It’s taking over… August 10, 2016

I’ve got to a stage in my life where I’m becoming a real adult, you know what I mean… not the ‘I’m 18 mum, I can do what I want’ type of adult but the ‘I have a car and a house and bills to pay’ kind of adult.

I started working at JKSL in November 2015 and since then I feel like invasive species are taking over my life, literally.

Before starting my journey at JKSL I had no knowledge at all about any kind of plant species, except of course, daisy’s, tulips, roses, buttercups… the kind everyone knows at least a little bit about. I started to learn more and more about non-native invasive species and native invasive species, as I started #Tuesdaychallenge (shameless plug- if you’re not involved already tune in every Tuesday on Twitter @JKSLtd) on JKSL social media I learned more about different flora and fauna- see what I mean, I’m even using the ‘lingo’ now.

In March, I bought a house -this is one of the ‘adult’ things I was referring to- before working at JKSL my main concern when viewing properties would have been along the lines of… are the kitchen cupboards the right colour… is there a good Feng Shui… has the bedroom got adequate natural lighting etc. etc… still very important factors, obviously. However, this time I was looking in the garden for Japanese Knotweed. Followed by a quick inspection of the neighbouring properties gardens. I even had a wander on to the field at the rear of the property just to triple check there were no signs of invasive species in the area. The only thing I could find was Montbretia, hardly a deal breaker.

My father was recently looking at a property just outside of Bolton, I had a little nosey on Rightmove (as you do) and immediately called him to raise his awareness of the Himalayan Balsam taking over the rather large garden. I found myself explaining to him that hand pulling of the Balsam is a laborious but effective control method as long as it is undertaken before the plants flower. I didn’t get much of a response to what I thought was rather useful knowledge.

My Boyfriend is becoming increasingly irritated with me… while out in the car I have taken to play a game I like to call ‘Spot the invasive’* it usually goes something like…

Holly, ‘Oooooo, can you see what I can see’

Boyfriend, ‘Wait… what?’

Holly, ‘Can you see that there, with the purple flowers? We saw this particular species last week… do you remember it’s name?’

Boyfriend, ‘FOR GODS SAKE HOLLY, I’ve not a clue, I wasn’t even listening!’

Holly, ‘It’s Buddleja of course, how can you forget about that one….’

I’m sorry Dave.

On the way to the airport with my family last week, you would think we were too excited for our jolly holidays to be on the invasive species look out, however, my mother (whom also works for JKSL, hi Ann if you reading this) proceeded to point out to the rest of the family the Fools Parsley and Ragwort that was growing in the grass verges next to the motorway. Subsequently, as you probably guessed, no one cared.

You get the idea anyway. Invasive species not only invade our soil but also our minds.

Holly Knowles

*P.S I think I’m onto something ‘Spot the invasive’… perhaps a new Twitter game, what do you think Mike? Suzanne?

The Whole Picture August 10, 2016

Have you noticed how watching a movie on a DVD just isn’t the same as watching the film at the pictures? The film is the same, the content is the same but you end up coming away feeling a bit ….muuuuh….and just not enjoying it.

Go out to the movies, have a box of popcorn, a coke and some fruity chocolate raisins then go for a pizza afterwards and the whole day just takes on mythical proportions …

I think it’s something that people need to make more note of…?

You go in to buy a car, the first person you see is the receptionist – if she’s not on the ball and clued up on the product you’re looking for you immediately get a sinking feeling in your stomach. The number of times I’ve been into car showrooms and the sales staff are clueless ….it takes the whole pleasure away from the process.

We’ve tried to instil this into the team at JKSL – from receptionist upwards we expect ‘more’ from the team. You should be able to ask our receptionist where your project is up to…? If you are looking for a particular member of the team then the receptionist should be able to tell you where they are…? Any member of the JKSL crew should be able to talk with confidence about what we do and how we do it – and if any question is too complex then they should be able to put you on to the correct person with the answer to your query…?

We are trying to make your experience the popcorn, coke and pizza version rather than the cheap DVD experience …..

I know it’s not the same and I know that trying to make an infestation of Japanese knotweed a ‘pleasurable’ experience is nonsense…but trying to make your problems sortable and to run smoothly – should at least remove some of the pain.

