Reality show to feature Vexcon family on the job

“Back in 2004 Pilgrim Films contacted us and wanted to shoot a pilot for Discovery Channel (that was a) reality pest control show,” said Bretherton. “They had interviewed about 200 different companies and found us and liked us. They sent scouts out that rode around with us for a day, made the determination that we would be good for filming, and we ended up on “Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe.”

According to Billy, the episodes on which Vexcon appeared are rated as two of the top ten installments in the program’s history, with the first appearance being the top rated out of the show‘s 150 episodes. After that ratings information was released, Billy said numerous production companies contacted Vexcon about creating a project based on the Benton business.

September Films approached the Bretherton family — which consists of Billy, his father Bill Sr., his mother Donnie, brother Rick and wife Mary — about developing a series for Spike TV or A&E. Soon after the offer, they came to an agreement with September Films, and A&E picked up the show.

“I’m really looking forward to this opportunity,” said Rick. “It’s a microcosm of our age and my peer group with reality TV, so it’s exciting to be a part of something like that. It seems like almost an inevitability of our society to end up on television.”

All of the Brethertons said they are getting used to the ever-present cameras, and that it is still awkward and uncomfortable. Donnie said the producers and directors told them that after about a week of constant filming, that the situation would “work itself out,” and that they would barely even notice the cameras anymore.

Members of the show’s staff have been hard at work converting the former three-car garage under Billy’s house into the Vexcon crew’s new workspace. The old office, located directly across from the former garage, is being setup as a media room. The old space was symmetrically square, making it difficult for cameramen to capture all the correct angles, thus the need to find a new filming location.

This week all the audio and visual kinks are being worked out and the finishing touches are being put in the new office to make it suitable for filming to begin soon. Glass windows serve as walls between the various offices in the new transparent workstation, so that the camera crew can easily see each cast member. Microphones have also been set up at strategic angles to capture sound from each office.

The strategy behind filming “Billy the Exterminator” revolves around the show’s staff members scouting jobs before Billy and crew arrive on the scene. After the scouts decide that a job will provide quality content for the show,  Billy will be sent in to assess scenes with no prior preparations for what he will be up against for full effect.

Though Vexcon is now one of the leading pest and animal control companies in northwest Louisiana, Billy said he did not always plan on being an exterminator. After high school he joined the Air Force at 18 with a passion for security and law enforcement.

Billy scored high in biology on his military entrance exam and was sent to study entomology and exterminating, quelling his hopes of becoming a law enforcement officer at the time.

Today, Billy said he loves his occupation as an exterminator, and is glad military personnel picked up on his natural scientific aptitude. After 20 years in the exterminating business, Billy recently received his entomologist certification.

Billy said one of the wildest incidents he has been a part of as an exterminator comes from his military years when he was stationed at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. “I got a call from a colonel on the flight line one day and he said that pilots were hitting flying snakes when they were landing and taking off... I had just (recently) been the victim of a practical joke, so I hung up on the colonel not taking it seriously,” Billy said. “He came back later and screamed and yelled at me.”

According to Billy, after two weeks of investigation, they found that desert birds were picking up the snakes and carrying them in their talons. When the planes took off it startled the birds and made them drop the snakes, which were then sucked toward the plane by the jets’ intakes and bounced off their windshields.

“I was an eyewitness to it, but before I saw it happen I had no idea what was going on,” he said. “I figured everyone on the flight line was exposed to too much jet fuel, if you know what I mean.”

In another incident, Billy was stung over 35 times by yellow jackets while he and Rick were digging a hole on a termite job when he accidentally penetrated the volatile insects’ nest with a shovel. He said he has been bit and stung by every type of insect and animal in his exterminating adventures.

Billy’s parents Bill and Donnie came back to Benton in 1997, a year after Billy and Rick moved to the area from New Jersey to start up Vexcon. While Billy heads the Benton outfit, Rick is the head of Vexcon’s operations in Leesville, where he said he does a majority of his work at Fort Polk.

A majority of the entertainment industry work being done in northwest Louisiana is on film projects, but Director of Film, Media and Entertainment for Shreveport, Arlena Acree, said that the new series will generate good revenue in the area, and that it will provide good exposure for the Shreveport, Bossier City and Benton, both nationally and internationally.

“We try to lure it all, but we are really excited about the TV pilots that get picked up and become a series, because that means extended filming in the area,” said Acree. “This one will bring a little bit more production because, typically, you have 30 to 45 days for a typical feature. This one is going to be filming a lot longer than that.”

“Billy the Exterminator” will begin filming for its first season Monday. The show will be in production for 75 days, ending on June 21.

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