We hear from people regularly who are pretty confident they can handle their pest control issues on their own. They read an article or heard about a pest control product from their neighbor that should do the trick. In the best scenarios, those people go on their way and solve the issues that are plaguing their homes without any intervention from us. But usually, that isn’t the case. Many more of those people come back to us eventually with the same issues they started with.
As a local, community-based pest control company, we want what’s best for our customers and neighbors. If that means that you ultimately don’t end up investing in our pest control services so be it. But we hate to see members of our community struggling to conquer their pest control issues, or improperly using over-the-counter pest control products. It’s for the safety and peace of mind of our customers that we urge everyone to consider this investment.
The following stories represent real situations we’ve encountered at Holder Pest and Termite Control. We’ve changed the names and some of the details in these stories to protect the innocent. However, they all represent the important things we want all of our customers and potential customers to know about the value of professional pest control.
Fluffy’s Worst Week Ever
Emily is a local homeowner who lives in an old downtown DeLand house. When she and her cat Fluffy first moved to DeLand she knew she wanted to own one of the beautiful old homes in the historic district. However, having never lived in such a home there were a lot of things she didn’t know. Weeks after moving in she noticed something had been nibbling on the fruit in her fruit bowl. After a little bit of research, she determined that there was a third body living in her home. A rat.
As you can imagine, Emily was not happy at this revelation. How in the world was she going to rid her home of this rat, and why wasn’t Fluffy doing her part to catch it? This is when Emily called us. The very next day one of our pest control professionals met Emily at her home and gave her an overview of what he could do to help relieve her rat problem. She said she needed to take the night to think about it and we didn’t hear from her for several months.
That night, Emily called her brother and he insisted she could handle the problem herself. So she took his advice and bought some rat poison at her local home improvement store and set it out right next to her fruit bowl. Do you see where this is going? You guessed it, Fluffy the cat ate the poison. Now, we assure you that Fluffy is fine to this day, but Emily’s DIY pest control ended up costing her a pretty penny in vet bills.
Unexpected Home Renovations
Bill and his wife Nancy have lived in the same Central Florida home for 40 years. They raised their children in this home and are now hosting sleepovers for their 3 grandchildren. Over the years, they noticed signs and symptoms of termite infestation in the downstairs living room. First, it was the little piles of frass that showed up on the window sill, and then over time the windows ‘ even open they were so swollen with bugs. But Bill and Nancy were both busy with jobs and children and they managed to push it out of their minds for years.
One day, Nancy became concerned about how this might affect the stability of their beloved home and urged Bill to call Holder Pest and Termite Control. After a little bit of research online, Bill discovered termite control products that you can buy and use yourself. Why hire out when you can do it yourself for a fraction of the cost, right?
After nearly a year of the DIY method, it became clear to both Bill and Nancy that things were progressively getting worse, not better. That’s when Bill finally called us. Unfortunately, things were even worse than they imagined. We fumigated their home and set them up with regular termite and pest control services, but the damage had been done. Later that year, Bill and Nancy had to hire a general contractor to replace a great deal of the wood siding, framing, and windows in their living room.
An Expensive Ant Problem
Charles is the owner of a local food manufacturing plant. They’re the kind of company that mixes and packages dry goods for sale in grocery stores. Several times a week, Charles’ company receives orders of literal tons of materials ranging from grains to spices and they store them in large barrels in their warehouse.
Last year, Charles moved his business from a warehouse he had rented to a building he purchased on his own. In all the chaos of the move, he forgot that pest control services had been included by the previous building owner. Two months went by before it dawned on him to contact Holder. Unfortunately, by the time our technician made it out to the building to provide a free consultation, ants had already found their way into a large container of mixed spices.
While Charles lost a lot of valuable products that day, he also learned a valuable lesson. Since then he has been a very loyal and very satisfied customer.
Holder Pest Control is a local and community-focused pest control company. We do what we do because we want all of our friends and neighbors to live and work in places that feel safe and protected from unwanted pests. These are examples of things that have happened to our customers and there are more just like these. Before you become one of our examples, give us a call for a free evaluation of your home’s pest control. It would be our honor to serve you.
