Ask any termite inspector or technician how many times they’ve put a foot through a ceiling, and they’ll likely give you an exact number—along with a vivid, sad story. No one ever wants to step through a ceiling; it’s one of the worst feelings imaginable. If it happens during an initial inspection, you immediately assume the homeowner won’t become a customer. If it’s a reinspection, you feel terrible about upsetting an existing one.

But it’s not just a hole in the ceiling. If the home has blown-in insulation, the mess is even worse. Your boss will be disappointed, your branch manager will have extra work, and you’ve just made your own day longer—for a completely avoidable mistake.

From day one, inspectors and technicians are trained to walk only on rafters, which align with the roof rafters above. In theory, if there’s solid wood up high, there should be solid wood below. But attics are tricky. Sometimes, you’ll see wood that looks walkable but isn’t. Other times, when lowering yourself from an elevated section, you might assume you’re stepping onto a secure surface—only to realize too late it’s drywall.

Every termite company that’s been around for more than a year has “a guy”—someone they call to patch ceilings without charging an arm and a misplaced foot. It might be a staff member or an outside contractor, but it has to be someone available quickly. Even if a homeowner seems easygoing about the mishap, they don’t want to stare at a hole in their ceiling for a week.

As bad as stepping through a ceiling is, it’s not the worst thing that can happen in an attic. At one of my former employers, a new technician—who clearly didn’t know better—stepped on a sprinkler system pipe and broke it. Sprinkler pipes are pressurized, and the water will keep running until the main shutoff is reached. The resulting water damage reportedly cost the company over $100,000. After that incident, before we could enter an attic with a sprinkler system, we were required to obtain a signed waiver from the homeowner.

I can’t recall anyone being in my attic since I started in the termite business. When the day comes that I need a termite inspection myself, I imagine it’ll feel like handing the keys of my new car to a valet. Now that I think about it… maybe retirement isn’t an option after all.

Editor’s note: There have been no attic mishaps in the history of California Termite.