Quote:
Originally Posted by ferco
We inherited a termite trap system when we bought our house and the contract is now up for renewal. Are these things any good ? The new company wants $350 to install new traps around the outside of the house (the old ones are no good, he says) and a quarterly maintenance of $60.
Anyone with any experience with these gadgets ?
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Yeah, our next-door neighbor.
They've been paying Terminix for literally decades. Once a week the guy comes out to the property and buzzes each of the traps with a remote control. He doesn't actually open them, but rather just waves a remote control at them. The remote makes a sound that indicates something (I have no idea what) and the guy is in & out in less than five minutes. You're paying $20/month for roughly 20 minutes of maintenance. Sounds about right.
Have you checked the old traps? My impression is that they're little plastic buckets with pieces of wood in them. If termites start chewing the wood then the guy replaces the wood with poisoned bait... within the week, anyway. Assuming his remote control tells him to. But I can see how all the moving parts in that system might wear out and require a $350 replacement.
When we discovered termites in our house four years ago, we went next door to tell the neighbor. While we were there she noticed a tunnel on the outside of a potted plant on her lanai. She broke it open and a bunch of termites ran out.
The termites had never touched any of the Terminix traps.
But our neighbors are the kind of people who feel better paying someone else to assume the liability of termite damage to their house. It's part of the reasons that they're both still working.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TromboneAl
Why can't you just buy these things at Home Depot?
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[insert punch line about "trained professionals" here...]