Pennsylvania - 9/00. I took Terminix before the Dept. of Agriculture and Bureau of Labor and Industry.  They were found guilty on two counts of misuse of pesticides and fined on both cases. They did appeal and then the fines were lowered. Also, there was a lawsuit filed against Terminix by myself and family in Philadelphia.  It has made it to the federal court level.  You have the story of the sign on my lawn that Terminix sued me for and the judge’s ruling.

I have been fighting with Terminix since 1992 when they severed two oil lines beneath my home; and knowingly after spilling the oil, Terminix injected 250 gallons of the chemical Dursban on top of the 350+ gallons of oil they spilled below my house.

The contract was not signed by me, an oversight on Terminix’s part; but they are still trying to get me into arbitration. We have been all the way up to the federal court level already.  We have won each time. I had, since the federal court level, decided to go with alternate resolution, which was agreed to with Terminix. They since have backed out and want arbitration.

When you file a claim against them, you are put in Terminix’s Risk Management Department.  Once entering the Risk Management Department is when all the games begin. You will be told everything will be taken care of, don’t worry; and you will receive worthless letters and agreements from Terminix, which they will not honor.

My homeowners insurance company originally covered me. They were convinced by Terminix that Terminix would be responsible and take care of things. My homeowners insurance company then dropped me, telling me Terminix would handle all the clean up and restoration of my home.  What Terminix did was a cover up of the property. The PA DER was called in by me as was the EPA. The EPA showed test results that did not match Terminix’s (big surprise).
Terminix dug up and stole my underground oil tank and claimed that it was leaking for 40 years and that is what caused the contamination of the property. Only problem with the theft of my tank was I had two pressure tests on the tank before they stole it. Terminix never knew about the tests. I did those when Terminix was not on the property with two independent companies (not something Terminix had planned on when they stole my tank).  Also, Terminix’s tests for hydrocarbons are about 600% higher than the EPA’s test results. The EPA shows no leaking tank as Terminix’s test shows there was.

There is so much more to my story with Terminix. They were convicted of two counts of illegal use of chemicals on my property. I had a well inside the structure of my home.  Terminix said no problem. The instructions for the chemical Dursban TC say it is illegal to use that chemical when a well is in the confines of the structure.  I later found this out by tracking info on Dursban and contacting agencies.

The toughest thing is finding the right agency that handles it.  You get shuffled around.  I went with the US Dept. of Agriculture, the EPA, the Attorney General’s Office of both the U.S. and PA state. I went to my U.S. senators and congresswoman.  You end up with the PA Dept. of Agriculture and the Bureau of Labor and Industry.  This is where Terminix was found guilty on my property. There are police reports, Attorney General reports filed by me, reports to all the agencies I could think of.

Another part of the story is that when Terminix contaminates your home, you are in shock.  They use that on you. They tell you things will be okay, they will take care of it.  Well, when my insurance company turned me over to Terminix and the clean up, which was over one million dollars, was almost complete, I was told, “If you want to get your house back, sign this release form, holding us harmless (Terminix); and we will let you have your house back.” I filed a complaint with the PA state insurance commission, which forced my homeowners insurance company back into the picture.  When my homeowners insurance company stepped back in, Terminix tried to stop them.  Without the house to hold over my family’s head, Terminix lost leverage.  My homeowners insurance company denied Terminix’s request to stay out of it.

You get no help from anyone when something like this happens.  You are on your own.  It took a lot out of me, almost destroyed my family, almost bankrupted us, put our health in danger, poisoned my kids and wife, contaminated our home; they sued us, abused us, lied to us, threatened us. They did everything in the world to destroy us. I will say there were many nights and days of crying over all this, especially the worry of what have I done to my four kids, have I done this to have them die from this chemical.  It even brings you to the point of suicide. And certain public officials (sitting U.S. senator) would not even return my calls.  Makes me wonder where he gets his PAC money.  My story is more detailed than this, and they are still trying to beat me down.

One thing I found out was that Terminix’s parent company, ServiceMaster, likes to become involved.  ServiceMaster does not let you know that they and Terminix are the same company.  I was forced by Terminix to use ServiceMaster to do the clean up of the interior upstairs part of the house. I had no choice. I was never told that ServiceMaster and Terminix were the same company. I found out by accident when I looked at ServiceMaster’s letterhead and confronted them with the fact.

My wife caught the people from ServiceMaster trying to break into our bedroom where we kept our paperwork. They tried to get into the locked bedroom after they were told it was off limits to them.

I found your site with the help of the reporter who did the most recent story on the house.  He was interested in doing the story because of the June 8th banning of Dursban by the EPA. Funny how the chemicals Terminix claimed were safe were eventually banned by the EPA.  I have had approximately 12 stories and two television reports done on the house so far.

Georgia - 9/00. The following is from a copy of a letter sent to Albert Cantu, president of Terminix:

Your company, Terminix, has failed us miserably. As a result, we have terminated our service agreement with your company in favor of one that understands the basic tenets of customer service.  Our requests for basic service (guaranteed, I might add, in your documentation) either went unanswered, were met with hostility, or ignored.  Below is a timeline of events...

