Part of the reason homeowners don’t call a termite company the moment they notice possible termite activity is because they don’t want to tent their home. Fumigation is expensive, disruptive, and stressful. But right alongside a homeowner’s fear of fumigation is another fear: termite inspector sales tactics.

And for good reason.

Here are just a few things I’ve personally experienced, been asked to do, or witnessed in the industry:

I was recently in an attic and noticed two separate fumigation tags dated only three years apart. The homeowner I was working with had purchased the house afterward and had no idea. I don’t know the full story, but I do know this: a home should not need fumigation every three years. Whoever sold the second fumigation conveniently ignored the first tag. Whatever termite activity existed had already been addressed, but some people will do almost anything to make a sale.

At one large company — the one known for having inspectors drive cars disguised as rodents — I was expected to sell a subterranean termite assurance plan. Homeowners were asked to pay several hundred dollars a year, and in return the company promised to treat and repair damage if subterranean termites were discovered.

I never offered the plan.

To me, it felt like nothing more than a revenue stream disguised as protection. Typically, subterranean termite activity is hidden inside walls. Unless termites swarm, most homeowners would never know they were there. Even if they did swarm, identifying exactly where they came from could be difficult, and the company could always argue the termites originated from outside the covered area. Even if treatment were provided, homeowners would still have to open walls to expose any wood damage before repairs could even begin.

When I worked for the largest pest control company in the world, I wasn’t allowed to close an appointment without offering four separate services. After termite control, pest control, and wood repair recommendations, it stopped feeling like helping people and started feeling like throwing darts at a board hoping something would stick.

Month-end sales pressure was especially intense at the previously mentioned rodent-car company. Our branch manager would schedule up to four comprehensive termite treatments on the last day of the month to maximize revenue numbers. The problem was we only had one termite technician. There was no realistic way one person could complete that many jobs properly in a single day.

The only way to make it work was to cut corners.

Unless a homeowner climbed into their attic immediately after a borate treatment that was supposedly completed, there would be no way to verify whether the work had actually been done correctly — or at all.

I also inspected a mobile home where another inspector had diagnosed subterranean termites simply because one of the wood footings had dirt on it. Unless that homeowner sought a second opinion, she would have paid for a treatment she didn’t need. I doubt a woman in her late seventies was going to crawl to a remote corner beneath her home to verify the claim herself.

I see this kind of nonsense every week.

It stems from pressure to increase sales and grow revenue. Once termite companies reach a certain size, many stop functioning like service companies and start operating like sales organizations.

Quite frankly, that’s how I got into the industry.

The manager who hired me didn’t care that I had no experience and no license. In fact, that probably worked in my favor. The only thing that mattered was that I had sales experience.

What he didn’t realize, I was never one to take advantage of customers.

I spent four years working for companies that prioritized revenue over homeowners before finally becoming licensed and building a company focused on helping people instead of exploiting them.