[Music]
Hello everyone and Welcome to another
episode of Selling Greenville your
favorite real estate podcast here in
Greenville South Carolina i'm your host
as always Stan McCune i'm a realtor
right here in lovely Greenville South
Carolina you can find all of my contact
information in the show notes you need
to reach out to me for any of your real
estate needs and please hit that like
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so yeah any of those things you can do
to support the show I would greatly
appreciate today we're going to be
talking about termites i'm going to
share a few stories with you guys
because this is something we we need
to talk about right because I've had
recently multiple experiences with
termites and with local termite
companies that aren't very competent
and one in particular that is who I'll
give a shout out to in a little bit
but if you buy and sell real estate in
South Carolina you will talk about
termites at some point because the
southeastern portion of the US is a
termite hot spot it's one of the hottest
parts of the entire US for termites
and I I guess I'm I'm no expert which
I'm going to give a little bit of a of a
warning about here in a second but
termites apparently love our climate
I I think that they like warmer
moistister climates and so the result
is that termites are a bigger issue in
South Carolina than they are in many of
the states people are moving here to
South Carolina from including states
like New York Illinois even parts of
California even though my
understanding is that California does
have termite issues in fact I have a
client who moved here from from
California and she had termites in
her house in California so but South
Carolina generally speaking is a hot
spot in compared to in comparison to
those other states now as I already
alluded to I'm not going to pretend to
be a termite expert but I have learned
some things about these bugs over the
years but I know for a fact that some
inspectors do listen to the show and
so if you if you get angry that I'm
not using very technical terminology
understand that I'm just trying to give
explain some things in layman's terms
okay if you want to correct me on
on the technicalities and the the exact
verbiage I'm supposed to use that's fine
say something about that in the in the
comments on the show and I'll I'll
get a good laugh out of that so
termites these are odd creatures to to
be completely honest a lot of people
don't know much about them but they
mostly live in the ground as I
understand it and they emerge generally
speaking by building mud tubes or
tunnels up from the ground up to a food
or water source which then allows them
to infest that area and get nourishment
for their colony
now as most people know termites are
are famous for one thing and that is
they eat wood which is the primary
structural component of most homes that
are built in the United States but
it's important to understand that there
is some nuance to the termite thing
right i I hear people freak out about
termites and I just want to clarify
something right away just because
termites are present in a home doesn't
mean that what they are eating in the
home is actually structural and just
because also there are termite tubes
present you know perhaps in a crawl
space or or who knows where that doesn't
inherently mean that there is an actual
present infestation in the house
although if an inspector sees a tube he
is required if it's a if it's a an
inspector doing a termite letter or what
is more specifically what we call the CL
100 he has to report that or she has
to report that as an active infestation
just if there's a tube that is no
longer being utilized by termites that's
still considered an active infestation
for the purposes of a termite letter
so those are a couple of things just to
understand right because I feel like
nuance is is necessary with termites
because obviously termite no termites
good active termites bad but
there's there is a spectrto all of
this as there are too many things now
here's another thing that a lot of
people don't understand termites and the
damage they cause are not covered by
homeowners insurance why well a termites
your your homeowners insurance if you
look at it it will specify what the
covered losses are okay and it doesn't
specify termites but more
specifically if you want to understand
how homeowners insurance works there are
two things besides the the policy
listing out what is covered and what
isn't there are two things that are kind
of good rules of thumbs for what
homeowners insurance covers versus what
it doesn't okay and the rules of thumbs
are that it that any damage that happens
must be sudden and it must be accidental
right the accidental part is important
because you could suddenly have a fire
because you set your house on fire on
purpose in order to have a an
insurance claim it has to be
accidental has to be something you
didn't cause and it has to be sudden so
if you got a basement and water's been
seeping into that basement for a
while that's not covered right that's
would be a flood insurance claim and
honestly your flood insurance probably
isn't going to cover that either so
it's important to understand it's got
to be sudden and it's got to be
accidental and and termites happen
gradually they are not sudden now they
are accidental you don't unless you're
racing termites in your home which is
weird but but termites they do
their damage gradually it's not sudden
it's not a covered loss on any insurance
homeowner's insurance
policy and so they're not covered by
your homeowner's insurance so every
