Kill termites
and white ants without poisons

This bloke was the first in the world to create a DIY termite control system. Thousands of Aussie homeowners are using his advice and products. They’re getting the job done themselves, and saving money

For the last 17 years, we’ve been supplying scientifically tested and
proven DIY termite control systems to Aussie homeowners.

You’ve Found Termites

Learn the proven strategies professional use.

Without being a professional.

We have all you need to Do-It-Yourself using professional strength Tuckerbag Termite Bait, TermiTraps and straight forward, step-by-step instructions.

In a nutshell:

Baiting and monitoring (trapping) kills the colony they’ve come from and guards against further attack.

If it sounds simple, it is.

And it’s the same approach professional, licenced technicians use. Because it works.

But hang on…

If you’re like most people:

You’re happy to save a buck

But you’re not going to risk your house doing it

So why believe a site on the net that says you can do the job yourself, safely, effectively and potentially save big money in the process?

Consider this

I’m Ion.

In a career of 50 years, I’ve worked as a pest controller, trained as an entomologist, taught pest control at TAFE and authored the texts that are still used in teaching today.

I’ve seen what works and I’ve seen the gimmicks.

My original termite trap system was a world-first. Homeowners could now use government approved bait and techniques to do a job that until then was for approved professionals only.

Ion’s the author of these industry
textbooks

The Termikill system has worked for thousands
of Aussie homeowners.

It can work for you too. Here’s how.

The Termikill system has 2 parts with full, easy-to-understand instructions included.

There’s bait, and traps.

They’re sold seperately, but most people choose to purchase the kit including one of each.

The Bait

Registered for homeowner use by the APVMA in Canberra, use these baits to kill the whole colony and remove the termite threat. Deadly to termites but 100% non toxic to you, your family and pets. What you don’t use will keep for many years. Enough in a carton to kill a large colony or a couple of smaller colonies.

Ready for use. Peel text label, add water and affix to infected areas.

The Traps

There are 22 Termite Traps in a carton, enough for most homes. Place them ON surfaces.

Fully illustrated instructions on where to place them are included in your carton. No digging or drilling is required. Spreading them is a 15-minute job you do once and they’ll last more than a decade.

After a successful baiting, they can be refilled with more timber so the monitoring cycle continues.

UV protected plastic we guarantee to last for 10 years

The Kit

The Colony Killing System is an all-in-one DIY kit.

You’ll receive everything you need to kill termites you’ve found, and set up a perimeter defense against those outside your house.

Easy to understand, illustrated instructions included.

$710

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All products can be purchased separately. Click Here

The sure and simple way to
kill termites

If you’ve just found termites eating wood in or around your home, you need Tuckerbag Termite Bait to kill the whole colony… and some advice.

Why Tuckerbag Termite Bait?

it’s the same professional strength formulation with two important benefits…

It is inside a silver foil bag that keeps humidity inside and ants outside (that’s very important to the termites inside) whether you have placed them inside or outside in the sun and rain.

Secondly our packs contain 70% more bait so that once you have them placed, you don’t need to go near them to check for 2-3 weeks… meaning you wont be disturbing the termites inside as often, lessening the risk of frightening them off.

Simple? How simple?

Your termites didn’t want to be found; they kept out of sight eating away at the timber just below the paint or surface. Baiting works when you work with them so….Find a spot along the timber (such as a door or window frame, etc) where they have come close to the surface.

Usually there will be a hollow sound and the surface may be wavy and uneven.With a small blade such as a vegetable knife or a small screwdriver, make a hole into where they are happily and busily eating. The hole should be no bigger than about 10-15mm long and only about 4-6mm wide. If you see termites inside, then add 500ml of water to a Tuckerbag, wait about 3-4 minutes for the water to be absorbed so the powder looks like cold porridge,

A hole in the foil will be revealed as you pull off the red label and you simple align this hole in the bag with the hole into the termites. Adhesive on the bag will stick to the timber surface enough to provide a seal but you should use a self tapping screw, thumbtacks or some gaffer/duct tape to help support the nearly 700g of weight… particularly if it is a vertical surface.

In a week or two you might want to peek inside by peeling back the green label. The adhesive stays on the label like on a pack of wipes… so you can reseal and stop pestering the feeding termites. Do you like people watching you eat?

