Terminix

The last time Terminix was out was for the pest control. They sprayed and they come about every three months. But when I had an appointment for the 27th, they were supposed to be there between 8:00 and 10:00. They sent an email about it. So, I got up really early and at 12 o’clock, they still hadn’t shown up. I called and I went through the automated thing. I said for scheduling and I was told that their schedule to come was in the 28th. Nobody contacted me and told me that.

This was the second time that has happened. It happened a long time ago, the same tech. So, I called and talked to a representative. She was so nice and kind. She said that they had a little trouble with their equipment for scheduling. She went through the whole thing and they were gonna send me a new time. However, I had a doctor’s appointment with the time they were gonna give me. She told me they could come March 13th for a termite inspection that I have once a year. I couldn’t take the date that she offered me and she looked but she didn’t have anything very soon. So, she said she would get with one out of Palestine. She was gonna get with them and have them send me one. So, I'm sure I'll get it very soon. I told her that the next time they schedule me, I'm going to call the day before and see if I'm still on schedule. Despite that, all the employees have been nice.

The technicians who came were all so nice too. I love them. The last one who came was fairly new. He was so nice and I gave him a 5-star. Also, the one before was a female and she was terrific. I'm satisfied with my experience with Terminix. It is a good warranty and I haven't had any more termites. Now, they leave little sticky things for me and most of the ones I see are in the garage. They said they would come out any time I call them, but the sticky thing takes care of it.

When somebody wants to call, they want a direct call not this hee-hawking around wherein you have to wait for five minutes or even longer which is ridiculous. Since you can’t call the technician, the only thing you could do is call the call center and tell them again. It’s totally chaos when you do that. I don’t like it. When I call someone, I want to call them direct and make a schedule now and not wait around for someone to call me back. Also, one of the technicians broke my doorway. He was trying to say he didn’t do it, but he was the last one in my house when he left. He fixed it anyway.

We’ve had bed bugs for a year now and we’re doing everything. I threw my couch out. I threw the beds out. I don’t have money to buy any more beds so we’re left without a bed. But I have bed bug covers on the mattresses. I have them on the pillows. They said to throw the clean clothes in the dryer and we did. They said to throw it in there for 35 minutes and we did it for 45 minutes. We figured an extra 15 minutes won’t hurt. If anything, it would help. All the bedding needed cleaning so we bagged it all up, tied it and took it to the laundromat, washed it and dried it there. We’ve done everything that we could possibly do.

I’m really, really trying to figure out how to get rid of them. I’ve even done the rubbing alcohol on my own. The 91 proof that they have out. We went and bought a bunch of bottles of that and started spraying down the mattress at the back. When they didn’t come out, that’s what I do. I’ve been told they live for six months to a year without feeding. But no one could give me a direct answer. And then I was told they go in your electronics too and you’re really screwed if they go in your electronics since you’ll never get rid of them because that’s where they’re gonna hide.

I know heating up the house don’t do crap. I’ve been through that one already before Terminix. My dad did have someone come out and heated up the house. All that does is dehydrate you. Unless they do a chemical or something afterwards, they’re gonna be right there. So far, we’re going on a year and a couple months now but I don’t know if the technicians are doing everything they’re supposed to do because I’m not in here to see what they’re doing. I don't know if they’re missing anything. I know they freeze and they spray but I wonder how they get them out of the electronics. Nonetheless, Terminix has been really, really good. I would recommend them.

The first time that the Terminix guy came out, he said that he didn't have his respirator, so he wasn't gonna be able to do the treatment because he couldn't do it without his respirator. He said his truck was in the shop and that he wasn't going to be able to complete the flea treatment. So, he said that he treated all the baseboards and did general pest control on that date. But we were still seeing the fleas, so I called less than a week later and he came out and completed the actual flea treatment. I haven't had issues since then. He was really super nice, too. In fact, my experience with Terminix techs have always been very professional and very nice and very thorough. They have all been very knowledgeable, too.