homeowner has to make a decision when it
comes to termites what am I going to do
about them right one option is you
just hope you don't see them and you
just don't do anything about it right
you just you know say a prayer or
just hope you get lucky who knows what
just don't do anything right another
option obviously is to treat them
yourself right to to do some research
how do I treat termites how do I
prevent them blah blah blah or you can
even pay a pest control company to do
you know monthly or quarterly
treatments or the third option is you
can pay for an actual termite bond which
is a contract between you and a pest
control company which usually covers
treatment throughout the year as well as
usually an insurance policy essentially
against any damage the termites cause
while the house is under bond so if
somehow the treatments fail because the
pest control company is going to try as
much as possible to avoid termite
damage happening but if those treat
preventative treatments were to fail and
the termites did cause damage to the
house in that instance the pest control
company would be liable to pay for
the damages since the house was under
bond now store that in the back of your
head for a second because I'm going
to give you an example here in a moment
where the bond was kind of useless we'll
talk about that in a second now
because termites are a problem in the
somewhat warm climate that we have in
Greenville South Carolina south Carolina
the entire state has a CL100 contingency
okay that's the termite letter that I
referenced before we call it the CL100
the CL stands for Clemson it's a form
I guess that they came up with great
school by the way love Clemson go
Clemson so South Carolina has a CL100
contingency that is separate from the
buyer's due diligence period right the
due diligence period is the primary
period of time whereby a buyer performs
inspections and decides that they want
to move forward with their contract
and usually that's when you're
negotiating repairs that the seller
might do etc etc but let's say that
due diligence period which is typically
the first 10 to 14 days that you're
under contract let's say that expires
you can still have your inspection
for termites later and have that CL100
dated later in fact you have to have it
dated within 30 days of closing and
you're still covered by that contingency
what does that mean well it can mean
different things but in essence let's
say that you discover that there is
termite an active termite infestation
when that CL100 inspection is performed
the seller is on the hook potentially to
have to remediate treat and repair
anything that was damaged by the
termites okay in theory now again a lot
depends on how the contract's written
there's a a lot of the devil is in the
details right so that's something
to ask if I'm your realtor ask me for
more specifics or if you're if you
are a realtor ask your pest control
company and and go about it that
way
now I've been a big believer for the
past several years in termite bonds that
cover both treatments and repairs
because I've seen so many termite issues
in recent years especially on old houses
which I mean let me tell you if we have
some of these millhouses that were built
back in like the the 40s and 50s they
are just about guaranteed to have had
termites in them at some point because
they were for years and years and years
people were not doing active treatments
there weren't you know there there
wasn't as much understanding of termites
100 years ago as there are now or even
80 years ago or 70 years
ago pretty much every old house has
termite damage in it unless it's been
completely reframed and I've seen some
of that too i've seen some homes that
have been completely reframed due to
termites which is a sad thing when that
has to happen but I've learned that just
because you say that you have a
termite service or have a termite
bond with a pest control company doesn't
mean that you're fully protected so let
me tell you some termite stories i told
you guys I'd tell you some stories
people love stories all right the first
one is about my mom who hi mom by the
way is a great cleaner in the upstate if
you need a house cleaner let me
let me know feel free text me i'll give
you her information but my mom purchased
her house last year and it came with a
transferable termite bond which is great
that's one of the nice things about
these these contracts you pay a heavy
fee upfront for the termite bond but
then after that you renew it every year
for a much smaller fee typically and
sometimes there there might be payments
along the way every company does a
little bit differently but these are
transferable as well so they can be
transferred you sell the house you can
transfer it on to the new owner and now
that owner has a has a termite bond
that they just have to pay the renewal
fee in order to have it or a transfer
fee to have it transferred to them so
her home came with a transferable
termite bond and after closing of course
she contacted the termite company which
is a smaller company that I hadn't dealt
with personally she asked them to
transfer the bond over well it was a
bit difficult getting it done more
difficult than it should have been and
in the end she had to leave them a check
at her house for them to pick up for
the transfer fee and then we never heard
back from them we kind you know the
check was gone we assumed that they got
it and that was that so that was kind
of weird then she reached back out to
them for follow-up and they were
extremely unresponsive i'm not going to
say who the company was they were very
unresponsive my mom asked for proof
