If termites are already inside your home…
Then there is little point doing things like termite monitors or termite barriers around your home to prevent termites from getting in.
First job: check all the bits of timber you can reach or see.
You are looking for the mud termites use to fill up gaps or to build tunnels. And, you tap all the inside mouldings and window/door frames listening for a hollow sound.
If you inspect twice a year, such as in March and September they will not have done significant damage before you notice them and do something about it.
Get termite food away from your home
Termites (the same thing as white ants) feed on wood and other cellulose materials including cardboard and paper. Stack any timber well up off the ground so you can see any tunnels they might build to get up to it. Remove or poison old stumps and old wooden retaining walls. If you are storing timber, old papers or books, wooden chests or toolboxes on a concrete floor in a shed, move them aside if there is an expansion joint running underneath.
Trim foliage at home foundation
Sure, creepers and shrubs “soften” a building but they can also prevent you from seeing if termites have built a mud tunnel up into or through your home foundations. Termite entry into homes often occurs between bricks or in gaps around utility cables entering the house.
You reduce the risk when you seal these gaps before termites find them and trimming back the foliage makes it easier to check.
Fix leaks and drain damp areas
Termites live in the soil and need water to survive. Eliminating leaks from air conditioning overflow outlets, and building rubble or agricultural drain to eliminate low soak areas will mean there is no area constantly wetter than any other to encourage termites
All clear, then spread termite monitors around your buildings
This is the single most important thing you can do. If you give termites something easier to find than a way into your house, they will find these termite monitors so you can add termite bait which they take back to kill off their termite colony.
The more termite monitors the better. If your home is worth defending, and it is, you should do it with plenty of termitraps.
Three meters apart is the average; some close to the building others near the fence. A few across the front, few down each side and more around the backyard easily add up to over 20.
Checking termite monitors and checking your home is so easy you could become blasé.
Termites count on that.
