The Documented Record
The Problem
Everything below is a photograph taken in the house, a written estimate from a licensed Hawaii contractor, or a Hawaii statute. Nothing here is opinion. It began as a floor. On September 29 it became the framing of the house.
September 29: termite damage found in the framing, and the joists cut by the repair saw.
See the updateIf you have four minutes
Terminix owed a repair. Its contractor put red oak where white oak was, cut it short of the walls, skipped the sanding, and finished it anyway. He admits the short cut in writing. A licensed contractor says $24,802.61 puts it right. Terminix has offered $15,000. The family would rather have the floor.
What She Paid For
Miss Lee, 77, has held a Terminix Drywood Termite Defend plan with a damage repair guarantee on her home in Waialae Iki, Honolulu, since September 2020, when she also paid Terminix roughly $10,000 to fumigate the house. The promise is simple: if termites damage the house, Terminix arranges and pays for a contractor to repair it. A repair puts back what was there. She paid every year.
In 2026, termites damaged the hardwood floors in her great room, which is the living and dining room together, and in her office. Terminix accepted the claim and sent a licensed contractor of its choosing, Makainai Construction LLC. The scope of work Terminix paid on is on the contractor's own letterhead: “Estimator: Solomon Makainai.” He wrote his own scope. The work ran from August 5 to August 19, 2026.
This was the first time she asked Terminix to keep its end of the deal.
What Was Installed
The Contractor, In His Own Words
Text messages between the family and the contractor Terminix chose, August 13 to 20, 2026. His phone number is cropped out. Nothing else is.
The Day the Work Ended, and Two Weeks Later
August 19, 2026, the last day of work, and September 2, 2026. Close-ups of the finished surface.
The Walkthrough
Photographs taken in the house on September 21 and 22, 2026.
Behind the Baseboards
The contractor cut the new floor around the baseboards instead of removing them. On September 25 the family took one baseboard off and found termite damage in the wall behind it. On September 29, with Terminix's inspector Tadashi in the room, the family opened the drywall about six inches above the floor around the whole great room, and higher at the ocean corners.
Drywood termite tunnels run from the old floorboards into the bottom plates of every wall, through the blocking under the floor, and up the corner posts at both ocean corners. At the right ocean corner, where the flooring was cut along the baseboard, the saw went about two inches into the joists that carry the room. Every place is pinned below. Tap a pin for the photographs.
Look at the frass. It was pouring out of that wall onto the new floor, at every place the old boards met the wall. Anyone who took a baseboard off would have seen it, and a licensed contractor who saw it would have had to report it. Cutting the floor along the baseboards was the one method that left it unseen. The claim stayed the size of a floor.
Ocean windows
Side windows
Solid wall
The great room
Toward the kitchen
What a Licensed Contractor Said the Floor Would Take
On September 3, 2026, Flooring Specialist Inc. (Hawaii contractor license CT-33719) issued Estimate 5543 for the house. Job name: “replace oak.”
| Remove red oak flooring, install blocking, install white oak flooring | 610 sq ft |
| Unfinished 2 1/4 inch white oak | 658 sq ft |
| Sand, seal and finish; adjust expansion gaps; let wood acclimate | 610 sq ft |
| Custom threshold and reducer; white oak quarter round | |
| Total, including tax | $24,802.61 |
The estimate says, in the contractor's own words, that the existing floor is red oak, that it must come out, and that the gaps and acclimation must be corrected. It was written on September 3, for the floor, before anyone had looked behind the baseboards. The framing and the cut joists are not in it. That repair has not yet been priced.
The Documents
Every paper this record rests on, as received, nothing edited. These are the enclosures to the family's demand letter. Tap to open or download.
What Terminix Has Done Since
Miss Lee signs the Terminix Drywood Termite Defend plan and pays Terminix about $10,000 to fumigate the house.
The contractor writes the scope of work on his own letterhead, and Terminix accepts it: "R&R Oak flooring, clear grade, no finish." Just oak.
The contractor Terminix chose starts work. Jody asks Jesse-Ann, who prepares his scopes, what the job covers. She is told: baseboards off, floor in, baseboards back on. The scope Terminix later sent shows no baseboard removal, and every dollar amount on it is blank.