Lastly, it usually takes more than one Tuckerbag to kill a colony. You have the choice of removing and replacing the original bag with a new bag… or you can spoon bait from the new bag into the original bag. If you choose to spoon, you are less likely to tear off the surface of the timber if it is paper thin, resulting in confused and angry termites that may get so peeved they leave.

That’s it! Feeding the dog is probably more complicated. You certainly have to feed the dog more often.

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Frequently Asked Questions

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How do white ants/termites find Termite Traps?

They send out scouts to find wood and, there is very attractive wood inside a Termite Trap. (The one recommended by CSIRO). TermiTraps are designed to be placed up on the ground rather than be buried in it. For millions of years, there has always has been more wood above ground level than under it, so the acquired habit of scouts is to go out above ground level to find timber. Another survival habit: termites do not rely on just one food source. They are constantly seeking supplementary food sources. Too many times there have been flash floods and bushfires or dinosaurs/mammoths have moved their main meal. To survive, multiple feeding sites became a necessity. And, so it continues… The short answer: the more TermiTraps you have placed around your home, above the ground where termite scouts are looking, the sooner and more likely you are to intercept scouts.

Do monitors attract termites to my house?

No. Termite scouts find monitors you have placed adjacent to your home simply because they were already there looking about. It could be argued that if they hadn’t found the Trap, they may have kept looking further and found a way inside.

My house is only three years old. It must have been built to meet Codes including termite preventive measures, and anyway, isn’t there a seven-year builder’s warranty to cover me?

Yes. And yes. Building codes, in essence, aim to ensure termites cannot enter unseen into a structure. Codes do not expect to prevent termites getting into a building, the aim is to make termite attack routes visible on the way in. Think of those old ant caps that were/are placed on piers and stumps. Termites cannot get through the metal; they have to build out around and over them where their tunnel can be seen — as long as someone goes looking. (Requiring an annual inspection is almost the first paragraph of most Codes). Builders guarantees are full of loop holes. The pest control company only gives the builder a piece of paper to say they applied or installed chemical or other barriers to the appropriate Code. If you haven’t kept up the annual termite inspection (by the nominated pest company) your warrantee is void and there’s nowhere to go.

If termites are already in my house can I use Termite Traps to entice them out?

Not a good idea. It takes time for scouts to find a TermiTrap outside and then more time for the ‘construction team’ to build a tunnel to it. Then even more time to bait them. During all that time, they are still hollowing out the timbers in your house. If you can find termites busy eating timbers such as skirting boards, window or door frames, it is best to directly bait them right away. Illustrated information will arrive in the carton when you purchase.

What are the dimensions of a TermiTrap?

They are just less than the size of a house brick: 190mm x 90mm x 90mm high.

Is it legal for homeowners to buy and use your bait?

The Colony Killer Termite Bait is approved by the APVMA in Canberra (the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority) for use by homeowners.

I’ve read about ‘serious’ and ‘nuisance’ termite species. How can I tell the difference?

I’m very wary of generalising, but here is an attempt to simplify, hoping you’ll recognise that in nature there are exceptions to human ‘rules’. There are 300+ termite species in Australia. Only about 10 or so species, the so-called ‘serious’ ones, contribute significantly to Australia’s annual $billion+ damage bill. These species come from just four genera (plural of genus): Coptotermes, Schedorhinotermes, Nasutitermes and Mastotermes. (Coptos, Schedos, Nasutes and Mastos.) The Mastos are found mainly north of the Tropic of Capricorn (between Rockhampton and Exmouth) and they are big — 13-16mm long. No other solid-wood eating termite is this big. The geography and size quickly rules them in or out as a threat to your home. The Coptos and Schedos are found all over the continent and they specialise in eating solid wood such as in our structures. Which means they definitely are a threat. The rest of the 300+ are ‘nuisances’ because they are either leaf-litter, grass, or decaying wood eaters and they usually build mounds. No one wants to live with a termite mound nearby so even the couple of species of the pointy-headed Nasutes (Nasutitermes) that will eat solid timber are easily destroyed by breaking open their mound. We have a free ID Service and there is also a section in this website that gives you some visual clues on the differences.

