Boom in the corona crisis: The Pied Piper of Hamburg

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Exterminator Dennis Kalff: "You do your job with heart"

Photo: Agatha Kalff

It lies there motionless, this furry creature with squeezed out eyes, squeezed under a metal bracket that has shattered its spine.

His opponent kneels next to it, in the cold warehouse of a supermarket between boxes full of grapes, and says: "Yeah, nice thing."

Dennis Kalff, 44, wears a gray sweatshirt, round earrings and a brush cut on his head.

He is a pest fighter, the nice thing for him is a dead mouse.

"You do this job with heart," he says.

"You have to, there is no other way."

Even as a boy he laid traps with Grandpa Kurt.

He is the fourth generation to run the company; today he has twelve employees.

Kalff removes pests such as cockroaches, wasps or the common bacon beetle that is really called that.

His team also disinfects ambulances and beds.

Kalff works six days a week.

He last had a week off in February 2018, he says.

Since the first lockdown, he has not been so busy in a long time, because mice and brown rats are wandering about in vacant buildings, offices or restaurants.

But they are also drawn to residential areas and gardens.

Because people are at home more often, the amount of residual waste or organic waste is increasing.

In some cities, the garbage collection can no longer keep up, the bins are overflowing.

There are two rats for every inhabitant

In Hamburg, with all the waters and embankments, the four-legged friends feel at home anyway. There are no reliable nationwide statistics, but Kalff suspects there are around two rats for every inhabitant. And they multiply quickly. A brown rat can produce almost 2000 offspring annually. They pollute the streets, can transmit diseases and trigger allergies. That is why there is even a legal obligation to control rats in Germany. Somebody has to kill her, so Kalff does it.

When he gets into his silver jeep, enveloped in cold cigarette smoke, and drives through Hamburg, the clientele has usually already been through a lot of suffering. “Sometimes people call when it's too late. Then we don't have to go twice, but five times and then it doesn't cost twice 100 euros, but five times 100 euros. «Kalff is always the first eyewitness, judge of the local situation.

The wholesale market for flowers.

Kalff was called here on this March morning too.

"Rodent control remains rodent control, but the circumstances are always different," he says.

The plants compost in large steel containers.

Kalff distributed bags full of poison, red and blue, all around.

If the mice and rats eat it, they will bleed internally after about five days and retreat to their nest.

There they perish.

"I'm not a killer who thinks it's cool to torture the animals, but I've come to terms with it," he says.

Kalff is ready after ten minutes.

As a farewell, the customer shouts: "It's not that I don't like to see you here." And Kalff says what he often says: "I know, but unfortunately I can't do magic." .

Kalff takes a break at half past eleven.

At »Zum Lütten Fotteiner«, a snack container in blue and white.

The bockwurst two euros, the coffee 1.60.

Kalff, cigarette in the corner of his mouth, speaks directly into conscience with raised eyebrows and dark eyes.

"God is right at the top, then the customer comes, then nothing for a long time, then the cleaning lady and at some point" - his palm just above the asphalt - "the exterminator".

Most chamber hunters are career changers

Pest control is a recognized training occupation with a future, and yet only a few want to do it - most are lateral entrants, few women.

Kalff is always looking for new blood.

And he has seen a lot, seen a lot.

Death in a different, brutal form.

Once he was called to forensic medicine, and suddenly the severed head of a female corpse lay on the stretcher in front of him.

"Maggots everywhere," he says.

His voice is softer than usual: "Certain things cannot be glossed over." Kalff can take it a lot.

He parks in front of a sailing club on the Alster.

Outside, boats bob on the pier and inside the owner hopes that his restaurant will reopen soon.

Kalff has been here before.

The black bait boxes on the tile floor are all untouched.

He doesn't find any taps on the kitchen countertops.

And the cobwebs on the baseboards are an indication that nobody is running around here.

Kalff doesn't need to do anything anymore, his work was successful.

He said goodbye and went to his camp, "the most progressive one in northern Germany."

It is in the east of the city, fenced off and monitored by nine cameras.

Kalff's control portfolio is valuable and diversified.

Gray and blue boxes are neatly stacked on six shelves, one of which is almost exclusively filled with stainless steel spikes to ward off pigeons.

The corrosive substances are stored in a yellow hazardous substance cabinet.

"Formaldehyde solution, very toxic, 250 euros net," says Kalff.

He's now taking care of accounting in his office.

In the evening, around 7 p.m., Kalff will get into his car for the last time.

He will go home to eat with his wife, his twelve-year-old daughter.

But first, really first of all, Dennis Kalff will have a shower.