Jameson Elam has a rule for when two customers need his company at once. One has already paid for a termite treatment and is covered by the warranty. The other is new and hasn’t paid anything yet. The first one goes first.
Elam owns Good Sense Termite, a termite company in Campbell. The rule applies when a warranty customer has a wall open and notices something going on, and a new customer’s appointment gets canceled to make room. That new customer might go on to complain that the company canceled at the last minute to take care of someone already under warranty. “That doesn’t look like a bad review to me if somebody actually reads it,” Elam says. The customer who has already paid, he reasons, counts for more as a reference with the people around them.
The rule follows from how he thinks about the warranty itself. “It’s not a warranty like on an appliance where you hope nothing goes wrong,” he says. “This is termites. They will be back eventually.” So the company tells people up front what to expect from the coverage instead of leaving them to hope they never need it. In its replies to customers, the company describes a three-year warranty that includes an inspection each year.
The company also does the chasing. Every year, Elam says, it reaches out six to seven times ahead of each annual appointment. “Hey, it’s time for us to come back out, make sure we’re doing our due diligence, partnering with you and making sure your home stays termite free,” he says, describing the message.
Elam has worked in termite control for almost 17 years, and he opened Good Sense in 2025. Over those years at other companies, he says, he saw where they came up short. Some promised customers everything and then fell down on follow-up after the sale. Others treated their crews well but booked so full that warranty customers waited behind new business. “Somehow, magically, I was able to marry the two together,” he says. He argues the crew side pays off on the customer side: a technician who is looked after is a happier one, and a happier employee works harder for a happy client.
Elam describes the work as consulting more than selling. On a residential job he asks how long the owners plan to keep the house. The answer helps decide whether preventative measures would give them any real value, and it lets him sort what needs doing now from what can wait.
It also shapes which treatment he recommends. Nearly everyone on his crew has worked for companies that pushed localized treatment all the time, he says, and that isn’t always the right call. Good Sense does localized work; its website describes injecting Termidor foam directly into infested wood. But Elam says the company won’t shy away from fumigation when a house needs it, or when figuring out what the house needs has become a guessing game. Then the home may need “a full reset” so it can start over termite-free, and control is easy from there. Fumigation, as the company explains it, means tenting the structure and filling it with Vikane gas, and the household has to clear out for several days.
An inspection can also end with no work at all. One homeowner described an inspector going through the house, the attic and the crawl space, taking photos and video, then confirming there were no active termites and making no pitch for repairs or a warranty. The company doesn’t charge for the inspection.
Elam calls his mission statement long-winded, but it comes down to this. Termite control is the most money a homeowner will spend on a house with nothing to show for it, so the homeowner needs to know what the money is buying. “Having a well-informed consumer, that’s just good sense,” he says. Then: “Hence the name.”
The company is registered in Alameda and San Mateo counties and works south into San Benito and Monterey counties. Its service list runs from Fremont and Livermore to Santa Cruz and Monterey.
Elam still goes into the field. He picks up the tools and works jobs alongside his crew, he says, to keep a feel for what is happening out there, and so the crew sees it. “They realize that the owner can still do this and he’s still pretty dang good at it too,” he says. He doesn’t expect that to change. “I see myself, as morbid as it sounds, probably dying in a crawl space one day doing the work.”