ODD JOBS:
Watch your step
Ann Sammons has been herding turds
for 11 years
By
Raymond Castile
Tuesday, March 11, 2008 12:07 PM CDT
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Raymond
Castile photo Ann Sammons, a turd herder for
Yucko's poop scooping service, cleans the grounds of
Springhurst Terrace in O'Fallon. |
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Who let the dogs out? Who cares. The real question is, who
will clean up after them?
Ann Sammons, that's who.
"I go out and pick up poop," said Sammons, of
Overland.Sammons is one of seven "turd herders" working for
Yucko's pooper-scooper service in Maryland Heights. With a
pink rake and an aluminum dust pan, she confiscates odorous
offenders outside homes and businesses in St. Charles and
St. Louis counties.
On Feb. 29, she was trekking the grounds of Springhurst
Terrace in O'Fallon and searching for brown piles hiding in
the grass. Herding turds requires a keen eye to spot the
land mines before stepping on them. Once identified, it is
simply a matter of raking them into the pan like a wild dust
bunny.
"When I first heard about this business, I died laughing,"
Sammons said. "Then I totally fell in love with it."
Sammons was going through a divorce 11 years ago when she
asked friend Robert Kemmerling for a job. Kemmerling and
partner Debbie Levy founded Yucko's in 1990. They operated
it themselves until business grew beyond what two people
could handle.
Levy, of Maryland Heights, said Sammons could not make ends
meet before joining Yucko's. After a year of turd herding,
Sammons could afford to buy a house.
"I tell her now she owns the house that crap built," Levy
said.
A good sense of humor is essential in the poop-scooping
business, said Levy, whose family owned Overland Dairy.
"I come from a family of entrepreneurs, so I became an entre-manure,"
she said.
When asked how she and Kemmerling entered the poop-scooping
business, Levy said, "We kind of stepped into it."
Levy said she was cutting the grass when she realized there
was a need for professional animal-waste elimination,
someone people could call to remove the "unknown land mines
in the battlefield." Kemmerling and she obtained a business
loan and started taking clients.
Levy sums up 18 years of business with one sentence: "That's
a lot of crap."
Levy is president of the National Association of
Professional Animal Waste Specialists. The organization has
declared the first week of April as national Pooper-Scooper
Week to educate pet owners about the importance of cleaning
up after their dogs.
"Your dog views your yard as a toilet that doesn't get
flushed," Levy said. "Dog waste is not fertilizer. Kids can
get sick from it. We don't want it in our sewers or
waterways. It's not eye-appealing and not nice to your
neighbors."
Sammons said she loves dogs. In fact, she credits canines
with helping her heal emotionally after her divorce.
"It sounds silly, but they did," she said. "You go into a
person's backyard where the poop is, and the dogs are there.
You open the gate and they jump on you. You have to pet
them. They are ecstatic to see me. They follow me around. I
know all of my dogs' names. They are like my water-cooler
buddies."
The dogs are not the only ones happy to see Sammons. She
also receives warm welcomes from home and business owners,
landscapers, gardeners and other people on her routes.
"It is a very rewarding job," Sammons said. "It makes me
feel I am needed." |
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