• 9/1 - Scheduled appointment between 9 a.m. - 11 a.m. with technician at time of service call in July per bimonthly service agreement. No one showed up or called from Terminix.
• 9/5, 9/6, 9/7 - Called local office to find status of service and to reschedule. Messages not returned.  On Thursday, reached someone directly and scheduled for Friday, 9/8 between 9 a.m. to 11 a.m.
• 9/8 - Called office approx. 8:30 a.m. to confirm appointment.  Was assured by Doug Parham, Service Manager, that technician was scheduled.  11:05 a.m. - Called Doug Parham back to let him know the window of scheduled appointment was missed. He paged tech who arrived approx. 11:30 a.m. Technician, Marcus Benby, arrived and spent approximately 10-15 minutes on house and perimeter, despite my expressing concern over specific ant problems. (This is in contrast to last technician who spent approximately 30 minutes.)  Upon signing the invoice, I added comments in special instruction column: “One week late service. Took multiple calls to reschedule. Unhappy customer.” Mr. Benby then became angry and stated he was “only 30 minutes late” and he was not responsible for any earlier appointment that had been booked.  He also stated that he had tried to come by earlier in the week. He had, in fact, left a door hanger on the door on 9/6, however, I was home and never heard a knock on the door, nor did our dog bark to let me know someone was there. We also had contractors in and around the back of the house at the time who would have made me aware of his visit, had he tried to reach someone.  I told Mr. Benby that regardless of his drive-by attempt, it was not a scheduled appointment. After Mr. Benby left, I telephoned Doug Parham to make him aware that I was unsatisfied with this service call and the discourteous manner in which I had been addressed by his technician. I left my name and telephone number.  Call was not returned.
• 9/11 - Left message for Mr. Parham.  No return call.
• 9/12 - Left message for Mr. Parham.  No return call.
• 9/13 - Left message for Mr. Parham in a.m. No return call.  Ant problems persisting.  Called “Unresolved Problems 1-800-835-5869” number on Terminix invoice. Made my situation known to operator (including dates, names, times) who told me she would forward information in an e-mail to a district manager, Jim Hamilton.  She repeated my information back to me to confirm validity.
• 9/15 - Had heard no response from Terminix.  Called 1-800 number again.  Operator said she could see nothing in my file indicating my previous call.  She would send information to “Executive Services.”  Ant problem persisting.
• 9/19 - Had heard no response from Terminix.  Called same 1-800-835-5869 number again and asked for Corporate Office telephone number. Was referred to Mr. Alfo Grisanti. I left a voice mail to Mr. Grisanti detailing my issues with Terminix.  He returned my call quickly, apologized, and promised to remedy the situation immediately and get service to our house. I told him that under no circumstances did I want Mr. Benby sent back to my house. I felt he had not serviced the house properly on his last call, and his hostile, defensive manner made me uncomfortable.  He assured me that they would send a different technician.  He stated he would call me back to make sure I was satisfied with the outcome.  Mr. Doug Parham called me that afternoon late and first defended Marcus Benby by saying he “wasn’t sure what Marcus could have said to me” and it would be difficult to find a different technician.  I told him out of all of Metro Atlanta, I found it hard to believe there was not another Terminix technician who could be called.  He said he would call me back that day to reschedule. No one called from Terminix.
• 9/21 - Experienced complications with my five-month pregnancy. Was instructed by doctor to take a bath and go immediately to bed.  There were approximately 20 ants in the bathtub, so I had to scrub and clean it first before following doctor’s orders.
• 9/23 - Persistent ant problem manifested into several hundred ants on our kitchen counter Saturday morning.  A call was placed to your 1-800 number to young lady by the name of Rolanda who informed me she could not let me speak with supervisor to help resolve our issues.  She did, however, connect me with the local office and Doug Parham. In speaking with Doug, he said he could not guarantee a time, but we would have a visit from a technician that day.  He also promised to contact me by noon with an update.  Doug never returned our call.  I called him again and spoke with Cecil who too promised a return call. At 3:30 p.m., we received a call from Sean who said he was returning our call. We tried to return his call a few minutes later, only to get your customer service voice mail. Also, received invoice from Terminix.
• 9/25 - Left message for and spoke with Alfo who promised to return my call.  He never returned the call. Left message for Doug Parham.  Received telephone call from Marcus Benby late afternoon.  He started conversation by saying, “I hear you want another service call.  You know I was just out there two weeks ago.” I told him about our persisting ant problem; and he said, “You know you have to give that stuff time to work.” He then said he would be by the next day between 12 noon and 1 p.m.  I was so surprised to even hear from Mr. Benby that I went along with the call. I discussed the situation with my husband, and we decided to sever ties with Terminix.
• 9/26 - I called and left a message for Doug Parham that I wanted to cancel the Marcus appointment. He called me back and again defended Mr. Benby even after I told him about his tone during our call on Monday.  I told him we had been trying to resolve our service issues with Terminix since September 1 and we would be canceling our contract. I called Mr. Grisanti to let him know of the events that had taken place since he and I spoke.  I told him I was incredulous at the lack of communication within the organization and could not believe I had been contacted by the very technician I had asked not to hear from again.  I told him something should be documented in Mr. Benby’s personal file as to his hostile, defensive nature.  I also reminded him that he (Grisanti) had promised to call me to make sure I was satisfied and I had never heard from him. He stated he had been called out of the office at the end of last week.  I told Mr. Grisanti we wanted to cancel our contract with Terminix.  He said he would see we received a refund from our prior monthly service ($63) and he would remove any remaining charges from our account.
• 9/27 - Received a letter from Terminix regional office announcing a $1 service charge would be added to our bill for increased fuel costs.

While this is clearly frustrating for anyone, it troubles me that my pregnant wife had to endure much of the lack of customer service your organization.  In addition to canceling our service agreement with your company, I expect a full refund for previous service provided by Terminix and an apology from your company.

Had this been an isolated incident with Terminix, it would be easy to overlook; but this lack of respect for the customer obviously permeates the leadership of your organization. I will make sure my neighbors know about your service levels and encourage them to do as we did in finding pest control companies that keep the customer at the center of their business.