Robert Hicks, president of Markle Termite & Pest Management, shared a story that highlights the importance of being observant in a customer’s home.
A homeowner discovers termites in their home and reaches out to their pest management company. But they don’t know where the termites are swarming from. Now what?
Robert Hicks, president of Markle Termite & Pest Management , shared a story that highlights the importance of being observant in a customer’s home. A customer called the Dallas-based Certified Sentricon Specialist™ and said they had swarmers in the house, but couldn’t identify where they swarmed from.
After inspecting the home more closely, the technician saw swarmers on top of a picture frame, but the photo looked perfectly fine. The technician went one step further and pulled the frame off the wall — discovering a hole in the wall. The termite colony had eaten through the wall and cardboard back of the picture frame. The technician identified where the termites were swarming from — pipes from the customer’s bathroom.
“It’s crucial for Certified Sentricon Specialists to do research and understand how termites forage and how they can get into structures,” says Hicks. “In this case, it was through the pipes. By being armed with that knowledge, it can help the CSS identify the source quicker.”
This home had no preventative termite protection in place, but the team at Markle Termite & Pest Management moved quickly to eliminate the colony. Recruit® AG termite bait was used to treat the access point in the wall. Within three days, active termites were present in the station and the pests had eaten three-fourths of the bait. Talk about protection you can see! To fully protect the home, the technician also installed the in-ground Sentricon® System.
“It’s important to do your due diligence when inspecting a customer’s home,” said Hicks. “The frame looked like a normal picture, but by being observant you can successfully find the source of the problem. Also, it’s key to spend some time getting to know the product. Our team knows that the Sentricon System is going to work — both the in-ground and the above-ground baiting stations. By combining the in-ground and above-ground stations, we can provide customers with an immediate solution.”