The Great Subterranean Termite Scam

I'll try to make this quick because you're probably not interested, unless you found this post by Googling "subterranean termites," "termite rip-off" or "Terminix bait stations."

Two years ago some icky little bugs gnawed a hole in a wall of my Southern California house and, to make a long story short, they were subterranean termites.

Three exterminator companies came out to do inspections and estimates. Two of them wanted to drill holes at intervals around the perimeter of the house and pump liquid poison into the ground. One of these also wanted to inject the pesticide inside the interior walls of the house. The third company, Terminix, pitched a bait-station plan that would put cylinders of poison into the ground for termites to find, eat, and bring back to their nests to share with their friends and family.

The price for each of the plans was close to two thousand dollars. We chose the Terminix baiting system.

Every three months, a Terminix employee would come to the house and inspect the seventeen bait stations. Over the course of two years, one single cylinder of bait, far away from the original infestation, appeared to be consumed. The rest were untouched.

The reason for this, Terminix employees told me at various times, was that ants in the ground had killed all the subterranean termites. Oddly, the Terminix representatives didn't mention that ants kill termites when they tried to sell me a contract to kill all the ants.

A year after the first infestation, swarmer termites popped up again in the same wall, emerging from a window track. Terminix sent someone out with a special foaming pesticide spray, but the company told me Windex would have worked exactly as well, because the special foaming pesticide spray only kills termites on contact, and so does window cleaner. They also said the swarmer termites die in a few days even if you don't do anything.

Two years ago, when the exterminator company representatives were trying to close the deal, they spoke in frightening terms about termites eating a pound of wood a day. They warned darkly that subterranean termite colonies are much larger than drywood termite colonies (which can be wiped out by fumigating).

But after the contract was signed, the urgency was gone. "It will take them seventy-five years to eat your house," Terminix employees told me.

Now Terminix has informed me that they are abandoning the bait stations system because of questions about its effectiveness. The liquid works better, they've decided, so instead of the $390 annual renewal for the bait stations, they want to charge me $599 for an annual renewal that includes drilling holes around the perimeter of the house and pumping poison into the ground.

In this consumer's opinion, Terminix charged nearly two thousand dollars, plus a second-year renewal fee, for a termite baiting system that was completely unnecessary and, by their own admission, ineffective. Instead of an apology and a refund, they are offering a sales pitch for the equally unnecessary liquid treatment they disparaged two years ago ("Liquid only kills on contact," they said then. "Our slow-acting bait kills the whole colony.")

An inspection of the house has revealed no termite infestation, so I would like to thank the ants for all their hard work, and I would like to warn you, if you ever find out that you have subterranean termites, that your best bet is to buy an ant farm and smash it on the ground next to your house. Put the two thousand dollars in a money market account and use it to replace the studs in your wall in case you ever remodel and happen to see an obese termite smirking at you. Don't forget the Windex.


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