Hitman Termite & Pest Control

We used Hitman of Santa Rosa to eliminate termites in thepast and were very pleased with the service. So when we had an ant problem wecontacted the same company but were directed to their Pleasanton office. Hitmanhad purchased Big Valley Termite & Pest Control in Pleasanton and extendedtheir operations through that facility. We were told HitmanTermite & Pest Control only kept a few of the employees from Big ValleyTermite & Pest. Everyone else was new or from one of Hitman's other offices.So we believed we could expect the quality results we had seen with Hitman?stermite service. We elected to use their one time treatment for $175 with 30day warranty instead of a year maintenance contract for 6 visits since we don'ttypically have an ant problem. Although it was more expensive than other companies we contacted, we thought we were paying for a better quality service. [We were instructed by Angie?s List to submit this review under Big Valley Termite even though the Pleasanton office is now run, operated and doing business as Hitman Termite & Pest Control in the Big Valley Termite offices. ] We had 2 problems ? ants and I was getting insect bites inside the home. Over the phone, Scott, told me that since I was getting just a few bites they must be spiders. He advised me to vacuum everywhere including under and behind furniture. The spiders could be small and not obvious. He said pest treatment would not work to eliminate the bug bites. I followed Scott?s instructions and that resolved the bug bite problem. The company uses Termidor(fipronil) to create a chemical barrier to prevent insects from entering the house. Unfortunately this did not fix the problem so we had to call them back. They are good at returning as they have a 1 month guarantee, but you have to take the initiative and call to schedule the return visits. They came back and used a bait that the ants take back to the nest to kill the colony. I was put off by the fact that they won't tell you over the phone what product other than the Termidor they use. The bait used in the house was Optigard. While the product was great at attracting ants and you use only a small amount - a dime sized to quarter sized amount, the product is available from Amazon?s third party vendors - 4 -30 gram (= 1 oz.) syringes for about $25. Hitman took a total of 4 visits to stop the ants. To be honest we're not sure if the ants stopped because of the treatment or because the seasons changed after the fourth visit. We?ve never had an ant problem that late in the year. It seemed not enough bait was used each time. Initially the technician applied what totaled about a 4 inch long caulking line of Optigard. The product attracted hundreds of ants and was completely taken away and the ants kept coming although not as many. As instructed, when we still saw ants, albeit a small number, a week after treatment we called and scheduled a return appointment. With subsequent visits more Optigard was applied and finally they applied the bait in another location in case they were coming from under the house. It made more sense to us to have assumed theants could be coming from outside or under the house and treat accordingly in the first visit rather than making so many visits. We would have been happier with the service if they could have resolved the problem in one or two visits.We will probably look for a different company when it comes to treating ants,but will continue to use Hitman if we suspect a termite problem.