This Problem Bugs Me...

Last week we discovered evidence of termites in the basement storage room.

You can imagine how unthrilled I was by that news.

Now we have the Sentricon termite control system through Arrow Pest Control; I have never cared for Sentricon as much as the old system of pumping enough chemicals to kill off every insect within a quarter-mile radius, but it seems to be the system we're stuck with now that the EPA has set limits on the sort of mass termite extermination that pest control services used to consider standard.

(The old system pretty much put a barrier of death around every inch of the house wherever it came into contact with the ground; Sentricon uses a number of bait stations that are supposed to attract the termites, who'll eat the bait and then die. How good is it? Well, we never had termites at any of our houses under the old system. We've had Sentricon for three years, and we have termites. Go figure...)

Arrow sent someone out who took a look and said, "The bad news? You had termites. The good news? You had termites. Past tense. There's no sign of life there now." The termite specialist theorized that they had eaten some of the Sentricon bait (all of the Sentricon stations around our house are filled with bait rather, so any one of 'em is death on termites, apparently); however, before it did in the colony, they found their way into our house where they did some damage to about six feet of a framing 2x4 and some drywall. Their trail seems to stop there, and no poking or prodding on his part could reveal any evidence of active termites.

Nevertheless, Arrow drilled five holes into the basement floor and injected many gallons of termite-killing chemicals into the ground beneath the floor, then they resealed the holes with quick-drying concrete. That should take care of any termite colonies beneath the concrete floor, they said--and they assured me that there would be no problems with moisture seepage in the drill holes.

They also sent someone out to examine the damage; he made a list of what needs to be repaired, and he said that they would give it eight weeks to ensure that there's no sign of further activity, then they'd fix everything back just like it was.

So while I'm pretty unhappy to have had termites, I guess that this is the best outcome, all things considered. Now I'm just hoping I never find evidence of termites again!...

In the meantime, I'm all in favor of the legalization of chlordane...