Termite companies ...

I just got done paying our termite treatment company $125 for a warranty extension that was necessitated mostly by their own delays ... grr. Here's the story:

When we bought our "old" house it was treated for termites and came with a termite warranty that ended in early December 2003. We'd found termites in the house once before, and the company treated them relatively promptly (it took 2 months, but it got done).

Then, in October of this past year we noticed more termite trails on our walls. We called the termite company, but they didn't return our call. We called again. No return call. Finally on the third try someone called us back and scheduled an appointment for late November (the soonest they could schedule us). We let them know that our house was now on the market, and that we might be out of town on the treatment date, so they should contact our realtor if they had any problems.

We were indeed away on the treatment date, and upon hearing nothing we assumed that all had gone through as planned. Bad us. December arrived, our termite warranty expired, we got an offer on the house, and we learned from our realtor that no termite work had been done.

True, we weren't home at the time of the appointment, but the least they could have done was left a message saying they'd missed us. Heck, our realtor's phone number is printed in 2" high numbers on a big white sign in our front yard. How hard would it have been to just call that number when they found nobody home?

The termite company said that since our warranty had expired we'd now have to pay for all the termite treatment work (in addition to any warranty extensions we wanted). We were, to put it mildly, not happy. After some calls by our realtor we ended up "only" having to pay for the warranty extension (which we were considering doing anyway), and not for the treatment work, but it still seems slimy.

Isn't selling a house fun?