Orkin Pest Control

The techs came out and had a program for setting up indoor baited traps. It wasn't way into the wintertime, so there wasn't a lot of snow on the ground even. So, they would have done the outdoor traps too, which they did. They used these traps that have a way that the animal can get into them and there's a lot of these food. They look like small corncobs of molded material that's sort of grain of some nature and of poison mixed in with it, and they fit down over some prongs inside there. So, they could stack about a half dozen in each of these traps. They spotted a couple of places where the critters were coming in. There were more obvious holes. Ultimately, the next spring, I can do tuckpointing, which is not a big deal. I went around and tuckpointed every place where I saw there were gaps in-between the field stones, plugged them all up, which probably, by itself, did the trick.

The tech set out about five bait traps around the house in different spots that either looked suspicious or definitely was one of the places where they came in. And they put out probably about 10 of the baited traps indoors, mostly down in the basement. Everything worked like a charm. The Orkin tech came back about once every four weeks and checked the baited traps. I didn't have any problem. If we did catch one, I could reset it and he told me to use Slim Jims as the bait rather than cheese because it lasts longer. The cheese gets moldy and nasty and the rats are not stupid. It doesn't taste good. They can't just pull them off and they don't get crumbly. These guys are ultra professional. We trapped probably, over the course of the winter, about six rats indoors. In that course of about five months, we trapped plenty of them. Most of them were running towards and eaten up all of the six cob things.

The techs sat on the ground and snapped a lid down on it that latched and then, the critters could get inside. They would nibble on this stuff. It's poison and it also makes them desperately thirsty. So, they hustle back out again looking for some source of water. But snow's on the ground. The tech said there'll never be any animals inside those bait traps because they have this unquenchable thirst and they gotta go out and find water. And sometimes they either drink a lot and they get bloated, and then they can't breathe. We finally decided there were five that weren't even being visited all of that wintertime. So, we disarmed them because I don't want our dog to be sniffing around. The tech said the outdoor bait traps should be left in place all the time and they'll come back on a scheduled basis and check the bait traps.

In the summertime, Orkin also has a service about spraying for wasps and insects around the eaves, around the foundation line and around the windows. They sold us a program that would be six to eight-week spacings, four visits in the summer to do the overall spraying around the house for the insects, primarily wasps, and they would check to see bait traps at the same time. It included this spraying system, which is also a super program that they have. When you sign up with Orkin, there's a service, which has about $100 entry fee, and they have these different packages that you can choose to do. If we had just done the one thing for the wintertime for the rats, and if we then come back later and said we wanted to have them do something else, there's also another one of those startup fees. So, it made more sense to have paid that, and then just pay on the however many visits they're doing per wintertime or summertime.

We're a continuing customer. It's better economically for us. We don't have to pay this startup cost every time we wanna add some program or end one and start another one. After that first winter, we haven't had one trap go off in the places down in the basement where they set them. Plus, we finished the subfloor in addition. There's a crawl space underneath that subfloor and they were able to come up and come through where there were gaps. The plywood hadn't been all laid down permanently. So, Orkin’s programs work. Everything's outdoors now because we don't have to have all of the indoor traps even. But I've kept the ones down in the basement set, and they haven't been set off for all of that time. Orkin is 100% professional operation and it's effective 100%.

Leading up to the time that we hired Orkin, we used to have a nuisance of wasps because they look for a way to get from where they are up in the attic. Sometimes, they can't find a way out and they come through some little crevice and before you know it, you've got two or three wasps. So, all of the things that Orkin has done have been first class and very reasonably priced. They are on time when they say they're gonna come and they call ahead too the day that they're gonna come out to just make sure that that's still on our calendar or it needs to be shifted. I am one satisfied customer.

