Termites are determined creatures when they invade homes. Once they’ve decided your Huntington, NY, place is prime real estate, you’re going to have a termite problem. Here are the pesticides a professional exterminator will use to get rid of them:
Repellents Slow Them Down
While serious termite damage usually takes years, that’s no reason to prolong calling an exterminator should you discover infestation. Termiticides are pesticides that are geared specifically to termites. While repellent termiticides don’t kill the termites, they turn the bugs off from the sprayed wood or soil so much that they quickly lose interest. When such repellants are used, termites won’t want to traverse affected areas. This potentially saves you from a new colony or the spread of an existing one. A few popular synthetic chemicals that are used for this purpose include permethrin, bifenthrin, and fenvalerate. Exterminators seek out termite points of entry by carefully going over your property’s perimeter. Termites already inside often die from dehydration, and any new challengers are deterred. Depending on the need, exterminators sometimes have to use large amounts (think gallons). They may also have to drill into your foundation, or other easy access areas of your property, in order to get the job done.
Non-Repellents Spread Contamination
There are other termiticides that use a sneakier method for termite destruction. Non-repellent termiticides, like imidacloprid and trophallaxis, let termites continue to tunnel, travel along their merry way, and of course, eat to their heart’s content. This may sound counterproductive, but these more modern versions of termiticides do the job well. Termites don’t even know they’ve been infected with the repellent until it’s much too late. Contact and ingestion are the keys to this method’s success, so a well-treated area will garner the results you want. As termites tunnel their way through treated areas, contamination is inevitable. Then what do they do? Meet friends along the way and unknowingly contaminate them too. This situation leads to the equivalent of “patient zero” wiping out an entire colony. Some non-repellent liquid termiticides brands take this process up a notch. Not only do they protect your property for a significant amount of time, they also prevent breaks in the protective barrier.
Bait and Switch Helps with Future Threats
While you might choose to go with a liquid termiticide, this shouldn’t be a consideration if your property is close to wetlands or waterways. You want to avoid contamination of the water supply. As an alternative, our favorite termite eradication method at Biotech Termite & Pest Control is to use bait—more specifically, the Advance Termite Bait System. When exterminators use bait, this offers certain advantages that you wouldn’t have with liquid termiticides. Termite baiting stations are placed outdoors and directly in the ground. The process that follows is pretty straightforward: Termites enjoy the bait for dinner, head back to the colony, and spread their new “infection” with the rest. What’s great about this method is that if you don’t have termites, baiting can be used to detect any termites that might be checking your place out—in other words, it’s a way to monitor future threats.
If you or looking for a termite exterminator in Suffolk County or any other part of the tri-state area, don’t hesitate to contact Biotech today.