Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Termites!

I'm posting in solidarity with myrison, whose recent shower leak caused him some grief.

We've begun to see termites in certain downstairs areas of our house. My wife had a guy out today and he recommended treating below the slab, which require drilling. Through the slab. From inside the house. I have to figure out whether it'll be feasible to remove one column of the laminate square tile flooring I put in last year to give him the access he wants.

If you've ever put in a floating laminate floor, the easiest way to remove it is by starting with the last row you installed and working backwards. Doing it this way would mean taking out every single row. It should be possible to jimmy off the one column with enough wiggling, though.

Before I can even do this, I have to practically empty half my living room and pull half the quarter-round trim off the baseboards.

This ruined my weekend. The treatment appointment is for Monday morning.

You should move your house up here. We don't have termites because they can't find boots that fit.

Peter, if I may suggest one thing, have the folks apply a product called .... Termidor .... best defense against termites one can ever spend their money on and I'll guarantee you that.

Termites, Oh boy .... I wish you could have seen the first added on room prior to our patio conversion which was framed and built back into what is now our TV room that I constructed a couple of years back.

I treat my own home every five years with Termidor after my own initial treatment that included drilling parts of the slab, driveway and garage floor with a big rented hammer drill from Home Depot and digging an 8" deep trench around the perimeter of the house and flooding the trench with the Termidor/water mixture ... I'm thinking a 4 gallon mixture for like 20 linear feet or something similar. The cost of the Termidor was around $400.00 and whatever the hammer drill rented for is all I paid, other than my time. I talked my immediate neighbors to use the Termidor and we've yet to have had nary the first termite problem in over 8 years.

Good luck.

Hearing things like this really makes me appreciate our environment up here that much more.

There are lots of places in Iowa that have the termite problem. Even our first house had this problem. They tried the drilling method, and in my opinion, I would pass on that method. The only thing that will do is scare the colony off to the neighbors, and they will come back later.

You need to kill the termintes. The only thing that worked for us and many people I know is the bait stations they put around the house in the ground. This is the most popular method around the midwest.

For starters they place soft wood in the bait traps, and come back monthly until they see which traps are being eaten. Then they are replaced with the material the termintes eat, carry back to the colony underground, and eventually the workers of the colony will disapear, and wamo, they are dead.

A lot better than just them moving to the neighbors. I would do some more research and get another opinion.

Randy, the bait stations are ancient history .... Termidor and another product called Premise is what any reputable termite applicator will use nowadays.

Drilling the slab does nothing but provide an avenue for whatever pesticide one is using to reach beneath the foundation of a building constructed on a concrete slab foundation, drilling isn't meant to kill termites, the pesticide does that ... maybe your folks used the wrong pesticide? Probably a strong poison that killed those termites it only contacted and left the rest of the colony back at the ranch to make a full on assault at a later date. Applicators liked using that stuff back in the day, it made for repeat customers.

Read the Termidor label and understand how it works, I friggin' guarantee you it does and will work to wipe out a termite colony in any part of the country ... I may not know much about this A/V stuff but I do know a little about pesticides and application methods, I've only been doing this for the past twenty years and am certified to buy and apply restricted use pesticides in about six different states.

Gosh, we are lucky to have each other here.

Rick, you're awesome.

Peter, you have my sympathy.

Then scoot your butt up there and help Peter

Tom, if it's all the same to you and you don't mind much ... may I print this up in bold letters so that I can magnetize it to our refrigerator so my lovely wife of the past 26 years will read it? Your thoughts of me and her thoughts of me are not making the same connection for some reason.


Rick, my brother .... you know darn well if I were capable and had the time to do so I'd go up there and do that job for Peter myself, I like doing that kind of stuff.

I'm sure you would Rick. I really do feel sorry for Peter, of all things.