Termites in the house "whoop whoop"

May 17, 2015 9:06 PM

Got subterranean termites in a single wall in my home.

We have lived in our current house for five years and I have spent much time under the house in the crawlspace as well as the attic. I feel pretty confident that for the time being we have only one area of our property that has subterranean termites.

I had three quotes done for the work and they all agreed that there is no sign of any other termite infestation except for the one wall, which has very clear and obvious damages (they poked up there little heads through the hear wood floors a few months ago.

The quotes ranged from $500-$2000. The high one was from a place that only wanted to do the job if they could do the whole house with warranty. They also called me a month later and back peddled and said they would consider doing just the wall where the subterraneans are.

I kinda figured this cant be rocket science, so why not do it myself?

First I find the gunk that all the services use, Termador SC, then I watch a few videos from Youtube University and it all seems as I had thought, not that hard of a deal.

Then I saw this (SLYT) video and had second thoughts about using Termador. The guy seems a bit of a kook, but hey, he certainly has a point and I know from my childhood in nYC that the use of Borx to kill most any insect has been arounda long time.

I know there is no winning the war against mother nature and I have no expectations about keeping termites away permanently from my property, but I would like to stop the damage that is clearly happening to this one wall from a subterranean colony.


So, here are my questions.

1. Can I and should I use Borax?
2. If I use Borax, is there a cocktail that would be best (borax/sugar), etc?
3. Can I just do the exterior wall because the crawlspace to that part of my house is a real bitch to get to.

Thanks!

posted by silsurf to Home & Garden (3 answers total)

I am certain you will get better informed answers than mine, but here goes:

In a former life, I worked for a pest control company that did termite treatments. Be glad you have a crawl space- termites are much harder and more expensive to treat if you don't. With that in mind: yeah, you should treat in the crawl space. Attack from all fronts and all that. Fun!

The reason the pros use termidor vs borax, iirc, is because termites live deep in the ground and they carry the termidor deep into the nest to kill more bugs. Borax is sort of a surface treatment.

Also: you should consider treating your whole house. Its something of a major PITA to treat one area, find that it has irritated the termites just enough that they move 3/6/20 feet down and set up a new all you can eat buffet in a different wall.
posted by LyndsayMW at 10:38 PM on May 17, 2015

Atlanta is famously eaten up by subterranean termites* and the general treatment/preventative was bait stations buried around the perimeter of the house. If any of the baits showed signs of termite activity, they were swapped out with poison that would be carted off and ultimately kill the colony. I think there are DIY versions of this out there.

Most people I knew in ATL (including myself) let a pro handle it because doing so would keep a termite damage bond in effect, which was really really important in resale situations.

* - thanks to homebuilders who buried construction waste onsite, providing years of carefree dining to termites.
posted by jquinby at 6:36 AM on May 18, 2015

Had great results with this process. Kills the whole nest, non-toxic to people and pets. Vastly cheaper than traditional methods.
posted by Wolof at 1:28 AM on May 19, 2015