Complaints

The complaint text that is displayed might not represent all complaints filed with BBB. Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:06/09/2025

  Type:Service or Repair Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  Date of Transaction: 7/31/24
  Amount Paid: $1,758
  Client was my mother. (see copy pf contract submitted)
  Service provided: Extermination of Bedbugs, inclusive of 90-day warranty to include re-treatment if necessary.
  Complaint: Midwest was notified 3 times (once in person, twice in writing), all well within the warranty period that bedbugs were still present, but refused to re-treat the residence and dragged the matter out until their client was forced to resort to other means to handle the problem, causing much unnecessary grief. Midwest made various excuses for their refusal. Midwest asserted they were not notified within 90 days, so screenshots with time & date stamps of written notifications were provided to them. Midwest suggested bedbugs must have been reintroduced, but they simply had not completely eradicated them. The 90-year-old customer is the only resident and rarely leaves home. Only people from 2 other residences enter the home and they do not have nor have had bedbugs. Midwest suggested home health brought them in since we suspected that as the origin, but this also did not happen as we made certain this could not happen again. Midwest described various other grossly inaccurate scenarios surrounding this residence to support suggestions of re-introduction, but these are all easily refuted. At best, Midwest is keeping poor records and confusing one residence with another. At worst, they are intentionally making false statements. Regardless, they were notified within the 90-day warranty period. Midwest did finally offer to re-treat the property for $500, but their contract does not state there is a co-payment/deductible, nor have any other exclusions or stipulations, just the 90-day parameter which was met. We initially wanted this company to retreat the property per the warranty terms of their contract, but they dragged it out until the customer had to use other means to handle it, which we believe is their strategy to avoid accountability.

  Business Response

  Date: 07/14/2025

                                                                                                                                   Midwest Bed Bug Services
                                                                                                                                  
  401 Grace Court
                                                                                                                                  
  Pea Ridge, AR 72751
  
  
  