that the coverage was transferred over
to her and the proof that they sent
had the previous owner's name on it well
that might be okay you know it had the
address on it but it had it did not
have her name on it it had the previous
owner's name on
it could be okay but it could also be a
way for the pest control company to try
to wiggle their way out of of the
termite bond if damages were to occur
and as someone who deals with contracts
every single day I really didn't feel
comfortable with her having a bond that
didn't have her name on it i mean who
has a contract for themselves without
their name on it that doesn't make sense
i don't like that additionally we
noticed that there were no termite bait
stations around her house as are
typically placed in the ground when a
home is under termite bond so that
was also kind of a weird like okay I
know there's multiple ways to to treat
termites but that's really the most
standard way that companies do when when
when they have a bond contract so my
mom called for clarification on what
sort of treatments they were doing or
had done at her house and quite frankly
she didn't get a a clear response from
them so she asked for them to come
over and show what they had treated at
her house we also asked how much
they covered in terms of repairs and we
didn't get a clear answer on that either
so just a lack of clarity right this
should be very straightforward our
coverage is this our treatment is this
this is what we're going to continue
to do here's your contract it has your
name on it it's just starting to add up
right that something something feels
wrong
well so my mom asked for them to come
over and show her where they had treated
her house well that became a big ordeal
and it was next to impossible to get
them to come out now it's somewhat
understandable that they wouldn't want
to do extra work that they won't be paid
for it all right but that made me
concerned that they would be even less
motivated if a termite problem were
discovered in the future if they won't
come over for something easy that'll
just take five minutes what will they do
when something hard and potentially very
costly to them like major termite damage
happens don't feel great about it so
long story short my mom ended up
switching to another company my go-to
which is Dixon Pest who I know to be
reliable and honest they're who I use
for all my properties and even though
they are not a show sponsor I'm giving
them a shout out here and maybe they
will become a sponsor in the future i've
also done an interview with them as well
which you can listen to which at the end
of the episode I I will tell you what
which episode that is if you have a hard
time finding it but I digress okay back
to the termites these bugs are tricky
okay my mom got her situation figured
out okay and thankfully there weren't
any any issues once she switched over to
to Dixon Pest but these bugs are
tricky and they even found a way to
evade the termite bait stations at my
own house okay and as I've already
said I am a believer in termite bonds so
I obviously have one on my primary
residence in fact it was under bond
with a large very reputable pest control
company when I purchased the home but
they were charging way way way too much
so I switched over to again my go-to
who I already said is Dixon Pest and so
both before I purchased it and then
after I switched over my service there
were termite bait stations all around
the house strangely what I learned in
this process is that the ter the pest
control companies lease the termite bait
stations they don't own them i have no
idea how that makes any sense for them
but I guess it does so so
literally when I switched service the
old company had to remove their bait
stations and Dixon Pest put in
theirs so
anyway the bait station should obviously
divert the termites from the house
itself right that's the whole idea so
you can imagine our surprise when one
day in our sun room we suddenly start to
see termites emerging onto the floor
mostly dead okay squirming a little bit
but but pretty much dead they're they're
really not designed to just be just out
there like that in fact they they try to
avoid they're they're tricky creatures
it's my understanding they try to avoid
areas where they could be spotted they
they have some kind of an instinct for
that because there are there are
animals that you know birds and whatnot
that will eat them and obviously
humans will try to eliminate them too so
they have a few a few natural threats
in addition to humans they try to they
try to stay in the dark so nobody will
catch
them so in my entire life okay and I
have seen some crazy things i had never
seen termites emerge inside of a house
like that especially in a house that was
receiving termite treatments right bait
stations all over the place and I
just want to be clear none of this was
Dixon Pest's fault and I'm not blaming
them for any of this i just think it was
a quirk thing okay those bait
stations
they aren't perfect right they they
they're not going to catch everything
and that's why having the bond is
helpful right as opposed to just doing
the treatments okay so anyway at first
when I saw them I was in denial right i
was like there's just no way there's no
way that they found a way into into this
house when I looked at them they most
definitely were termites
so here's the great thing since I was
under termite bond I did not have to pay
anything for them to get treated dixon
Pest came out did a special treatment to
kill them off took a few days and
covered any damage that was caused by
their treatment because they had to take
