S2EP81-David Dorfman-Home Defense 101: Keeping Your Space Rodent-Free and Family-Friendly!

Herb: 00:00:19

I now have the pleasure of introducing David Dorfman.

David is the co founder of Rodent Stop, a Southern California rodent control company built on honest inspections, scent elimination and structural exclusion. Not poison.

After more than two decades and thousands of successful treatments, David developed the Rodent Stop Home Defense Kit, a behavioral disruption and exclusion system that, that gives homeowners across the country access to some professional grade rodent control strategies used in the field. Thank you, David. It is a pleasure to have you here today. Reading that bio is a little different than the kind of bios that we normally have here.

So I am really looking forward to talking to you and to seeing how all of this develops.

David Dorfman: 00:01:03

Amazing. Thanks for having me.

Kristina: 00:01:05

Yeah, and like Herb was saying, it's a little bit different bio, but you know, we want to make sure that our families are safe and that's why this show was super important to me after I talked with David on our pre chat because we try to screen all of our, all of our guests and make sure that they're a good fit for you, the audience. We found out that, you know what, there's dangers hidden that a lot of the families don't recognize or don't know about.

So that's what we really want to make sure that we're getting to today as well as a way to fix all of those dangers or at least reduce those dangers. So again, David, thank you for being here. Thank you. And of course our first question is why this line of work? Why maybe this passion?

Why the development of the kit?

Herb: 00:01:45

What, how did you get into rodents?

Kristina: 00:01:47

Yeah, how to get started?

David Dorfman: 00:01:50

Yeah, I'd love to.

So about 20 years ago, we, me and my dad were in the air quality industry, but not your regular air quality where we check for molding, we're checking for a lot of different types of, you know, airborne pollutants and things like that that are actually commonly making people sick.

I mean, you know, from filter changes, you know that people change once a year instead of every 30 days to just, you know, really, really bad way of, of doing maintenance on the house, which causes problems, little problems that easily gets you to the doctor and puts you on some allergy medication. So yeah, that's where we started a long time ago.

And then after some time we realized that a lot of the calls, a lot of what we find were rodent related rodents and rodent droppings in the attic, ripped air ducts that rats kept getting into and urinating and pooping and people are just turning on the air or the, or the heater and it blows into this one room where everybody's getting sick in that room. And you know, we, we decided after, you know, because we're still, we're doing cleanups and removing all this stuff, even through the air quality.

But then we started, we're just getting a ton of calls. So my dad invented this amazing natural organic scent elimination for rodents.

Because we realized that there's too many rodents too, is just we're not going to win the war against rats and killing them is really not, not going to be a solution. So we developed something else. My dad invented this scent elimination spray for rodents which is completely organic.

Again, it's just to kill their scent, it's not to kill them. And so what happens, most people don't understand why they set traps and more rats are coming.

It's because that urine scent up in the attic and depending how much of it is there, is going to attract rats for a three to a five mile radius. That's why when they say if you catch a live rat in a, in a live trap, you have to take them five miles away so they don't find their way back.

And so, you know, getting rid of their scent is number one, number one thing in the, in our treatment. And that's the thing. Even if somebody was to get a hold of it, it's it. This descent elimination formula is amazing.

But you still have to apply the other two main factors, which is sealing entry points and then of course trapping whatever's left behind. You combine those three together, it's amazing. So how we got to it, again, we were getting a lot of calls for road and stuff. For road and stuff.

And we, you know, we start with this treatment which was involved construction science, biology was scent elimination. And of course the most minimal thing, which is trapping whatever is left behind, which is regular trapping.

Herb: 00:04:51

We had kids and dogs, so the dogs would chase the rats and keep them away, we thought. And then suddenly we had a lot more.

We did start killing them, but at the same time it's like we didn't want to use poisons because we had kids and dogs, dogs. And so wow, kind of lost the question there. But yeah, necessarily heard of, of like what you're talking about scent elimination.

So what is it that, that, how does that actually work? How is that different or how is that more effective than actually trapping and killing them?

David Dorfman: 00:05:30

Because, well again, trapping and killing should be a very, very short process after you seal entry points and get rid of their scent. So again, the trapping is just anything left behind.

