LESLIE: Karen is on the line now, dealing with some unwanted visitors. You’ve got flies? What’s going on?
KAREN: I have I think what is called “cluster flies.” I’ve never heard of them before in my life. I thought they were coming out of the register at the bottom. I have the heat register and the air-conditioning register at the bottom of the floor. And they seem to be accumulating in my master bedroom.
TOM: Yep.
KAREN: Now, I called an exterminator and he says, “Well, it sounds like you have cluster flies. Are they lethargic?” I said, “Yeah.”
And they look like a regular house fly. Last fall, I must have killed – I can’t even tell you how many of them.
TOM: Yeah, yeah.
KAREN: I was freaking out.
TOM: Well, yeah, there’s a big population of them and you’re chasing after them one at a time here. They’re called “cluster flies” or sometimes you call them “attic flies.” They’re …
KAREN: Yes, I looked it up.
TOM: Yeah, they’re pretty common. It’s the kind of thing that if you’ve tried just sucking it up with a vacuum and that sort of thing, that there’s just too many of them. You’ve got to put the right pesticide down. It’s just – it’s usually a pyrethrin type of a pesticide. And in some states, you can buy it over the counter but frankly, I don’t recommend it. I think you’re probably better off, at this point, hiring a pro. They know exactly what to put down, in exactly the right amounts to make this problem go away. And I think you’re just going to frustrate yourself by chasing after it one fly at a time.
There’s too many of them. They’ve got you outnumbered and I think you need to get the right product to fix it up.
KAREN: Terminator, he wanted like $700.
TOM: Seven-hundred dollars? That’s a lot of money. This is a …
KAREN: That’s what I thought.
TOM: Listen to me, this is a service call, OK? This is not a “we’re going to pay for our kids’ college in one visit” kind of a call. This is a service call and it should be charged at a service-call rate. Now, there are pest-control companies out there.
And actually, I have one in my local town that I actually contracted with where I could have paid, I don’t know, maybe a couple hundred bucks for the one service call or I could have paid $500 and had them do two treatments a year and be kind of on-call for everything else. And that was the option that I took because I knew I lived in a very old house, on a dirt basement with five separate crawlspaces that insects love to infest, and we don’t like to see them upstairs. So, I did take advantage of that and it worked out quite well for us. I mean that would be a reason to maybe pay a little bit more if you’re going to get a service contract out of it with some built-in service calls.
KAREN: Yeah.
TOM: But just – this is just one – this is a one-time thing. It shouldn’t be a $700 – why don’t you do this? Why don’t you go to HomeAdvisor.com, look at the reviews for pest-control firms in your area and find one that’s highly reviewed. I guarantee you anybody that charges $700 for a service call is not going to be highly reviewed and you’ll find the best ones for this particular project.
KAREN: Well, he – I asked him if he had – if it was a contract. Because he initially told me 245 for the initial visit and then $45 a month whether he comes here or not. I’m like, “Get out of here. I’m not letting you charge – hit my charge card for $45 a month even – whether I see you or not.”
LESLIE: That’s a lot.
TOM: I don’t blame you.
LESLIE: No, that’s a lot.
TOM: No, I don’t think you have the right guy. So like I said, go to HomeAdvisor.com, look at the guys that have the best reviews, call one or two of them and take it from there, OK?
KAREN: Alrighty. Thank you so much.
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