I then informed the owner that since all of the drains below the restaurants had been subjected to a major grease back-up they should be jetted now to remove the sticky residues left clinging to the walls of the pipes. It was less expensive to do it now — the manpower and equipment were already on the site. He approved that too; forty-two secondary drains. While jetting these smaller drains, our jetters tunneled out of several pipes under the restaurant kitchens, exposing more needed repair work. Those repairs were also approved.

All of these establishments had grease interceptors that had apparently not been pumped in a long while. Since my pumper was on site, we offered do it now. He approved that too. First, the pumper emptied the unit. Second, we power washed the interior area with our jetter's spray-gun attachment to break up the caked-on grease. Third, the interceptor was re-pumped — leaving a clean and empty interceptor. All seven units were serviced this way.

To make a long story short, my rover sold $40,000 in immediate jetter work and sewer repairs using his camera, locator and jetter. When the owner presented the check several days later, he looked at me and said, "Are we done now, Pete?" I kindly replied, "Nope, you just spent all of this money and it's time to protect your investment with some insurance. Let's set up a Preventative Maintenance Program (PM) and I'll warranty the drainage between the scheduled interval cleanings. You have an old, fragile plumbing system and several heavy grease contributors for tenants. I think a PM once a month for $2250 is appropriate". He didn't like the idea of spending $27,000 annually to keep his drains flowing. He wasn't very motivated. Besides, the interior drains were the responsibilities of the tenants.

I had one more idea. All the restaurant owners were invited to a tenants' meeting and were offered a package deal, with the condition that they all had to participate. I reminded them that closing their stores for a single day would cost them at least several hundred dollars or more in lost business. They agreed, it was obvious. I then offered them a maintenance program for the whole strip mall. Normally, the tenant pays for interior drain cleaning and the owner pays for outside sewer cleaning. The deal was that each tenant would pay $325 monthly and we included the sewer service in the price. They liked the plan. They didn't want to go through the mess and downtime again that they had just experienced. The owner liked it as well — the tenants were absorbing his portion of the maintenance expenses.

I wrote a contract and they all signed it. The maintenance would generate $27,300 annually and it was a two-year contract.