At 65, Tony Petersen is starting to think about what comes next.
He isn’t quite ready to stop working. But as retirement gets closer, he’s found something he can see himself spending more time doing: helping property owners solve difficult burrowing pest problems with the BurrowRx Carbon Monoxide Sprayer.
It also happens to keep him close to family.
Tony’s son, TJ Petersen, owns TP3 Pest Management in Ashland, Nebraska. Tony purchased a BurrowRx sprayer to add another burrowing pest control option to the family business, and these days he and his nearly 15-year-old grandson, Trey Petersen, are often the ones taking it into the field.
“We just go out and do a couple of yards a week,” Tony said.
That modest start has already taken them from residential lawns with mole problems to rat burrows around a chicken coop and, most recently, ground squirrel burrows across a roughly 40-acre horse pasture.
For Tony, it’s becoming more than another piece of pest-control equipment. It may be the foundation for a retirement job that allows him to work on his own schedule, spend time with his family, and provide a specialized service for property owners who need another way to deal with burrowing pests.
Trey Petersen, Tony’s grandson, learning the work in the field with BurrowRx.
An Alternative Customers Were Asking For
The idea began, in part, with a concern Tony heard more often: customers worried about using bait around pets and the potential for secondary poisoning.
Tony saw an opportunity for TP3 Pest Management to offer another option.
When customers call TJ about moles damaging a carefully maintained lawn, Tony said, bait may be one of the first approaches considered. But some homeowners immediately start asking questions.
“How’s that going to affect my dog?”
When that happens, TJ can now tell the customer, “Hey, I’ve got another alternative for you. It’s going to be a little more expensive, but I’ve got an alternative for you.”
According to Tony, the response has been encouraging.
“Everybody goes, ‘That’s fine. That’s great.’”
That alternative is BurrowRx, which uses carbon monoxide generated by a gasoline-powered engine and delivers it directly into an underground burrow system.
Tony had considered another system that uses compressed CO₂ cylinders, but the additional equipment and cylinder management didn’t appeal to him.
“I like the fact that you just pull it like a lawnmower and let it rip,” he said.
Learning One Burrow at a Time
Tony is quick to say he’s still learning.
Different burrowing pests behave differently underground, and some are considerably more challenging than others.
Moles have provided some of his biggest lessons.
“Their drilling is not consistent,” Tony said.
BurrowRx smoke oil has helped him determine where those underground runs actually go. Sometimes, after inserting the probe into a tunnel, smoke will suddenly appear surprisingly far away.
“You see that stuff kind of rising out 25 feet away,” he said. “You go, ‘All right, we got it.’”
Other times, there may be no visible smoke at all, requiring more probing to find the active tunnel.
“It’s a lot of work,” Tony said, “but it’s still worth it.”
His grandson has become particularly good at that part of the job. Tony says the teenager is already learning how to locate mole tunnels and use the probe effectively.
That makes the BurrowRx side of TP3 Pest Management something of a three-generation family endeavor: TJ owns the company, Tony is developing the BurrowRx service, and Tony’s grandson is learning alongside him.
Taking BurrowRx to a 40-Acre Horse Pasture
The jobs are already getting bigger.
Tony recently took BurrowRx onto a horse pasture that he estimates covered about 40 acres, where ground squirrels had created extensive burrowing activity.
Rather than moving the BurrowRx by hand repeatedly, Tony adapted his setup to the size of the property. He placed BurrowRx on the back of a side-by-side vehicle, added extra heat-resistant hose, and drove across the pasture looking for active burrows.
“We just kind of went like we were mowing the field,” he said.
The setup allowed Tony and his grandson to cover a large rural property while keeping the BurrowRx unit on the vehicle.
He has also used the sprayer on another horse property where rats had established burrows near a chicken coop. The chickens were removed before treatment as a precaution, and smoke oil helped reveal several openings connected to the underground system.
Compared with moles, Tony found the rats relatively straightforward.
“From my pest control background, their burrows are not as complicated,” he said.
Helping Property Owners Understand the Problem
Tony has also learned that providing the service means explaining what BurrowRx can—and cannot—do.
Burrowing pests don’t recognize property lines.
A homeowner may successfully eliminate activity in a yard only to have new animals eventually move in from an adjacent field, wooded area, or untreated property.
Tony makes that clear to customers from the beginning.
“I can get your property here,” he tells them, but if animals continue moving in from surrounding areas, additional treatments or other pest-management measures may eventually be necessary.
That means some properties may require more than one visit.
“We’re not going to get everything,” Tony said. “I may need to come out a couple of different times.”
It’s a practical approach: address the active infestation, identify where outside pest pressure is coming from, and set realistic expectations for keeping the problem under control.
A Retirement Job With Plenty of Possibilities
Living between Omaha and Lincoln gives TP3 Pest Management access to a wide variety of properties where burrowing pests can create problems.
Tony sees potential applications at horse and livestock farms, rural properties, grain facilities, athletic fields, golf courses and residential properties.
“There’s going to be a lot of opportunity,” he said.
He isn’t planning to turn retirement into another full-time career.
“I’ll do what I can,” Tony said.
But a few BurrowRx jobs a week could be just about right: enough to stay active, work alongside his son and grandson, earn additional retirement income and help property owners with a problem that can be surprisingly difficult to solve.
At 65, Tony may be approaching retirement.
He certainly doesn’t sound like he’s planning to sit still.
Bottom Line
The bottom line: The BurrowRx Carbon Monoxide Sprayer is an effective burrowing pest control device and is a great alternative to other pest control methods.
To learn more, contact the BurrowRx representative in your area.
About BurrowRx
Designated as a pest control device by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), BurrowRx Carbon Monoxide Sprayer is designed to control burrowing and tunneling animals, including gophers, ground squirrels, moles, rats, and prairie dogs. BurrowRx Carbon Monoxide Sprayer uses a smoke oil tracer to show where the carbon monoxide is going in the tunnels. As the carbon monoxide enters the burrow system, the rodent breathes it replacing oxygen in its blood and causing the organs to stop working. The product is unlikely to harm any non-target species because once it completely dissipates, the carbon monoxide is no longer a risk to anything entering the burrow system.
For more information about the solution for burrowing pests, visit BurrowRx at www.BurrrowRx.com or call (619) 442-8686. Also, visit the BurrowRx channel on YouTube.