ComplaintsforApex Wildlife Control

• Initial Complaint

  07/28/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Product Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  On or about May 20, 2022, I had apex wildlife control out to my home to evict raccoons from my attic. They sent a technician out to my home a few days prior and I told the technition that I wanted to evict the raccoons out of my attic and I agreed with his recommendation of what he called eviction fluid. They came to my home on a Friday and supposedly applied some type of fluid in the attic that was supposed to evict the raccoons but the raccoons never left. I had already paid them $200.00 for the eviction service but the raccoons never left. Since that call, I have left numerous messages and request to talk with management but have not been allowed to talk with management and they have never returned my call. What I would like is a refund for the eviction service so that I can use those funds with another service to get the raccoons out of my attic.

  Business response

  08/04/2022

  On Thursday, July 28, 2022, I spoke with ******************** on the phone. He claims he was never told that eviction fluid was not a guaranteed service. I explained to him that a full exclusion estimate was provided to him that included eviction fluid, trapping, and exclusion. He stated he was not going to pay for trapping and exclusion and had his own guys that could do the work. When I asked him if the work had been done he stated he wasn't going to have work done while he still had raccoons in his attic. I advised him that when we came out he declined our exclusion and trapping service and that there were no guarantees with an eviction fluid application as this is only effective on raccoons with young babies, but even then is not a guaranteed service. I advised him that if he had sealed up his property himself which he stated he had planned on doing, he could have set traps in the attic and trapped the raccoons there. He also insinuated that our company has not been taking his calls for the last two months. I advised him we answer all of our calls. He called in to our office in June and we returned his phone call and left him a message that trapping and exclusion is the only thing we can do to solve his problem. He continued stating he was a doctor and wasn't stupid. He also said he would tell everyone he knows not to use our company and would refer us to the BBB. I advised him if that's what he wants to do that's fine, but we upheld our end of the bargain by providing the services that were paid for. He hung up on me. ******************** was also sent this very detailed email on 4/22/2022 explaining our trapping and exclusion process. Please see email below:
  _____________________________________________
  Inspection, Evaluation, & Consultation
  Initially, we will send out one of our Wildlife Control Technicians to your property. Our technician will meet with you and perform an interior and exterior inspection of your property. The technician will call around 30 minutes prior to their arrival to let you know they are on the way. If the technician is unable to reach you by phone, this will void the inspection. Due to this, we ask that if you need to cancel or reschedule your appointment, please notify our office 24 hours prior to the inspection date. If you do not cancel this appointment prior to the technician being dispatched to the property, an $89 non-refundable service fee will be charged to your credit card on file.
  Please keep in mind that this inspection and consultation will take less than an hour and a half to complete.
  ?We will identify the animal species, locate all the potential and actual entry points, and determine if there has been any damage to the property's insulation, wiring, or heating and air ducts. At this time, we will also determine if there is any ***** or urine damage to the insulation in your attic.
  Once our technician completes their inspection, they will meet back with you to discuss their findings. At this point, they will provide you a detailed description and analysis of what needs to be done to seal your property and solve your wildlife problem.
  During our consultation, the technician will go over his/her findings with you and provide you a detailed list of what needs to be done to seal your property. The price for this estimate is $189.00 if your property is located within 20 miles of our office location and $289.00 for properties located more than 20 miles away from our office.
  Once we receive the approval to proceed with the required work, we will schedule you for our earliest available exclusion date possible. This is typically within 3-4 business days of your initial consultation. However, due to weather and other unforeseen circumstances this may take longer than 3-4 business days.
  We have two separate options available to our clients for trapping and exclusion services. They are listed below.
  Option 1:
  ****************** - Our Two-Step Wildlife Removal Process:
  Our Process for Guaranteed removal of unwanted wildlife from your home consists of the following two steps after your initial Inspection, Evaluation, and Consultation.?
  Step 1: Exclusion
  Exclusion:
