Termite Inspection Orange County Termite Terry Pest Control

Costa Mesa, Newport Beach, Huntington Beach, South Orange County, Long Beach Area

Old Wives’ Tale Comes Back To Stink Out A Homeowner!

An “old wives’ tale” is a superstitious belief or story belonging to traditional folklore. No one seems to know who made them up or where they come from. However, once someone starts believing in one of these “old wives’ tales”, it can be very difficult to get them to change their mind.

We were inspecting a home in Huntington Beach that had a rat problem, recently. After doing a thorough audit of their home, we recommended that they have us seal off holes and entry points of the home where rats were crawling in. And, we recommended that they have us place snap traps to catch any rats that might still be in the home. The homeowners asked if we could put out some rat bait, instead. We told them that was a bad idea because the rats may eat the bait and die in their walls or somewhere in the home where they’d be hard to find.

Like many homeowners, they decided to get a second opinion. Another company sent out their tech and in only a matter of minutes and without doing any inspection, he recommended that they have him put out some of his “magic rat bait”.  Then, he started repeating an “old wives’ tail” that has been going around for decades. He told them that the rats would eat his “magic rat bait”, get thirsty and go outside to die. Of course, his price was much, much less than ours and the homeowners hired him on the spot.

Well, hardly a week went by before a very strong and rancid odor starting coming out of one of their home’s walls. The homeowners called this other company’s technician and told him that a rat had died in their wall and they asked if he could come out and remove the dead rat.  The homeowners complained that he had promised them that this wouldn’t happen because he had promised that the rats would eat his bait and go off to die somewhere else. “How could this happen?”, they asked. The technician told them, “I’m sorry, we don’t do that kind of work. You’ll have to call someone else.”

The homeowners called us back and we gladly came out, cut a hole in their wall and removed the dead rat. They had us remove the other company’s “magic rat bait”, we sealed off the rodent entry points and set out our rat traps – Just like we had originally recommended. Unfortunately, the homeowners wound up spending more money than they should have because the other company would not refund their money.

Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t know who came up with this “old wives tale” about rats eating bait and going off to die somewhere else. All I can tell you is that it is FALSE. And, I can show you a large list of homeowners that will also tell you that it FALSE because they have all had to learn the hard way and suffer through all of the misery and additional expense. If you have a rodent problem, call Termite Terry Pest Control for a complimentary home audit at (949) 631-7348 or click on order form. Rest assured that we will never recommend using rodent baits of any kind, unless they are to be used on the exterior and we are confident that rats will not be able to get back into your structure.