Published: Sunday, May 14, 2000
Section: LOCAL
Page: 1A
By MITCH LIPKA and NEIL SANTANIELLO Staff Writers
When you buy a newly built home in Florida, an invisible chemical barrier is supposed to guard your investment from marauding termites looking to chew it apart.
Building codes and most mortgage lenders require that the soil under and around new houses be sprayed with pesticide during construction to prevent termite infestation, which causes an estimated $500 million in damage in the state each year.
But the promise of a proper termite treatment is something home buyers cannot necessarily count on. Weak laws, minimal enforcement, unscrupulous pest-control companies and the practices of the builders who hire them combine to leave more than half the buyers of new homes in Florida with inadequate protection, a Sun-Sentinel investigation found.
For those who break the law in pretreatments, which essentially require only that technicians follow the label on the pesticide, there is little risk of getting caught or of being penalized. By the time a homeowner becomes aware of a termite infestation, it is almost impossible to tell whether the pretreating job was done correctly.
Homeowners also can be left vulnerable to the insects from sloppy construction practices that virtually invite termites to feed on your home. After the termites have done their damage, homeowners who should have been protected are usually stuck paying for extermination and repairs.
Records obtained from the state Department of Agriculture show some companies bid jobs at a fraction of what it should cost to buy the proper amount of chemicals, which termite experts say indicates companies are shortchanging their customers. Some pest-control companies spray too little chemical, use highly diluted solution, or spray nothing but water, the experts say, to boost profits in a cutthroat business.
In some cases, inspectors have watched crews spray sites in a minute and a half for a job that, if done right, should take at least 30 minutes.
"It's so easy to get away with," said Steve Dwinell, an official with the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services and an advocate of industry reform. "It's a classic crime of opportunity."
The pest-control technician is supposed to treat the soil with poison at least two or three times while a home is being built. First, the area where the slab is to be poured is sprayed, then covered with plastic to allow the chemicals to seep below ground.
During the second visit, a key one that termite experts say is routinely skipped and never checked by inspectors, the technician is supposed to spray around the slab to extend the barrier. More visits are required before each additional pouring of concrete -- such as when a patio is built.
Builders and building inspectors rely on a sticker placed on a permit board at the building site to certify termite treatments have taken place. They are not required to witness the work or to take soil samples to prove the work was done. Unlike structural inspections, the work to prevent termites is mostly taken on faith.
"No one will know for years whether you sprayed water, termiticide or ketchup," said Gary Stanford, a state pest-control inspector, because it can take years for a termite infestation to become apparent.
Though Florida is one of the most termite-friendly states in the country, it has only 13 inspectors to police 28,000 technicians. Georgia, with lesser termite problems, has 10 times the number of inspectors per technician.
Florida's tiny band of enforcers, who have no idea where and when the pretreatments are scheduled, chase pest-control companies hoping to witness them in the act -- the only way they can hold them accountable.
But inspections are so rare -- and the penalties are so light -- that pest-control companies that choose to cheat can get away with it most of the time, inspectors say.
The maximum penalty for a "grossly deficient" pretreatment is $5,000 per violation, but fines rarely top $2,000.
Bureau of Entomology and Pest Control enforcement supervisor Joe Parker said companies know the fines they face are pennies compared to the dollars they would have to spend on chemicals to do the job right.
"I don't know that our fines are much of a deterrent," Parker said.
Jim Noonan, owner of Advantage Pest Related Services in Pompano Beach, said it would be cheaper to "pay a $3,000 fine on a daily basis than to use the proper amount of chemical."
Although about 160,000 homes were built in the state last year, Florida's pest-control inspectors were on hand for fewer than 100 pretreatments for termites, Department of Agriculture records show.
Records examined by the Sun-Sentinel show that of the limited inspections done by the state, about four in 10 pest-control companies either spray far too little pesticide, use watered down chemicals, or both.
That wouldn't have been such a big problem before 1988, the year the powerful termite repellent and killer chlordane -- which could work for upward of 30 years -- was taken off the market because of environmental concerns. Weaker, alternative chemicals can't cover up for a watered-down treatment the way chlordane could.
A barrier using today's chemicals, if laid properly and left undisturbed, should last for at least five years, scientists said.
New homeowners need to understand that being cheated out of a good subterranean termite pretreatment, which should cost from $300 to $500 for a 2,000-square-foot home, is like being cheated out of having a good roof, said Assistant Attorney General Bob Buchner.
"Consumers are paying for termite protection when they buy a house," Buchner said. Without the treatment: "If they don't get termites, it's just by luck."
The pest-control industry itself recognizes a problem.