  During our initial visit, your wildlife control technician will provide you a detailed analysis of what it will take to completely seal your property against wildlife re-entry. This service is known as exclusion. This is step one of our process. During the exclusion process, we will completely seal the property with the exception of one primary entry point. This ensures that there is only one way for an animal to get in or out of your property.
  Our exclusion team performs this service from the outside of the property. However, there are times when some items may need to be completed from inside of the home. One thing to keep in mind is that our team does not provide exclusion services to rotted or damaged wood. Any wood that has rotted or is damaged would need to be replaced prior to our exclusion service beginning. In addition, any carpentry or other work not performed by Apex Wildlife Control that is required to seal the property, will need to be completed and inspected by our company for a good seal prior to our standard exclusion service. ?
  In addition, our company does not perform carpentry or concrete work, replace boot pipes, brick and mortar, or holes in the roof caused by wildlife. If carpentry work is required, we will advise you of this during our initial consultation. Our company primarily seals properties using a combination of metal, flashing, and hardware cloth. Our company performs color blending of our metal to your homes paint color.
  In most cases, we will be able to blend the color of your paint with the various metals we use. In the event we are not able to get a close blend, we will utilize the color closest to your actual paint color.
  Step 2: Trapping & Checking Traps when performing exclusion?
  Once the property has been completely sealed, we will set an excluder trap over the only remaining entry point. This trap will allow the animal to exit the property but not reenter. This will ensure that no animals are trapped inside of your home once all of the other areas have been sealed. This trap will remain in place for up to 7 days following the sealing of your home. Following this 7 day period, we will remove the trap, seal the remaining area, and begin your one year warranty against re-entry.
  The location of these traps will be shown to you during the initial set **. In addition to this trap, we also set interior traps for rodents. These are placed in the attic or crawl space respectively. We schedule these trap checks on Friday's. These traps are set in addition to the excluder trap, because of the potential for higher numbers of rodents in the home.
  Non ******************- Option 2:
  Non ****************** - Trapping Only Service:
  If you choose not to have Apex Wildlife Control seal your entire property against wildlife re-entry, but would still like us to perform trapping we will be happy to perform this service. The price for our indoor rat trapping is $500.00. The price for our outdoor trapping only service starts at $475.00. The inspection fee of $189.00 is not included in the cost of trapping. However, if total trapping services are more than $649, the $189 inspection fee will be waived.
  Outside Cage Trapping:
  We will perform 3 scheduled trap checks over a six day period. Please do not touch, move or relocate these humane outdoor cage traps! Our technicians are trained to place these traps in areas that will allow us the best chance to trap the animals. Because we are required by state law to check these traps every ************************************* an area accessible to the technician. To ensure compliance with state law, we schedule all trap checks to be accomplished every other day from the date the traps are set out. Any traps that are set out on Friday will be checked on Saturday. If these traps have been moved or relocated between trap checks, the traps will be pulled by the technician and your trapping service will be terminated immediately with no refund.
  These trap checks are performed during the hours of 8am and 5 pm. We perform cage trapping for Raccoons, skunks, opossums, armadillos, and Squirrels. All traps are placed on the outside of the home in close proximity to the primary point of entry.
  We ask that customers also visually check these traps daily to ensure that no animals have been caught in between scheduled trap checks, and call us immediately if an animal has been trapped. In cold weather, animals can die quickly if they are not relocated due to inclement weather.
  Lethal Snap Trap: (Mice and Rats):
  When trapping for Mice or Roof Rats, we typically place at least 6 to 12 lethal snap traps inside the attic or crawl space of the home. These traps are checked weekly on Fridays. We require someone to be home and give our technicians attic or crawl space access on these days so that we can remove any deceased animals from the property. If we are unable to gain access and an animal has been killed in a snap trap you will have a strong odor if we are not able to remove them due to no access.
  Please keep in mind that when performing a trapping only service there is NO GUARANTEE that we will capture any animals and we do not guarantee the property against removal of the animal or re-entry of animals inside the property.
  Billing:
  Inspection Only:
  We charge $189.00 on the day that we perform the initial Inspection, Evaluation, and Consultation. We will provide an estimate for the exclusion and trapping at this time.
  
