New York Sprays Terminix with $759,000 Penalty

Terminix • Complaints --- • Terminix Pleads Guilty To Assault In New Jersey Case • Terminix Settles with New Jersey • $759,000 NY Penalty

October 3, 2003
Terminix will pay $759,000 for environmental and consumer protection violations, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer announced.

Terminix is the nation's largest pesticide applicator.

Under the settlement terms, Terminix will pay $759,000 to resolve all the state's civil claims arising from these investigations. Terminix will also dismiss its appeal of two unsuccessful lawsuits it brought against the state to stop the state's investigation.

A state investigation last year of Terminix's implementation of its "Sentricon System," a termite control product, found that many Terminix customers did not receive all of the product monitoring required in customer contracts. An investigation several years ago found that Terminix employees improperly applied other types of pesticides and falsified records to cover up their actions.

"Pesticides -- which are often very toxic -- must be applied in the most effective and least harmful way," said Attorney General Spitzer. "This protects public health, the environment and consumers".

"Companies that fail to adhere to the law cheat their customers and create potential health and environmental hazards. My office will continue working with the Department of Environmental Conservation to prosecute such violations," he said.

Customers using the Sentricon System, a product Dow AgroSciences licenses to pesticide applicators such as Terminix, typically enter into contracts of one year or more with the licensed applicator.

This "integrated management system" requires monitoring for the presence of termites at bait stations surrounding the home, insertion of the pesticide in tubes only at stations in which termite activity has been found during monitoring, and further inspection, monitoring, and management of the bait stations during the life of the contract.

An analysis last year of files from the company's records of consumers of Terminix's termite control services, which utilized Dow AgroSciences LLC Sentricon Colony Elimination System, revealed that a majority of customers serviced by the company's offices in Albany, White Plains, and Mineola did not receive all of the services they paid for.

Terminix's failure to follow the requirements of the Sentricon System label is a violation of state environmental laws governing the use of pesticides, as well as consumer protection laws that prohibit deceptive acts and practices in the conduct of any business, Spitzer said.

Terminix also failed to follow label directions of the pesticide know as "Recruit," containing the active ingredient hexaflumuron, which is a component of the Sentricon System, he said.

The investigation last year followed a 1999 investigation by the Attorney General's Office and the Department of Environmental Conservation that found Terminix did not follow label instructions when applying liquid pesticides, and that employees falsified records to cover it up. In December 2000 and April 2001, two employees from Terminix's Mineola office pled guilty to crimes of falsification of business records and participation in a scheme to defraud.

Today's settlement resolves only the most recent of many enforcement actions against Terminix, Spitzer noted. In 1992, Terminix paid the state $50,000 to resolve allegations concerning application of pesticides by a non-certified applicator, failing to warn homeowners of possible pesticide dangers, and failing to maintain proper records and to register several business offices.

Terminix has also entered into settlements with the states of Connecticut, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Florida for other pesticide application violations.

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