I’ve gone on before about having a full ‘team’ at JKSL (check out the ‘team page’ on our website (jksl.weareweb.space) but it’s an important thing to grasp. We aren’t just a ‘man and a van’ operation we are a fully operational unit with receptionist, admin etc. We have callers who will take your initial enquiry, surveyors who each have a dedicated part of the U.K., we have an accounts department and we have a whole construction and site admin team as well as a revisits operational team.

Site lads are all fully employed cards in – with each team having a dedicated vehicle.

We even have two (count them) dedicated re-visit teams – we are the ONLY company in the UK to do this.

All they do is go round all of our sites covered under our insurance policies and ensure that any new growth is treated and any potential problems highlighted to clients (e.g. cross contamination/fly tipping/new growth on adjacent sites). It costs us money to do this – but I sleep better at night. ‘Other’ companies just wait till there’s a problem and then send somebody out – or…. ‘shutting the door after the horse has bolted’ ….as it is otherwise known.

So next time you are looking for a ‘better’ knotweed experience – make sure you look at the whole picture…not just a… ‘knock off DVD’…

Mike C

Technology August 10, 2016

My car pretty much drives itself – I have a button to keep me within the white lines on the motorway and I have a button to set how near the car in front I want to be …. then I just leave it to get me to where I’m going…

Automatic gears, automatic headlights, wipers, Wi-Fi hotspot….I can even get massaged as I float from meeting to meeting*.

*NB this only ‘comes’ with the… ‘happy ending’… pack.

I have an i-watch an i-pad an i-phone and a Mac Pro …and they all talk to each other. Tell one gadget a password and they all whisper it to each other so you only have to do it once. I can ask the system where my wife is …and it will tell me to the nearest decimal place – exactly where she is – which… in 35 years of being together she has never managed to do…. without exaggerating her nearness to where she is supposed to be…

I can make phone calls from my wrist – like ‘Joe 90’ – Google it those of you too young to remember Joe and his watch….

I have a mountain bike – with …an electric engine. This machine will propel me for miles and miles with very little effort on my behalf – whilst telling me how many calories I have burnt whilst climbing and descending an exact figure of climbs and descents…

I have a TV which follows me around the room…yes – you read that correctly – it follows me around the room. I tell it who is the ‘key’ viewer and it optimises its position to give… ‘me’… ‘viewer one’… the best picture in the house.

I have a lawn mower which will cut my grass then charge itself up and repeat the process every day until I tell it to stop….

So… I would say I’m pretty much up to speed with technology – yet – I’m a great disappointment to my clients who expect me to see what is beneath the ground…with some sort of X-ray vision?

On an almost daily basis we are asked to provide prices for excavation and removal of Japanese Knotweed where we have no idea how far the root and rhizome will have spread. We all know the ‘mantra’ …’the plant extends two to three meters in depth and seven meters in all directions…’ …but within this ‘guide’ there is scope for huge variations in volume of material to be removed.

We can give rough guides once we have seen soil type and age of infestation – but it’s a ‘guess’…

Sorry Mr. Client but that’s the truth.

We can give you a fixed price but it will be based on a ‘worst case’ scenario.

Soft ground with an aged infestation we could easily be looking at three meters plus depth – and seven meters plus spread…which will be a far greater volume than a site with hard ground with only a relatively new infestation….

Surely the way forward with excavation projects would be to have an ‘open book’ agreement?

Rates agreed, profit margin agreed – then we dig ‘all’ the knotweed out and keep digging till it’s all removed (remember – a piece as small as a finger nail can produce a new crop of this troublesome weed).

What I’m trying to avoid here is the unscrupulous contractor who prices works based on minimal excavation – carries out minimal excavation …. then leaves significant root and rhizome behind.

I’ve said this before and I will no doubt say it again – there is far too much mistrust in the construction industry. Personally I’m not interested in ripping off clients. This is just a no win situation – I’d far rather have clients that knew my margins, knew how much money I made – and negotiated contracts based on the service provided and the level of skills that they were employing…

Let’s get rid of this ‘competitive tendering’ lark where nobody wins…? why do you need 5 prices?? Seriously 5 prices…?

