Eccentric Exterminator

In Real Life, practicioners of pest control are usually like any professional who practices a job, but such is not the case in fiction land. Perhaps it is the sinister nature of the job, or the fact that it's not a job conductive to making friendships, but there's something in the image of the exterminator that has turned it from quirky to living Cthulhu of the pests.

See also Egomaniac Hunter.


 * The Pied Piper of Hamelin claims to be a rat catcher, and for all practical purposes, he is. He just uses unusual methods.
 * Ceasar from Mousehunt, played by Christopher Walken, from all people.
 * Dale Gribble from King of the Hill.
 * The protagonist from Naked Lunch, making this Truth in Television in the case of William S. Burroughs.
 * While not exactly an example, the first Men in Black movie gives us Ed, which is a pretty normal fella (or as normal as someone played by Vincent D'Onofrio can be...) until a bug from outer space uses his body as disguise and steals an exterminator's van, giving us quite a bit this vibe.
 * The Exterminators is a Vertigo comic book with an entire cast of eccentric exterminators.
 * The men who get stuck killing rats in Stephen King's Night Crew.
 * John Goodman's character Delbert Mc Clintock in Arachnophobia. He acts like he's the greatest thing ever, even though he really doesn't help a whole lot.
 * In the Dexter season five episode "Hello, Bandit" the titular Dexter tracks down an exterminator who is also a serial killer.
 * One appears in Over the Hedge.
 * Little Richard plays one in a episode of Martin
 * Real Life/Reality TV example: A&E's Billy The Exterminator. Besides dressing in goth clothing as a substitute for more practical protection, he is perpetually excited about pretty much everything.
 * Any rat catcher in the Discworld novels so far. And it seems the job is The Verse equivalent to a Red Shirt by the way, unless you're a gnome of course.
 * Sometimes it's even better than Red Shirt. At least one of these guys upon dying was
 * The perst control guy from the Itsy Bitsy Spider animated series.
 * In The X-Files episode "War of the Coprophages", a cockroach exterminator opens the episode with a heartfelt ode to roaches before finishing it with "But to them, we humans are gods and should act accordingly" and stomping a particularly unlucky specimen on the floor. It doesn't end well for him.