Pests Don’t Have to be Scary

illustration showing giant bed bug chasing people

In 2012 – 2013 we were asked for help to diagnose an issue for someone who was extremely phobic of insects, something which was the complete opposite to our normal world. This collaboration resulted in a complete redesign of our company website on the understanding that “people are stressed and anxious enough about bedbugs, they don’t need to be frightened senseless by the website of the company they need help from”.

This led to a collaboration with our resident artist at Scribble & Co. to produce a full set of pest species in cartoon format to allow sensible education without scare tactics. As a result www.PestsDontHaveToBeScary.com was born. The project allows free access to the images for public education programs and a low cost license to pest control companies.

‍‍‍Commercial Users

The following companies are licensed to use this graphic set and as such are helping to support and spread the understanding that “pests don’t have to be scary.” As such these companies are inclined to market their services based on their skills and understanding rather than frightening people into calling them. With time we hope that this advanced approach to customer service will spread and such ethical businesses will be available locally to everyone:

Bed Bugs Limited – London UK

To recommend your local PCO or to request an update once someone local to you starts using this program please use the contact form at the bottom of this page.

Public Education Programs

We are happy to provide – free of charge – high resolution images to any academic or public health / education group and only request that the publications make mention of www.PestsDontHaveToBeScary.com to help expand the collection of images. The following programs have gained access to the library for public education purposes:

Bed Bug Beware – Public information bedbug portal

To request free access to the image library please email us from your institutional associated email address with details of your existing programs or examples of your work and we will email you back as soon as we can.

Example Images

The image collection currently covers 30 images and 25 different pests; including common pests such as mice and rats, but also exotic pests like snakes and carpet beetles. New images are added as they are requested from both academic partners and commercial subscribers; making this a self funding social enterprise.

Contact

To contact us to discuss the use of these images please select the option below to make sure that the message is filtered through to the correct people.

Commercial use – Please use our Contact Us Page.

Academic / Educational use – Please use our Contact Us Page.

Online Survey

Please take a few minutes to complete our online survey about this project so we can illustrate how people feel about this approach to pest education.

Feedback

Please let us know your feedback and comments about this project so we can share them online and illustrate to the industry that consumers are looking for higher quality education and information when selecting their pest control services. All information provided is treated in the strictest of confidences and no personal information is passed on to any third parties.

Can you recommend a company or project that would benefit from using these images?

Do you have any suggestions or recommendation on improvements to this project?

This project was made possible by a MoonPie donation from Ab’s, aka My special #1 fan.