  Trapping only:
  If you choose to have us do trapping only, this is billed up-front on the day that the work is scheduled during your initial Inspection, Evaluation, and Consultation. Our trapping only service prices start at $475.
  Inspection, Trapping and ******************************* is billed in two payments. We **** the first half the day the service is booked, and the remaining balance is due the morning the exclusion crew arrives to seal your property.
  Estimate Validity Period:
  Our estimate is good for (7) seven days from the date of our initial Inspection, Evaluation, and Consultation. Any properties that we inspect that goes beyond the initial (7) seven day validity period would require an additional inspection. In the event this happens, there would be an additional $189 inspection fee.
  Validity Exception (In the event we are unable to begin exclusion service due to inclement weather, staffing issues, excessive bookings, or any other unforeseen circumstance beyond our companies control, we will honor the original inspection, even if additional entry point damage is discovered beyond this time.)
  Our Warranty
  Year One
  Apex Wildlife Control, LLC conditionally guarantees that the specified structure listed, will remain free of targeted wildlife from the areas we repaired or sealed for one (1) full year from the date of service and repair when we completely seal the entire structure. This guarantee applies only to the wildlife designated on the contract if re-entry occurs within the (1) year period. Should re-entry occur where repairs were made, both removal of the wildlife and the necessary repairs will be made at no extra charge to ensure the exclusion of the targeted wildlife. Apex Wildlife Control, LLC will not be responsible for any primary or consequential damages to the building, its contents, or its occupants caused by the entry of any wildlife into the structure. Only animal damage is covered under this warranty. Weather conditions (wind, etc.) and disturbance of repaired area by others will void the warranty. There will be a $40.00 service charge for all checks returned by the bank. In the event of default, the customer agrees to pay attorney fees, reasonable court costs, and interest on any judgment obtained against the balance owed.
  Warranty Renewal
  Apex Wildlife Control offers our clients the ability to renew their warranty every year for a fee of $499 per year when we perform full exclusion on the property. To renew your warranty, the property has to be re-inspected prior to the end of the warranty period. During this inspection we will perform a full interior and exterior inspection, inspect all of our previous work, and ensure that no additional entry points have taken place. Warranty renewal is only available for properties that have been re-inspected prior to the end of the initial warranty period and have opted in to our *********************** Our company will send out an email notification during the 11th month of the warranty period to let you know it's coming up for renewal.
  General Repairs:
  It is very common for our technicians to find a variety of different potential points of entry when performing their inspections. These points of entry generally involve areas such as foundation gaps, missing brick, missing crawl space doors, garage door rubber sealants, damaged shingles, and holes in vinyl siding and wood just to name a few. We will take pictures of all of these items and document what needs to be done. Please keep in mind that Apex Wildlife Control does not perform general carpentry for these types of items. We recommend to all of our clients that they check sites such as Angie's ***** ***** and the BBB to locate appropriately licensed, bonded, and insured companies for these types of services. The work we provide deals exclusively with exclusion and not general carpentry or repairs.
  Partial Exclusion:
  Apex Wildlife Control does not perform Partial Exclusion (sealing a single hole or item). If a client wants partial exclusion on their home, we recommend the client to contact another provider through a service such as Home Advisor or Angie's ***** Apex only provides full exclusion services for our clients to ensure that their property is completely sealed and a recurrence of wildlife entry does not occur.
  I hope this email has answered any questions you may have. If you have any additional questions in the meantime, please feel free to give us a call during normal business hours Monday through Friday from 8 am to 5 pm.

  _____________________________________________

  Sincerely,

  ***********************, Owner
  

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