  To whom it may concern,
  Our company has received the complaint that your office
  received and appreciate the opportunity to share our side. Our company has been
  in business for 15 years and our North Little Rock office has been open for
  almost 5 years. We provide our customers with a whole house heat treatment that
  takes a minimum of 8 hours to rid infestations of bed bugs and we do this in a
  safe and effective manner with our state of the art equipment. We are part of a
  larger Franchise and all of our technicians are trained properly through the
  Franchise. We have served thousands of customers with complete customer
  satisfaction and we absolutely honor our 90 day guarantee when in that 90 day
  guarantee period live evidence of bed bugs are found. However like any company
  we are unable to provide customer satisfaction 100% of the time. We do have
  some customers that try to take advantage of our company.
  We were contacted by telephone and hired to treat ***** ****** home for bed bugs. The day of her scheduled treatment was July 31st,
  2024. I sent a prep/confirmation email to ******* daughter ****** on July 26th,
  2024. I let each customer know verbally the importance of taking the time to
  prep their home properly and follow all instructions in the email and printable
  form. In the days leading up to *** ****** appointment her daughter ****** did
  reach out to me several times via email with questions regarding prepping the
  home. In some of those emails she stated that she was removing some items that
  they were afraid would not handle the heat well. We let every customer know
  that if there are any items that need removed from the home then we recommend
  those items go into a Non-climate-controlled storage for a minimum of 12 months
  before bringing said items back into the home or you run the risk of bringing
  bed bugs back into your home. In another email that ****** sent she was asking
  a question regarding the Home Health assistance that *** **** receives from
  Physical Therapists and Nurses because that is where the family was fairly
  certain the bed bugs had been exposed to *** **** originally.
   We arrived on the
  scheduled day for treatment and my technician performed the standard 8 hour
  heat treatment and worked very hard to treat the home effectively however my
  technician stated in his notes that the home was very cluttered and not prepped
  properly including the spare bedrooms that were being used for storage and were
  very cluttered.
  3 weeks later on August 23rd the ****** (daughter)  reached out and asked that we perform an
  inspection on *** ****** home to make sure the infestation had been taken care
  of. Our company typically does not provide an inspection routinely however we
  were happy to accommodate the family and scheduled an inspection on September
  11, 2024 which was 6 weeks after the original treatment date. When I spoke to
  the family I asked if *** **** was experiencing any typical bed bug behavior
  such as bites on her body or if anyone had seen any evidence of live bed bugs
  and I was informed that there had been no bites or evidence. My technician
  arrived on September 11th, 2024 and provided a thorough inspection
  throughout the home but did not find ANY evidence of bed bug activity. *** ****
  did not have any bites on her body, there were no live bed bugs, eggs, nests,
  exoskeletons or excrement. This was considered a successful treatment and both
  *** **** and her daughter ****** was satisfied. If any bed bug had been left
  from the original treatment they would have immediately began feeding and
  reproducing. There would have been evidence that would have been very easy to
  find after 6 weeks.
  I do not show anymore record of ****** or *** ****
  reaching out to us via phone or email until November which was after the 90 day
  guarantee which would have expired on October 29th, 2024. I also never received any written correspondence from ****** or her mother *** ****
  regarding a continued problem with bed bugs. My technician did go on December
  18th, 2024 to perform another inspection for no charge and he did
  find bed bugs in the Master Bedroom but again notated that the entire home was
  very cluttered. The living room was piled was his exact words used. ****** did
  express her anger towards our company at that time. We corresponded again in
  December to which ****** told me that she had another company come out and I
  thought that she was going with another company so our communication ended
  until  February 2025 ****** reached out
  again via email very upset and demanding another heat treatment at no cost. I
  then offered a compromise because at this point it had been 6 months after the
  original treatment date to perform another 8 hour whole house heat treatment
  for $500.00 but that the home would have to be prepped properly this time before
  we would schedule another treatment and that made ****** very angry. She felt
  that was unfair. She argued that the home was not cluttered and did not need
  any more prep work but I have all of my technician’s notations from each
  treatment and inspection’s. He makes those notes at the time of service. I felt
  that offering another treatment for $500.00 was a reasonable offer. Our company
  would lose money performing the treatment but it would cover some of the
  expenses and I wanted to make sure that we take care of *** **** if possible.
  ****** stated in February that if I wouldn’t treat the home for free then they
  would not pay any more money.
  Our company offers a 90 day guarantee that we will
  eliminate your home from bed bugs but we are not able to prevent bed bugs from
  being introduced back into your home. *** **** could have been introduced to
  bed bugs numerous of ways by bringing the items back into her home that they
  treated themselves as stated above and in the emails that we received and were not
  professionally treated or through her home health assistance. I know that her
  daughter feels that she worked tirelessly trying to prep and declutter her home
  but the prep email with instructions was sent on July 26th, 2024 and her
  mother’s original treatment date was July 31st,2024 so there was no
  way that she could have spent 117 hours prepping but I am sure that it felt
  that way to her. We deal with so many customers in this same situation that are
  trying to care for their elderly parents. Most elderly customers of ours have extremely
  cluttered homes and have home health care assist them and that is a very
  prominent way that bed bugs are spread. I can sympathize with ****** and her
  frustration and I felt that I offered a reasonable solution but I was met with
  disdain and anger. We have never had a complaint filed with the state before
  because we always care and take care of our customers. I truly am sorry that
  they feel they have been taken advantage of but that was never our intention.
  I do also need to state that on our invoice it clearly
  states that if there is a controversy between customer and MWBBS then
  arbitration needs to take place.
  I hope that this letter is read and understood to the
  effect that we did not take advantage of *** **** and that we would be happy to
  compromise still and perform another treatment for $500.00.
  I appreciate your time and attention to this matter.
  
  Sincerely,
  ******
  Midwest Bed Bug Services
  *****************************
  ************