Don't have them but see them in a stump about 25 feet from the house. Just wondering what I should do as a homeowner to keep them away from the house. Not interested in hiring an exterminator. Next door neighbor had them a few years ago and needed exterminator who treated infestation and set up the stakes with juvenile hormone bait and killed the nest. With all the wood around our houses they are back and I want to keep them away from my house.
Basicly you want to keep wood away from the house, ie no rotting stumps, logs, discarded 2x4's laying around near the house. And keep the house wood dry and out of contact with the soil.
My thinking is to get one of those bug barrier type products but one that lists termites among the insects treated. I put down stuff for ants now but it says nothing about termites. Hard to say what is approved in US as EPA keeps banning effective materials or keeps them out of the homeowners reach and only lets professionals use them. Ticks me off, as a retired chemist I can handle practically any hazardous material.
Impossible for me to remove all wood around the house as there are stumps that even if ground would still have considerable wood under ground and our properties are very hilly and half my neighbors don't even tend to the back halves of their properties and just let them go wild.
I did survive the termites that hit the neighbor but at the time had access to diazinone which I always sprayed the foundation with to keep out ants and termites and never got invaded by ants until I could no longer get diazinone. The Spectracide ant barrier appears to be working since I apply it early in the spring before there are signs of ants.
*If* you ever plan to sell the house, I'd get a good termite extermination service and retain all documentation. Termites scare buyers and, with my experience, the documentation is well worth the price to help ease any fears. YMMV
BTW: I'd get the service anyway.
Just can not get the good stuff any more. Not sure of the spelling, but the good old Chlordane took care of about everything.
7 years ago I moved in. House perimeter was treated as a precaution. The separate garage had termite damage. There were a batch of winged things inside garage. Flying and crawling bug killer cleared up things, and have not noticed anything since. I do a yearly perimeter spray. There were some in a stump, but those disappeared.
Greg
I got some. I didn't even want to use it. Didn't need to.
Greg
It should not be necessary to treat anything, based on finding termites
25' from the house...there are termites anywhere there is wood. If homes are infested commonly in the area, as in the warmer states, then perhaps more reason for concern. You can get free inspections, although homeowners should know what to look for as well. Look up the county/state extension service for your area...lots of them have very good info about termites. Your efforts should be based on what is prevalent in your area, including the species/types of termites - treatment is not a "one fits all" matter. In the meantime, the basics for prevention include: keep shrubs and tree limbs from contacting the house, keep wood members of house at least 6" above grade, keep wood painted and in good repair, caulk openings around doors, windows, plumbing and electrical entries. Carpenter ants sometimes use (prey on, too?) termite burrows. You can't kill termites by spraying the surface of wood...they burrow in deeply. Should always look for fine openings that might suggest termies; mud tubes from soil to wood (incl. inside crawl spaces) are sign of subterranean termies.
When we lived in CA, we used to have a very prolific orange tree. Each year, we'd harvest and enjoy fresh squeezed orange juice. I found out that if you take the rind of the orange, hold it up to a lit match, and squeeze; you can shoot a flame about 18 inches!. That rind liquid was even better paint thinner remover than paint thinner! Found out that the spray is a major insecticide [even killed spiders after about two hours] with song longevity, lasting a whole year. Our kitchen NEVER had any ant problems. until...the invasion of the Mediterranean Fruit Fly. One morning I looked out to see govt employees stripping the tree, placing the fruit into garbage sacks for removal. That year, sadly no oranges, no fruit juice.
Worse, within a short time we had the biggest infestation of ants I've ever seen! They were everywhere!. They even would crawl up the fridge into the cold sections, and [since none came out] almost filled up the freezer section! ...old fridge, bad seals? Anyway, had to resort to chemicals that year, used sugar laced with boric acid. That took them all out - slowly. My wife likes to take them out NOW! but nothing does that well except Raid House n Garden which has residual action but that's toxic, not to be used in a kitchen.
I think that rind is used in orange cleaners too. That chemical is something else!
NOTE Bug Barrier specifically states to not use around food. Seriously, cover the coutner tops before using. But as I said, works ...and doesn't smell too bad. Smells like warm water.
From my experience ants are looking for moisture.
As I'm sure you know, treating termites doesn't treat ants and vise verse. We had a bad "carpenter" ant problem due a leak in the facade in our house. No amount of chemicals would fix that.
They are already there.
If you see evidence 25' from your home, their nest could be anywhere withing a 200' (or more) radius and up to 25 feet below the surface. They have investigated and infested everything within the two hundred feet.
Current practice is not "to keep them away" (barrier protection), but to destroy the nest with any number of appropriate chemicals. One such chemical is Termidor.
Termidor is available on Ebay and is extremely lethal to the workers, queen, and the entire nest.
I have been doing the basic things. I know what to look for in a termite invasion and try to always be on the look out. Several years ago I had flying ants in the garage that came back a couple of times and finally succumbed to my spraying. They were easy to identify by their segmented bodies compared to termites.
I just put some of this stuff down but it does not appear to be a barrier type material and will only hit any termites foraging towards the house:
Spectricide has a termite detector spike that will tell you if termites are near the house but I declined to buy these.
I had seen termites near the house in the same area before they hit my neighbor. He had a wood pile sitting on the ground next to his house and did not detect the termites until they swarmed in his house.
Around here, when you sell a house, you must supply a certified termite inspection report - same with radon. You can sell a house with these problems but you can bet it will cost you in the price of the house.
Scrounging in the garage I did find an old bottle with a couple of ounces of Lindane and diluted it and dumped it on the stump. It is killing the termites. I assume this is something banned by the EPA when they banned the long acting materials like chlordane.
I was under the impression Thermidor is a barrier chemical only with professionals. My neighbor had the invasion treated with something but then they put down bait stations to draw in termites and then put in wood with a juvenile hormone which wiped out the nest. Been years since I've seen any sign of termites but now they are back in the same place between our houses. He's got all kinds of dead wood on his property as do his adjacent neighbors.
When my parents had a house on the east end of long island, we had termites in a tree stump. I don't remember how far from the house but I'm guessing 20 feet or so. We had a lot of trees around the house then and my dad was wondering what to do. Someone told him to do nothing to get rid of those termites in the stump because as long as they had food, they wouldn't go to the house. It must have been good advice because they never came to the house for the 16 or so years they lived there. One thing tho, he used to spray Chlordane all around the house as a precaution then and now it is outlawed due to pollution. It appeared to work great. It killed anything around the house tho I can't say it did termites because we never got them but it was supposed to. Sure wish I had some still.
Can you still buy over the net? My dad used that stuff and it appeared to work great !!
Had a house built by a bad builder. I bought it when it was about 12 years old. Showed no evidence of termites. Had a crawl space. Some years later did some major remodeling. Stripped the outer siding from house. Guess what...Termites. They go for water. One rain gutter allowed for water seepage. to get through to the outer wall studs. Termites had chewed there way up through the studs to get to it. TIME to call the professionals for help The pumped chemicals into the ground along the perimeter out side the house and in the crawl space along the footing. Also drilled holes through the concrete floor of the attached garage pumped chemical there also. Then sealed holes with concrete. No more termites after that. WW
I think its legal in Canada.
It's not pollution. It decays over time. It's just hazardous if used incorrectly.
Greg
Do you have a rough idea what these cost per unit ?
What do you call these things in case I choose to buy some and typically where are they sold?
They are called something like Spectracide Termite Stakes. When I was at Lowes they had two sets, one for about $40 and a smaller one for about $16. Before going to Lowes, about 10 miles away, I stopped at local Kmart and they had zilch for termites.
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