Reading about great stuff in a post recently made me think of an estimate I just did. A young couple bought a foreclosure. They found out over the winter that they have bats. A large local pest control company bid the job at $15,000. The only thing I can figure is that they way over bid, or bid replacing the asbestos roof. Second company, a very large national chain, bid the job at over $9,000. They went with the cheaper of the two. The customer removed the upstairs drywall, guano, insulation, and did the drywall work. All the pest control company had to do was the exclusion and re insulate. I'm assuming that they used TAP or the customer would have done that too. They still have bats. I don't think they ever left. When they discovered it, the company told them sorry, our warranty is only 30 days. Now during my inspection, I found no sealant anywhere, except great stuff around the chimney. Here is what it looked like.

Ouch, thats harsh.

As far as the PCO, I dont know if they over bid it. I told a customer recently who ask if I though another company was overcharging on a job. I told him, I can know. I have no idea what it cost someone else to stay in business. He may have 10 employees with benefits and a huge work comp premium. He may be running all guys in nice trucks towing scissor and boom lifts, and provide great well trained service with long term warranties. Everything cost money.

But, charging 3 dollars for zero results is too much. In this case it may have been cheaper to go with the PCO

Have had two in the last year that had charged $12-15k and no warranty, of course buyer beware is true but when these are large chains doing it seems a bit more filthy to me.

Have seen the same with other animals, one client had a company treat for p. dogs, $2,500, two weeks later when he called to report they were all still there same head count he was told sure we can come back out and treat again for another $2,500.

As you say throwback, cost is relative, results though we all know are based on honesty integrity and doing right by people.

I realize if I wanted to just be rich I would stop caring about my clients and just advertise heavily and get the most calls I can as quickly as possible, do the least amount of work and call it good and then change my number when things get too hot!

Seems to work for a bunch of my local comp....

I should add that a good friend always says, you don't really know what was discussed or the details in these cases, we all agree though there are many where we can call a spade a spade...

That was one of most terrible 9000 dollar jobs ever. That isn't a civil matter it is theft by deception and I would recommend them go see their local prosecutor. If you do job to the best of your ability and you have ability and there is a failure it is a civil matter but this was stealing. If the company said it's over our head but we'll try great foam, charge you 100 to 500 dollars, no warranty but it might work...it's civil. No matter what was discussed if nine thousand dollars was the bottom line this was a robbery and the attorney general or the police needs to be involved.
When I think how hard it is to clear 9000.00 it makes me think about starting a business called Angie's Hitlist.

HD, I've thought about that too. All I have to go by is what the customer has told me. You don't know if the check for the deposit didn't clear, etc.... There may be a reason why a exclusion didn't happen. If the customer is correct, they paid $9,000+ for some great stuff and a little insulation.

Trapperpaw, I suggested they talk to an attorney, because other than some orange foam oozing from around the chimney, there is no sign of any exclusion being performed.

I know I'm not standing behind this job unless the roof is replaced, but that will be extremely clarified before I even accept the job.

G, I do think you are spot on for this one, and commensurate to size of payment I've seen some insane things as I'm sure we all do.

I had a cabin owned by a sister and two brothers, nice place a good solid million dollar home purchase price anyway. They first found
a PCO who said, "I don't really do bats" also "I don't like roofs or ladders" but also said..... "I'm willing to give it a shot though..."

They hired him, he took bird netting from the local big box store and hung it under the rafters loosely (I later found out, even though only about 13' off the ground
he hung it by leaning out the window upstairs that was right under the soffit... The result was a death trap, had a good 20+ western small-footed
myotis bats dead in there when I went to inspect the next year when they realized it had failed.

Also took the netting and inside this beautiful cabin above a nice elk wall mount stuffed netting into two easy to seal properly gaps/cracks in the interior.

Also over the main entrance to the cabin if you look up under the overhang above the main door took same bird netting and hung it loosely under that area too, so the
first thing you see walking into the house is this crazy netting that wasn't even over an entry point.

The folks had what was a pretty straight forward deal, had good chinking work in the rest of the cabin and had probably 5-6 total serious entry points.

I assumed they paid this guy to "try it" about $500.00

I later found out they paid him $3,500.00 for what was a far cry from helpful and certainly ended poorly for people and bats.

The kicker and the real issue in my mind is that they were punchy now about hiring anyone new as they laid out some pretty serious money for what was a laughable
return.

They still had bats, plus when he snagged some some of the others turned and came inside for the first time in these folks owning the cabin (bonus).

I offered them a pretty solid deal the first summer, they were friends of another client in the area and I knew they got burned, they decided to let him try to do a maintenance
on it, then again this spring asked me to re-quote and look at it again. I did, but this time I put the cost where it needed to be and they still turned it down at which point I
asked would you mind telling me how much did the prior company charge for what was done...?

$3,500.00 was the response, I said "good luck" and that is that... (until next spring I suppose....)

I think it is worse with bird work, or as bad, folks are doing plenty that then leaves with a steeper sales hill to climb.

Need some of those "catch a contractor" shows to dive into this realm a bit... Would be great tv, I'd certainly watch!

HD.... You are right on the money regarding these "botched" jobs creating a difficult market for those who perform PROPER bat exclusion programs. I had a fairly local college experience this nonsense about 10 years ago. They hired an outfit from Florida who are "bat friendly" to deal with 3 college buildings (Of course any bat exclusion program is bat friendly if performed correctly). One music hall and two dorms. Charged them 65k for the job. Had bats in ALL THREE structures the following year. Company told them they couldn't warranty it. They state in their warranty (very small print on the reverse side of the contract) that the warranty is void if there are SQUIRRELS OR BIRDS in the area. Not kidding. They use NO sealants of a any type, as they claim the bats could contact it. They shove plastic netting in the gaps and crevices. Guess what? It loses it's memory and falls out within a few months. I found tons of it lying on the rooftops on structures with multiple levels of roofing. It took them THREE YEARS before they would approve my exclusion proposal for the girls dorm (worst problem), and their hold-up was the fact they spent 65 thousand dollars and still had bats, why spend any more? I solved the bat issue in a few days, and that was about 6 or 7 years ago. I've since done bat jobs on several more of their structures. But it took them a while to warm up to the idea that someone could actually perform a SUCCESSFUL bat exclusion.

Good post Ron. The best and fastest way to learn from your mistakes is to have to go back and fix them free of charge. And it's not

only true of bat exclusions but a lot of other jobs in the ADC business as well. Customers say, "We hired a moron and turned him into

an expert. I think we'll hire him again if another problem arises."

If it would have worked would it be worth the money?

Yikes can see the entry point thru the brick on the chimney couple rolls of duct tape around that sucker they had it

What Ron & Wink said. Sad to see that the college spent so much $$$ and got hosed - and with an outfit from Florida, no less. Must've been nice working in the girls' dorm, eh?

Much better than a couple years later when I did the music hall.

True story: My nephew was helping me on that job. He was about 28 at the time, recently returned from Iraq, in super shape. We worked pretty late one evening, and he was up on a ladder sealing a gutterline on the 3rd (top) floor. The ladder was on the roof of the first floor where the kitchen area was located. A couple girls heard him right outside their window, and started questioning what he was doing out there. He simply responded with "Animal control, you're dorm leaders and maintenance all know we are here." They were like "Sure, sure they do. Maintenance never works on 3rd floor windows at night! Really, who are you and what are you doing?" They ended up coming outside and checked on what we were doing. When we told them "bats", they immediately knew we were okay. They had bats flying in the 3rd floor hallways on a nightly basis for 3 weeks. At that point we were no longer labeled as pervs.... but suddenly were heroes!