Other than that, there was a little bit of a confusion in getting my service transferred. When I tried to call Terminix about it when I was in Louisiana, it seemed like nobody was calling me back. And I don't know if there was just a miscommunication between the head offices or whatever from, but there was a little scheduling issue at the beginning. When I called initially, they told me they would be out at a certain date. I put it in my phone calendar but the day came and nobody came out. When I called Terminix, they said that that wasn't the date that was noted, it was a different date. So, that was a little frustrating, but I'd never had the issue before with Terminix.

Also, we always recommend Terminix. I know in this area that we're in is kind of remote and we're about an hour from Kansas City, where their closest local office is out of. But after having another local service provider come out over three times and wasn't really able to knock the issue out, I don't really know how thorough they were as compared to Terminix. I even noticed a lot of things that the Terminix tech did differently that the other tech didn't do. For instance, he closed all of the doors to all the rooms, so the stuff could stay concentrated in the area. They just seemed a lot more knowledgeable and more thorough than the local pest control company.

I get a notice that the techs are coming, and then they’ll come, ring the doorbell, and we chitchat a minute. Then the guy will say, “I’m gonna go around and check.” It doesn’t matter whoever it is. It's the same routine that they all follow, and I would panic if they ever break it. The first two or three we had were very conscientious, and they would go up on the exterior eaves, clean out all of the spiders and they would spray. However, that may be no longer a service provided by Terminix since they have not sprayed the last three or four times that we’ve had someone here. They have not taken the brush and gone up in the eaves and cleaned out all the spider webs. Right now all the spiders are building nests and it’s gross. I can do snakes, rats and mice, but I just can’t do a spider.

Here’s the problem. I’m not always here when they do the service so it’s kind of a catch-22. Whereas before, they always did it and it wasn’t even a question, now I feel crazy that I have to ask them to do something that I took for granted that they were doing with the job. I thought that would have continued on but suddenly, it just stopped and we haven’t had it for quite some time now.

My other complaint is we never have the same service person twice. I don’t know if it’s a difficulty in keeping personnel or what, but you don’t have an opportunity to truly create a rapport with your Terminix person simply because it’s gonna be a new one every time they come and I don’t like that. He knows my name, I have no idea who he is. I would rather have someone that I knew so when he gets here, I can greet him by name and we can talk.

The pests are out so often it isn’t even funny. We keep hearing them under the house. It was no sooner that the techs baited them then we would hear them under the house again. It's not working. One time we had them back three times in two weeks and every time they came back, there were rats and they disposed of them. That is an unbelievable service. We were charged additional, but Terminix came out to make sure that what they did was taking care of the problem.

Two little quirky things though stood out. The salesman that we signed up for this stuff asked me if I wanted financing and I said that I’d rather just use my Visa card. I’d get a really cheap interest rate because I have good credit. He assured me that they can get me a better rate than what I already had. I agreed and I was approved. Then I got the invoice after they came out and sprayed. It was supposed to be 1065 but it had an extra $68. The guy said that it was plus tax. I asked him why they didn't tell me. When he told me 1065, that was what I expected to see. It made me a little mad and I let that go. But when I got the statement in, the interest rate was 18%. I have credit cards that have 7.99 interest and some of them are 0, and he said that I could pay it off in three months.

Originally, I thought that was gonna be great. I retired early a couple of months ago and I haven't been getting my tax in. I was given a partial check, but not a full one yet. I thought that if I can’t pay off $1100 in three months, that's 18%. I’ll just see what I can pay off in three months, then put the rest of it on my credit card. The salesman at Terminix never once showed me anything in writing and I thought that it would’ve been a better idea so that I didn’t freak out and put some blame on the poor guy that sprayed my house. The extra money looked like it’s separate. The salesman disagreed and said that it was probably the tax. He said that once the invoice gets invoiced, the technician does their job and everything shows up. He figured it up in his head and said that would make sense.

