Bell Environmental Services

Bell Environmental performed a canine inspection of the customer’s home on 4/19/18. During the inspection the canine alerted to the scent of bed bugs in two rooms of the home. Our technician has documented that he found physical evidence of bed bugs in both rooms where the canine alerted: cast skins which the bugs shed during their development and fecal spotting. The inspector attempted to show the customer’s wife, who was the only house member present during the inspection, the physical findings, however, according to our technician, she declined. We would like to note that the inspector who performed the inspection is a certified handler, a seasoned pest control operator and is confident that the casings he found were from bed bugs and not carpet beetles.
That being said, if the customer had contacted Bell Environmental before the Revdex.com to let us know that he had any issue with the findings of our inspection, we would have gladly offered to send out a different canine and handler free of charge to offer a second, or even third opinion, if requested, as is our company policy. We do everything possible to ensure accurate inspection findings and keep our customers happy.
It is important to us that our clients are satisfied with our services, and we do our best to remedy any concerns they may express, up to and including offering full refunds. We cannot, however, address problems that our clients do not make known to us.
Unfortunately, the only contact we had with the customer after the inspection was when he followed up with the inspector and, subsequently, our customer service manager to try to negotiate pricing significantly lower than what we had quoted him, asking us to match cheaper quotes that he had solicited from other companies. He also questioned our recommendation of treating the adjacent rooms to the areas where bed bug activity was found. Our representatives explained that we would not match the other company’s quote, we had already offered him a treatment price per room that was 10% lower than our standard rate, and also explained that we recommend treating the adjacent rooms on either side of the affected areas - whether they are being used or not - to ensure the most effective treatment, as bed bugs are crawling insects and are known to make their way to neighboring rooms.
We also made it clear that despite our recommendations he and his wife are under no obligation to follow them as they relate to scope of services and are free to treat fewer rooms than we quoted, or, to not engage us further, as was the case.
Far from trying to dupe the customer in the treatment of his home for bed bugs, our only motive was to recommend, based on our findings, what the pest control industry considers best practices and what we know, first hand, effectively eliminates bed bugs.
In good faith, Bell agrees today to issue the customer a full refund for the canine inspection in the amount of the $322.13 – see attached, and encourage him to contact us directly should he have any additional concerns he would like addressed.
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The personal property consisting of a high school diploma and social security card belonging to Ms. that we returned to her in May 2017, was not lost and found at random in our facility as Ms. infers, but was discovered inside of the furnishings Ms. authorized us to dispose of during the treatment of her residence in June 2016. In lieu of disposing of this furniture, we fumigated it and put it aside in our training facility, to be used at a later date when training our pest control technicians. In May 2017, nearly a year after removing these furnishings out of Ms. residence, one of our supervisors was preparing a training scenario using Ms. old furniture and found the social security card and diploma. Recognizing that Ms. may have not realized these items were inside of the furniture when she told us to throw it away, he contacted her in an effort to be helpful and return the documents to her.

Until receiving this complaint from Ms. through the Revdex.com nearly 1 year and 3 months after last doing business with her, we have not received any complaints or notification from that we had damaged her property - the bed as she describes - or that she was dissatisfied with our services. Even after returning the documents to her in May 2017, we did not hear of her dissatisfaction until now. We strive to handle our clients' belongings with extreme care, keeping them safe in a secure facility with 24/7 surveillance. In the rare case when damage or loss occurs, we are quick to contact the client directly and always offer repair, replacement or reimbursement of the affected items. We are sorry that Ms. seems unsatisfied with our services, but do find it curious that her complaint arrives 15 months after last doing business with her. We simply cannot accept responsibility for the damage of her bed as she describes, so long after last handling her property. We also hope that the explanation as to how we found her documents shows that we did not carelessly handle these items, but that they were, unbeknownst to her, inside of the furniture she authorized us to throw away.

The only furnishings and items that were removed from Ms./her father's residence were the furnishings that she indicated to our technicians were ready to be removed and disposed of. No other items were removed from her residence. It is unfortunate that these documents were in the furnishings she told us to dispose of. Why these items were located in those furnishings, I do not know. Being that the furnishings were infested with bed bugs, they were immediately fumigated at our facility on July 1, 2016, and in lieu of disposing, were stored in a locked fumigation container until May 2017 when they were removed from the container and moved into our training facility. As I mentioned, the reason we did not dispose of the furniture and kept it stored in the locked container, was because we often have use for old furnishings in our training center. The old furniture is used to create mock residences that we use as practice rooms for the training of our canine teams and bed bug control technicians. I'm sorry that this "story" does not seem believable to Ms., but it is in fact the case.

In May 2017, 10 months after we provided services to Ms., we took the furnishings out of the storage container in order to set up a mock room for our upcoming training day. That is when the documents were discovered inside the furniture by one of our supervisors. Remember, at the time we removed this furniture from Ms./her father's residence it was infested with bedbugs and we were told it was ready for disposal, so our technicians simply removed it, we did not look inside for personal items or consider that maybe things inside should not be thrown away. When our supervisor found the personal documents in May 2017, he made a point to contact Ms. to see if she wanted us to return the documents to her. He was making an effort to do the right thing, when he could have done nothing and thrown out the documents. This is a simple case of items being misplaced -- on the part of Ms. and her father. She was not aware they were inside the items she told us to throw out. It is curious that we are being called out for doing the right thing and returning the documents. I'm sorry that this "story" does not seem believable to Ms., but it is in fact the case.

It is also curious that after returning the documents to Ms. in May 2017, she is now, 7 months later, in October, filing a complaint about the incident, when we had no correspondence with her anytime prior about her being unhappy or dissatisfied; nor did she ever express concerns that we damaged any of her other property. Bell Environmental stands behind the quality of our work and immediately takes responsibility for damages to furniture or personal items that may occasionally occur during our treatments, however, issues must be reported to us promptly upon, and no later that 30 days after, completion of services. We simply cannot accept responsibility for damages she is claiming to her furniture, when we last serviced her residence 15 months ago, in July 2016.
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