Had a customer insist I spray his whole house for spiders with peppermint oil

Guy calls me up, says he read online that spiders hate peppermint and he wants me to use that instead of chemicals. I told him flat out it doesn't work long term, but he insisted. So I did it, charged him my regular rate, and told him to call me in two weeks when they come back. Sure enough, day 13 he's on the phone yelling that the kitchen is crawling. Came back out, sprayed the real stuff, and he watched me do it. He apologized after. Has anyone else had a customer whose Google research beat your 15 years of experience?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_lucas26d ago

Man I had a buddy who does HVAC and a customer made him blow out his vents with lavender scented air freshener because she saw it on TikTok. Had to redo the whole job for free a week later.

wells.karen26d ago

Hold up, is it really the customer's fault though? I mean, your buddy agreed to do it, right? He could have said no thanks, that's not part of the job. Sounds like he just wanted the money and figured it was harmless until it bit him. Plumbers and HVAC guys deal with weird requests all the time, but they're the pros. If he knew it would gunk up the system later, he should have warned her up front. TikTok's full of bad ideas, sure, but the person holding the tool still makes the call.