Houston, Texas - 12/06.  I worked for this company for 2 years and can vouch for alot of the complaints made on Terminix. This company cares only about the money. They will spray water, put an invoice on your door, and never treat your home or make copies of your bar code on your termite stations and scan them at home while watching TV while you have to pay about $400.00 a year.  STAY AWAY FROM THIS COMPANY.

? - 12/06.  I worked for Terminix for 3 years before being run out for questioning the "illegal" (SOX violations) posting of inspections not performed and padding the books with services not yet performed. I sure hope whoever buys this company does due diligence of the "commercial" division that was shut down overnight after company insiders compared their tactics to "Enron."

? - 11/06.  I used to be an employee of Terminix. I genuinely do believe most of Terminix's problems are because they are part of SERVICEMASTER, which is a large publicly owned company. I liked my branch and service manager and the technicians who serviced my customers. I really began getting dismayed seeing how the branch and service managers are nothing more than puppets for the region and division managers.  This company has too many overpaid suits...or a nicer way to put it "too many chiefs and not enough Indians." Division managers give orders to the puppet region managers that give orders to the puppet branch managers. "YOU HAVE TO CUT COSTS" and "NO OVERTIME" (even if your individual branch is swamped with demand for service. Other branches are slow, so your branch has to pull the others' weight).

Now pay attention people:  "PAYING JOBS HAVE PRIORITY." I grew really tired of this. During termite swarm season if you are a "HOT LEAD" calling in with a termite problem wanting a no-hassle solution, NO PROBLEM a sales rep will be out lickety-split.  You call or go to the website, and I will sign you up and the treaters will get to your house as fast as possible. If you are a current customer, meaning not only have you paid for your $1200 treatment, but you have also renewed your $150-$400 yearly warranty a few times, then you must sit and wait and we will eventually get around to coming out and doing a localized spot-treatment of the infested area (after you call several times)

I make sure you have my personal cell phone number and email so you can call and talk or ask questions anytime you want or if you have a problem with your service. I make sure your warranty extra service is scheduled and done and I listen to the service manager yell in my face about overtime and expenses (even though we run profit margins in the mid 30% range above the company standard of 25%.)  I make a good commission if you choose to hire me, yet I get paid nothing to keep your business year after year, or to take your calls on my cellphone at 9 pm. After all, I am not an "account manager" or "agent" I am just a salesperson...wham, bam, thank you ma'am. Terminix only wants customers with simple or no problems. That's why your pest contract will exclude carpenter, pharoah, and FIRE ants, black widow and brown recluse spiders. Terminix was party to a lawsuit regarding fire ants so now they are simply excluded. Now, although the service side of things are pretty bad, I will say our branch manager handles termite damage claims well. ,If a customer has termite damage, we send out a good company to do the repairs at no extra cost to the customer. I remember this man's house...2002 he had termites and Terminix spent $2400 fixing it. In 2004, he had damage in the SAME SPOT costing about $2700 or so to repair. The house was never retreated! OOPS!

If "current customers" were not brushed aside for new sales, I feel Terminix would save big on claims, customer retention, and lawsuits. The bigger the company, the poorer the service. By the way, many Terminix branches no longer do termite letters/pest report inspections because of lawsuits.. maybe if they would make sure customers are happy then issues like Mrs. Virga's leaky roof won't spiral out of control and turn into things like www.syix.com/emu

? - 10/06.  I was searching the Internet and happened to come upon this web-site. The more I read, the more interested I became. After reading through a myriad of real customer complaints, I had flashbacks during my years of employment from 1988 through 1992 as a Termite/ Pest Control Technician.  During those years, I witnessed first hand how the branch managers, while working with the service managers, would deflect customer problems and even seek counseling from their regional manager on how best to deal or not deal with customer issues that they were not willing to address.  On one occasion during those years, there was a shipment shortage of pest control formula in which us technicians would use to mix with a specific amount of water to achieve the right chemical balance for application.  Under the direction of the regional manager, he informed the Pest Control Team to just use water for their application until the shipment arrived. I always thought to myself, for the customers paying money to have a certified pest control technician enter their home, how can the customer check to make sure that the technician has the right balance of pest control chemical in their sprayer before they apply their application. The ugly answer is they do not. The ability to deceive the public in this arena is very great, and who is to say that Terminix doesn’t use these methods today. The termite chemical used requires water too. Maybe this could be a contributing factor as to why I’ve read so many complaints on this web-site. This is no different than if you were buying “Premium Gas.” How do you really know you are paying for premium gas from regular unleaded?  The sign says so, but until it’s been properly tested, one can only assume.

