Termites!!

**86mud** · 9th October 2009, 03:23 PM

Got the shock of my life last night when I went into my sons room and lent against the architrave surrounding the window and it just fell apart!!!!

House is only 10 years old!. House is a slab floor brick veneer job.

Upon further inspection, all the skirting boards in two rooms, along one side of the house were eaten. I started ripping into it and could not find a white ant anywhere. It's like they were just passing by and decided to chew out about 15 metres of pine trim and leave again!

Thankfully after getting into the roof and removing some plaster sheeting from the walls, they haven't attached the stud frame.

Pest control guy said that the termites love the finger jointed pine used for skirting and the damage done to my place probably happened over a space of 2 -3 weeks! Damn they chew fast!

Now....I am up for $4000 for a new treatment around the house using termador injected into the ground and dust injected into the wall cavity.

The original treatment was meant to last 10 years as per the documentation I received when I bought the house. I might now get 6 month inspections instead of every 12....

Hope it works!

Andrew

**nice1guv** · 9th October 2009, 03:32 PM

That's no good!

Those termites are sneaky buggers!

Originally Posted by 86mud

House is only 10 years old

The original treatment was meant to last 10 years as per the documentation I received when I bought the house.

Does that mean it lasted 10 years?

**Psimpson7** · 9th October 2009, 04:03 PM

If its timber framed, there is a good chance that they will have gone along the bottom of the wall frame aswell I am afraid.

They do a massive amount of damage.

**Chucaro** · 9th October 2009, 04:08 PM

They are bad, they move timber like no machine can do!
I used to have a 110 years old queenslander in Childers and only the hardwood was intact!
Do not believe on the humididity detectors used by the "experts"
They say to me..."the house is dry, termites cannot live here"
What a lot of bull, they were using two stumps as "elevators" to come inside the place

Also we found that the smart buggers waith for the branches of the passionfruit to be dry and thet they are using the hollow brach as a pipe or tunel to come inside the house!!
My last two homes are made with steel frame and cladding

**86mud** · 9th October 2009, 04:24 PM

it does look like the original treatment lasted 10 years. The house was built in August 1998.

The only damage that I can find on the bottom plate is a small track mark from where they built their mud walkway...

Going home now to clean up the mess....

**solmanic** · 9th October 2009, 04:31 PM

If the timber framing was LOSP treated or Cypress Pine they would have avoided it and just gone straight for the regular pine trims.

**JDNSW** · 9th October 2009, 08:03 PM

This is why my house and sheds are steel framed!

John

**inside** · 9th October 2009, 08:58 PM

My house is double brick, cypress framed roof, metal door frames except front door and quite a bit of pine panelling. Guess what they ate? Front door frame and pine panelling. As they eat the pine panelling I replace it with cypress panelling. The front door frame will soon be aluminium. They'll soon be out of things to eat unless they want to give brick a go.

**V8Ian** · 10th October 2009, 08:25 AM

Your furnature and cupboards are made of..................

**adm333** · 10th October 2009, 12:25 PM

Anyone who's had a brush with termites is usually fairly paranoid.

Instead of the poison injection I have the termite stations installed every 2 metres in a perimeter around the house.

These things just have a little block of untreated pine in each one. When foraging termites encounter them, they start feeding on the block of wood.

You check them all every few weeks, and if there is activity then the special compound is added to the station. This stuff has low toxicity and they feed on it for several weeks and distribute it amongst the entire colony until the colony is dead.

I had 4 active stations within two weeks of putting them in and they have all died off now.

I like this system because you get to see the elimination process in action and it makes me feel like I'm playing an active role in protecting the house - although it is a bit of extra work, its much cheaper than a chemical barrier.

Dave

Thread: Termites!!

Thread Tools

Termites!!

Bookmarks

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions