Honesty is Everything
Cicely E. 5 Gunter Pest Management Inc.
We have had spiders in our attic since we moved in our house about 4 years ago. They never bothered us because they were small, innoucous looking and never seemed to be found outside of the attic closet. Recently my sister suggested that they may be brown recluses. Yikes. Terrified that we might have little microkillers roaming around our house, I immediately killed one and put it in a jar. We know Gunter's reputation well and have always used Gunter for termite inspection when buying a house. My knee jerk response was to drive out to their central office and have a Gunter bug guy/gal take a look at it and confirm my suspicions. But hoping to save myself a trip down to their central office, I called another very well known national pest control company and explained that I had looked up brown recluses on the internet and was almost sure I had them in my attic but had caught one and wanted a tech to take a look at it. If it was harmless, we could live together in harmony and they can eat all the bugs in our attic for all I care. If it was brown recluse, gimme the best plan you got and gas 'em! Thats what I told the tech. Instead of allowing me to drive the mile or so over to their office to let them take a look, the tech had me convinced (just over the phone) that it was a brown recluse and that if I had found one there were many and that meant we had a much bigger bug problem on our hands (even though I have never seen any other bugs in our house, nor have I seen the spiders outside of the attic closet). He immediately went into his spheel about their plan and was ready to committ me for a year to a $53/month plan (over $600!). When I said I needed to call him back after I spoke with my husband he wanted my number because he "worked on sales and wanted to make sure he got credit". After our phone call, I was a little leery of said well known national chain exterminator and popped my three babies (who are the main reason I even care that there may be brown recluses in our house) and our little acrachnid friend in the car and drove the 15 miles to the Gunter office. I explained to the very nice lady at the front desk my quandry (that if he was harmless, no action needed. but if it was a brown recluse, we need the deluxe plan stat). After shaking it around and studying it, she was also pretty sure it was a brown recluse but said "Mmmmm...his legs look a little long to be a brown recluse though. I just want to make really sure. You've got babies...I can totally understand your concern. Let me take your number down and have our techs take a look at it this afternnoon and we'll give you a call back." A few hours later I got a call from Gunter. She said with a giggle that it was a harmless house spider and we were fine to "co-exist". Instead of scaring the wits out of me and taking me for the (much less expensive than said well known national extermination chain) $300 diamond plan, they debunked my brown recluse theory and set my mind at ease. Honesty is everything. By not dishonestly getting my sale they have FOREVER gained a customer and we will ALWAYS use Gunter for our pest control needs.
Pros: honest, reasonably priced, locally owned
Cons: none
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