But ideally descent elimination Basically the formula messes with their trails, with their trails, with their memory. It affects. It just makes them uncomfortable and so they go away. And that's the thing, you know. And in the home defense kit, we have the process.

It's basically three steps really.

But the last step, which is for trapping, you could also avoid by throwing like the rope, the scent elimination spheres up in the attic or in the crawl space, waiting 24 to 72 hours, and then you just seal the holes. You don't even need to set the traps because there's really nothing left behind.

Kristina: 00:06:25

One of the things that happened with us is that, you know, we, we weren't high on the pest maintenance, right. We like, no, I don't want those chemicals around, things like that. I don't want the bug sprays, all that kind of stuff. But all of our neighbors did.

So then guess what happened? Everything was kind of sent our direction. So talk about that a little bit. Right?

What happens, you know, is it almost always like that whenever the neighbors are doing A, B and C, you end up with kind of the problem or talk about that a little bit in your experience.

David Dorfman: 00:06:54

Sure. So first of all, let's just go back a minute with talking about your dogs.

Kristina: 00:06:59

Yeah.

David Dorfman: 00:07:00

So my number one clients, literally 99% of my clientele have dogs. Okay. Why is that? Because dogs attract rats. And how so? Their urine is almost identical.

People don't really realize how much in common dogs and rats actually have.

There is at least 15 very close, very close connection from being mammals to being born pink, to have growing fur, to just so many things and their memory in their scent. So their urine is very, very similar.

And it seems like, okay, that the dogs are urinating in the yard and of course, pooping, the rats get attracted to the urine and then they feed up the dog poop for a while. Then they're looking for the source, which is a dog food. So they make it to the house into different areas, and they're looking for the food itself.

Now because. Because rats feed off the dog poop, I always recommend to homo to pet owners to pick up after your dog.

Now everybody's got their gardener doing it once a week, but that's not enough. It needs to be done every single day. Clean it up. Not just from rats. It's. It brings flies, maggots, just a lot of things. It's not good.

So especially if you have little babies and stuff that might be crawling around the yard, that's where you want to protect them. So that being said, as far as the the dogs attracting the. The rats is very powerful. And that's the thing. They attract rats, not mice, rats.

And so the rats are the biggest problem. They. They're the ones causing all the problems. You know, they chew through metal, plastic, concrete, wood, anything, really, to try to get in there.

Now, that's why the key is to get rid of their scent. Because you get rid of their scent, they have nothing to come for. They. They don't get aggressive and bite through stuff that you've tried to fix.

They're just gone. There's nothing for them there. And so everything is just about scent. It's all about that.

Now, some of the homes that have been dealing with rats for 4, 5, 6, 10, 20 years, those guys, they need to do a cleanup in order to get rid of their scent. The urine saturated into the insulation, into the wood. It's got to you. You've got to have a cleanup to successfully solve the problem.

Otherwise, you know, it's just going to keep going and keep going, and before you know, you're just going to have one big nest in your attic.

Herb: 00:09:31

Yeah. So I was going to ask if this worked for gophers, but you said it didn't work for mice, so I doubt it's the. It's going to be the same for gophers.

David Dorfman: 00:09:38

No, no, actually, my. My. My home defense kit works for all rodents. I don't think gopher, because gophers go underneath and stuff. But rats and mice, all. All rats.

There's the, you know, ro. There is Noreen Jet. There's a lot of different rats. So all rats, all mice, squirrels, usually. No problem.

Because again, it's not that it doesn't work. Our treatment is based on ceiling entry points, first of all. Right.

That's like, very important because every rodent issue starts the same way with a hole. Exactly. And so you've got to close these holes.

The home defense kit was invented, again, for older people, for people who are having a hard time with tools. So it was made to be able to seal your openings very, very easily. Like if you have a. If you're missing a vent cover. A vent. Right. An air vent.

It's missing or it's broken. The home defense could come with these. These stickable vents. You just stick them on. They will never come off. They will never come off.

So you don't need tools. You don't need anything. We also have.

Kristina: 00:10:50

One of the things that we were really excited about when we talked about the pre show was like. Yeah, because, you know, a lot of homeowners aren't really do it yourself kind of people. Right.

