termites/white ants

Does anyone know anything about termites/white ants treatment?

It seems that the buggers are pretty active in Isan - leave any bit of timber lying around for a couple of days and the ants are into it. I've got a place with a wooden floor on the ground level and a few wooden walls that may allow the critters to get access to more wooden floors and walls upstairs, so I'd thought I'd just make an enquiry on TD.

It seems as though every tree in the neighbourhood has some termite advertising sign nailed to it, but I'm not sure how reliable they are.

I had an old termite-infested terrace in Sydney and got an old guy to come around and have a look at it. He explained the procedure, but stressed how dangerous it was as it involved placing arsenic powder in one of the trails to be taken back to the nest to kill the queen, and then flooding the sub-floor area with some liquid (I'm not sure what that was, but it had a strong smell). This was all in the late 70s so procedures may be different now. The old guy id a great job but I'm not sure what his life expectancy was dealing with chemicals like that (come to think of it, he was probably no worse off than someone living one of those places like Leeds or Middlesborough).

Not sure what the Thais use and how safe and effective the whole procedure is. I'd appreciate any info.

bobf.

Our house in Chiang Mai was really eaten up. After we renovated it, we got a company in to keep them away.

What they do is drill holes in the floor and inject some liquid into the ground. This kills any nest under the house. It has to be repeated yearly, as the liquid cannot be too strong in case it gets into the groundwater.

It costs about B5000 a year, but this also includes two-monthly visits when they spray the edges of all the rooms to kill anything that may be there.

works fine.

i paid 9000B for a year contract with rentokil They put 15 holes in the ground and injected chemicals. . Seems to work. I paid 3000B last year for a local company who put 3 holes in the ground and came every month and "knocked on wood". Well it cost me 50,000B to repair the damage to the bathroom. So pay peanuts, get monkeys.

I wonder if there is any way to get rid of these creepy crawlies without resorting to monthly or bi-monthly spraying?

I was just reading of a new method that "baits" the termites with small amounts of poison

they then carry it back to the nest and it wipes them all out.

I have seen it advertised in malaysia but not in Thailand

maybe coming soon, or already there

I think it is used in Australia a lot. I think it would be better..no holes and the groundwater does not get contaminated.

DrAndy

Thanks for your response.

The procedure you mention sounds similar to the method that I described in my original letter. The technique that was used in an inner-city terrace in Sydney in the 70s involved:
1. locating one of the trails (that are constructed of ant shit so that the ants can move through them as the ants are super sensitive to light)
2. breaking the trail open
3. inserting some arsenic powder (highly toxic)
4. closing up the trail to allow the ants to continue their activities, involving taking the arsenic back to the nest to kill the Queen ant
5. inspecting the trail again in a couple of weeks to see if there is any further ant activity - if it has been successful, the Queen will have been killed which supposedly finishes all the ants in that nest (there may be other nests close by that are still active though)
6. flooding the sub-floor area with some liquid (sorry, don't know what it is)

I'll keep you informed of what happens in Isan

bobf

You might want to take a look into Sentricon. It is successfully used here in Florida, and has become the most popular extermination method in recent years. You can either have a pest control service do it for you, or locally, I can buy a do-it-yourself kit for about $50. Depending upon how great the infestation, you may need to replace the "stations" every few months or so.

I'm not sure how readily this product is available in Thailand, but the manufacturer, DowAgro does give a contact for Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand: E-Mail Contact