some stuff up in order to treat them had
to cut into some sheetrock and any
damages caused by the termites was
also covered by them via the termite
bond and thankfully none of the damage
was significant so it wasn't a situation
where we had to move out of the house
the only thing that was inconvenient was
we had to move out our refrigerator cuz
basically my sun room and my kitchen
butt up against each other and the
refrigerator is on a wall shared between
the two
rooms and this is as it turns out is
how they got in the house in the first
place so my sun room is an add-on to my
original brick ranch with a basement
house and what they did was they
snuck under my deck under my sun room
and came in right at the threshold of my
original house basically in between the
sun room and in between the original
house that was where they crept up there
was no way for us to even see them right
because again I have my my house sun
room deck okay there is no way for me to
have any clue that there would be
termites anywhere near there and I don't
know how they evaded the bait stations
that are all around my house but I do
know that what attracted them was my
refrigerator which again is against the
wall that is shared by both the kitchen
and the sun room what was happening was
my refrigerator was leaking and they as
it turns out are attracted to water
now I had seen some water occasionally
under my refrigerator but I just thought
this was just because my kids were
leaving the freezer door partially open
causing the ice to thaw and then melt on
the floor it was very annoying but it
was you know it was just one of those
things but we realized after this
incident well I realized it my my wife
was already convinced it was a leak I
had to be I had to be convinced as is
often the case we finally realized I
finally realized that the
refrigerator was just was just leaking
it was just a problem i think it was at
the filter there was something that was
just and we had tried multiple filters
I think it was just leaking out right
there so unfortunately I did have to
replace my entire refrigerator right i
wasn't going to try to repair it it's
just not worth it in my opinion that I
didn't really care for the refrigerator
so so we we just went ahead and
replaced it which was frustrating very
expensive fridges are insanely expensive
right now but the good news is that
now we have a much nicer refrigerator so
silver linings I guess but around
that time that all this was happening I
had clients who were purchasing a house
that they had had multiple inspections
done to and they had had multiple
people both inspectors and contractors
who had gone in the crawl space and
had had looked everywhere down there at
least we thought and nobody had seen
any termite issues well this was a
longer transaction than most one that
had kind of an ambiguous closing date
and so we had to wait to schedule the
CL100 for a little bit later in the
transaction right because as I already
said before they it can't be dated
earlier than 30 days prior to closing so
the termite inspection was the very last
inspection that was done on the house
several weeks after all the other
inspections were done and wouldn't you
know it the inspector found termite
tubes and old termite damage and this
was we're like a week prior to closing
right now so now the question is what
are we going to do about it well
thankfully the sellers had it under
termite bonds we notified them and they
had the termite company go out and
address it but it wasn't particularly
clear what the company had done or what
their bond even covered right cuz one of
my jobs as as a buyer agent is I want to
make sure that my client okay we have
this inspection done all right it
revealed that that the seller has to do
something here they they have a termite
tube that needs to be taken care of
and and and part of my job as a buyer
agent is to make sure that my client
doesn't buy that house and then down
the road find that there was some sort
of unrepaired thing that should have
been covered by the seller but now it's
too late right because once you buy the
house it's pretty much impossible to
to force a seller to make repairs like
that particularly if it's not something
that the seller was aware of and we
can't make the seller aware of damages
unless we have something in writing
and you know in the CL 100 they will put
a few different things on there but
they're not going to go into a ton
oftentimes a ton of specifics on like
okay is it structural damage or not
that's really outside the scope of the
CL100 they're simply just they're not
given opinions they're simply observing
here's what the termites did
so both myself and the buyers had
multiple conversations with the the
pest company that that had the
termite bond on this house until we
finally realized that the termite bond
that the seller had did not include any
repairs it only included retreatment
okay retreating the area that that
sprung a new infestation which
apparently is known in the industry as a
retreatment bond rather than a repair
bond so the pest control company
wouldn't state that there was any damage
and even if there was they weren't on
the hook to repair it for their contract
with with the seller all they had
done all they did was they went out and
removed the termite tubes they just
scrubbed the termite tubes and and
called it a day that was it so this
opened up a can of a can of worms to
introduce another bug to to this
conversation opened up a whole new can
of worms because now we needed to figure
out how much damage the termites caused
but we were so close to closing that we
