You may not know it but Manny DaRocha is the MVP of Beacon Hill. Without him life on the Hill would be intolerable for many.

There's a good chance you and your neighbors would be spending a lot more time with bedbugs, termites, rats, mice, squirrels, ants and everything else that goes creep in the night if it weren't for DaRocha and his small team of warriors at Guardian Pest Control on Tremont St.

Of Mice and Men: A Winter Story

While the frenzied height of bedbug season has come and gone with the warm weather, DaRocha said he's still plenty busy this fall with cool-weather pests.

"In the fall it picks up because all the mice tend to come inside the residences... because of the cooler weather. I get a spike in calls for mice control and rat control," said DaRocha.

And it's not just mice and rats who are looking for shelter from the cold. "I do wildlife trapping. In the fall it picks up again. I do about six to eight jobs per week in wildlife trapping," said DaRocha.

DaRocha said he gets a lot of calls for rodent control in Beacon Hill. "It's a problem in that area," he said.

"The density, people living closer to each other -- it does play a major factor. These building are old. They're being renovated and God knows what's underneath them. You have these hollow spaces in the units that you can't really control," said DaRocha.

Complicating the problem is that most all homes in Beacon Hill abut one another. "They're all connected. When you try to control the problem in one unit everything just flows to the next and on down the line," said DaRocha.

And it's about to get harder for homeowners to control their own pest problems. "The EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] is putting a stop to what they can buy as far as rodenticides," said DaRocha. Now, homeowners can walk into a Home Depot and purchase their own rodenticides. But DaRocha said that's about to change after several reports of children and household pets being sickened by the chemicals. Soon only licensed professionals like DaRocha will be authorized to purchase and use rodenticides.

Don't Let the Bedbugs Bite

"My work is about 80 percent bedbug," DaRocha said. "I started bedbug work in the last two years. In my business the number of calls has actually quadrupled. I've seen a jump of at least 400 percent increase in bedbug calls," he said.

Bedbugs are less active in the winter because of the cold, he said. But things start to get crazy in March and April and last through October.

Bedbugs are especially prevalent in urban areas. Once you've got them, someone like DaRocha has to treat your entire house, heating the structure up to 150 degrees to kill the bugs. 

Tell-tale signs are specks that look like pepper dots around your mattress and boxspring and bites that resemble tick or flea bites, especially three in a row. An individual can be bitten up to 500 times in one night, DaRocha said. The bites are usually itchy.

How do you prevent these creepy creatures from entering your home?

"If you do travel a lot I recommend that when you check into the hotel do a thorough check," said DaRocha. If you spot any signs of trouble, check out immediately. Before you book a hotel, check with the Bedbug Registry online to make sure your hotel isn't listed.

After you get back from a trip, particularly an international trip, and whether you knowingly came into contact with bedbugs or not, DeRocha says you should drop your luggage in your doorway and strip off all your clothes immediately.

"When you come back home wash all your clothes. Wash everything in hot water right away," he says. Why should you listen to him? After two years of treating bedbug-infested homes, "I still haven't gotten bed bugs in my house yet," DaRocha said.

From the time bed bugs are introduced into your home, it takes about two weeks to notice the effects.

The Man Behind the Exterminator

DaRocha left a corporate exterminator company two years ago to start his own business because he was frustrated with the lack of customer care. But DaRocha's schedule requires true dedication.

"I am busy. Do I work 24 hours a day? I try not to. I start at 8 a.m. and sometimes I'm done 8, 9 at night. I love this job. I wouldn't trade it for anything else," he said. 

"Believe it or not I went to school for aviation," said DaRocha, who served in the first Persian Gulf War. "I'm a pilot and look what I'm doing now!" he said.

Now DaRocha is being trained to fly helicopters to control mosquitos, which will allow him to combine the two things he loves most in life: Killing pests and flying.