Short expert discussion about what homeowners should do if they suspect termite activity. Key recommendations: do not disturb suspected activity, book a professional inspection (recommended annually), remove timber in contact with soil and other food/water sources, and install a termite management system. Two broad control approaches are compared: bait/monitoring stations (attract termites, add bait that is carried back to the colony) and chemical barriers (kill termites on contact). A branded-style bait rod is described as lasting five years.
Chapters
If somebody suspected that they had termite activity, the process that I'd recommend is, number one, don't disturb any activity that you find. That's the worst thing you can do as a customer is disturb the activity because then when you do call a pest controller, that termite activity could have actually retracted and you can disturb them and scare them away and make it harder for them to be treated. Booking an inspection, they should be getting done every year. You can go over the whole house, inside and outside, in sub floors, roof voids, check it all over, make sure there's no moisture problems, no conditions that are conducive to termite activity. At least we can point them out so that we can help prevent any attacks in the future. And then obviously putting in termite management, that's going to be your best course of action to prevent an attack on your house, is having a management system installed. So they're the top tips to prevent termite activity. They're looking for two things, a food source and a water source. If you can help take those away from your house, then you're going to have a better chance of preventing termite activity. Any timber in contact with the ground, that's ideal space for termite activity to be found.
Ideally you don't want to have any.
Timbers in contact with the ground because that's what attracts termites. So the more things that we can remove from the yard that attract them, the better off the house would be.
So there are a few different systems on the market. This one being a bait and attractant all in one is a little bit dearer than others.
It really depends on what way the client wants to go.
Some clients like the idea of having bait in the system all year round where other stations a little bit cheaper, but they have timbers and attractant in the station. But bait isn't added until we have termite activity in the station. So this is a bait rod, this is made by Centricon. So this is an all in one attractant and bait that stays in the station all year round. So those rods actually last for five years. So when I say this is a bait all in one, that means that the termites eat the bait rod, they take the bait back to the colony and it wipes out the whole colony.
There's no real prevention except a termite management system is going to be your best course of action to help deal with termites. Whether that be there's a few different options. You have chemical treatments, that's a little bit more of an old school treatment that we're trying to steer away from these days. A termite monitoring system will attract termites to the station. We can then add bait. They eat the bait, take it back to the nest. It takes out the whole nest. Whereas a chemical barrier will kill termites that come up to the barrier and kill them.
But it will not.
They will not take it back to the nest. It only kill what termites come into contact with that barrier. So it's a better protection in my eyes, to have the whole nest wiped out.