were nearly out of time to figure it all
out and it it's really not a difficult
question to answer in a vacubut it
can be difficult to get someone
qualified out to the home quickly
enough in order to to give an answer
when you're in a time crunch because a
lot of these inspectors are booked out
and what we really needed was someone
who could inspect the area for damages
give us a common sense breakdown of how
bad it was or could be and and common
sense is important right because as I've
already said they termites don't
always cause structural damage right
and so you know there there needs to be
a common sense element right in the in
the assessment and then we also
needed ideally for that person and if
not that person I needed to find another
person potentially to provide us a quote
if the damages were significant or
structural now again time was our enemy
and I had to spend several hours one day
like I had to clear my schedule one day
to call a long list of inspectors and
contractors who might be able to help
us out with this and thank God I was
able to find one who could go out the
next day he's a very wellrespected
inspector in the area also a licensed
contractor who could quote and do
repairs so it was a really I'm gonna say
a providential solution that took
me some time to figure out but once I
figured it out I felt really really good
except that now it was okay what what's
he going to find and also this this
inspector is known for being really
really thorough and really really strict
so so there's that too
so he went out I met him at the house
and I kid you not he banged over that
crawl space so much to you know
basically to feel if the wood in the
crawl space is soft or not which is you
know one way to assess if there's
termite damage he he was banging so
loudly down there that I joked with my
client that it sounded like we were
inside of an MRI machine i mean it was
it was crazy very thorough i think he
banged on every wooden member in that
home and in the end we got the best
news possible there were no termites
down there and although no no active
termites and although there was damage
throughout the crawl space none of it
was structural or of any concern to the
inspector so we were able to have
closing the next week thank goodness
without further
incident all of these things these three
stories that I just told you all
happened in just the past few months and
quite frankly I am tired of termites and
wouldn't mind if they find some other
houses to feed on for the remainder of
the year stay away from my clients you
crazy bugs get away i don't like you
find a forest or something i don't know
but a big thing that I learned
through all of this I learned a lot
and and hopefully you did too big thing
that I learned through all of this
beyond what I just learned about the
termites themselves is that many of our
local pest control companies are
unprofessional and many people are
paying for termite bonds that are either
overpriced or don't like really cover
any damages so that that's really
important people you know if you're
talking to a pest control company ask
the right questions ask them what the
termite bond covers does it cover
repairs if there are damages what are
the coverage limits if they tell you
it's an unlimited coverage limit which
was something that I heard multiple
times over the process of some of
these stories both with my mom's
house and with my client's house we
heard something that sounded like they
were saying they cover everything
none of them can cover there's no such
thing as unlimited coverage okay and
there's a very simple reason why these
termite companies they have to be
insured otherwise they could be
bankrupted let's say that you know they
they do a bond on a $3 million home in
the cliffs that gets eaten up by
termites a lot of these pest control
companies don't have a ton of money just
sitting in the bank so what are they
going to do well they have they have
insurance well insurance isn't going to
cover you for unlimited damages that's
just not how insurance works ever and
so that's a tell if they say that they
will repair anything
no no no i I need to see what your
actual limit is if they say that there
is no limit they are probably not being
honest with you or they don't know what
they're talking about or you guys have
misunderstood each other that's that's
those are the only
options so there you have it that's all
that I want to say about termites i
actually have to go i have I have
friends coming over high school friend
actually Luke I don't think you're
listening to this but if you are
looking forward to seeing you here in a
few minutes but if you want to learn
more about turbites I did interview
Andrew Dixon of Dixon Pest in episode
207 that was over a year ago so feel
free to give episode 207 of this show a
listen after this one if you want to
learn more about termites we talked
about a lot more than just termites in
that show but obviously that was a big
a big topic so thank you guys for
listening i hope you enjoyed this
content if you did please like subscribe
download episodes all those good things
and please please contact me if you
need a realtor my contact information is
in the show notes and and I would
love to hear from you guys right i' I've
gotten actually several phone calls
recently from people listening to the
show thank you guys even people that
aren't moving here that are just
listeners one way or another I
appreciate that just let me know all
those things are good so thank you guys
for listening and we will talk again
next time
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