? - 9/01.  Ugh.  I looked at your web site, and it makes me sick.  At every instance, I have seen these practices go on. What is really pathetic is this company is stealing money and making people sick, all under the disguise of a company that honors God in all it does!  Give me a break. I can tell people who post here don’t just have a beef with Terminix, that it goes far beyond that to either being personal or ethically abrasive.

For starters, doesn’t Terminix TELL people what Dursban does?  Basically, it’s a residual powder which is supposed to be lightly sprayed into a crack or a small void. I’ve seen people haphazardly puff that stuff out of their hand duster against sides of houses and whatnot.  Anyway, Dursban has a residual life span of over four months.  Four months, and it’s a powder which is subject to being swept up by the wind and is EASILY airborne. My field trainer sprayed some in a guy’s basement; and when we went upstairs, I could see a steady cloud of it floating around the ceiling. My problem is basically what happens when this gets into your system.  Does it rot away your organs for four months? Is it a carcinogen?  All interesting things employees AND customers should be informed of but never are. We just need to go by the label which says “CAUTION avoid eye contact and harmful if swallowed.”

To any customer reading this site who might be wondering what pesticides are safe, as a former employee, I’ll tell you... NONE OF THEM.  They’re made to kill things... they harm organisms and they do it whether that organism is human, insect, rodent, or whatever.

If you’re a Terminix customer, make sure you ask your tech what he used at your house. Dursban has a musky smell that tickles the back of your throat.  There’s no reason to smell that airborne, as it’s supposed to be a crack and crevice treatment.

But at least customers can sleep well knowing they have it 10 times better off than employees. The crap I was forced to endure and the stuff I saw go on was abominable.  I wish I could get into individual accounts from the branch I worked in; but I’m sure they read these, and those money-hungry pigs would probably sniff around for a lawsuit. But nothing bars me from airing what happened to me directly.

I worked the job for three months and finally got out on the road by myself to “make money” as they said. That was a joke. I tried to give my customers support the best I could. This sometimes meant spending over an hour at people’s houses explaining to them what I was going to do, what they had to do, and some small talk. There’s no sense in acting like a jerk.  The result?  Well, considering my route was in the middle of nowhere and I was more focused on giving my customers the service they paid good money to get, I couldn’t achieve more than 8 - 10 stops a day.  (And that was only if there weren’t any Sentricon stops which took generally less time.)  I was met with a scolding by my manager for not completing my routes, because you see it doesn’t matter whether you solve a customer’s problem.  All that matters is you leave that ticket in the door that says you were there... and everything is supposed to be all right.

Northeast - 9/01.  I recently quit working at Terminix; and after reading this web page, I couldn’t feel any better about my decision.  Every employee complaint hits the nail right on the head; but in all actuality, it’s gotten worse, and I don’t see it stopping anytime soon. Here’s the employment that was MY nightmare.

First, I was lied to during the interview. I was told I would make around $35k for a full year, and I figured that wasn’t bad. I'm just a kid in the middle of college, and doing that kind of work for six months for that money didn't sound so bad. Of course, I found out there are only about 2-3 of the 28 techs who actually eclipse that mark in a given year (which is hard to determine since they lose 15-20 techs a year). I was also told I'd need to work one Saturday a month, and during the summer months might have to work up to 9 hours. During my few months with Terminix, I worked every Saturday; and I worked over 12 hours almost half the time. This was of course done so I could get my inordinate number of stops done in a day (and I still had some unserviced.)

Secondly, Terminix gave me a route that was 50 miles away from the branch office because it was "closer" to my home. This would have been fine and dandy, but I still had to report to the branch office once, twice, and sometimes three times a day.  That takes about 3½ hours out of my day on occasion, but I'm still supposed to complete 15-20 stops a day.  That’s not a problem though, I don't mind working until 1 a.m. just to get back to my draw salary.

We were fortunate enough to have the regional manager come in and tell us all how bad of a job we were doing by not completing our routes every month.  That was BS for us to say doing 15-20 stops a day wasn't possible everyday.  We were lazy, we didn't care, this all being said to us by the most slovenly dressed, ill-mannered man, who, when he was in our office, spent more time playing around on AOL than dealing with any problems. He also informed us that we will be getting all the pesticides we needed and that was a guarantee.  So how'd that turn out? Well, how do most Terminix guarantees turn out?