Their guy came in. My laundry room is down there and he said that there could be bed bugs down there. I also have a computer room that just got nothing but a computer chair and wood flooring so he took the computer chair out. But they said they had to do three rooms so he did my living room and my bedroom. But why did they have to charge me for three rooms if they didn’t have to? The rooms are completely upstairs and far away from the little bit that we had, but I guess that’s their policy.

He gave me all these instructions and kept saying that every single thing from pillows, drapes to clothing had to be put in a dryer. I kept going to the laundry room downstairs. It was a mess. I had to throw all the stuff because I didn’t want to bring it back in until I knew everything was okay, then we can have everything out in my garage.

After the treatment, the guy that came and sprayed said he saw a couple of bugs because they would come out when they smell that stuff because they wanna run. The technician said that he saw a couple down there, but didn't see any upstairs so I was fine. He said that he's gonna come back in 10 days and do a follow-up, which I like because they do not just spray and say, “Good luck with that.” But a different guy came back and he said that it looked like everything is upstairs. Then he went downstairs and said that he didn't see anything there either. But he said that he'll respray some odorless stuff on that one little part on the wall. We didn’t know how long we needed to stay out of room, but he said about an hour.

I locked my cats in the laundry room then we had to pull up the carpeting because in the meantime, my furnace leaked and went into the carpet. It was on a different side of the room so we cut the wet part out. We wanted to pull everything out and we didn’t know if we would be able to pull that carpet out right away or would that mess up stuff that the guy sprayed.

I called customer service thrice and they were helpful. A couple of times, they put me on hold and tried to get ahold of the actual people that came here. I also called the guy because he called me from a cellphone when he said that he was on his way. I asked him to give me a call back as I had a quick question on how long we needed to wait to pull the carpet up. But nobody called us back and the guy never texted so I was a little disappointed in that. It was more on the technician than the customer service because the lady there was real nice. We waited five days. We tore out everything but that section, then finally tore that out at the end and we haven't seen anything since, only put new flooring down.

He then asked about what bugs I might have. I stated that I have mud wasps that are building nests on my stucco and showed him the areas. He wrote up all the details and asked me to sign on an iPad. I wanted to read all the details before signing so he scrolled to his comments. I asked him why he did not have anything about mice listed as that was my primary concern and main reason for signing up. I asked if the package included everything (bugs and mice). He confirmed yes. I then asked him to add that into his description. He added the word mice. Long story short I signed up. The rep came the next day sometime after 5pm. He was here for all of 10-15 minutes. Might have sprayed a few areas. Took a stick and mildly attempted to scrape away the mud wasp nest and then left. No filling in cracks to prevent mice, no traps, nada - nothing.

I called the company the next day and they then said that I don't have a mice package but they would be glad to add one for me for an extra charge. I explained the above story. They then said another rep would come out and we scheduled the appointment. The rep never showed up. I called again and despite promises to rectify the situation no follow up response from Terminix. At this point, I have spent far too much time on the phone trying to rectify situation. I have been told that they always make the customer happy and would be glad to resolve. They have not followed through any phone commitments and refuse to put anything in writing. After these attempts, I finally disputed my charges with my card and cancelled my service.

I could not get a return phone call nor a return rep when I repeatedly asked, but I sure am getting return phone calls for the outstanding balance for services not performed. I have responded to the collection agents that I am disputing the charge and have cancelled my account. When the second agent called, I informed them that I have cancelled my account to which they replied that no I hadn't. I had to take even more time again today to re-cancel. But again, they will not put anything in writing. So I will have to call multiple times until they confirm the cancellation to ensure this loop is closed. To anyone considering Terminix - please save yourself the trouble. Use a local merchant. I question their ethics, business practice and if they even applied anything in the few minutes they were here. They definitely did not perform the services I requested.

Needless to say having whole house trenched, holes bored into drywall, inspected with fiber optic camera and termite foam installed at colonies, and attic and beams exposed also done. So Terminix at least down here in South Texas does not even do the industry standards. They did put out stakes around house, but you can see the tunnels in full view. So disappointed and out 2 thousand dollars and have to do work again.