They don't want to go get the wire and cut the wire and hook the wire and all that kind of stuff. And the way you were describing how they don't need any extra tools. Right. And it's not a big expense to go get something.

We also talked just a minute about, you know, if you have somebody else come and do it.

Like, we had three vents that need to be fixed in our house, and the local handyman wanted to charge us $600 to cut three pieces of wire and hook three pieces of wire over our vent. It was like, oh, my goodness.

David Dorfman: 00:11:29

I just went and did it.

Kristina: 00:11:30

Yeah. Finally.

David Dorfman: 00:11:32

Where are you guys?

Kristina: 00:11:33

We were in Oregon.

David Dorfman: 00:11:34

Oregon. Okay.

Herb: 00:11:35

Yeah. So we were up in Hillsborough, which is city that's a lot different now. We live out in the middle of nowhere in the woods. And so the ceiling up of.

We have lots of outbuildings, ground, the garage in the shed. And that is more of a problem because it's like you're not there all the time. It's different. You can't like hear them coming. How does it work?

How does your stuff work for outbuildings when you can't necessarily really plug up the holes or keep them away like that?

David Dorfman: 00:12:06

So, okay, so first of all, Rodentstop, our company here in California that deals with rats and mice, our treatment is. Is always done the same way. And it's always. It's always. Because their behavior is identical.

Our treatment is always done the same way, and we always use the same stuff. We check for the same openings. But this is the thing. In the end of the day, all. All the little. I'm sorry, we're even now on the last of question.

I'm sorry, remind me, where was I?

Herb: 00:12:36

Outbuildings.

David Dorfman: 00:12:37

Yes. Yes. So our treatment is usually focuses on interior. Like we're not gonna. Because we have a lifetime guarantee on every one of our treatments.

So you have a problem, we do the treatment for you, you have a lifetime warranty, call me in 10 years. We'll come out, no problem. But in the end of the day, in the end of the day, there is.

There's so many different openings and so many different things. And we actually don't. Don't guarantee outside issues, because outside issue is going to be a very, very hard thing to. To. To guarantee.

Kristina: 00:13:10

Yeah.

David Dorfman: 00:13:10

You know, there's millions of rats running around. What am I gonna do? You see a rat, you call me. No, no. So again, we don't do outside issues, but this is the Thing.

If you see rodents regularly outside, very close to your home, it's very well because you have rats in your attic or in your crawl space. And if you're seeing them during the day, they're just doing their thing. Since they're nocturnal, they're going to be back at night.

So, you know, in order to, to protect themselves from other predators and things like that and just get back to their home, this is their home now. They're not going anywhere unless they're killed or evicted. And that's what we choose to do, is to evict them.

Evict them and then stop new rodents from coming back.

So to answer your question, we have a lot of different material in this kit to really accommodate a lot of different things from sheds to garage doors to, you know, ceiling gaps behind your sink, under your sink, behind appliances. Like, we don't, we don't use foam or any of that messy stuff.

We have like this amazing putty that you can literally mess with it with, with no hand, with no gloves, it doesn't smell. You plug up the gap or a hole, it dries up beautifully and you don't have to worry about it again.

And if you've been dealing with a rat problem for, let's say over six months and you have a pretty big problem, most likely these rodents are going to be super aggressive. So anything you do, they're going to want to chew through.

So like we have an instruction in the booklet where you could literally put some, some metal items in it and then that would give extra protection.

Kristina: 00:14:49

That is like non toxic, right? So as it dries and stuff, it's not going to hurt the family, it's not going to hurt the dogs, whatever, right?

David Dorfman: 00:14:55

My home defense, my, my treatment here in California is completely pet safe, but this home defense kit is, is absolutely. There's literally nothing there to harm. Nothing. Everything is safe for humans, pets, children, the environment. It's really amazing.

Kristina: 00:15:13

One of the things that we think about lots of times is that, oh, we'll just poison the rats and then they'll just crawl off and die. Why is that a big issue?

David Dorfman: 00:15:23

Oh, I mean, look, again, first of all, we're going back to killing them, which is not a solution, right? 1, 2.

