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Show Public Warning issued to beware of current fraudulent pest control. unlawful and fraudulent business bus-iness practices. Commissioner Francis further fur-ther stated that many homeowners home-owners do not know if their buildings and surroundings are seriously infested with termites ter-mites or other pests, and that they become easy prey for unscrupulous un-scrupulous pest control operators. opera-tors. This is especially true with widows and the aged, who the swindlers often seek out. Even if these homeowners homeown-ers know that they have an insect problem, they are usually usu-ally not aware of the type of control measures which should be employed, nor what to expect ex-pect as a reasonable cost for treatment. t The homeowner should take practices. Every -person applying ap-plying pesticides for hire must be individually licensed and cannot legally operate under any other license. When a person approaches a homeowner home-owner and asks to examine his property for insect pests, the homeowner should immediately imm-ediately ask to see the person's per-son's Applicator's License. If he has a license for the current cur-rent year, Issued by the State Department of Agriculutre, this is evidence that he has fulfilled the necessary requirements re-quirements and is operating legally. If he does not have a personal license, he is in vio-I vio-I lation of State law and certainly cer-tainly should not be employ ed. Furthermore, he should be reported to the State Department Depart-ment of Agriculture immediately. immedi-ately. Such notification can also be given to County Agricultural Agri-cultural Agents, Agricultural Inspectors, and offices of Better Bet-ter Business Bureau. Commissioner Francis points out that there is a real need for competent, legitimate pest control operators throughout the state. These people can provide a very beneficial service ser-vice in the control of many serious pests, which can result re-sult in considerable savings to the property owner. Incidence Incid-ence and severity of termite damage to buildings is much greater than most people realize and inspections by honest people who are trained train-ed in proper control methods should be encouraged. Once a homeowner receives a proper pro-per appraisal of his pest problems, pro-blems, they can employ legally legal-ly licensed operators to perform per-form the necessary work with I a good deal of assurance. Joseph H. Francis, State Commissioner of Agriculture, today issued a warning to the public to be aware that there are a numiber of unscrupulous and fraudulent pest control operators operating throughout through-out the state. Commissioner Francis states that such companies com-panies usually establish a temporary local headquarters from which mail or telephone calls can be directed. In some instances, they are operating out of trailer houses and are moving from town to town, picking up business wherever possible. Methods commonly used include in-clude the use of solicitors who specialize in using scare and pressure tactics to induce homeowners to sign a contract con-tract to provide complete termite ter-mite extermination services. The contract requires a large cash fee initially, plus subsequent sub-sequent fees for an extermina-Hon extermina-Hon maintenance program. The cash fee is usually substantially sub-stantially higher than would normally be charged by an . established competent firm. Recent investigations indicate indi-cate that in many cases extermination ex-termination treatments which are applied have been very inadequate in-adequate and particularly useless, use-less, with a resultant waste df money by the homeowner. Unfortunately, by the time this is determined, the operators opera-tors have moved on. In most cases, these pest control operators op-erators have not passed the test as required by the State Department of Agriculture for them to receive a license annually, an-nually, and employees of several companies are presently pre-sently under investigation for failure to be licensed, and for |