Owen Animal Control is owned and operated by Randy Owen and Steve Edgar.  Randy Owen grew up in a sportsman's family and is an active participant in wildlife habitat restoration and conservation. Randy, also the owner of Owen Tree Service, is focused on the administration of Owen Animal Control.

Steve Edgar grew up in an ethical hunting and trapping family. He spends a great deal of his time outdoors, perfecting his trapping and animal behavior skills.  Because of Steve's ability to "think like a critter" and understand their habits, he is considered and expert in the craft of humanely capturing problem animals, birds and bats.  Steve is focused on the operations, production and customer service aspects of the business.
 
Emergency Call to Owen Animal Control

A call comes into our company at 3:00 am. The lady on the other end of the phone is frantic. She leaves a voice mail saying “Please call me, I need your help, I have a large animal in my attic, I was awakened by loud scratching sounds and it’s above my bed”. I did not wake up in time to answer the phone. The voice mail alert rings through.  I returned the call quickly; she answered and was surprised that I called back so quickly at this early hour. She explained what the noise sounded like, and I told her she might have a raccoon or squirrel nesting in the attic, as it's that time of year for their young to be born. I explained we could come out right away, but it would be an emergency call and would cost more than our normal service call fee. She said the noise had stopped and was relieved to know it was not trying to get into her living space, but she wanted us there first thing in the morning. I said we could have a service technician at her house at 8:00 am. After explaining what the possible problem was, she told me she felt comfortable  and would wait until morning.

The next morning I scheduled the routes for new jobs and for picking up captured nuisance wildlife caught during the night. (I was going to Rochester Hills anyway to look at a commercial building, where it was reported that there were birds roosting/ nesting in the roof overhang above the sidewalk entrance-way, and the bird droppings were fouling the sidewalk and windows.) I arrived at 9:00 a.m. and Mrs. Smith met me in her front yard. She said the noise in the attic started again just before daylight. I did a thorough inspection of the outside of the house, and found no large entry locations that any wildlife such as a raccoon, squirrel or opossum could fit through. But I did find a location that appeared likely that bats were entering the house. I also found bat guano on the front porch; the bats must have been using the porch overhang for a protected resting location during their nightly feeding and resting periods.  I asked Mrs. Smith many questions about her home, and the wildlife in and around her property, to get a thorough picture of the possible nuisance animal control problems. Next, as I was going to enter the attic, I needed to get my step ladder. We come fully prepared - all of our service vehicles are outfitted with a full array of tools and repair supplies.

As soon as I opened the entry way I could smell bat guano. Guano has a very distinct odor, something we learned in our original “Bat Training Workshop”. That was 4 days of intense training starting in the classroom and concluding with an actual home exclusion. Into the attic I went, and after 20 minutes of inspecting the attic, I found a colony of bats. Mrs. Smith was waiting at the bottom of the ladder to hear my report. It was still early enough in the spring to perform the exclusion, as the female bats had not yet had their young. I proposed to Mrs. Smith to exclude the bats with netting and bat cones, seal up all the cracks, crevices, entry and exit locations (home weatherization sealing), then clean-up and dispose of the contaminated insulation and reinstall T.A.P. natural fiber pest control insulation. Mrs. Smith will receive an IRS tax credit from the new government stimulus tax credit package.

I consider my job a real adventure, as we never know what type of wildlife problems we are going to encounter. Most days, our clients make me and my team feel like real heroes.  Our goal is to treat our customers like guests in our own homes and perform the service as we would expect for ourselves.  We aim to deliver 100% customer satisfaction.

A full understanding of the habits of nuisance animals and their ability to get into buildings and dwellings, the quality and workmanship of our craftsmen doing repairs, and a 3 year guarantee on our work, puts our customer's mind at ease.

Steve Edgar
Principal & Vice President
Owen Animal Control Inc