Today my wife reminded
me for the 923rd time since June 6th that I need to write
our cancellation notice to Terminix.
Terminix bought the
company we actually contracted with to come out regularly and spray around the
house. That’s right. Six goddamn weeks after we signed our contract we get a
note in the mail saying, “Congratulations! You are about to get completely
screwed!”
Apparently when you
sign up with Terminix, it’s forever. The contract is good for only a year, but
unless you say in writing you don’t want them stopping by anymore, they’ll
continue to charge you whether they show up or not.
As it happens, they
actually served as promised over the remaining year. Notifying us in advance as
to when they were scheduled to come, contact info if we needed them to come
inside, showing up on time. At their last service the dude came by and it was
just beginning to rain. He was like “Dude. If I spray today it will be totally useless.
How ‘bout I come by next week?” Whoa. That was unexpected.
Don’t care. I didn’t
sign a contract with Terminix. I didn’t want Terminix. So now I’m done with
Terminix.
I know what yer thinkin’,
“So, you got what you paid for, got good customer service and you don’t like
it?” Yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying.
Here’s why. I’m 100%
convinced that for a fraction of the cost I can treat my own house and yard for
bugs.
And there’s the
infinite contract extension thing. Now bug companies aren’t the only one to do
this, but to have to actually write a letter? I can’t just call or email?
My wife had July 4-5
off for the holiday. She cleaned the house from top to bottom. And now I can’t
find a damn thing. I wrote and printed and signed the stupid letter. Then I
searched and searched for an envelope. Couldn’t find one. I had to text her at
work:
Me: “Ok, I wrote the
letter. Can’t find the envelopes.”
Her: “Should be a box
on my desk”
Me: “The only box on
your desk says Puffs Plus.”
Her: “On the desktop
there should be the envelopes, if not look in the built in for a new box”
Me: “Pool time”
So I found a new box of
envelopes. Then I realized it may have been about 15 years since I’ve mailed a
letter. I had no idea what postage costs nowadays. She has sheets of stamps in
a folder, some say 44 cents. Some say 45 cents. Some say 1 cent. So I asked the
Google. USPS said it was going to cost 86 cents to mail this. And I was like, “No
it’s not.” So I searched some more.
It’s 45 cents.
By the time I got the
*!%^#! letter out to the mailbox the mailman had already come.
And we have a spider
infestation. Tiny ones. Weird white striped jumping ones. Their white puff ball
egg sacs are under all the furniture and undoubtedly behind things I can’t get
behind.
 |
| "Hi! Wanna see my parlor?" |
I have no idea what I’m
doing.
UPDATE:
Just before going on vacation to visit the grandparents last week the Terminix robot called to say they were coming out to spray as scheduled. I called them and calmly explained I had written a letter and blogged about it to terminate our contract. So she terminated it. I was supposed to get a call the next day to confirm. Didn't. I called them again. They said, "Yeah. Says right here. Cancelled." And then while on vacation they came anyway. I had to call them back. Guess what?! They were 'sorry'. At least they credited me back and I didn't have to threaten them with anything homeland security would water board me for.
