We called Orkin to deal with an elder bug problem. We were clear on the phone that the elder bugs were in the house, not outside (it was December / January so this should have been pretty obvious but regardless). They said there was a spray they could use but it would require us to be out of the house for 4 hours at least.
We have young kids so this wasn't easy but we found a way to do it. The guy that showed up seemed nice enough and asked that we pay the $400 charge up front (should have been a red flag but we paid it anyways). He then proceeded to tell us that the spray would probably stain our cabinets and is really only meant to be used outside. We obviously told him we didn't want that and asked why they didn't tell us this before showing up.
He then said he needed to call his head office - after getting off the phone with them he told us there was a powder that he could put behind our pot lights in the kitchen that would be able to help and wouldn't cause any damage. At this point we were I guess willing to have anything to help with this problem so said sure. We did a few other things around the house and when we came back to check on how things were going, not only had he put this powder behind the pot lights but he had also put a whole bunch on top of our kitchen cabinets! It's hard to describe but there's about a half inch gap right above the cabinets and he shoved a whole bunch of this powder in there. He did a hugely messy job of it and it fell all over our countertops, oven, floor, drawers, etc.
After getting a bunch of wipes and helping this guy clean it, I realized how much he put up there. He basically filled this tiny gap to the point that every time you open a cabinet or even just as people move about the house a bit of this powder falls into whatever we're cooking / prepping in the kitchen. I've spent hours vacuuming this crap back up so its not falling in our food or on our counters, and of course it hasn't stopped the elder bugs in any meaningful way.
I called the company and complained after he left and spoke to a manager. They weren't willing to refund us even though they didn't even use the spray they said they were going to and they made this huge mess. Oh and of course this powder didn't require anyone to leave the house so we made arrangements to get 3 young kids out of here for no reason apparently.
Don't use this company unless you want to add vacuuming a bunch of toxic powder to your to do list in addition to squishing whatever bugs may be lurking around.
- Approximate cost of services:
- $400.00