As a former six-time Elite Yelper with over 200+ reviews, I can confidently say that my experience…read morewith Michiana Wildlife Trapping is the worst I have had with any service provider.
It all started back in July, when my wife and I discovered squirrels were getting into our attic. Keep in mind, our attack is partially finished and part of our living space, so it's not as trivial as it might initially sound.
The rodents were tearing through the foundation of our home and wreaking havoc in the basement interior, causing plenty of damage - not to mention a lot of noise.
My wife did some research and discovered Michiana Wildlife Trapping, which had good online reviews (albeit very few). We called to set up an initial estimate with the owner.
The owner sounded convincing and his plan to secure the entry points, foundation, and keep the squirrels out sounded good. The quote, $2,800, seemed a bit high, but it came with a two year warranty and there really weren't a lot of other options.
A few days later a staffer came out put sealant on a few areas around the house where there were visible holes/cracks, installed a chimney cap, and a one way escape door (which was attached to the basement, not the attic). They never actually located the point where the squirrels were entering. Their efforts turned out to be fruitless and about an hour after they left we could still here the squirrels coming and going at their leisure.
To be fair, pinpointing entry point can take some trial and error. Also, they did come back a couple times, but didn't really provide any solutions and just put some more goop on additional holes, which did nothing to alleviate the problem.
By the third time they came out, it was becoming apparent they had no clue how the squirrels were getting in or how to stop them. They were in over their head.
From that point, they started to become a bit scarce. Given the price we paid, we expected the issue to be resolved. They would schedule a technician to come out and cancel or reschedule.
Like a crazy person, I began to stalk the squirrels during my lunch break and pinpointed the entry points myself. They were getting in from underneath the house which would require a rat wall, which was closer to what we thought we were getting in the first place.
Finally, after roughly 7 weeks of rescheduling and asking for a partial refund, the owner came out and I told him I had located the areas. He suggested the rat wall (basically a bunch of mesh spread out around the foundation of your home) and guaranteed it would be done in a week.
Around 2 months later (yeah, not exactly a week), a technician showed up. I think it was simply to recover his one way trap door. He put a little mesh around the area where the door was. Mind you, that wasn't where the squirrels were getting in. He was here about an hour and completed maybe 10-15% of the work.
He never saw him or anyone from the company again. Initially, they scheduled us for a follow up 6 times, provided several excuses ranging from personal reason to shipping delays. Eventually they just no showed and didn't bother with rescheduling.
After $2,800, five months of trying to get someone to solve our issue, and literally 13 rescheduled appointments (that's not an exaggerated number), we still had squirrels and Michiana Wildlife Trapping still has all our money.
We had no choice but the hire another company and pay (once again) in hopes someone could keep the squirrels from further damaging our home. The company had to reinstall what little work the technician has done.
We have filed with the Better Business Bureau to recover our money and hope we don't have to escalate the issue further.
In the holiday spirit, part of me hopes someone from the company will read this and do the right thing and return funds for services not rendered, but that hasn't been our experience.
In the meantime, I hope I can prevent others from going through a similar experience. Be careful out there yelpers!
P.S. I'll write an update once everything is resolved.