Virginia - 10/06.  I am a recent former Terminix employee and witness to federal violations, poor treatment of employees violating labor laws as well as public safety, and consumer issues such as fraud and neglect. Right now I’m out of work because of them and hopefully will find work soon, but I have no problem giving out the info about them. I am from Maryland and serviced the Charles County, Calvert County, and St Mary's County areas. The office was located in of all places Fredericksburg, Virginia, at 1120 International Parkway, Suite 129, Fredericksburg, VA.  After I left them, I reported them to the Virginia Department of Agriculture and am currently fighting to get my last pay check from them with the labor board.

I’ll start with the training.  Virginia law states that when you are hired for this position you are to be trained for no less than 20 hours with a certified technician before you can become a registered tech.  I was a registered tech only yet I was the one training the new hires at this branch -- the only one training them!! According to law, I’m not legally allowed to do this. The first guy I trained did get 20 hours but was sent out with not enough training to treat homes and was sent out for at least a month without being registered to apply chemical. However, we had 2 more guys who were termite guys that only recieved 5 minutes of training from me per management’s request to treat for pest control with no former training. Lucky for me I was trained from another company so I knew right from wrong but the others did not and this puts the customers in danger. The other problem is that Terminix likes to schedule 15-30 stops a day on a tech, causing them to rush, which in turn makes the tech take short cuts, misapply chemical, and cheat the customer. Not to mention the dangers of misapplied chemicals or spills.

Management also, when faced with a huge pest problem in an account, will encourage techs to work around the laws when using pest chemicals and equipment.  For example; the B&G sprayer. It is forbidden to use this inside a home to spray baseboards or even while people are in the home. Management has told techs on several occasions, “yes, it is illegal but do it anyways. We use 3 different chemicals in our B&G's:

1: KICKER ( INSECTICIDE) EPA Reg. No. 432-1145
Pyrethrins 6.0%    Piperonyl Butoxide Technical 60.0%

2: CY-KICK CS EPA Reg. No. 499-304

3: TEMPO SC EPA Reg. No. 432-1363

If you look these up on a MSDS sheet which you can find for free on the net you will see that these are not safe for indoor use in the manner that Terminix uses them. The basic treatment they use is exterior treatment and inside around baseboards and entry points which is illegal.  One drop of this chemical mixed with water can cause a world of damage; and if it entered the rivers has been known to kill thousands of fish and wildlife in the waters.

In addition to the training as far as being a registered tech, Terminix conveniently has their own state proctors to give the test. I too took this test and was given the answers to the hardest questions in a subtle manner so it’s not to be obvious but enough to pass. My Branch manager who has no knowledge of the pest control business and has only been with Terminix since Novemeber 2005 passed this test with a high score;; yet still does not know how to use pesticides and is in no position to recommend a solution in curing a pesty problem.  In fact,  Terminix hires most of their managers from outside the company with no experience whatsoever.

As far as cheating the customers.  Each day I would have 13 regular customers on my route; yet, I  was told to skip them for the new business, causing me to have over a hundred people who did not receive service. I have also gone to regular services only to be greeted by an angry customer that had canceled months prior to me coming, yet they were still in the customer data base.  Terminix does not post cancels because it means the manager’s check will be shorted so they keep adding new clients and keeping the impression the business is growing yet to my knowledge 20% of their customers canceled and did not get removed. Another thing they could do by doing this is if they decide to sell a branch to a potential buyer they could use these false records to fool a buyer into thinking they’re getting a large customer base.

One more scam I know of is when Terminix sales people sell a service, they have a tendency to lie about what the customer is buying. Example: More than a few times I went to what I thought was an Initial pest treatment charged at $365 for the whole year when the customer informs me that Terminix said it covered termites as well.  They offer a free termite insepection but not treatment with a pest contract covering only spiders, crickets, ants, and mice.  They learn this after they signed a contract; and when some are lucky enough to get their money back, they are still in Terminix's computer as an existing customer.

If you would like more information about the pay we get or anything you want to ask, feel free to ask me anything. I want to help any way I can.

Berea, Kentucky - 9/06. I just wanted to tell you thank you for exposing Terminix for what they really are!!  I've been working for this @#%$! company for 7 yrs. now; and trust me, I've seen it all!!!!!!!!! And if I had the chance to get back at them, I would take it in a heart beat.

Florida - 8/06. I used to work for Terminix, and it is the most unorganized excuse for a company ever.  I remember one time we ran out of chemicals and they had us spray water around people’s houses. There were houses protected under termite bonds with Centricon around them which had not been checked in over a year. I would never hire them as a service professional after working for them.  Stay away as an employee and consumer, nothing good comes out of this company. Underpay, overworked, and they also rip off consumers. The perfect example of greed over service.  We would find houses that somehow got lost in the mix and didn’t have their bait stations checked for 2-3 years, and it would just be swept under the rug. They still took the large renewal checks for the houses that were not inspected. in those three years. I know those houses had termite damage. If the customer ever finds it, they will call Terminix; and Terminix will not pay the claim knowing there was a two-three year gap in their service. And their motto is "to honor God in all we do" -- what a joke!  Their motto should be "to line our pockets at other people’s expense.