Clearing your home from termites
Termites can infest your home and furniture if you are not careful.
The damage could be great and preventive measures are best.
Termites are insects which feed on dead plant material whether it is
in the form of wood, leaf litter, animal dung or other material. They
can cause serious damage to crops, plantation forests and buildings.
Their recycling of plant matter is considered an important step in the
ecology, but unfortunately, termites or white ants as they are more
popularly known, are more famous or infamous as destroyers of wooden
furniture. The damage to furniture in homes and offices is estimated to
be in billions of dollars and therefore the eradication of termites has
assumed great significance. Entire wooden homes have been destroyed by
them and a number of people have been forced to give up their homes
because of termite infestation.
You need to identify the location of the colony where these termites
have made their home. This colony or hill must be totally destroyed, so
that there is no chance of the termites coming back. It is important to
spot the queen of the colony and kill her. This ensures that the colony
is not reconstructed again.
You also need to check your home out thoroughly, especially the areas
that have a lot of wood in them , be they the furniture or roof
structures and ensure that none of the areas is infested by termites.
Each of these areas needs to be separately treated, till all areas are
free of the termite infestation. Termites are partial to wet wood, as
these areas are soft and therefore quite easy for them to penetrate. So
if there is any chance that dampness is getting into your furniture or
home make sure you eliminate the source for this so that your wood
remains dry at all times.
There are a number of ways that can be used to rid your home or
premises of termite infestation. The most common among them is to use
baits to attract the termites. The baits contain toxins that are
poisonous and once the termites feed on them they will die. This will
ensure that no food gets back to their colonies and with the lack of
food, these colonies and the queen in them will die. So the termite
colony itself will vanish ridding you of the problem of termites.
However termites have become resilient to quite a few of these baited
toxins and the search for an effective one may require a lot of trial
and error.
Other pest control companies use the tented method of spraying
chemicals within your home or the area affected to kill these termites.
While this spray or medicine is taking effect you would have to close up
the house and give the antidote some time to function as it should. This
would mean that you would have to abandon your home for those few hours,
sometimes a full day if you really want to get rid of those termites.
Once the termite infestation has been got rid off, one must ensure
that this does not occur again and any suggestions made by the experts
of the pest control company must be followed. A regular inspection of
areas for termites is a must and very necessary to see that termite
re-infestation does not make you apprehensive and worried. Appointing
experts to carry out such inspections is a good idea and can save you a
lot of dollars in the long run. Knowing how these termites behave and
propagate can help you to see that conditions in your home or premises
do not prevail, which will help these termites to build a colony once
again. Damp conditions besides aiding termites to function can also
cause other damage to your house and you would be well advised to see
that they are never present. |
