Being an exterminator wasn’t the first thing on Gregory Waugh’s mind when he came to New York from Washington, DC, 20 years ago. His goal was to make it big on the stages of Broadway. But if fighting vermin isn’t his dream job, it’s one he’s grateful to have, and a marked step up from where he was seven years ago — homeless and living in a shelter.

A robust and gregarious man with a beaming face, Waugh can laugh about it now at the age of 40. He picked himself up and began his new career four years ago. Today he has a job with USA Exterminators and an apartment in Harlem where he lives with his 10-year-old daughter.

After a recent job, Waugh spoke to @work about bugs, rats and picking yourself up when your dreams crash around you.

My mother died when I was 3, and my father raised me for a while. He’s passed on, too, so let’s just say he had me when he was young and was maybe too immature to be a single father. My grandmother helped raise me, and I spent a lot of time in foster homes run by Catholic Charities.

That might sound like a tough break, but they really did the right thing by me. I got to see life from a different view, and I learned early that there are other ways.

After high school I enrolled in the University of the District of Columbia, but my dream was to dance and be a stage actor. So at 19, I headed up to New York City.

It was hard for me here. I had no family and no support. I lived at the YMCA and tried to get by, but it’s hard to act when you’re not eating. I kept at it, but I wasn’t getting any breaks.

I needed a day job, so I applied with the Leonard Bernstein Organization, and they gave me an office job. That put me on a whole new course, and I made a nice living. It was so nice I overextended myself financially, and when I was laid off it was like falling off a cliff. When the unemployment checks ran out, I knew I was in trouble and I cried like a newborn baby.

I knew I had to do something. I read a book called “Who Moved My Cheese?” all about the changes life throws at you and how to deal with them, and that helped inspire me. I got into a shelter run by the Doe Foundation. They offered a Pest Arrest Program, and that’s where I learned exterminating and got certified. By 2006 I had a job and was out of the shelter.

I work in apartments, the subways, police stations, city buildings. When I go to a job, my first deal is to go in and get your problem down like 80 percent. That means industrial fogging for roaches and setting trap baits for mice and roaches. I have to kill off a good part of the herd the first time. Then I want to get your problem down another 10 percent, so I spray for the bugs and lay more bait out.

People in this city have no idea that right behind their walls and under the floors are nests of vermin just waiting to come out.

The worst situation I was in was an apartment in the projects. Child Welfare had to be called in because they let the place get so bad. I walked in wearing a protective suit, mask, and an industrial bomber. The roaches were in clusters on the ceiling. Everywhere you looked was just tons of roaches. I bombed the place and when I stepped out I took my mask off too fast and got a lungful. I was doubled over, spitting up blood. The chemicals we have to use are the worst part of the job. It’s serious stuff and you need to be cautious

When I go into a cellar or a water tunnel that has a rat problem, I make a lot of noise going in. I’m the bigger animal, so they want to stay away from me. One time I went to a grating that had a rat problem. I banged on it and pulled it up. A rat shot out and slammed into my chest. He didn’t bite me, he just took off running. I felt like running too. The myth that rats attack is not true, though. Only a trapped rat will attack you.

This can be a dangerous and nasty job. But it offers me opportunities. I want more than this, and my dreams of stage acting aren’t dead. But when you’re stuck in poverty you take what life throws at you and move on. I want my daughter to have the choices an upper-middle-class kid would have, and with this job I can afford her that. I want her to have the American dream.