"It gives the industry a black eye we don't think the industry deserves," said Bob Rosenberg, director of government affairs for the National Pest Management Association. "It's a little niche out there that's creating a big stink and kind of tarnishing everything."
Advocates of change, from state officials to the pest-control industry to lawyers, say more inspectors and greater penalties are necessary to clean up the industry and protect consumers.
Matthew Jowanna, a lawyer who represented 1,827 Tampa Bay-area homeowners in a lawsuit that claimed they were cheated of proper pretreatments, called the business in Florida "grossly under-supervised and grossly under-regulated."
"Without enforcement you have anarchy. That's what we have now," Jowanna said.
Deputy Agriculture Commissioner Martha Roberts agreed that her department is overmatched.
"If I was a homeowner, I'd be terribly concerned," she said.
Slow-motion disaster
Herb Legatt and his wife can't forget the night more than a year ago when termites crawled out of the woodwork of their 3-year-old condo in the Lakes of Delray, west of Delray Beach.
One after another of the insects popped out of a wooden doorframe inside the master bath -- literally hundreds over a few hours -- and began flying around the apartment, he recalled.
Legatt grabbed a jar of spackling paste and began plugging the exit holes the bugs were drilling.
"But as I sealed one place, they seemed to bore another hole," Legatt said. "They flew around and dropped to the floor. We were up until 2 o'clock in the morning killing those termites."
Termites are a slow-moving natural disaster, and they are almost inevitable in Florida.
The insects thrive in warmth and humidity, and Florida's soil, soaked with both sunshine and 60 inches or more of rain each year, is termite heaven. The state is home to 19 species, including the aggressive Formosan termite, a non-native bug deemed a kind of super termite by entomologists that already is eating its way through prime Gold Coast real estate in Hallandale and Golden Beach. Palm Beach Gardens got its first confirmed attack in 1996, 16 years after Formosans had showed up to the south.
"Potentially -- boom -- right off the bat, you can be struck by a very large active colony," said University of Florida entomologist Rudolph Scheffrahn.
Formosan colonies can burgeon to three million to four million individuals compared to a hundred thousand or more in a native termite nest, said University of Florida professor Nan-Yao Su, one of the nation's foremost experts on termites.
"A severe Formosan colony can eat as much as a pound of wood a day," said Barry Murray, marketing director for Truly Nolen.
Other problems
Flawed chemical barriers are not always to blame. Sloppy construction practices also can leave new homes vulnerable to the voracious pests. Debris left on the job, plywood form boards left in the foundation and cardboard or paper wrapped around pipes that push through the concrete slab offer pathways to termites.
"They can come up through a crack that's one-sixty-fourth of an inch," said Gary Stanford, one of 13 Department of Agriculture pest-control inspectors, pointing to a pipe running through the slab of a home being built in West Boca. "To a termite, that's I-95."
Also, inspectors have seen freshly laid chemical barriers disturbed by construction workers walking over them. The Department of Agriculture has videotapes of construction crews raking soil seconds after the chemical was applied.
Reports of failed pretreatments following a 1994 survey of pest-control companies were numerous enough that the Legislature convened a committee of termite experts to look into the problem.
Among their findings: Building codes needed to be revamped to prevent sloppy construction practices that attract termites to new homes. That and other changes were approved recently by the state Legislature in a new statewide building code that forbids wood scraps and other potential termite lures from being left by builders around a new home.
Jowanna, the Tampa attorney, said builders need to take more responsibility in curbing the termite problem, because they are the ones who hire the pest-control companies.
"Under the law, they are liable for the work of their subcontractor," Jowanna said. "Of course, they're not going to pass that information to their customers. When you take someone's money and promise them a product, it doesn't matter whether they build it or pay someone to build it, the builder is still responsible."
Jowanna brought a class-action lawsuit against Lennar Corp. and the pretreatment company it hired, Ace Professional Pest Control.
Ace technicians admitted in signed, sworn statements that they provided certificates of treatments for work they never did. They admitted spraying water, fertilizer or a watery mix of a cheap pesticide that gives off an odor -- but doesn't affect termites.
"One woman's kitchen was eaten within six months," Jowanna said.
"We hired somebody that we thought was reputable to perform a service for us," said David McCain, Lennar's attorney. "Just as the homeowners were duped, so were we. When the subcontractors weren't there to stand behind their product, we were, and so we did."
The case, which Lennar settled in December by agreeing to repair damage and extend termite protection warranties, was the highest-profile example of consumers cheated of termite treatments being taken care of by a builder. After a yearlong investigation, only one Ace manager faced criminal charges -- for theft -- and pleaded guilty, serving no jail time, state officials said.
