Pest Control St. Louis

Damage from Termites

Attributable to their wood- eating traits, many termite species can do great injury to unprotected buildings and several wooden structures. Their habit of remaining concealed often leads to their presence being undetected until the timbers are severely damaged and exhibit surface changes. Once termites have entered a building, they don't limit themselves to timber; they also damage paper, cloth, carpets, and other cellulosic materials. Particles taken from soft plastics, plaster, rubber, and sealants such as silicone rubber and acrylics are frequently employed in construction.

Humans have moved many timber-eating species between continents, but also have caused drastic population decline in others through habitat loss and pesticide application.

Safeguards:

As reported by a site made for pest control in Saint Charles, MO http://2niceguys.com, it is suggested to ALWAYS contact a professional when you feel that there may be termites present at your property. They also note that you keep mulch away from your property and porch.

Here are some other safeguards that might be of assistance

* Avoid contact of vulnerable timber with ground by utilizing termite-resistant concrete, steel, or masonry foundation with appropriate barriers. However, termites are able to bridge these with shelter tubes, and it has been known for termites to chew through piping made of soft plastics and even some metals, such as lead, to exploit moisture. In general, new buildings ought to 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- therapy, have been in the main use since the 1970s, it is best that these be use just for existing buildings without effective physical barriers.

* The intent of termite barriers (whether physical, poisoned soil, or a few of the new poisoned plastics) is to steer clear of the termites from gaining unseen entry to structures. In most cases, termites attempting to penetrate a barriered building will be driven into the less favourable approach of building shelter tubes up the outer layer walls, and thus, they can be visible both to the building occupants and a range of predators.

* Wood therapy.

* Use of timber that is naturally resistant 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 famous termite-resistant timber types, there will sometimes be pieces that are attacked. No species of tree produces wood that is absolutely immune to damage from every types of termite, some individual bits of wood may be attacked.

When termites have already penetrated a building, the first action is usually to demolish the colony with insecticides before taking out the termites' means of access and fixing the problems that encouraged them in the first place. 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, more recently fipronil, a phenyl-pyrazole. Blowing dusts into termite workings is an extremely skilled process. All these slow-acting poisons can be distributed by the workers for hours or weeks before any symptoms occur and are efficient enough to destroying the entire colony. More up to date variations include chlorfluazuron, diflubenzuron, hexaflumuron, and novaflumuron as bait toxicants and fipronil and imidacloprid as soil poisons. Soil poisons are the least-preferred method of control as this needs much larger doses of toxin and leads to uncontrollable release to the environment.