– 5 people running around the country in five cars with 5 surveyors all sweating in five different offices to produce the sharpest price when none of them actually know what’s beneath the ground….

So five guesses then.

Technology might be clever but we as humans seem to have been left behind? …

What’s the point making everything quicker and automatic… when we then just ask 5 people to do the same thing five times…?????

Come on?

Let’s get smarter, let’s get as smart as our cars and phones??

Mike C

Why do we need INNSA…? August 10, 2016

Since the first germ of an idea about forming a ‘Trade Body’ I have had many sleepless nights wondering about the benefits that an organisation like this would have. I had no idea really what I was getting in to, and no idea of the complexity of the issues it would raise.

I have always run my own business and always been my own boss – I’ve never really listened to anyone other than the guy who sits on my right shoulder* …and he always says ‘just do it’….

(*NB I do have another guy who sits on my left shoulder who says – ‘be careful what you do’ – I never listen to him).

When I first came across Japanese knotweed some twenty years ago, I sort of ‘knew’ that there would be a business to be built around dealing with this troublesome invader and set up Japanese Knotweed Solutions Ltd in 2002. That isn’t the date I first started dealing with Japanese knotweed – this is the date that I set up a business …SOLELY… to deal with the plant.

People argue with me about who did what first and who dealt with knotweed first – as I have said before – Japanese knotweed first became a notable problem in the 1870’s….but JAPANESE KNOTWEED SOLUTIONS LTD (JKSL) were the first company dealing with nothing but Japanese knotweed.

At the time I set up JKSL, there were probably only one or two companies who dealt with the plant on a serious commercial level and they had come into the market from either an agricultural background or from a grounds maintenance point of view.

This was the time of ‘acronyms’ – or the ‘bull***t’ period as it became known. Companies with very little going for them took advantage of the lack of understanding within the general population about Japanese knotweed and started to spout all sorts of garbage about secret methods and patented systems.

The problem was that they all were.… ‘believable’.

‘HIT’, ‘ TW**’, ‘REMOVE’, ‘EXPUNGE’, ‘EXPLURGE’….all sounded like great ideas and when you added to this the fact that they were ‘patented’ then the public just fell over themselves to give work to these guys.

Added to this we then had the great ‘warranty scandal’ of the early traders. Genuine offers of a ten year insurance backed warranty’ were being undermined by ‘10 year guarantees (in house)’ and ‘free insurance backed guarantees’ then we had a spate of ’25 year warranty’ offers and then even a ‘lifetime guarantee’…..

We had dodgy companies being set up just to ‘hold’ insurance monies in a separate savings account….but most of all we had companies going bust and leaving home owners with no follow up on their re-visits and no return visits to carry out continued spraying of re-growth.

We had companies offering a ‘secret’ mix of chemicals that would kill Japanese knotweed with one spray…..and government bodies telling us that an insect would soon be available to decimate the great knotweed epidemic *

*NB one of these stories is actually true

All in all the industry was in a pretty poor state and clients and customers were beginning to lose faith in the ability of any knotweed contractor to simply tell the truth. It was at this point some five years ago that I decided to do something about this and began speaking to all the major players in the industry.

We all agreed that recognised standards and strict quality control were the only way to ensure that a ‘level playing field’ was created whereby clients could understand what was really being offered and be able to compare like for like quotes.

This is why INNSA is the recognised Trade Body for customers wanting a quality product and this is why INNSA is a relevant today as it was 5 years ago when I first started to make it happen.

Heaven forbid we go back to the days of the cowboy operators!

Life is complicated enough without putting acronyms on everything.

Mike C

The Whole Picture August 10, 2016

Go out to the movies, have a box of popcorn, a coke and some fruity chocolate raisins then go for a pizza afterwards and the whole day just takes on mythical proportions …

I think it’s something that people need to make more note of…?

We are trying to make your experience the popcorn, coke and pizza version rather than the cheap DVD experience …..

Site lads are all fully employed cards in – with each team having a dedicated vehicle.

We even have two (count them) dedicated re-visit teams – we are the ONLY company in the UK to do this.

So next time you are looking for a ‘better’ knotweed experience – make sure you look at the whole picture…not just a… ‘knock off DVD’…

Mike C

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