eChipmunks

How can I treat my home myself, against Subterranean termites that are already in my walls?

I thought they were just outside.. I saw them flying around my windows.. Recently they have been dropping out of light fixtures on our ceilings, flying out of our air ducts.. Some were even coming out of an inside wall.. Getting pretty scary.. I had terminix here and they were going to do stakes outside.. I called a different company and they want to tear up my hardwood flooring and drill every 18 inches.. Both companies are charging a lot of money, and I can't afford it at this time.. I went to Lowes and bought the stakes and put them in every 10 feet around the house.. = Spectracide 15-Pack Terminate Termite Detection and Killing Stakes.. A pest control guy told me that those stakes just kill the ones that eat the stuff inside and not the colonies.. What do I do about the termites already in the walls..?? Please help.. I have a termite flying over my head as I type.. THANKS!!!!!!! All advice is good advice!!

Public Comments

1. Sorry, but the technicians are correct. Fumigation would probaly be a good bet. Not only will it kill the colony it will also get rid of the other insects.f
2. I wouldn't count on the stakes. Fumigation (as suggested) only works for the ones that don't eat stakes. If the termites are flying from inside your house it is way too late to treat it as a DIY job. Your house is losing value. The cheapest solution is to find someone who can kill the colony. This can be done with inside baits or by finding the nest and poisoning it directly. It may be possible (depending on where you live) to put a slow-acting poison dust into the termites' tunnels and kill the colony that way (takes a lot of skill). Once you have killed the colony, you can save towards a proper barrier job.
3. If you are sure they are subterranean termites (e.g., not drywood termites), then the colony must be outside in the ground and a non-repellent barrier treatment (e.g., Termidor SC, Premise 2, Dominion 2L) outside the house wall can be used to kill the termites in your walls and the colony. As the termites in the walls return to the colony, they pass through the toxic barrier, but because it is a slow killing chemical, they make it back to the colony, where they expose other termites to the chemical, making them sick as well. And any new termites going to your house similarly pass through the chemical, and when they return to the colony bring more of the chemical back. These types of treatments usually kill the entire colony within 3 months, significantly faster than bait systems (which can take a year to year and a half). An additional measure you can take if you know where the infestations are, is you can, for example, drill small holes in your walls and spray a chemical foam in the wall (Lowes has 16oz form terminate for about $8). Obviously this will require some repair after being done, but is worth the effort if you know where the critters are. Lowes also sells a repellent barrier treatment (Bayer Advanced granules), which can also be effective in making a barrier between the termites in the walls and the colony if applied correctly. The termites won't cross a repellent barrier, so the ones in the colony won't come back to your house (they'll look for a new food source), while the ones in your house will be trapped because they won't be able to cross the repellent to return to the colony (eventually these will die for lack of water ... assuming you don't have a leaky pipe near the infestation site). Once you have some kind of barrier in place, then you can rely on the bait system to kill the colony, but remember, it can take a very long time for the bait system to do it's job, so you have to keep it up and going for at least a year, preferably two. But the colony won't be a threat as long as the barrier is in place, so you don't need to worry about your house in the mean time. BTW, have you looked outside your house for signs of termite tunnels? This can be a good clue where a barrier would be the most effective (but if you can, it's highly recommended you put a barrier around the entire house).