Ohio - 2/00. We had our house destroyed by Terminix in February 1997. They broadcast sprayed massive amounts of Dursban during what was supposed to be a “light flea treatment.”  My wife has suffered serious health issues from this exposure; and, of course, this has made the last three years a true torture.  We have just forced our equally unethical insurance company to honor our homeowner’s policy.  Now we face Terminix and the arbitration process.

Tennessee - 2/00. Terminix has things in their service contracts that are so unfair you can be killed and not be able to do much legally.  Anyone who signs this contract is put at risk of losing everything they have, including their lives, without any recourse. This part of their contract was tried and held up in court in Memphis, TN. While what happened to me and my family was worse than a nightmare, the fact they can have a contract that gives them this court-proven protection must be stopped. The public is at risk from this powerful company.  I have court documents and photos of what they did to my home, me, my wife, my dogs, and most of all my wife’s child that is still suffering physically from what they did.

In July 1994, our house was fogged to kill roaches.  My wife and I had only been married for 10 months.  We were told to wait for 4-6 hours before going back in.  We waited.  When we went back in, there was a cloud hovering about 3 ft. from the floor, which I though was odd; so we waited another 2-3 hours.  When we went back in, the entire house and everything in it was coated with an oily-type substance. This coverage was so thick, it was dripping from ceiling and ceiling fans, etc. At that point, I called 1-800-terminix and was told it was harmless and wait until morning and it would evaporate.  I asked the person when the last time she had seen oil evaporate!

My wife and I started cleaning and cleaned all night, and she cleaned while I went to work the next day. The stuff would not come up and could not be cleaned.  The area manager came over and again said it would evaporate in a few days. At this point, we had no place to live and our house was saturated with an oily poison. My wife had a burning mouth and throat and had a rash. I had a swollen face like George Foreman had beat the @@$# out of me.  I called their corporate headquarters and spoke to Jerry Cooley, who set us up with a room at a local motel while they had ServiceMaster’s disaster restoration team of five people clean for two days. We went home, and the house was clean as a pin.  My wife’s oldest boy, who is asthmatic, and the rest of our family went in, including our dogs that, in my opinion, saved our lives.  Within 30 minutes of being in the house, we noticed the dogs laying on the floor by the door, almost dead. We got out in a hurry, rushed the dogs to the vet, and they were saved. While at the vet, I called Mr. Cooley and told him of the events and that something had to be done now! Brian was having asthma attacks and had broken out in a rash again.  I told him I wanted my family to be seen by a doctor; and he said go wherever we needed, they would pay for it, and go back to the hotel. We went to a local doctor, and he said he didn’t know what to do, that we needed to see a toxicologist. I looked frantically and could not find one.  I called Mr. Cooley again, and he said he would help us find one. He did -- three weeks later.  They were also cleaning again and removed every single thing we owned from the house. I mean everything -- toys, clothes, furniture, bowling balls, tools, everything! He told us our belongings were being treated in an ozone chamber and not to worry.  We went to see Dr. Merigan, the toxicologist he recommended at UT medical center; and he gave us drugs and told us this is a dangerous substance and being stored in our fat cells. He then called Cooley behind a closed door, which I could hear some of his conversation, and told them they couldn’t clean it, they would have to remove all walls and ceilings or demolish the house. They tore the entire interior out of our house the next day, including the bath tub! This went on for months and we continued to see Dr. Merigan at UT. The last visit we saw Dr. Merigan, he had another doctor and a woman there, in his words just for observation. Well, we never saw Dr. Merigan again.  We saw the other doctor that was there on our last visit with Dr. Merigan. We saw this new doctor for several weeks.  My wife and I had been off work for awhile at this point due to unbelievable headaches, nausea, recurring rashes, etc. Cooley was paying us this whole time.

One day I went to the doctor alone; and out of the blue, he asked me if I had an attorney. I said no, because they were doing anything we asked at this point. He then told me that Merigan was not our friend and not to repeat it or he would lose his job as he worked for Merigan. In tears at this point, I pushed for more information; and he caved and told me Merigan was the medical director for Terminix, and we had been purposely delayed from seeing him for that three weeks it took Cooley to find him.  Now, remember, the three weeks were after three previous weeks living in a motel while they cleaned.  The stress on our family is beyond description; and even after our house was rebuilt, the stress was still unbearable.  We talked to attorney after attorney. All but one were not into battling a powerful company like Terminix.  He took on the case.  We fought for over a year and lost. We went through arbitration that is totally unfair and were screwed and forced into a settlement that I still didn’t want to do; but after 4-5 years of this battle, my life was so stressed out, my marriage on the rocks, etc., I caved in an attempt to save my marriage, which didn’t work.  The stress was directly from all of this, but three attorneys made us look like we were problems to begin with and drug us through the mud and defaced us beyond belief. I was mad enough to keep fighting, but my wife was not. When we settled, they wanted a gag order placed on us in the terms, which wife or no wife, I would not accept; and they finally removed it.

