Charlie: Larry in West U asks us, “I had pest infection on our home and they told me that we had dry wood termites in the house, and it seems to be isolated in the doorjamb but probably not conclusive at this point. How do you recommend having those treated, Tom?”
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Tom: If it’s just in the doorjamb, I would just go buy a new door. I would not … the only other way they can do this is tent the entire house and gas the house, and that’s really inconvenient and very expensive. I’ve had those in homes. They’re very small colonies. They will get into a piece of wood that’s probably wet, and the doorjamb probably has some moisture in there, and they will breed in there. So, to me, the easiest thing is to just to remove the wood they’re in and you should be fine.
Charlie: I bet you, I’d be willing to bet you, they’re gonna come back and say, “Well you should put these Sentricon stations around-”
Tom: Well, that doesn’t do anything for dry woods.
Charlie: Okay.
Tom: These are different. You have the Mediterranean and the subterranean.
Charlie: Okay.
Tom: The Mediterranean are the ones we’re talking about. They fly from house to house and get wood.
Charlie: Okay.
Tom: The subterranean they’re the ones in the ground.
Charlie: Oh, okay.
Tom: And that’s with the Sentricon if you wanna do that, but Termidor to me is just an easier fix for those. And that’s the most common. These ones they call the flying ones or the Mediterranean ones, they were brought in from Florida. So, it was not something that was here for a while, but now they run around and have some fun and when you see them kind of go to the next house and they start to swarm-
Charlie: Yeah.
Tom: It can be very unnerving. Actually they’re just looking for another piece of wood to get in.
Charlie: You give it an unusual sense of fun.
Tom: Yeah. Well, I remember my kids were sleeping one night at my mom’s house in Florida, and they started screaming one night in the middle of the night. I turn the light on, and all of a sudden, these termites start swarming all over themselves.
Charlie: Oh no.
Tom: That sticks in my head. That was fun.
Charlie: It’s one of those terrifying now, funny later stories.
Tom: Yeah, exactly.
Charlie: Well, we had those Sentricon stations around the building here and used your advice to pull them up. Get rid of them.
Tom: Yeah. I think the Termidor’s better. If you have termites, you treat them, and Termidor is a chemical that goes along the perimeter of the building. Sometimes they even pump it underneath. And it is a poison that will kill the colony but you don’t have to sit there and do all the maintenance about baiting it and checking them and poisoning them, and then you end up spending a lot of money.
Charlie: To the tune … I was just gonna say of about $350, $400 a year. We just canceled it. I’m trusting your advice.
Tom: Okay. If you get termites, my check will get smaller.
Charlie: Believe me. You’ll hear about it here. No, I’m not concerned about it.
Tom: No, you’ll be fine.