LODI, Calif. — Clark Pest Control announced that it has acquired two pest management companies, Paso Robles, Calif.-based Bugz-B-Gone, Inc., and Escondido, Calif.- based Stock Exterminators.

Clark Pest Control will merge the operations of both companies into its Santa Maria and San Diego service centers, respectively.

Both companies had strict qualifications as to what kind of company could purchase their businesses. As Bugz-B-Gone’s Chris Kirk explained: “It must be family-owned, it must have experience, it must be able to do all the things we do, it must be able to respond quickly to our customers’ needs, it must not be a huge company with national reach, because our customers are more than just a number, and it must also treat for termites.”

“Clark Pest Control is a family-owned and operated business,” Stock Exterminators’ Mike Stock said. “They have been in the pest control business for over 60 years, and their staff of professionals perform all phases of pest and termite control. They also provide commercial and agricultural pest control.”

The owners of both companies gave different reasons for selling their businesses to Clark. Chris Kirk of Bugz-B-Gone wanted to concentrate on a new business he and his wife had purchased. “After a few months, we realized that our new company, Contemporary Home Services, was taking up a lot of our time and energy,” he said. “We made a difficult decision to put Bugz-B-Gone up for sale, so that our loyal pest control customers would not be affected by our divided attention, and so that we could concentrate on building our residential and commercial cleaning business.”

Mike and Jeanne Stock of Stock Exterminators just wanted to retire, so they could travel and enjoy life. “We plan on riding one of our motorcycles to Virginia to visit my sister, surfing more, and continuing our work with Project Wildlife,” he said. But before they could do that, they wanted to make sure the business they had built for over 26 years, and the loyal customers they had developed, were in good hands.

Both Bugz-B-Gone and Stock Exterminators embody the type of companies that Clark Pest Control likes to acquire. “They managed to grow their businesses the old-fashioned way, even in a tight economy, by taking good care of their customers,” said Joe Clark, President of Clark Pest Control. “We are excited that our team will continue to provide the customers of both of those companies with the excellent pest control services they already enjoy. We’re also happy for them, because we can offer them a number of other services – termite inspection and control, damage repair work, lawn care, tree and shrub care, bird exclusion, and more.”