Bed Bugs & Beyond

After reading several reviews (and despite seeing some 0 out of 10s) on homestars, we decided to give bed bugs and beyond a call. After all, these poor reviews were mostly from years ago, and most of the reviews were positive. We would have done well to listen to the negative ones.

Upon first calling the owner, Armand, we inquired about the negative reviews and he assured us that these were outdated reviews from the previous owner, Cary, who was no long affiliated with the company. Fine. Armand came by and did a cursory check of the apartment and we scheduled a heat treatment. On the day of the treatment, of course Cary shows up, touting his years and years of experience as the be-all end-all of knowledge and wisdom when it came to bed bugs. He belittled, dismissed and refused to listen to or believe anything we had to say about not having noticed the bugs until recently, basically saying "well, I'm an expert, so you're wrong" (which by the way is what we call an 'appeal to authority'; a classic logical fallacy). I should mention at this point that we were told we had a guaranteed three month warranty on the service (more on that later).

Anyway. The staff of the company were all very polite and easy to get along with; a great bunch of guys. Unfortunately I can't say the same thing about the owner(s). After assuring us that the bugs were gone, we immediately found more the following day. After calling Armand back on the phone, he informed me that these were what he called "distressed bugs", which is supposed to be a bug essentially driven brain drunk from the treatment, which is expected to die within a few days, and is incapable of reproducing. Well, this sounded suspect to me and so I googled the term, finding nothing. I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt (after all, he was an expert).

After several days of continuing to find more and more "distressed" bugs, we called them back, and Cary agreed to come by and apply a pesticide to the areas effected (this was the one time he acted in a professional manor). We continued to find more bugs. We continued to contact them, and I was told to be ready for Cary to come by on a monday morning for a follow up check of the apartment. He didn't show up, and when I called him he said that we had never discussed him coming. Then on tuesday morning I received a call from my landlord asking where I was, that Cary was waiting for me at my apartment; he had told her that he and I had discussed him coming on tuesday (we hadn't). Then when I called Cary, he said he had discussed this with the landlord (they hadn't). At this point he just went ahead and scheduled another treatment without checking the apartment, though at this point it was becoming more and more difficult to get a hold of Cary, who would not pick up his phone or reply to texts in a timely manor (we were contacting him through his cell phone, the number of which was on this business card he gave us). The morning of the second appointment, at 6:30 AM, he cancelled via text message citing a "sick employee". We re-scheduled for the following week.

The second appointment came and went in half the time and with half the number of employees as the first. We continued to find bugs. At this point Cary was no longer taking calls from my phone, or responding at all to text messages, so we looked up the company contact info again online. I talked to Armand and he told me we would set up a third treatment, and that he would “call me back soon”. 3 hours later I called him back, and he said “oh, Cary told me he would call you; we’ve set up a treatment for Monday.” Fine. At least they were still willing to honor the warranty. The third appointment went much the same as the second, except upon reentering the apartment, I discovered that a wood and glue model I had built, with a great deal of sentimental value attached to it, was broken in half, and my computer no longer started. There was no indication that any of the glue on the model had melted (it was being kept in a room that wasn’t being treated, and on no portion of the model had the glue shifted or warped; it was cleanly broken in half down the middle) I contacted one of the employees who I had been corresponding with, and he was shocked to hear that the model had been broken; the last time he had seen it, it was in perfect condition, and I believe him (he even offered to help me fix it). I do not however, believe that Cary’s brief on-site visit during the day had merely been to check up on progress (infer from that what you will). Anyway, the model was of purely sentimental value so there was not much I could do about compensation for that, but my computer was another story entirely.

The first time they had come to do a treatment, Cary had indicated that computers were always removed from the room being treated. This was obviously not done on the third treatment. I called Armand and left a message on his machine inquiring about the company’s policy on damaged items, and to please give me a call back ASAP. I did not hear back from him. After almost a day of calling the company back continuously from different numbers that we had already contacted them with (and encountering an inconsistent number of rings before going to voicemail), I called them from my office phone, which they would have no record of, and would not show my name on call display. Armand picked up on the first call. When I said it was me his reaction was word for word: “Oh….. Hi…. How are you?”. I told him how I was, and asked again what the policy was for damaged items, and he brusquely informed me that there was a clause in the contract which stated they would not be held liable for damaged items (despite a review on homestars which indicated they had paid for a damaged television, however belatedly), and that I should speak to my landlord. He also informed me that the job had been completed 100% to satisfaction and that there was no chance of any bugs reappearing. I found four more bugs he following night. We have been unable to reach the company for comment.

After hiring another company to redo the job we were further informed that the propane-tank heat treatment method employed by BB&B is dangerous, and carries the possibility of an explosion. The job has now been completed to our satisfaction (by a much more professional company).

I hope that this review dissuades anybody who may have a bedbug problem from ever hiring this company. Despite the friendly employees, the unprofessionalism of the owners was completely inexcusable. We have considered filing charges for property damage and for failing to honour their warranty but decided against it as the process would just be more, stress and more time and money wasted that we really don’t need to go through right now.

STAY AWAY FROM THIS COMPANY AT ALL COSTS.