Originally, my house was a cabin here in the desert and over 40 years ago, I was overrun with silver fish. I had the independent guy come out for that. The desert is full of all kinds of critters, but they're basically outside and I get little water spiders in here once in a while but that's no big deal. But as the years went on, I had my house fully remodeled. I sunk quite a bit of money into it. Since the remodel 20 years ago, there have been several different strains of these Oriental American cockroaches. In the dead of summer, when it's 120 degrees, you can go out there in the night, and there are bazillions of them. They're after water and my yard has 100 trees and a lot of leaf litter. But I'm on the septic system and when they come in the house, they die. They can't survive in the house but they get in. I even duct taped the bottoms of my front and back door every night and I don't even open windows in the summertime.

Once in a while, you'll see one crawling across the dining room floor and I'll kill it. But one or two here and there just get in and the only reason I'm calling Orkin is because I don't want cockroaches in my house. Over the years, Orkin has pounded me so hard with the stuff and then Abraham changes the chemical as per the season requires. I set the sticky traps and I have them everywhere. But in the last two years, my activity for cockroaches inside the house have been way low. I might see a couple here and there that sneak in and on the traps but I can't even remember the last time I saw one in the night. They are contained and I'm very happy. I'm not gonna quit Orkin’s service. I'd give their phone number or the website to anyone looking for service.

We had a tech that we were sorry to see leave because he has been with us for many years and knew us personally. But that happens over the years. They're very respectful and always cover their shoes if it has been muddy or wet out or snow, or take them off. One time, I had put something in the back cover, forgot about it, and these lovely little fly things kept showing up. He said, "Is there anything in particular I have to address?" And I said, "Yeah, get rid of those things." But for the most part, it's generally a maintenance every month is what we wanted. They do the entire house, the basement, as well as the upstairs, and along the perimeter of the house. Long time ago, when we first built the house, they did the termite stuff, when you're building a new place.

We used to have an older double-wide and we got infested with mice bad because we live next to fields. Once they got in, they were everywhere. There were other pest control guys before Dean, who were nice and very good, but he was on top of things. He'd tell us what was going on in the neighborhood, for pests that's going on in the valley. And when we finally got our new place, we put in a foundation. If I even have a hint of a smell of a possible mouse, I start to have a panic attack. If he finds some down in my crawlspace, he says the lid is probably not sealing correctly and it's usually in the trap that he's got down there. It fell through more than likely so I'm not too awfully worried about that. But I want to get that lid changed and just haven't had the money to do it.

Orkin is awesome and people should go for it. The only thing I have a problem with is their price has gotten higher and higher. I do it quarterly because I'm a disabled widow and everything's getting tighter. Orkin does quarterly, but I can't afford to have them here every month. They need to look at lowering the prices, because if they don't, I might end up having to stop. They could have Senior or Disabled discounts because I'm both. But Dean has been so helpful. He knew my husband before he died and he was very good to all of us. Orkin had a substitute come in that has taken over a lot of the areas over here because there were so many and they were splitting it up. I told them not to let us lose Dean because I like him. The other guy was good and very nice but Dean spent more time. He was more meticulous about what he does. You don't get that very often. Plus, customer service is number one for him.

If I'm here directly after Orkin treats the place, I notice in some places where the treatment was put. That's in the event that it has dried up quickly because it does dry quickly. And when the rep is here sometimes, he tells me where it was treated or where he saw where it might be a problem and he pays special attention to that area.

People should use Orkin. I've been using them since I moved into my house and that was in 2016 when I first noticed and was told by my neighbors that we had ant problems. A lot of my neighbors treat their homes themselves because they're men and they can carry that stuff around and lift it up and everything that they need to do. But I tried that myself in the beginning and I’d rather have someone else come out and do it. I've been having termite inspections as well, which was something that I was told that would be something available to me free of charge. So, I took advantage of that and I appreciate Orkin’s honesty because they could have been unscrupulous. Every year that I've had the termite inspection done, they've told me it's been fine, but where certain areas that I may want to look out for. So, it's been a good experience.