The family warns the contractor in writing that raw wood and Hawaii's humidity mean cupping and warping. He replies that he is aware, that wood reacts to the elements, and that he will sand and finish once the flooring is down.
Work ends with a second coat of finish drying, a hole still in the bedroom floor, and debris under the house. First photographs. The family asks Terminix in writing for the signed repair contract.
Shown the flooring cut short at a jamb, the contractor replies that the 5/8 inch gap is covered by 3/4 inch quarter round. The family tells him to stop and asks Terminix to take it from here. The family has not accepted the service as complete or satisfactory, and says so in writing.
The Terminix claims representative says the branch manager will call to arrange an inspection. The call never comes.
A licensed Hawaii flooring contractor inspects the floor and estimates $24,802.61 to remove the red oak and do it right. The family sends it to Terminix.
Two Terminix employees look at the floor for the first time. Terminix offers $15,000.
Side-by-side photograph of the original white oak and the installed red oak. Full walkthrough, 38 photographs.
The family removes a section of baseboard on the east wall and finds termite damage in the wall framing behind the new floor: sheetrock eaten through, the filler block under the plate hollowed out, fresh frass. Photographs at ourterminixstory.com/update. Terminix is asked to inspect under Section 5.
With Terminix's inspector present, the drywall is opened around the whole great room. Termite tunnels run from the repaired floor into the plates, the blocking under the floor, and the posts at both ocean corners. At the right ocean corner, the repair saw cut about 2 inches into the joists that hold up the room. The map and photographs are at ourterminixstory.com/update.
Terminix writes that the branch has confirmed the inspected termite damage, and offers to send its contractor to scope the repair. The family chooses to send Terminix an estimate from its own licensed contractor, the same way the floor was priced.
Samples of both floors are sent to the USDA Forest Products Laboratory for an independent species determination. The signed repair contract has still not been provided.
The family replies to Terminix: it will send an estimate for the framing. The saw cuts in the joists, found after the inspector left, are put in Terminix's file in writing, and Terminix is offered a second look at the house with the walls left open.
J. Powers Construction, LLC, a Hawaii-licensed general building contractor (license BC-29576), examines the framing and writes the scope and estimate for the repair: $63,000.00 plus tax, materials and labor. Shore the roof, remove the windows, replace the posts, plates, sills and headers, rebuild both window walls to the original dimensions, put everything back. The scope is at ourterminixstory.com/update. It goes to Terminix for approval and payment by check, as the floor did.
What Hawaii Law Says
Hawaii Revised Statutes section 480-2 makes unfair or deceptive acts or practices in trade unlawful. Paying a contractor without inspecting the work, presenting a cheaper species as a repair to a 77-year-old customer, withholding the scope of work until a power of attorney was produced, and never providing the signed repair contract is the kind of conduct that section reaches. This site describes the conduct and cites the statute. It calls it nothing else.
Section 480-13 gives an injured consumer three times actual damages plus attorney fees and costs. When the consumer is an elder, 62 or older, the floor is $5,000. Miss Lee is 77. Section 480-13.5 adds a civil penalty of up to $10,000 per violation when the victim is an elder. On a $24,802.61 repair, that arithmetic is the reason doing the job is the cheap option. Complaints about licensed contractors go to the Regulated Industries Complaints Office under Chapter 444, and about pest control operators to the Pest Control Board under Chapter 460J.
Others Before Her
Public awards against Terminix where it did not make the customer whole. Each one verified against the published report. Read them next to the floor cut along the baseboard: a small repair, a quick check, and the damage behind the wall left where nobody would see it.
$25,878,087.84
Archdiocese of Mobile v. Terminix. Arbitration award, March 19, 2026.
Including $8.6 million in punitive damages. The panel found termite activity “was allowed to continue and worsen across several properties over many years, even though service agreements were in place.”
$801,285
An elderly homeowner v. Terminix. Arbitration, Mobile, Alabama, 2022.
$351,285 in damages and $450,000 punitive. The arbitrator found Terminix concealed that “no true fix was ever made,” and that when damage surfaced it “offered minimal repairs and cash settlements to avoid larger payouts.” Terminix has offered this family $15,000 against a $24,802.61 repair.
2,920
Better Business Bureau complaints against Terminix closed in the last three years.
Not BBB accredited.