The Creepy Bug Guy

Owning a house in Virginia, in the hilly woods, you just know there are varmints and bugs. Not to mention the deer and bears. Everyone has a contract with a pest control company to come and spray 4 times a year, and put mouse traps outside. Everyone!

Enter, Creepy Bug Guy. The tech that came to the house 4 times a year, I will call him Bill, was a very odd man and very arrogant. I was always the one home when he came and I always just put up with him. He was always one step away from patting me on the head and saying now, now Miss just let the men handle this.

Bill and my Husband (played by Vincent Price)

I will set the scene for our last encounter. We scheduled the Creepy Bug Guy at a time when my husband was going to be in VA.  The appointment  was scheduled in advance, but it turned out that we were to have a showing at the house at the same time. I called to have the appointment changed with the Bug Guy and the Office Guy could not reach him.  As it turned out the whole time Office Guy was trying to contact the wrong person. So, you guessed it, the Bug Guy showed up at the house during the showing. Just what you want a potential buyer to see a pest control truck show up while they are looking at your house. Oy!

Now, you can make the argument that it was not Bill`s fault that he showed up. True, and if it stopped there Bill would have stayed as our Creepy Bug Guy. But NOOOOOO! Arrogant Bill walks into our home, confronts my already angry husband and says that he was doing us a favor by even showing up. His exact words. Funny, I thought we scheduled the appointment and was paying hundreds of dollars for the service. Favor? I think not. It went down hill from there, and he was kicked out of the house. Permanently!

Ugly Termite

The manager of the company was called, and he apologized profusely about the office mix up and for Bill`s attitude and behavior. Then he said when you are ready for the termite inspection for the sale of your house, we will do it for free.  Oh, and Bill will not be back in your house again, ever.

Fast forward many months. The house finally sold and we needed a termite inspection. I call the Creepy Bug Company and guess who answers the phone................Bill. So, I ask Bill for the manager and he says he is the manager, not true, I hope anyway. So, I said I have an agreement with a manager to get a free termite inspection. He transfers me to, I will call him, Bob the inspector, and evidently a good friend of Bills. I mentioned that the manager promised us a free termite inspection because of the behavior of an employee, and he said of you mean Bill. At that point I should have hung up and moved on. But NOOOO, I wanted the inspection ASAP and so he said he would come out in an hour. Our agent was meeting him there to let him in the house. This is how my agent tells the story.

As he pulls up to the house  Bill the "Inspector", and I use that title loosely, was already in the flower beds. He walks up to our agent with a small plastic container, and says he found termites in the flower beds around the house. He did not show our agent any place where there were termites, just the container. Our agent just dropped and shook his head. Then they went inside and our agent went with him as he "inspected", shocking, no termites found. As he was leaving he told our agent we will need to spend $1700 for remediation to get rid of the termites. So much for a free inspection.

The official form that is not sent to the state, ever!

Our agent called me and told me what he said Bob found, and  then our agent made an appointment with another company for a second opinion scheduled the next day. I called Bob the "Inspector" and asked what he found, and he said he would send me the report and that we needed remediation. I told him we were getting a second opinion and he became very hostile. He said if they don`t find anything they are not looking hard enough because there are termites in your yard. He also told me he was filing his report with the state to tell them we have termites outside. I said file your report and thanks for coming out. Bye, Bye!

The house was inspected the next day, and there were no signs of termites anywhere. They also told me that there was no place in the state to file a termite report. My conclusion at this point was that Bill and Bob got their little "bug heads" together and decided to stick it to us. He brought the bugs with him, showed up early so he was in the beds when our agent showed up, and then thought we would pay the $1700 for remediation. He couldn't`t lie about the inside having termites because our agent was with him. Then when I called him and told him we were getting a second opinion he though he would scare me by telling me he was going to tell the state we had termites. What a poor sad little bug man.

What is the moral of this story? Could be: "Nothing is for free!", or "When something looks too good to be true, it usually is."  More likely it is "Never trust the friend of an arrogant Creepy Bug Guy to do your termite inspection."

I have the to say the whole incident is still BUGGING me!