If you have dogs, which most likely you do, if you have a rat problem, if you, if a rat eats poison and dies in the yard, your dog is gonna go and play with it, put it in her mouth, whatever, whatever. And then that's how the dog gets poisoned. Let's say we got lucky and the dog didn't catch it, and the rat happened to die in your wall.

Now you have a dead rodent carcass problem in your wall. So after the flies, the smell, the maggot, guess what? You still have a dead carcass. And nobody wants a cemetery in their home.

Kristina: 00:16:02

No, not really.

Herb: 00:16:03

Yeah, I've had to crawl under my house before. I found dead animals under there that.

Kristina: 00:16:09

We didn't think were there.

Herb: 00:16:10

That's not, that's not.

David Dorfman: 00:16:11

Yeah, it's not, it's not good. You gotta get it out. Gotta get it out. Yeah, it's gonna get it out.

Kristina: 00:16:17

So actually. Okay, I know we're. Yeah, I'm. I'm just thinking because now a lot of people are putting like under house, like barriers and things like that.

Do those do anything? Or just because they're chewers, they kind of chew through that stuff anyway.

David Dorfman: 00:16:32

So again, like I said, sealing the home is very, very important. Getting rid of their scent is very, very important.

Kristina: 00:16:40

Yeah.

David Dorfman: 00:16:40

And then of course, trapping whatever is left behind. So because they can't get out now is very, very important.

You connect all these three together, you have a very, very important three steps that will get rid of your problem. But you got to take these steps and they're not hard steps. They're just, you just got to know like pe.

People don't even know the simple, most simplest thing of setting a trap. Like, they'll set a trap, they'll put peanut butter and all that and they're just doing it with bare hands instead of using gloves.

They don't know now that they got all their, all their human sent on this trap and there's a good chance the rats won't go for it.

Kristina: 00:17:17

Yeah, you know the. We did people do that a lot. It's like, okay, the trap down, the trap's going to get them. And there's like, why is this silly trap not working?

Let's get a bigger, better trap.

David Dorfman: 00:17:27

Of course, get a better trap, get better. But that's the thing is that there's a lot of videos online.

You could go see like, like a rats passing by a trap, literally in the crawl space, grabbing a rock, throwing it at a trap, having a trap flip over and then they take the food. They're very, very smart. They figure things out.

Kristina: 00:17:47

That reminds me of that old movie, the Rats of nimh. Right. Where the rats were building their own community and yeah, they were talking and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, animals are smart, right?

We know how amazing our dogs are. We know how amazing Our birds are learning how to talk and respond and things like that.

It's like we forget sometimes that our wild creatures in the area are pretty darn smart, too.

Herb: 00:18:10

So our house was 20 years old when we bought it, and I had to repair some things that had obviously been repaired before. And sometimes crawling into space, I would find holes and weird stuff. And it's like. So there was holes that I would have never expected.

Places that were chewed up and ripped up that made no sense when I was going in to repair things. So if you're a homeowner, it's like, how do you know how and where to look to seal up?

If it's like, it's not your home and from the beginning and you haven't been the one doing it?

Kristina: 00:18:43

Moved in later. Yeah.

Herb: 00:18:44

How do you know where to check? How do you know what to look for?

Because, yeah, underneath my sink, there was this weird hole that reached down through the subflooring, and then there was another valve to turn off the water to my outside spigot. So they. And it's like I had mice coming up through that I found at one point to the middle floor, not all the way up into the kitchen.

And then eventually they started getting up into the kitchen, and it was a problem. So how do you know how to look for these places out of normal?

Kristina: 00:19:16

Yeah.

David Dorfman: 00:19:17

Okay. So, first of all, it's actually a very, very good question. Most entry points are very common.

I don't know if it's because of how, you know, the builders did it, if they all went to the same school or what, but most entry points are pretty common. And, like, that's the thing.

A house could have more holes after five years, you know, because it moves and it gets old, and the screens have the sun beaming on them all day. And there's a lot of things, but we especially been in this industry for 20 years, we know the common entry points.

And for the home defense kit, there's actually a rodent entry map which comes with it, which basically, literally guides you to every single opening where every single area that you should check. Okay.

If it's behind the AC condenser, if it's a vent that's broken and everything, any hole that you literally have there, there is material in the kit for you to seal it. So whether it's the garage strip, whether it's the.

