One thing I truly hate is to being asked to be the second opinion on a wdo/wdi (wood destroying organism report). I get nothing but headaches from this fruitless exercise in he said she said.
First of all the second opinion has been determined to be a FREE service by the consumer gods and always comes with the promise of “it won’t take up to much of your time.” And ‘B’ it’s never convenient because now the closing date is approaching and they need this cleared up asap.Thirdly it pits my company against another and that almost always produces one thing, two losers. It gets me flustered! (Good that there’s not a 4th thing cause forthly is not a word)
In the last year I have had 4 or 5 of these calls; one customer cancelled his regular service with me, 2 other households stiffed me when it was agreed that if I put my findings on the state form there would be a charge and the last one called everyone involved liars and threatened physical violence. I could have taken her without her cane. 
The problem with second opinions is the same phenomenon that happens when you get too many estimates. Every bodies head is swimming in facts that he said and quotes from what she said and nothing is kept straight. I don’t tent homes but when I show up for a job from one of these situations and they say, “where is your tent?” then I know I’m in second opinion hell.
I completely understand the need for second opinions and I’ve used them myself to make sure I 
wasn’t getting taken advantage of. What most often happens in the wdo/wdi scenario is that there is big money on the line and if I say you have wood rot and company X say’s it’s termites, good things don’t usually follow. Of course they don’t want to spend the money for termite work but now the buyers are baulking unless a job is done and you’re left defending your call which really needs no defense at all.
It’s at these times you’d think you could get a state inspector to come out and be the deciding factor. Unfortunately this rarely happens. Unless the gun is still smoking and the body is still warm it’s usually just another opinion that is 2 weeks to late and watered down. Don’t get me wrong, our inspectors are fine but they have huge back logs and being ‘Johnny on the spot’ is usually impossible. They also need to try and determine what was present AT THE TIME of the inspection and that too is unlikely. Still when they are done that’s usually the final say but no one usually walks away very happy.
I’m not one to cause waves and I never say much about the competition, good or bad in my town. I just do what I do and try to get along. Unfortunately for me I always seem to get at least 4 or 5 second opinion calls per year and if I decide to take any more this is how I’m handling them from now on.
Anything other than a quick look at the problem area is billable;
Pictures,pictures,pictures;
Graph,Graph,Graph;
Any work that needs to be done is quoted and I leave as soon as possible biting my lip to say as little as possible ;
I’m sure I sound bitter but I work hard and my reputation means a lot to me. I don’t need it to be sullied by a squabble created by someone who’ll never use me again even after they have begged me to come and help.
If you’re in need of a second opinion that’s fine but at least consider what you are asking this pest professional to do. It can be a traumatic time and emotions run high as fear of losing a sale fill your head. He or she is there to help and only making the call based on the evidence seen. It’s completely in your rights as a consumer to call your state agency that handles pest control situation like these. I’d say, in most cases it may be your best shot at a second opinion that everyone will accept.
As I’m writing this I am flat on my back trying to forget about my severe back pain. I threw my back out last week lifting my backpack sprayer out of the bed of my truck and it hasn’t gotten any better since. Of course it’s when things like this come about that you realize your schedule is chock full so I’ve tried to keep up as best I can. Last weekend was Sun and Fun aviation fly in down in Lakeland, Florida and my son & I had a great time looking at all the airplanes and watching a 6 hour air show. The ride to and from in 
So I’m pretty happy about the short drill work that’s ahead of me but that didn’t last for long. Maybe there was a sale on cement the week this slab was poured or perhaps the contractor put the first slab in crooked so he had to pour another on top of the first. Normally my hammer drill pops through the 4 inch slab pretty quickly but in this case my 12 inch bit was not even getting through to the soil that I needed to treat. So much to my dismay I broke out the 18 inch drill bit and winced my way through about an hour and 1/2 of what should have been twenty minutes of drilling.
So now I had to dig my trench. While some companies are fine with soaking the top of the soil and letting gravity do the work I almost always dig as much as I can. #1 it’s written on the label and the label is the law but also a trench keeps everything right on target. Trenching is also hell on a good day and so with my spasms this proved to be a pain filled task.
The easiest part of the job was cutting my bath trap, as I wrote in another article it only takes about ten minutes and this was no exception. At this point the realtor who had left came back and was amazed at the amount of work these tiny little insects had caused. Let’s see if he remembers that when it comes check cutting time.
and shoots back up at you the first chance it gets. This back porch, the one with the 18 inch thick cement must have been filled with compact clay soil lined with24 mil plastic. Out of all the holes I drilled only 5 or 6 took like a charm, the rest I had to nurse along and squeeze whatever I could into them. This meant reaming the soil with my treating rod and working each hole bent over like a hobbit. Alright I’m still not crying but I know I’ve at least welled up a little.
Shooting the trench was half way a break but the dirt I dug needed to be put back. I usually put on a big rubber boot and push the dirt back as I go and treat the ‘backfill’ in this way. I had no idea this involved back muscles but I’m here to tell you, it does. To make matters worse and I suppose you’ve guessed it by now, I decided to take pictures of the entire job. My original idea was not to include my injury but since it dominated my day and all the while I’m whining about pain, I’ve somehow managed to balance a camera and get some half way decent pictures.
cement plugs. One last time with the broom and a final walk around to assure the job was complete and everything was back in place and I was out of there.
It was quite interesting as he detailed a fatal car crash he was in back in 1989. That’s right, I said fatal, he was revived 90 minutes later (thus the title of his book) and in some of his talk he described his time at the pearly gates. He described the music he heard; not just one song but thousands of songs from every direction all at once. Each song was different and unique but all the songs blended together to make one beautiful sound.
Kerosene to surfaces bugs would walk on. Hydrocyanic acid gas was used for control of insects in homes and Potassium cyanide powder for control of ants. Low pressure liquefied gas propelled aerosols; Chlordane and DDT were the norm. Our spray tanks would bellow out gas or steam mixed with chemicals and we had little control of directing the spray. We didn’t even have yellow light bulbs until 1931 but we were making strides in the right direction.
