LUTZ, Fla. (WFLA) — When Nathan Giordano first signed up his home in Lutz for termite protection seven years ago, it sure sounded like a sweet deal. For $300 a year, his house was treated and covered with a $1 million damage policy.
But when Giordano discovered termites had caused major damage four months ago, Pestbear denied his claim, essentially blaming him for the infestation by insisting that conditions “conducive” to termites enabled the damage.
“They never once from the day I signed the contract through all the seven years ever mentioned anything to me about that,” Giordano said.
In fact, the contract Giordano signed back in 2011 has a blank spot where “conducive” conditions are supposed to be specified by Pestbear’s inspector.
“There’s no way I could have known,” Giordano said.
Giordano says he’s already done about $10,000 worth of emergency repairs to the front of his home and may have as much as $30,000 more damage. But he has had no luck since May getting Pestbear to pay for any of that.
That‘s why Giordano reached out to 8 On Your Side for help.
“It’s just something that’s not only for me but it’s for anybody who takes out a termite service and is expecting to be protected,” Giordano said.
After repeated calls, emails and text messages 8 On Your Side sent to Pestbear, the branch manager who handled Giordano’s account, Sean Grieco, offered to refund the $2,137.31 in fees that he says Giordano has paid the company since 2011, as long as Giordano agreed to call it even.
“Not even close,” Giordano said, citing the growing cost to repair his home that was supposedly guarded by Pestbear’s network of subterranean termite bait traps that failed to warn anyone of the problem that is now literally eating up his home.
“It doesn’t even cover the section we’ve already repaired,” Giordano said.
When we visited Pestbear corporate headquarters in Oldsmar last week with more questions in hand, Operations Manager Tom Barry quickly showed us out the door.
“This is unfair for me to be questioned when I don’t have the answers for you,” Barry said. “I’m not saying I’m not going to answer I just don’t have the answers for you right now.”
When we reached out to the company again Wednesday, Pestbear’s Human Resources Director Gina Romero took a different approach to our questions.
“We have no further comments to be made to you as this is a private matter,” Romero wrote in an email.
Meanwhile, Giordano is trying a new strategy to work around Pestbear’s refusal to pay for his termite damage, one that just might make him — and his house — whole again.
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