Matthew and Henry Moers arrived to Dunkin’ Donuts in a Toyota Camry that had a huge chunk of its bumper missing. “You can blame Albany for that,” Henry said, referencing his old college town notorious for its hard-partying and sometimes reckless student body. The brothers were wearing nearly identical outfits—black company shirt, khaki shorts, and sneakers. That’s probably fitting—turns out they’re part of a group of triplets.
“We’ve lived in Rockaway our whole lives,” Matthew said, adding that they grew up on Beach 149th Street. Always hungry for activity, when the brothers were 14 years old they received their working papers and immediately went to work in an atypical but important business—pest control. “Our uncle Mike [Krohn] owns Creepy Critters, an exterminating business in Broad Channel,” Henry said. “He’d bring us on jobs when we were younger than that even but we didn’t start working until then.” Throughout high school and college, the brothers consistently worked in the business, sometimes with their uncle and sometimes freelancing for larger companies.
Matthew and Henry exhibited foresight not often seen in people their age. The 22-year-olds recently graduated college (Matthew from Brooklyn College, Henry from SUNY Albany) and had long since prepared to open their own pest control business. “This was the plan from the start for us,” Matthew explained. “We’ve been working in pest control for over five years and many of the people we’ve worked for and with have told ‘You guys know what you’re doing, you need to open up your own business.’” Thus, EZ-Pest Exterminating was born. The business is licensed and insured, and the brothers stated that on Wednesday September 2, they will be taking their tests to get licensed for commercial food business and structural termite work “We know those books back to front,” Henry assured.
Pest control is certainly not a viable option for everyone—it is often backbreaking physical work, featuring long travel hours and understandably questionable environments. The brothers unanimously agreed that hoarders produce the worst houses—“We had to enter one apartment completely sideways,” Matthew said. But the Moers said that they not only enjoy what they do but crave the human connection they get with their customers. “We look at the job as helping people, not killing bugs,” Henry said. “We’ve been in houses where little kids are living with roaches and have been their whole lives. When we come in and finally get rid of them, they love us, and it’s a great feeling.” Matthew agreed, adding “The business is really about interacting with people. Fifty percent is knowing the business and 50 percent is dealing with the customers.”
Their vision for EZ-Pest is indeed based on customer satisfaction. “We haven’t had a customer whom we lost touch with,” Matthew said. “We have people call us at 1:00 a.m. or 2:00 a.m. and we try our best to make it to them as soon as possible.” As Rockaway natives, the Moers want to serve their community in a friendly, fair manner—their slogan is “Dependable work, affordable pricing.”
“The big companies like Termines charge so much money and they simply aren’t friendly,” Henry said. “They usually just send some guy who makes $15 an hour and doesn’t care about the customer. We don’t want that for our customers.”
“We want to build relationships with people,” Matthew continued. “I want customers who I’ll be able to talk to when I see them at my cousin’s CYO game. And we’ll have the best prices in the business for Rockaway residents.”
EZ-Pest hopes to have an official storefront and company within the next six months, but for now they are working based on word of mouth. They also plan to bring on more employees as the business grows. “We’ll always stand behind our work,” Matthew said. “And we’ll stay until the job is done.”
Source: http://rockawaytimes.com/2015/09/03/e-z-does-it-local-brothers-starting-pest-control-business/
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