Termite treatment/prevention

[rubytue]

We are currently repairing a lot of termite damage. Previous owners appear to have treated the bugs (not an active infestation), but left the compromised walls. 🙄 

But, it’s got us worried and we want to treat the foundation to keep it from happening again. This is not something I’ve dealt with before (4th house). I’m trying to gather information before someone shows up and uses termite fear to overwhelm me. I think I want the one where they dig a trench and spray in the trench. But, we have a ground level deck off the back half of the house. 

Do I have to get the bait station/ongoing monitoring? I feel like this is like basement people, where three companies will have three different methods of dealing with things and they all are trying to tell you this is the only answer, and they use your lack of knowledge to scare you into more than needed. 😬

so far, I’ve scheduled with terminex. 

[ssmjlm]

Termites are prevalent where I live. We have our house checked each year and this year had to have treatment done in the crawl space. It's a local company that we used in our last house as well.

They will trench, treat and then check in about 6 weeks.

I don't know if it's a basement though. We don't have them where I am.

[lessel]

I don’t know what options really are. Where we leave the bait/monitoring systems are common. They insert these green auger things with bait into the ground around the house every few feet and I think they monitor them 2x/year. We use the same company as our regular pest control (Arrow). It was like $300 to install and maybe $100/year?

[statgirl]

I would get recs for a local pest control company. Terminix is a bit of a scam (our house had a bond that they were to transfer when we bought and Terminix managed to lose the info AND still charge the prior owners. After 18 months of back and forth, we gave up on getting them to ever take our money. The prior owners canceled their credit card to stop the charges they were doing to them). We have a local company now and bait stations. Since we have stonework that runs to the ground, we are not eligible for a bond now.

[chrishogar]

First step i would do - contact the pest control
Second - use essential oils everywhere in the house to prevent them from coming back

[k3am]

Termites are super prevalent around here. We get an inspection every year or two. There are only certain kinds that you can actually prevent (I'm not 100% sure which they are any more, honestly), and others you just track and treat. We also don't repair the damage all the time, either.

If you can, talk to a couple termite companies - they're not all created equal.

And don't bother with something like orange oil for treatment. It's earth friendly, convenenient (no need to move out), and smells beautiful. It is also more than twice the cost of traditional treatment, they drill holes every 2 inches in the effected areas that you have to patch/paint, and it doesn't work.