First Rate Solutions

This place is a disaster. I wish I could give it negative stars. All they do is put you on hold and are very inflexible with scheduling and give you an annoyingly long time range in which they could arrive at your apartment. Also terrible with returning calls and have very disorganized call management. My building management is forcing me to use these deadbeats even though I have no pest issues in my apartment. If you actually have pest issues and can avoid these losers, do so at all costs. They are the true pests! Avoid avoid avoid!!!

They refuse to tell me what chemicals they’re spraying in our apartment. Absolutely refuse. One person tells us we have to get the cats out of the apartment for 4 hours after they’ve sprayed, another tells us they’ll be fine in the bathroom. What? And really, you want to come into my home, and spray unknown chemicals all over the place that requires living things to evacuate for 4 hours afterwards, but you won’t tell me what it is? Really unethical and sketchy. Stay away.

Wanna find a first rate solution to your problem? Start by eliminating this company from consideration. What an absolute joke of a business. First, the one and only nice thing to say is that the exterminators are usually very nice people and mean well. However, they are the furthest thing from experts. They’ve yet to figure out why mice are getting in the building, and their answer to everything is scheduling follow up appointments. Automated phone services are more useful than their live receptionists. Not only are they completely incompetent, but they’re nasty as can be. They tell you a time slot and don’t show up, they have flat out not showed up at all, and never take accountability for anything. How they are still in business is baffling. This company needs to be exterminated.

I used First Rate when a neighbor had a minor bed bug problem and I was very concerned about getting them too. First Rate patiently explained to me all the things I could do to prevent bed bugs (as much as is feasible, that is), including caulking my wood floors (which they did at a very reasonable rate), moving furniture away from the walls, raising my bed, finishing the backs of wood furniture, etc. I had First Rate treat my apt every two months for bugs — despite the fact that my building offered exterminator services — because I trusted them so much. They were always pleasant to deal with, extremely reasonable, and knowledgeable. I no longer live in NYC but I recommend them to anyone who asks me about exterminators, particularly people who worry about or who get bed bugs. I know from those recommendations that everyone who has used them to get rid of bed bugs has been very pleased with the services.

After having dealt with First Rate extensively for two years, I can whole heartedly suggest you find someone else for your extermination needs. I had bed bugs last year, and if you’ve ever had bed bugs you know the lengths to which you need to go to get rid of them. After weeks of work and First Rate’s «expert» treatment, they were unable to get rid of the pests, and I have now had to go through the entire treatment TWICE. It’s like moving, and I’ve now had to pack and unpack my apartment twice.
Furthermore, they are rarely on time (a four hour window for appointments isn’t enough), they have tried to double bill me on two occasions, and their exterminators give conflicting advice. Also, they are quite unpleasant to deal with on the phone, and require multiple reminders to get back to you with requested information.
I am not a dramatic person, and genuinely think this to be an accurate assessment of First Rate’s services. I highly recommend you find another exterminator.