I still have headaches and pretty bad tremors all the time, as does my ex-wife; Brian still has major asthma problems; and they are free of us.  Why does a company that deals with dangerous chemicals have the right to take our right to a jury?  Auto companies can’t, and other very large companies can’t, so why? My life has been totally destroyed mentally and physically by this loose canon. I’ll survive one way or another; but this nightmare will follow me, my ex-wife, and her children forever.

Tennessee - 2/00. I’m glad to see that I am not the only one who has had Terminix lie to them. They lost my $250 renewal fee for my termite contract, then found it, and somehow lost it again. It has been more of a pain to fight with them than to just find another company.  I had termite damage that, on their inspection, they had not listed.  It took me more than four months of arguing with them to get them to come out and fix the problem. They first stated that my contract had lapsed and that they were not responsible, then finally came out to fix it.  Too many phone calls had to be made.  Maybe they have time to sit on the phone all day, but as a single parent of three boys and a full-time job, I don’t.

Illinois - 2/00. Who do I write to in my area or at the national level regarding my dissatisfaction with Terminix employees, service, the “bait” system, and extensive damage to my home since the “bait” system was installed?

Pennsylvania - 2/00. I read your note about the binding arbitration provisions in the “fine print” of Terminix service contracts and how consumers are being restricted in the way they can pursue and collect damages. I, too, appear to have this same language in my agreement. In the spring of 1999, Terminix literally trashed our home; and we have since been displaced due to the amounts of pesticides still present, which have caused our family a lot of illness.

Massachusetts - 2/00. Although Terminix promised to move all children’s belongings and furniture out of the way when they sprayed the floor moldings, when we returned to the house, we found toy baskets and stuffed animals right up against the wall, untouched.  We ended up throwing a certain number away and soaking the rest in water. Incidentally, and probably by pure coincidence, my daughter, who was around two during the treatments, now has leukemia. That probably has nothing to do with anything -- just putting that in in case you see a pattern. Also, Terminix has been billing us for treatments done on the house over six months after we had sold it... hardly seems possible, since they’d have to be let in!  Though we’ve cleared it up on the phone several times, we continue to receive bills by mail.

Illinois - 2/00. We had to sue Terminix after they just about killed my wife and me with improper installation of their chemical and using too much product. Our case ended up with over 500 pages written by the Illinois EPA. They were the worst people my wife and I ever dealt with.  It took two years before the EPA said we could occupy. My wife was told she had chemically-induced asthma, and I had severe short-term memory loss. My wife coughed around the clock for a year and coughed so hard she cracked three ribs.  We never moved back into the house we loved and I had run a business out of for over 24 years. The EPA cited them, but we felt that they were also in bed with them because they okayed the chemicals and the process. Terminix lied about everything, including the chemicals they said they used and the amounts used.  They used, by what their own installer told us, was close to 500 gallons of mixed product in our house. The product they said they used was Dursban with the poison Chlorpyrifos in it, but the EPA said the product that came through our sump pump did not match the color of Dursban.  Dow Chemical came into our house many times and could not explain the different color.  We do know that it could have been from another product that was already banned. One of their men also poured raw poison in a water bottle for us to use if we wanted to (called Bora-Care). They were cited for that also. We had to pay for all 470 pages on our house from the EPA in Illinois, and Terminix was given theirs.  We found our own government was more interested in protecting their jobs than doing their jobs, and that was the saddest part my wife and I ever had to learn. We never went to arbitration; because after three years plus and poor attorneys, we settled out of court.

? - 1/00. After having a few companies come out to my house to give me estimates for termite control, I chose Terminix because of their name and their price was quite a bit lower. I was told by another company at the time their price was lower because I would never hear from them again after I had them install the Sentricon system. They were right. I wish I had listened. It’s been over a year, and they don’t come out and monitor the system like they promised. I was told they would come out every month.  I call their branch office every month. They tell me they only come when they feel it’s necessary.  Now I know why they were $150 less on their yearly fee. Now I’m stuck with them because no other company can take over my system unless I start all over.  I only wish I had believed the gentleman that gave me the higher estimate.

Arizona - 1/00. A beautiful home in the Phoenix area is yet another victim of the Terminix sham for over a year.

Georgia - 1/00. This is a great web site.  I wish I had found it before hiring Terminix for monthly service for our home.  BAD! BAD! service.  I feel sorry for others whose claims are more significant. They are billing me for services not rendered. On the first visit, the technician never called us, came when we were not at home, and apparently sprayed only the outside of the house.  This is not acceptable since we stipulated that we wanted inside treatment.  The second visit never happened, and no invoice was left by the technician. I keep receiving their bills.