How do termites get into the Trap?

The bottom is mostly open apart from a ledge to keep the timber from falling through. There are also a couple of small holes at the bottom in the back wall. Traps can be placed flat on a concrete path against a wall over the expansion joint. These joints often open up over time (weeds growing there are a good indicator) allowing termite scouts up to snoop about and find their way through those back holes to the timber inside the Trap.

My house was built more than twenty years ago and there has been no termite attack, why would I bother putting monitors around?

The CSIRO produced a Termite Risk Map showing almost all areas of the mainland states of Australia are of Moderate to High Risk. The tiny sliver of land along the Great Ocean Road in south western Victoria is about the only Low Risk area. Which means there are serious termites near you. Annual flights of termites occur in late spring, early summer. Most are unsuccessful in establishing a nest — but some do. Ever seen flying termites at dusk at your place? Twenty years without an attack can be looked at two ways: you’ve been lucky, or, on the law of averages your luck is due to run out. Your decision rests on weighing up the cost of say $475 for 22 Traps that will last for at least 10 years; put them around as ‘sentries’ for an early warning system. That is not a lot of outlay to maybe save you $thousands in repairs. Your choice.

I understand termites can do $50,000 plus in damage to a house in a short time. Doing something about the termite threat is obviously sensible, however, aren’t chemical barriers better value, even though more costly than termite monitors?

Barriers installed during construction are one thing; barriers re-applied are different. You can’t jack up a building and start again. Holes drilled in slabs and tiled areas are injected to make interconnecting ‘puddles’ of insecticide underneath. If there is a soil crack below the slab, thousands of litres of pesticide could just disappear without puddling. If there has been some subsidence and there is a space under the slab, the puddles may well join up but the termites may be tunnelling upside down on the undersurface of the slab where the pesticide doesn’t reach them. Sure, these are less likely examples, but here is another point to ponder: every year about 130,000 -150,000 houses in Australia are attacked by termites. Every time this happens, (and you see it all too often on TV news programs) termites have come up from the ground, crossed or bridged over barriers and done the damage. Every time. A barrier treatment can cost a couple of thousand dollars and lasts about 10 years before you need to do it again; a carton of Traps costs $475 and are guaranteed to last at least 10 years and, if you get a strike and successfully bait the termites, the Traps can be reused by adding more new timber. You can do the maths.

What is a nest?

If there’s a queen, that’s a nest. The most recognisable nests are mounds rising up out of the ground. Serious termites usually nest in hollow trees or invisibly below soil level. There are often mud masses found under floors or between studs inside walls. Most often these masses are re-hydration areas where termites can recover from the drying out that occurs if they are too long away from moisture. Physically removing, destroying or spraying such masses will kill thousands of termites but, if the nest is underground some distance away, the access to that mass is sealed off by workers still in the safe zone below and away from the mayhem you’ve caused. The real nest survives to come back from another direction. A mature queen can be laying a thousand or more eggs every day. It doesn’t take long for the numbers to rebuild. Read more about killing nests in trees, stumps and mounds.

We have lots of ants which we know are the enemy of termites. Do we still have a termite problem?

Yes. Termites are masters at excluding ants from their nests, their tunnels and the wood they are eating. They’ve been doing it since ants evolved. (Termites were here before ants).

Won’t dogs or kids move the Traps?

If you place the Termite Traps around the house with the dog locked in the garage or the car where it can’t see you put the Traps down, there is no reason for the dog to believe they are a movable plaything. When you let the pooch loose, some investigatory sniffing may occur but as it doesn’t play back, the Trap will probably be ignored. In all our trials and after all the cartons we’ve sent out, only one dog story has come back to us. (The Trap was placed inside the dog pen). As for kids? They are supposed to leave things alone if they are told, so tell them. After all, you have your home investment to protect.

Is there a guarantee?

Yes (and no). Yes. If when you receive the product, you change your mind or have second thoughts that it is not what you expected, you can return to us for a full refund — no arguments from us. Just phone to say it’s coming back and to arrange the repayment details. No. we don’t guarantee results that we cannot control such as where you placed them and how you baited them or, whether you misinterpreted instructions.

The DIY Termite Control Blog

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Kill termites and white ants without poisons