Which is the Best Termite Treatment?

!±8± Which is the Best Termite Treatment?

The issue of which is the best termite treatment? is a difficult one to settle, because the reply depends partly on your point of view on the widespread deployment of chemicals. The debate on the usage of chemical insecticides has been going on since the Second World War and even before.

In the Forties and Fifties, many countries that had been involved in the hostilities had severe bomb and shell damage, so the local governments took advantage of the demolitions to destroy all the old inner city ghettos.

As they did so they noticed 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 other reasons, was carried out in the United States.

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

There are three fundamental methods of termite control: fumigation, baiting and soil barriers

Fumigation involves the gassing of termites. A tent is constructed around the building in question and gas poisonous to termites is pumped into your house from top to bottom and between the exterior walls and the tent.

This gas is then blown into every nook and crevice by fans and it is left there for about 24 hours. Then the tent is taken down and the gas is extracted 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 unharmed. 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 involves 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 bodily contact or feeding. This process takes longer to eliminate a colony than the three days of fumigation.

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

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