The hole inside the ac, like I said, there's all these openings, all these different things, all the materials in the kit to solve those issues. So that map. Yeah, it's it's amazing. And in addition to the map, the home defense kit also comes with a home.

Excuse me, with a rodent activity detection light, which at night or in the attic or the crawl space where it's dark, you could see activity. You could see things. You can track stuff if you'd like. Okay, so the activity light is amazing. Then going into sealing up and.

And using all the different materials to seal.

Now, again, you know, on the map, there's maybe different, maybe, you know, 12 to 15 areas, but it doesn't mean that your house will have 15 areas that are affected. You could maybe have three holes, six holes, maybe one hole, which is all they need. Just one hole. Yeah.

Now, these openings, we need to make sure that we seal anything the size of a quarter for rats and then anything the size of a dime for baby rats and mice.

Kristina: 00:21:26

Whoa. That's really small.

David Dorfman: 00:21:29

I know, I know. So this is what we're dealing with here.

Kristina: 00:21:33

Yeah, no kidding. Okay, so something kind of fun just popped into my head, right?

So after we get everything all sealed up, we still have this amazing light that helps detect things. What kind of science experiment can you have your kids do with that light now? Put it to use after the. After the fact.

David Dorfman: 00:21:49

Yeah, I mean, they can. I mean, listen, you can literally go in a dark room and. And point it at your living room couch and see what you're really sitting on.

Kristina: 00:21:58

Oh, my.

David Dorfman: 00:21:59

It'll show. It'll show a lot of stuff. You know, it shows a lot. A lot of things, and it's. It's amazing. It's amazing.

Kristina: 00:22:07

Parents with toddlers, be warned. You might see icky stains you don't want to know about.

David Dorfman: 00:22:14

Listen, you never know. You could literally walk into your.

Your baby's room right in the dark and start looking around on the floor, pointing on the wall, all of a sudden seeing, hey, this wall is completely wet. Just seeing different things that can affect. Affect, you know, your health, affect your home. So the.

The activity detection light is more for us, but you could use it for a lot of things. But again, this treatment usually is very quickly. You know, it's in and out.

Kristina: 00:22:42

Yeah, yeah.

Herb: 00:22:44

So I know you have kids. I'm not necessarily sure how old they are, but you're working with your dad.

Have you started bringing your kids to work yet to teach them the industry, to get them seeing this?

David Dorfman: 00:22:55

You know, my kids are small. My. My oldest is seven. My other one is five. And my other. My. My two boys are seven, five. And then my girl is. She just turned three last week.

And so they're still young, but, you know, they see road and stop all the time. They see commercials on tv. They see. They. They're like, very aware of who. Who we are.

Herb: 00:23:22

Have they started asking you to go yet?

Kristina: 00:23:25

The old.

David Dorfman: 00:23:25

Yeah, actually, my old one, Dovi, he's always asking me, how can we go? Can we go?

Like, he sees videos Also on, like, YouTube, the royalty family, like, they had a rodent issue and, like, they were, like, really into it and, like, abo, you should go help them. And I wish,.

Herb: 00:23:45

You know, take him along, give him a little camera, tell them to follow you around and film it and see what he films, see what he finds interesting throughout the day.

David Dorfman: 00:23:52

Yeah, yeah, maybe. I hope they want to do that when they're a little older.

Kristina: 00:23:55

Yeah, yeah. Because that part of what we do with Byron family, of course, is to help families explore education and lifetime skills and things like that. So we.

We really love it when there's small business owners and entrepreneurs who can bring their families along as they get older and learn more about it.

David Dorfman: 00:24:11

Oh, sure. For sure. I mean, listen. I mean, we've been doing, as I told you, for 20 years, so.

Kristina: 00:24:15

Exactly.

David Dorfman: 00:24:15

With your long time.

Kristina: 00:24:17

Yeah. So how did, how did you get interested from your dad? Let's talk about that.

Herb: 00:24:21

What age were you when you got started? When did your dad drag you into making you work with him?

David Dorfman: 00:24:27

No, no. So it wasn't like that. Remember, we were doing the air quality before. So I'm 49. I just turned 49 a few days ago, so I'm not that young.

So I've actually had a lot of time in these years.

