went wrong because of pests in a police department in the 99th precinct in Season 4’s Episode 13 The Audit.
Part of the reason high quality commercial pest control is so valuable to businesses is there are plenty of things businesses must be worried about, and pests should not be one of them. With rats running around their office, Captain Holt cannot maintain proper control of his precinct. The entire team is thrown off their game and everyone hides and freaks out. Rosa Diaz, Charles Boyle, Captain Holt, Terry Jeffords, and Jake Peralta end up hiding in a copier room together to discuss their commercial pest control issues.
None of them know what to do and Rosa brings up that the 15th precinct is having issues with roaches:
Peralta: “So What? We don’t have roaches. Our rats ate all of them.”
Rosa: “That’s the problem. We have rats.”
Peralta: “Right, right, right, right, that’s worse.”
Boyle: “Oh, God, they’re going to shut this precinct down and separate me and Jake.
Our friendship is over.”
While Terry is trying to conquer a finicky copier and printer, Boyle devises an ingenious plan to stop the rats. This plan only came about because Holt asks the group what they should do about the rats, the second mistake the 99th precinct makes in the episode.
Companies should not do what Holt did. The first mistake Holt made was asking his team for pest control advice in a serious commercial pest control situation. The second mistake he made was not having an experienced commercial pest control company providing quality monthly service like Eco-Safe Pest Control to begin with. If the 15th and 99th precincts had a good quality company that provided regular pest control service, this episode would not exist.
Back to Boyle’s ingenious plan: He mentions something Eco-Safe uses in their arsenal – predator urine which can be found in the EcoSafe® Predator Stick. Boyle excitedly tells the group that he has recently come into possession of a lot of wolf urine which creates a scent impression to the rats that there are predators nearby.
However, Boyle did not obtain the wolf urine for the rat problem. He bought it to put it on his son’s shoes to try and ward off bullies. Boyle not only discovered that wolf urine does not work on bullies, but it made matters worse for his son because he was then coined the name “Pee Boy.” Parents: please never do this. Not only will the scent be next to impossible to remove, it should never be used on humans. Boyle knows it did not work for his son, “but wolf urine definitely scares off rats. We can use it to herd them towards the traps.” What could go wrong?
Intrigued, Captain Holt allows Boyle to proceed with his plan. When he checks on the progress of the rat elimination program, Rosa unhappily and annoyingly announces that there has been zero progress. Rat traps are extremely difficult to properly bait and place. Several things can go wrong if you do not place or bait them correctly. For example, it may not kill a rat in the proper way, a rat may just steal the bait, a rat will never come near the trap, rats will learn to stay away from the traps, and many more scenarios. Rats are masters of kinesthetics and highly intelligent, so it is never as simple as buying a trap and placing bait. Making matters worse for the 9-9, Rosa also had to deal with her team member Scully who kept eating the peanut butter out of all of the traps after they baited them (Scully and Hitchcock love their food which causes another rat issue which we will discuss later). Rosa is correct about one thing, using peanut butter in the traps, especially crunchy peanut butter, can be an excellent choice; however, it is not the only nor always the best option.
Rosa continues with Boyle’s idea of flushing out the rats of the walls to get them to go to the traps they did set. This here is the moment where everything goes from bad to worse…
Boyle puts his black cat costume on and volunteers to go into the drop ceiling after rubbing wolf urine all over himself. Boyle was determined to go up in the ceiling and flush the rats out into the room where they set their traps. There are two important things to take note of:
- If your current commercial pest control is not checking your drop ceilings at each service, you need to hire one that will, like Eco-Safe. If they are not checking them constantly, a small problem can easily snowball into a large one.
- When placing traps, it is not a good idea to place them where there is not rodent activity. They need to be placed securely and strategically in the proper areas.
Rosa later informs Captain Holt that they had to switch the room where they placed the traps (mistake number three). Making matters worse, poor Boyle ended up getting stuck in the ceiling because his cat costume’s tail became knotted around a sprinkler. Captain Holt comes to help, and Boyle suggests to Holt that he could just could pull the tail very hard; however, he cannot do that because it could break the pipe and cause a flood.
Boyle: “Sir, I really think I can pull it.”
Holt: “No, that might break the pipe. The last thing we need is a flood.”
Boyle: “That’s okay. I’m sure you’ll have me down in no time.”
Holt: “Incorrect. That would make a hole in the ceiling. You’re there till Monday.
We’ll bring you some food in a bucket.”
Boyle tries to plead, but Holt closes the vent Boyle was speaking through and tells his team Boyle will be fine and not to worry. After more time passes, Rosa reports to her Captain with the news that they just heard the traps go off. She asks if he would like to look at the traps with them. He does. Rosa also let Holt know Boyle is doing fine because he quickly submits to any environment he is put in – poor Boyle. Captain Holt, Terry, and Rosa walk into the evidence room only to see activated traps with no rats and tons of blood all of the floor. Terry freaks out even more claiming it is a horror scene and Rosa determines that the rats must have chewed their own legs off. Holt soon realizes that the rats ate the cocaine being held as evidence.
Terry: “They know no fear or pain. And look! They’re back in the walls.”
Remember, Boyle is still stuck in the ceiling in his cat costume covered with wolf urine. Moments later the scene pans back to the ceiling where you can hear Boyle screaming:
Boyle: “Ah! The rats chewed through the sprinkler pipe.”
Rosa: “They’re coked up. Get out of here.”
Boyle: “They think I’m a cat!”
Boyle ends up falling through the ceiling, making a hole and breaking the copier Terry spent all day fixing. The rats have bitten and scratched Boyle and continued to attack Boyle even after falling out of the ceiling. Something important to know is to never corner a rodent, or any animal really. If they are scared and feel threatened, they can attack. It can be very dangerous.
After Boyle gets cleaned up, Rosa is furious.
Rosa: “This is on you, Boyle. You couldn’t just suck it up and let a few dozen
crazed rats eat you until their hearts exploded?”
Terry: “Don’t blame Boyle. The rats only got into the cocaine because you put
the traps in the evidence room.”
Rosa: “We were going to use the break room, but Gina was in there, and she got
hit by a damn bus, so nobody can say no to her.”
While we are happy the 99th precinct did not employ a high-quality commercial pest control company because this episode made for great entertainment, not having the right company for your restaurant, office, professional building, business or police department is an extremely costly mistake. If you need a commercial pest control company or desire higher quality service and results, Eco-Safe Pest Control can help you.
Would you rather have rats or roaches? With Eco-Safe® on your side, you do not have to worry about either.