Publishing since 1992
Highlights from Pest Review
It has been said that diamonds are a girl’s best friend…but for Maureen Garrard, it’s something else! Maureen’s ‘diamond’ and best friend is her husband, Chris, with whom she recently celebrated a 60th diamond wedding anniversary.
Chris and Maureen are pleased to see a third-generation member of the Garrard clan working in the family business, as it celebrates 40 years of operation in 2025.
The Garrards were surrounded by family and friends to celebrate the milestone.
Several hundred cars – none worth more than $1,500 – make their way annually through outback Australia, parts often unknown.
Enter two middle-aged South Australian women, each driving while the other navigates.
Welcome to the world of Leanne Beyer, who with her husband, Anthony, conducts Murray Pest Control at Jamestown, some 220km from Adelaide, en route to the Flinders Ranges.
Leanne and her ‘partner in crime,’ Margie Simpson, have competed in the past four Shitbox Rallies, and are warming for their fifth, with each
Rally having been at the wheel of Marlea – originally called Stumpy – with whom the pair won the Shitbox Rally Team Theme for the Spring Rally last year.
Go to pg 28 to read the entire article.
Andy Richards, the owner-operator of Echidna Termite and Pest Solutions in Adelaide is, by anyone’s standards, busy.
“Richo” coaches and plays in the SA Collegiate league soccer competition, as well as competing in trail running events in the off-season.
If that isn’t enough, on the weekends and “free” time, he is often found walking on the beach or the bush trails with his wife Taresa, and their dog, Cuba.
Go to pg6 to read the entire article.
When Adelaide’s Scott Lamb started with Garrards, Queen Elizabeth II was our monarch, eggs cost 87 cents a dozen and the national population was 17.66 million people.
Meat Loaf had the number one single, “I’d Do Anything For Love” in 1993, but how things have changed!
Meat Loaf has since passed, Australia is now home to 25.69 million people, or at least according to the 2021 census, and Scott Lamb is still going strong.
Go to pg5 to read the entire article.
It was an early start – Adelaide, Mildura and Melbourne in March, then to New Zealand in May with five Garrards Roadshows, from Queenstown to Auckland.
Australian Roadshows started in Albury in late May and worked through New South Wales and Queensland to Cairns, with Roadshows every second week, though to mid-July.
A final trip to the west, Bunbury and Perth, pulled the curtain down for 2023.
Go to P11 for the full review.
They breed them tough in the tropics, or so it would seem.
Audy Geiszler, of Audy Geiszler Pest Control in Bowen, services far and wide: Airlie Beach, Emerald, Mackay, Sarina and Twonsville and the Whitsundays.
It was a case of Audy almost going missing when he heard hissing, when he recently found brown tree snakes using a rodent bait box for a cosy morning snooze.
Go to P40 for more pictures
What appears, on the surface at least, to be a massive career change has led to pest management work in far-flung areas of South Australia for Chris Coote
Chris and his wife Amanda own-and-operate Flyman SA Pest & Termite Management – a far cry from his former 27-year career in newspapers, including as managing editor of the ‘Port Lincoln Times.’
It isn’t too far though from Chris’ time in the building industry before his media stint.
Port Lincoln is the only place in Australia to cage dive with great white sharks, and for nine months after he left the ‘Times,’ Chris worked at Calypso Star Charters, the dominant shark cage diving company, as Office Manager.
Go to P8 to read the entire article
Prominent New Zealand pest control services professional, Gary Clark, doesn’t need to be told twice to on his skates in pursuit of pesky pests
After all, Gary is one of New Zealand’s best-known speed skaters, who, with his partner Krystine Davies, has taken all before them in that particular field.
A member of the Pest Management Association of New Zealand, Gary conducts the Wanganui-based operation GARYZ Services Limited, which is now in its 26th year of operation.
With a moderate, temperate climate, Wanganui is growing slowly, as far as population is concerned, and skites a strong industry base as well as a fertile, prosperous farming hinterland and a river as a beating heart.
Go to P34 to read the entire article
Many businesses are family affairs and Brisbane’s Checkmate Pest Control is no different.
The on-ground activities are the province of Luke Tysoe, whose wife, Sue-Ann, is responsible for the seemingly thousand-and-one things to do with the administration and marketing of the business.
It works so well for the husband-and-wife team that Checkmate was only last June named Australian Pest Manager of the Year in the Micro Business category, with the award sponsored at the AEPMA Function by BASF.
Luke, a veteran of 22 years in the pest control industry, started Checkmate in 2014, with the full support of Sue-Ann
Go to P21 to read the entire article.
Captain James Cook beached his ship, the Endeavour, for repairs in 1770 at a place we now know as Cooktown, named in his honour, in North Queensland.
Cooktown is rich in biodiversity, being close to three major ecocentres, with a large proportion of 3000 plant species more than 500 terrestrial vertebrates, with many being rare and unusual species.
Oh, did we mention snakes?
The popular tourist destination with a tropical climate which plays host to numerous heritage-listed sites, is crawling with slippery types, such as:-
• Front-fanged venomous
• Non-venomous
• Rear-fanged venomous
• Non-venomous constrictors
• File snakes
• Blind snakes
• Legless lizards
That’s where Jim Symes is in his element!
Go to pg 29 to read the entire article.