You know something folks, I’m getting tired of competing against these bogus and phony fumigation bids that so many other termite companies are presenting to homeowners in Orange County!
We just fumigated a home in Irvine, but getting this job was not easy because the other two bids were so ridiculously low. We carefully measured the home, did our calculations and determined it’s volume at 103,000 cubic feet. (Please remember that this number is extremely critical because it will determine how much Vikane gas will be administered during the fumigation.)
We explained to the homeowner of how we came up with our numbers and then gave her our bid to do the job. But then, she told us that our price was way too high. I asked her about the other two bids and she showed us that both of them were about $700.00 less than ours. I couldn’t believe my own eyes when I saw this!! (I’d lose money if I did a house this size for that price!)
Fortunately, this homeowner was pretty bright and she understood how important it was to find out what the other two companies had measured her house at. What she learned was really shocking;
Both of the other companies gave her quotes based on a measurement of
about 70,000 cubic feet!!!
At this point, this homeowner was really confused and didn’t know who to believe. She expressed her concern to me and that is when I suggested that we go back and re-measure her home, together. I handed her a clipboard with a graph of her home and we re-measured the whole thing.
Now, I must admit that we usually round our numbers up a bit. We do that because we always want to err on the side of safety and we want to make sure that we have more than enough gas to completely eliminate all of the drywood termites. That means that our price may be a few bucks higher, but on the average home, that number is not significant. Most homeowners are glad to infest a little bit more in gas to insure success. (Do we make more profit by using more gas? NO, we just have to pay more to our gas supplier.)
She did dispute a few measurements of the second story eave areas on her house because of all the odd shapes. But, after we added it all up again, we stood with our original measurement at 103,000 cubic feet. That’s when I asked her,
“How Could Anyone Measure This Home And Come Up With A Number
Of 70,000 cubic feet?”
None of us knew the answer to that question. No matter how you play with the numbers, there’s no way that anyone could come up with a number of 70,000 cubic feet. (I’ve been out of school for a while – Is there some kind of “new math” that they’re teaching out there?)
I then asked her, “Knowing what you know now, how could you even imagine letting one of those other companies fumigate your home? You know their fumigations would fail and you know that they were both perfectly willing to rip you off, right?” She agreed and hired us to do the job.
Ladies and gentlemen, this goes on every single day – I am not exaggerating this problem! Most bids that I see are 25 to 50 percent under measured!! You’ve got to nail these guys down when they give you a bid and find out how much gas you’re getting or you may wind up losing all your money. First and foremost;
You’ve got to figure out if these guys are “playing charades” with your home and money or are they really serious about getting rid of your termites?
Don’t get me wrong, there are some real honest termite guys out there. But, I’m usually surprised when I see an honest bid. The other real important fact to consider is that during my interviews of termite inspectors with many years of experience, I’ve found very few that can even do the basic math required to measure a house!!
If you need a fumigation done on your home or business, call us at (949) 631-7348 or click on order form for a quote. And please, join us when we measure your home. Once you’ve seen this, first hand, we’re quite confident that you won’t even want any of those other guys anywhere near your home!
Thanks!
Termite Terry
