Damage caused by termites
Damage from Termites
Due to their timber- eating habits, many termite species can do great injury to unprotected buildings and other wooden structures. Their trait 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 do not limit themselves to wood; they also damage paper, cloth, carpets, and other cellulosic materials. Particles removed from soft plastics, plaster, rubber, and sealants such as silicone rubber and acrylics are oftentimes employed in construction.
Humans have moved many timber-eating species between continents, but have in addition caused drastic population decline in others through habitat loss and pesticide application.
Precautions:
As reported by a site designed for pest control in Saint Louis, MO http://2niceguys.com, it is recommended to ALWAYS contact a specialist when you feel that there can be termites present at your home. They also suggest that you keep mulch far from your house and porch.
Here are some other precautions that may be of use
* Avoid contact of predisposed wood with ground by employing termite-resistant concrete, steel, or masonry foundation with suitable barriers. Nonetheless, termites are in a position 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 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- remedy, have been generally use since the 1970s, it is better that these be used primarily 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 access to structures. In most situations, termites attempting to enter a barriered building will be forced into the less favourable approach of building shelter tubes up the outside walls, and thus, they are often visible both to the building occupants and a range of predators.
* Wood remedy.
* Use of wood that is naturally impervious to termites such as Syncarpia glomulifera (Turpentine Tree), Callitris glaucophylla (White Cypress), or one 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 recognized termite-resistant timber types, there will sometimes be pieces that are attacked. No species of tree produces timber that is absolutely immune to damage from every types of termite, some individual pieces of timber can be attacked.
When termites have already penetrated a building, the first action is commonly to destruct the colony with insecticides before removing the termites' means of access and fixing the issues that encouraged them in the beginning. 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 chief dust toxicants have been the inorganic metallic poison arsenic trioxide, insect growth regulators (hormones) like triflumuron and, off late fipronil, a phenyl-pyrazole. Blowing dusts into termite workings is an extremely skilled process. All these slow-acting poisons may be distributed by the workers for hours or weeks before any symptoms occur and can 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 surroundings.