10 Nov 2025

Cold Call: Pest Controller

From Afternoons, 2:20 pm on 10 November 2025

For a while now we've run a segment called Jesse's Cold Call where Jesse picks up the phone, dials an organisation at random, and hopes to find someone to have a yarn with.

He's called all the information centres around the country and some iwi radio stations. So, given all the chat about hornets, we thought today we'd try our luck with a pest controller.

A rat is seen in a Harlem backstreet in the Manhattan borough of New York City on August 1, 2025. New York is waging a war on multiple fronts to combat the near ubiquitous rats that plague city streets and the subway.
Faced with an overwhelming and ever-growing problem, officials have moved beyond gassing burrows to suffocate rodents and are now using high-tech mapping tools to try and sterilize the population in an attempt to gain the upper hand. (Photo by CHARLY TRIBALLEAU / AFP)

A rat is seen in a Harlem backstreet in the Manhattan borough of New York City on 1 August, 2025. Photo: CHARLY TRIBALLEAU / AFP