Damage caused by termites
Damage from Termites
Because of their wood- eating habits, many termite species can do great damage to unprotected buildings and different wooden structures. Their habit of remaining concealed often ends in their presence being undetected until the timbers are severely damaged and exhibit surface changes. Once termites have entered a building, they do not limit themselves to wood; they also damage paper, cloth, carpets, and various cellulosic materials. Particles taken from soft plastics, plaster, rubber, and sealants such as silicone rubber and acrylics are often employed in construction.
Humans have moved many wood-eating species between continents, but in addition have caused drastic population decline in others through habitat loss and pesticide application.
Safeguards:
According to a site created for pest control in St. Louis, MO http://blog.2niceguys.com, it is advised to ALWAYS contact a professional when you feel that there might be termites present at your residence. They also state that you keep mulch far from your property and porch.
Here are some other precautions that may be of assistance
* Avoid contact of vulnerable timber with ground by employing termite-resistant concrete, steel, or masonry foundation with suitable barriers. However, termites are able to bridge these with shelter tubes, and it has been known for termites to chew through piping produced with soft plastics and even some metals, like lead, to exploit moisture. In the main, new buildings should be constructed with embedded physical termite barriers so that there are no easy means for termites to gain concealed entry. While barriers of poisoned soil, so called termite pre- remedy, have been in the main use since the 1970s, it is best that these be used only for existing buildings without effective physical barriers.
* The intent of termite barriers (whether physical, poisoned soil, or some of the new poisoned plastics) is to stop the termites from gaining unseen entry to structures. In most instances, termites attempting to go in a barriered building will be forced to enter into the less favourable approach of building shelter tubes up the exterior walls, and thus, they might be visible both to the building occupants and a range of predators.
* Timber treatment.
* Use of timber that is naturally impervious to termites such as Syncarpia glomulifera (Turpentine Tree), Callitris glaucophylla (White Cypress), or one or more of the Sequoias. Note that there is no tree species whose every individual tree yields only timbers that are immune to termite damage, so that even with well known termite-resistant timber types, there will occasionally be pieces that are attacked. No species of tree produces timber that is totally immune to damage from every types of termite, some individual bits of wood might be attacked.
When termites have already penetrated a building, the first action is typically to destroy the colony with insecticides before getting rid of the termites' means of access and fixing the issues that encouraged them initially. Baits (feeder stations) with small quantities of disruptive insect hormones or other very slow acting toxins have become the preferred least-toxic management tool in most western countries. This has replaced the dusting of toxins direct into termite tunnels that had been widely done since the early 1930s (originating in Australia). The principle dust toxicants have been the inorganic metallic poison arsenic trioxide, insect growth regulators (hormones) such as triflumuron and, off late fipronil, a phenyl-pyrazole. Blowing dusts into termite workings is a highly skilled process. All these slow-acting poisons may be distributed by the workers for hours or weeks prior to any signs occur and are efficient enough to destroying the entire colony. Modern variations include chlorfluazuron, diflubenzuron, hexaflumuron, and novaflumuron as bait toxicants and fipronil and imidacloprid as soil poisons. Soil poisons are the least-preferred technique of control as this needs much larger doses of toxin and results in uncontrollable release to the environment.