Builders who accept job bids that they know are too low must share the blame for problems in the pretreatment industry, say Buchner, Dwinell and pest-control industry officials.
Dursban, the least expensive and most commonly used pretreatment termite killer in Florida, costs from 5 cents to 10 cents per square foot. To figure how much a job should cost, Dwinell said, a simple rule of thumb is to triple the chemical costs.
"A homebuilder who pays 8 or 9 or 10 cents a square foot knows full well what they're getting," said Rosenberg, of the National Pest Management Association.
Bids for commercial work came in as low as 3.5 cents a square foot even in 1997, when Dursban was selling for double the price it is now, records reviewed by the Sun-Sentinel showed. Regulators and pest-control operators say that a company bidding that low couldn't possibly do the job correctly.
"[Builders have] gotten away with it for long enough, they don't pay attention to it anymore," Dwinell said.
Any bid below 12 cents a square for a typical pretreatment should raise red flags, said Parker, the enforcement supervisor.
Still, some local pest-control industry leaders, such as Riviera Beach-based Hulett Environmental Services, defend extremely low bids.
President Tim Hulett said he accepts losses on termite pretreatments as a way to build a relationship with homeowners and draw their lawn care and other pest-control business.
But Hulett, who noted his company has a training program and offers an unlimited warranty, acknowledged that not all companies play by the rules.
Low odds
Catching those who leave homeowners vulnerable is problematic. To punish crooked companies or incompetent technicians, they must be caught in the act.
Doing that is a tedious, inefficient task. Inspectors scope out local construction sites, trying to figure out where a concrete slab is about to be poured -- a tipoff that a pretreatment is coming.
"We sit out there and just kill days doing it," Parker said.
In settlements of penalties, state regulators will often require a pest-control company to report where it will be doing its pretreatments for a period of several months.
North Carolina, which has as many inspectors as Florida and only a small fraction of the number of pest-control companies, manages to check on 15 to 20 times the number of treatments by taking soil samples to test for applied chemicals. Florida officials said they are considering a similar program.
Underhanded competition -- under-bidding the true costs of doing a job and then skimping on the chemicals sprayed to boost profits -- is cited as the main reason most of the big names in the pest-control business won't do termite pretreatments in Florida.
"The Orkins, the Terminexes and Sears of the world have virtually gotten out of the business because they can't compete," Buchner said.
Truly Nolen, an international pest-control outfit based in Pompano Beach, does very little such work now, said Murray, the company's marketing director.
"We used to be one of the biggest pretreaters in Florida when everybody did it legally," he said.
His company, he said, bids jobs at 34 cents a square foot.
"We're just not going to do it illegally," Murray said. "We're not going to absorb that kind of liability. When you watch a truck go out with a 300-gallon spray tank, spray four or five houses and still have chemical left over when an individual house should require 300 gallons, it's absurd."
Builders contend that although they sometimes aren't even the ones to hire the pest-control company -- the contractor who builds the exterior of the home often does -- it is all part of their product.
"Ultimately, they're going to be working on our property and on our homes," G.L. Homes vice president George Atkinson said.
He said home buyers should understand the termite protection warranty is only good for one year, but is renewable for up to five.
Barriers can be broken by homeowners digging around the foundation or by water pooling up and flushing away the chemical. So it is up to the homeowner to renew the warranty to ensure continued coverage, and to have annual inspections and retreatments, Atkinson said.
Both he and Lennar general counsel McCain maintained that since they're the sellers, they must stand behind all aspects of their product, including pretreatments for termites.
"We try to be responsible in trying to hire trustworthy and competent subcontractors in every trade," McCain said. "Like hiring employees, it's an imperfect process."
State officials say most new homeowners who get termites don't realize they might be the victim of a crime.
And those who understand something went wrong rarely file complaints. A combination of embarrassment and a lack of awareness that the Department of Agriculture is the place to turn to could be the reason, state officials and termite experts said.
"They're probably afraid it will affect property values," Parker said, adding: "We've not been highly advertised. They have to be pretty torqued off to call us."
Because termite damage devalues property, homeowners often prefer to quietly take care of the problem.
"You may brag about surviving cancer -- you don't brag about surviving termites," said Roland Holt, who led the charge to make St. Johns County's building codes Florida's toughest against termites. He now directs Palm Beach County's building department.
The stigma of having termites in their home in the Nautica subdivision west of Boynton Beach had Marit and Dietmar Smedek talking about selling quickly before the damage became noticeable. But because of disclosure laws and the tell