Which Is The Best Way To Eradicate Termites?

The issue of which is the best termite treatment? is a tricky one to settle, because the answer relies partly on your point of view on the extensive deployment of chemicals. The debate on the use of chemical pesticides has been raging since the Second World War and even before.

In the Forties and Fifties, a lot of countries that had been affected by the hostilities had grave bomb and shell damage, so the local authorities took advantage of the clean-up to destroy all the old inner city ghettos.

As they did so they observed plagues, simply plagues of bed bugs, cockroaches, rats and other pests, so they spread chemical killers such as DDT everywhere in large quantities. A similar process, for different reasons, was carried out in the United States.

This had the desired effect of destroying the pests, but there was already unease, that insects may become immune to these pesticides. The use of DDT was later proscribed. The qualms of those who worried about insects becoming resistant, were at least partly justified and so the debate goes on on. In this article, we will look specifically at: which is the best termite control.

There are three basic methods of termite control: gassing, baiting and soil barriers

Fumigation means the gassing of termites. A tent is built around the building in question and gas toxic to termites is pumped into your house from top to bottom and between the outside walls and the tent.

This gas is then forced into every nook and cranny by fans and it is left there for about twenty-four hours. Then the tent is removed and the gas is expelled from the house by the same fans.

The treatment takes three days. You will move out on day one and back in on day three. The gas only eradicates termites, they say, so all your mice, spiders and cockroaches will be left unscathed. You will get a warranty that the house is free of all termites. However, some people are not enthusiastic about the idea of gassing.

Baiting necessitates laying bait stations around the house and monitoring them for termite activity. This can be done by yourself or you can have a pest control company do it for you. Once the wooden bait shows signs of termites, then the bait is poisoned.

The principle is that the poison is taken back to the nest where it is passed on the the others either by physical contact or feeding. This process takes longer to eradicate a nest than the three days of gassing.

Creating a soil barrier means exactly that, you poison the soil around and underneath your home, so that as soon as a subterranean species of termite burrows into your garden it is stopped dead. Quite literally and subterranean termites are the worst of the three kinds. However, a lot of people hesitate at the idea of poisoning hundreds of tons of earth just to kill termites.

So, the discussion on the question of: which is the best termite treatment? rages on. A lot of it centres on your gut feelings about chemicals, but at the end of the day, 'you pays your money and you takes your choice'.

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