And so when we started in the air quality industry together, this is where we decided to put an amazing treatment for rodents, which deals with construction biology. All those three steps I mentioned, if you have those three steps, you could literally solve the rodent issue and we give a lifetime warranty.

So that's. That's. That's. That's what we do. That's what we've been doing.

Kristina: 00:25:02

Perfect. Okay, so that. That answers that question. You basically started the company together, then he didn't have it going before.

David Dorfman: 00:25:08

Yeah, yeah, we started it again. So my dad is like a. He's like a scientist. He's able to do a lot of, you know, amazing things with formulas and things like that.

And even though this formula is completely organic.

Kristina: 00:25:20

Yeah.

David Dorfman: 00:25:20

And has no poison or. Or chemicals or nothing like it. It's like peppermint and certain things that rats just don't like.

You know, like, we walk Into a room where we don't like the perf a certain perfume. I'm out of there, you know, so that's just that simple.

So, you know, it's very simple process just dealing with biology and then, and how it needs to get done. So yeah, that's, that's pretty much that.

Kristina: 00:25:49

Awesome. Cool.

David, you've been talking about this kit and so I know there's going to be audience members who are like, okay, I know I probably need to get one of these and get things taken care of.

So go ahead and give your contact information and where's the best place for them to find this information to either ask you a question or order the kit.

David Dorfman: 00:26:07

Yeah, so the kit, you could go to rodent control, to your door.com and purchased a kit. It's again, it's owned by US Road and Stop. It's our treatment. It's a certified treatment that we've been doing for the last 20 years.

And so it's, it's very very, it's very simple, you know, to use and it's, it's just very, very easy. Very, very, very easy system. Very easy.

Like we made it took us some time but so, so one of the reasons that, you know, we even started this kid was because the amount of, of calls we're getting out of state. So people are calling us. Listen, I believe in the scent elimination. This is the way to do it. I know. Can you guys come?

And we're like, no, we're in, we're stuck here in Southern California where we're so busy and, and, and you know, we're doing a lot, a lot of community stuff, a lot of different things and then we just, we don't see, we don't see ourselves merging out. Like there's so much business here in la. Like, where are we gonna go?

But again, we wanted to help, you know, people who really need our, our, you know, our treatment.

And so we developed something so amazing not only for people who can't get, who can get our service, but also people who are older, who don't have any help, who don't have assistance to be able to do this stuff easily, easily. Like the scent elimination. You don't need to go into your attic and crawl around. You just open, throw it in there. Done.

Like we made it so easy to eliminate this problem and I'm really hoping, you know, the problem is going to get, get, you know, decrease as slow as possible because it's really, really bad. There's so many. LA now has been voted Number one for ro. For rat problem.

Kristina: 00:27:58

Oh, no.

Herb: 00:28:00

Yeah, yeah.

David Dorfman: 00:28:01

And you know, we have a lot of, a lot of, a lot of states out there. We just are comfortable for them.

Kristina: 00:28:07

Yeah. Okay. Families, you have your charge, you have your mission. Right.

You want to make sure that your family is being healthy and safe and keeping these things out that don't need to be a problem anymore. So please make sure that you are doing your research, asking your questions and getting the help that you need.

All of David's information is down in the chat and we really appreciate his time today explaining why this is a problem and how really families can use strategies to make it better.

Herb: 00:28:35

Yeah, thank you for being here today. The information is very valuable. There's a lot of stuff that I, I didn't think about before and it's like, yeah, we would just.

The dogs are going to keep them away, but the dogs are bringing them in. So lots of interesting information. Thank you for being here. Thank you for teaching us something new today. It's been a pleasure having you here.

David Dorfman: 00:28:53

My pleasure. Thank you guys.

Kristina: 00:28:55

All right, audience, you know what to do. Time it is. It is time to like and share and review. Because guess what?

Bringing education home is a place where you can come and find out different ways to help your family up level and move to that next step so that you are able to raise those happy, healthy and successful kids. And best of all, please make sure that you go to vibrant family education.com and that is where you can get a hold of us.

You can find our events and you can really connecting to the community. Until next time. We will talk to you later. Bye for now.

Herb: 00:29:27

Bye for now.