I needed some quotes for pest control here at the house so I called/left messages for several pest control companies the other day. My question was “Do you do free estimates for pest control?” Mind you, I know nothing about pest control or how they do it. I figured they do it once a year and only do outside.
One lady sent me this response in an email:
Pest Inspection, Inside & Outside Treatment, Webbing. Covers house
ants, spiders, roaches, mice, rats, silverfish, house crickets,
centipedes, earwigs, CHARGES: For a 2000-3000 square foot home the
cost is $85/quarter. For 1000-2000 square foot the cost is
$75/quarter.
So I am trying to figure out why they charge per quarter of the house? Is this like carpet cleaners who charge per room/upstairs or downstairs?
I wrote her back:
Thanks for your email and information. Could you please clarify the $/quarter? Is that per quarter of the house? Our townhouse is under 2000 sqft so would that be $300 for the whole house? ($75/quarter). Is this because some people only have certain areas of the house done and not always the whole house?
Why didn’t she just say it is $300 instead of breaking it up into quarters?! Made no sense. Made no sense until I talked to another company who asked me “Do you want yearly service or would you like the house sprayed quarterly or bimonthly?”
Well sh*t. I felt SO STUPID. As soon as I heard those words I knew what the other lady had meant in her email and couldn’t believe I didn’t understand her the first time and was SO EMBARRASSED that I wrote her that back. I bet she’s laughing still today.
I wrote her back again:
Please disregard that last email. I feel really silly now that I’ve reread the email and after talking to another company, I realize it is an ongoing quarterly service that you’ve quoted me.
She COULD have said that there is YEARLY service or QUARTERLY service. Guess which company I will be using? (Not only because they don’t know how silly I am but also because they bothered to EXPLAIN it to me!!!!)
*sigh*
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