This review is being written several years after our Termite treatment encounter with the Orkin facility here in Columbus, OH. I now have another pest problem and while researching companies to treat what I believe are wood mites in our deck, I saw a couple of negative reviews of Orkin and decided to add my two cents worth.
Our original inspection verified that we had termites. The "salesman" who came out told us that after Orkin was finished treating our home, we would never ever see another termite. He told us that a full crew of 4 or 5 techs would take most of the day to do the treatment.
I had to be out of town on the day of treatment. When I returned home several days later, I asked my wife how the treatment went; "fine, except it took much less time to do and only two techs were needed." Turns out, these two techs were here for less than 2 hours. Called the salesman and told him we have a problem as the treatment was not done the way he said it would be. He said he'd get back to me.
After I called several times over the next few days, leaving "urgent" messages each time, the salesperson finally called back and told me that there had been a "mix up" on the treatment order and that we indeed had not been given the treatment we paid for. He said we would need to reschedule the treatment - and then gave me a date six weeks out because "we are now in our busy season and we have customers waiting for their scheduled treatments and six weeks is the best we can do for a RE-TRREATMENT!
Long story shortened - I raised hell with the parent company of Orkin at that time - (Ryder, not sure if they still own Orkin) and finally got an appointment for the following week (3 weeks after my first complaint to the salesperson) and they showed up on the Saturday morning of the Labor day weekend. About noon, I saw a guy with a big drill pulling up the carpet over the cement slab floor in the basement family room. He said he had to drill injection holes for the foam that would be injected all around the perimeter of that room. I told him there was a buried water line under that floor and, based upon where the water meter was located and where the water line entered the front yard, where I thought it ran under the floor and that no drilling should be done in that area.
I left the basement and five minutes later heard the drilling start and then abruptly end with the operator hollering something about "hit water"! He indeed did drill right where I warned him not to and he indeed did hit the water line, resulting in a heavy spray of water coming out of the hole and wetting down everything in the room.
The supervisor on site called his boss who told him to call a plumber. I was asked if I knew one who might come out on a holiday weekend.
While I called the Worthington City Water Department to try and get the water turned off at the curb, the supervisor again called his boss (who was at home, not at the office) and asked him to find a plumber. In the meantime I tracked down a supervisor from the water department (thanks to help from the police department) who came out and shut off the water at the curb.
At about 3PM, the Orkin supervisor on site told me that they could;d not get any plumber to come out till Tuesday morning because of the Labor Day holiday.
There is much more to this story, but I don't have time now to mention all of the crap I've put up with. My advice, if you decide to have ANY type of treatment by Orkin, mare darn sure you have a complete description, IN WRITTING, of what will be done, when it will be done and who can be contacted immediately if you don't like how the treatment is going. And be advised - NEVER believe the salesman if he says you will never see another termite, because you almost certainly eventually find them again - as we have. read more