To the people reading this who complain about the techs though, I wouldn't pin the blame on them.  Techs get a workload that’s basically impossible to complete. Sometimes they get tickets that need them to be in four different cities between 8-10 a.m.  That’s just not possible, and it’s not their fault; but you still get an earful from the managers regardless. Terminix management basically straight out told me to go to the starts first (because that gets Terminix the money) and leave Sentricon traps last.  And that’s what techs do. Techs get around $5 for a stop for Sentricon. And, of course, Terminix makes the $2,200 or so a year off it. Techs are forced to look out for themselves because nobody else is going to.

I don't know how many surprised customers I saw when I told them what was in the Sentricon stations.. WOOD.. it’s just WOOD.  There’s no pesticide in there, it’s just by golly gosh darn wood!  They don’t bait the stations until they find termites; and if your house hasn't been looked into in over three months, it’s too late anyway and you just blew the 2 grand you spent on the service and now you ALSO get to repair your house.

Finally, I wasn't the least bit surprised to see the majority of my customers were elderly people.  Ones who haven’t seen a bug or rodent in their house for over a year but are signed up for both pest and termite contracts.  I know they're being scammed first hand because I went to a house where our "inspector" (hidden name for SALESMAN) told the lady he would sign her up for a one-time deal to get rid of a wasps nest above her bedroom.  After doing so, I looked at the contract.  She was also signed up for carpenter ants and termites for two years apiece... a total of $5k... and she knew NOTHING ABOUT IT. It made my teeth cringe, and it was also the last straw.

I could go on with a hundred other things that went wrong in the last five months, but I'm sure everyone else has already posted it already.

I didn't need anything more, but this young person's letter might give others an even better appreciation for the web site at:  http://members.tripod.com/tornado2000/simplecon.html.

Pennsylvania - 8/01.  I am an employee of this company, and you’re right. They do sell false hopes, and no set prices. It’s a shame.  There’s even a branch manager that was fired from Orkin for stealing money. I can’t believe they made him branch manager, let alone even hired him.

Florida - 8/01.  Unfortunately, Sears agreed on August 17 to sell its pest control interests to Terminix. Having worked for Sears (whom I considered to be very good at customer satisfaction) for the past several years, I have been disheartened by not only the prospect of unemployment but also concern for what is to become of “my” customers. All newer termite contracts are going to be automatically converted to a Sentricon baiting station while older termite contracts there is no info about what will happen. I suspect that when these older contracts come due, customers will be told they must purchase the Sentricon baiting service or they will no longer have a contract.  I believed in the Sears service so much that I had the service on my own house. Terminix is supposedly going to be contacting me about employment with them after my official termination date with Sears, but I WILL NOT work for such a company.  Rather, I’ll go into partnership with other Sears employees and open up a business competing with Terminix to provide customers with true customer service.  Should be easy considering Terminix’s track record.  Thank you for your web site.

Tennessee - 7/01.  I was an “executive services” employee for the home office in Memphis for a short period of time.  Gosh, the horror stories I could tell you!  When customers wrote or called in to Cantu, they thought the complaint was going to his desk; however, he never even saw them. I handled them with three other people.  Terminix, in fact, sent me a gag order as I was in touch with past customers that had millions of dollars worth of damages that the “bastards” at Terminix denied!!  They need to be put out of business.  Terminix is nothing but a SCAM!!!

Put it this way -- the legal department sent me a letter to “keep my mouth shut or else.”  I have been contacted by [name withheld] a reporter for Dateline* in NY and given her much info and names. I have tons of horror stories, deaths, illnesses.  Terminix trains their employees to lie and the guarantees they give are not worth anything under any condition, and never have I heard of the techs EVER using the proper chemicals. They are trained to water them down to almost nothing!!  The customer service employees are told to tell customers looking for refund checks that they are in the mail and when they never arrive, “Sorry, but the first one hasn’t been returned, so we cannot issue another one.” The only checks I ever saw go out were the ones I personally hand carried to get signed, and I would take them home with me and put them in the mail so they were not to be intercepted!

Web mistress note: I was also in contact with the same Dateline reporter and provided her with a wealth of information and contacts.  Just as 60 Minutes dropped their story of ServiceMaster suing me after they scheduled a week for on-camera interviews, Dateline has chosen to put the information about Terminix “on the back burner.” Since these cases are both newsworthy and in the public’s best interests to know, is the media protecting the interests of Terminix and ServiceMaster or are they afraid of something?