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Doug Ashe turned a love for trapping animals into a business to help residents get rid of unwanted house guests — the nonhuman kind.

Ashe, a regional field manager for Wildlife Solutions, knows what to do when the telephone rings. He has been preparing for 28 years.

Since his sophomore year of high school, Ashe has been capturing animals as a trade around the North Knoxville area. He began “trapping” animals back then for extra money, he said, selling furs at auctions. He enjoyed it so much he turned it into a career.

Wildlife Solutions — a non-franchised animal control outfit based in Orlando, Fla. — safely removes and relocates wildlife that somehow has made it into your life. They even repair damages.

Before taking up “nuisance control” in Blount County five years ago, Ashe was a postal worker and 14-year employee of DENSO. Now he sometimes works seven days of any given week.

Ashe, who also covers Lenoir City and Sevierville, has a technician in Chattanooga, Knoxville, Nashville and three in South Carolina. They have no offices. What they do have are great marketing tools: unforgettable heavy-duty, logo-emblazoned, zebra-striped trucks. Office work is handled behind the wheel.

“Once you see it, you never forget it,” said Ashe. “You may not have a problem then, but six months down the road you hear something” and that truck zooms past the back of your eyes.