CRITTER CONTROL

The technician who came out to do the initial service was professional, but what came after that was a nightmare for us. If I could give zero star for this company, I would. Stay away from them and save yourself some money, time and headache. I wasn't going to write this review but the thought of knowing someone else might waste their money and have to go through this ordeal like us made me jump on here and write one. We paid $829 for that one time they came out to get rid of the gophers in our front yard. We saw more new holes popped up just a couple days after that and called them back to discuss the remedy options, but since the person we talked to was very rude and disrespectful on the phone, we declined to sign up for their monthly subscription service or any follow-up service, and contacted a different company for help instead. This company came out the next morning, charged us only $225 and we haven't seen any new holes since then (Oct 2021 till now, Feb 2022). Well, not long after that phone conversation with Critter Control, we received an invoice from Critter Control for a service they claimed they just came to our house to perform but we were out of town on vacation at that time. We did not sign a monthly contract with them, so we did not expect anybody to come out again and nobody contacted us to let us know they were on the way to our house either. And what could they have done when they came out anyway? There was no more hole! What did they do to our yard when and if they did come out? So we called again and made sure they noted in the system that we did not have a contract with them and void that service charge. The person on the phone assured us everything was taken care of. Yet, after that call, every 2 weeks or so, I continued to receive a $90 invoice for that service in my inbox. My reply to their email bounced back because their email address did not accept incoming email. Did not want this invoice to go into collection and hurt my credit, so I called them and each time, was promised that somebody (the people they promised to call us each time was a billing manager, branch manager, district manager or regional manager) would call me back by end of day to discuss this invoice and my non-existing monthly service with me, and nobody ever called us (they have both our cell #s). 2 of those times when I called to follow up, the staff would ask me for proof of either an email or a phone conversation about us asking them to cancel our contract because whoever we spoke to previously did not note it in their system, so according to them, I would need to show proof of the conversation. Wow! what I could provide them was the call log showing the dates and times we each called in, but I did not realize we would have to provide a recorded message of what we said to their staff, and they did not care that their email address did not accept incoming email either. I do have those emails in my Sent box and the bounced back notification, but they of course conveniently were not delivered to Critter Control. The last time I called in (yesterday, Feb 4) and was promised again somebody would call me by the end of the day, I said I'm done playing this game with you guys (over 3 months of this and many calls from us to them, never heard back from anyone from their company). What you guys are doing is deceptive and I will file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau if we don't get this situation resolved while I'm on the phone right now. Well, they took care of it right away. The invoice was nulled and a notification of that went to my email inbox within minutes. Unbelievable! My only wish at this point is that I'd mentioned that 3 months sooner to stop this nonsense from them. Rude, expensive and deceptive. Just stay away from this company. Record all your conversations with them and ask for a working email address that will actually accept your email to them because you will need it if you do use their service.

Caleb was great. Came out the same day I called, identified what we had and set traps. It was trapped that night. He came the next day to pick up the traps.

squirrel was removed and further entry was permanently blocked

I was strung along for weeks by Caleb saying he could do the work. Every time I called to get on his schedule, he reassured me he would have a solution for me, but never scheduled a time. There was always an excuse why he hadn't come up with a solution or hadn't put my project on the schedule. I called again, today, because he said he could get to me at the end of this week and I hadn't heard from him since last week when he said he'd call. He told he was really busy and couldn't get to me for another two weeks. Yes, he was always polite on the phone, but in the end, he was actually rude by putting me off rather than just saying he couldn't do the work in the first place. Needless to say it was a waste of my time and has lost my trust. He should have told me this when I first called two weeks ago.

They didn't show up for the scheduled appointment on 12/12. No one called or contacted us to inform us there was a delay. We called them that afternoon during business hours and reached an answering machine. We requested a call back as we needed to know what time they would be coming out the following day (12/13). No one called. As of 12 noon on the 13th we were still waiting for someone to contact us. In the interim, we called another company who came out and took care of the problem the same day. The charged us about 40% less than the phone estimate Critter Control provided.

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He did a good job and showed us clearly where the rats were getting in. He was prompt in picking the traps up once there were rats in them. He showed us things we could do in the future to decrease the chances of another infestation, but wasn't pushy about selling other services. He returned calls promptly and answered all of our questions.

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I've had a raccoon problem for years, but my only concern had been my dogs getting into a fight with them. That is until they tore two holes in my roof to live in my attic. Years ago I had called animal services, and a week or two later I got a trap. But I never caught anything in the trap in the weeks that I had it out. After I discovered the holes in the roof, I immediately looked up a company specializing in raccoon removal. I decided on Critter Control, and it didn't take long for Caleb to have two traps in my back yard and an assessment of the problem. The first day I had a neighborhood feral cat in one of the cages, but I figured out how to let him go and reset the trap. Caleb had told me that might happen and he would come out to do it, but figuring out the trap wasn't too tough so I did it myself. That first night both traps had raccoons. A couple days later, another one had a raccoon. Caleb's initial assessment included checking out my whole roof for possible problems, and discussing what services they provided, which is fairly extensive, including chimney repair and capping. One of the holes in my roof was where the raccoons had pulled back some metal flashing, and Caleb explained how they could cut a custom piece of wood to fit that spot and match paint and cover it. We didn't wind up going with any repairs from Critter Control because had other companies lined up for it, but I feel like Critter Control would've done great work. Caleb also stuffed the holes with newspaper to determine if there was anything still living in the attic (raccoons would push it out to leave the attic at night), but after a week of no newspaper movement, we felt pretty confident that nothing was in there. Caleb kept in touch throughout the whole process, and checked an re-baited the traps nearly every day, except when I told him it wasn't necessary. He also gave me options; ensuring that the raccoons weren't in my attic and then raccoon-proofing my house, or removing the raccoons entirely. I know from research that it's not legal in Utah to relocate raccoons, so removing them means putting them down. But in my case after so many years of having problems with them, that was the solution for me.

We had a family of birds in the space between our floors. They got in through the bathroom vent and dryer vent holes after a bad storm had made these more accessible. Caleb was able to determine that the babies were close to leaving the nest. He told us he could try to get them out but that it might be more expensive and we might be better off waiting a couple days to let the babies clear out on their own. The parents could then be chased off and stopped before they left another family of eggs in the space. We decided to wait. Just a couple days later the babies did fly away. Caleb had told us to call him if the babies stopped making as much noise, but before we could call him (on the day that the mother chased the babies from the nest) Caleb gave us a call to check in. He was quick to come over and scare away the parents and seal up their entry points. He really knew what he was doing. He had accurately assessed the situation and allowed all birds to be cleared from the home unharmed. Caleb cleaned out the floorspace and then installed bird-proof covers over our dryer vent and bathroom vent. Problem solved! We have not seen the birds since. Caleb was professional and knew exactly what he was doing. He was humane in his treatment of the animals while still ridding us of the problem, preventing its recurrence, and saving us money. I would call him again any day.

The job was quite expensive. The gopher was very big. I was referred to this company by another company. I contacted them online, and then they called me back to set up the appointment. They were right there. It wasn't even a full day before they came out; it was just about an hour. They caught the gopher a couple of days later. He knew exactly what to do. He dug a hole for the trap in exactly the right place. I'm not sure if the price was good or not, because I've never had experience with this type of service before. I didn't have any qualms about paying it. I would definitely use them in the future.

He was headed out of town "for a few hours" on an emergency mission to help a friend and was willing to perhaps stop by that afternoon or over the weekend or "whatever works for you." The reason I gave him a second, third, and fourth chance is because after a long conversation, I decided his services were precisely what I and my neighbor need. But I did not call to reschedule. O-U-T.