BajaNomad

Termites

Pescador - 4-10-2007 at 07:47 PM

Well now that I have graduated from engineering school and understand so much about pressure pumps I may become a consultant. Now here is a great question. What do you do about termites. In some areas there are extermination companies but sometimes out in the boonies, they are not available. Are there home remedies or do-it-yourself solutions that work?

Marie-Rose - 4-10-2007 at 07:56 PM

We had a problem with termites in our outdoor furniture and our mexican caretakers got rid of them by stuffing some mixture into the holes in the wood. The holes were quite evident as you just needed to look where the little dust piles were. We now have the same " dust piles" in some of our cupboards that have palo de arco. The contractor was here today and says they just replace the sticks that have the bugs with new ones...we requested the "new ones" be sprayed before installed.
I know that our freinds here have their homes fumigated on a yearly basis... we had our palapa done, once again, by our mexican neighbor. We were not here but apparently he did it wth a hand held tank and sprayer. I would be really interested in more about this. Like the name of the compound one can use on outdoor furniture.

Baja Bernie - 4-10-2007 at 08:45 PM

Try a product carried by Home Depot.....either Termout or Term off. I used it on my garage in Baja and it did work.......The only problem is finding the termite holes to insert it into.

shari - 4-11-2007 at 07:49 AM

We have termites too and I've been told that fumigating doesnt work on termites and that they are very hard to get rid of...nobody seems to have an answer here except a very expensive tent unit and you have to move out for a few days...yadda yadda

Bajalero - 4-11-2007 at 09:20 AM

Pescador , once you have them , they're really hard to get rid of since it's hard to get a poison to penetrate to the core of a piece of wood and Shari is right in that the fumigants don't work very well.

As a deterrent, the mexicans like to apply a mixture of asphalt disolved in diesel fuel to wood to help prevent infestation. Since it slowly evaporates it needs to be re-applied now and then to remain effective. I read where making your design so any wood is a minimun of 18" from any soil can help but I wonder about that approach since I'm pretty sure termites can fly.

The best product I've ever used for wood preservation is copper napthenate. I don't care for the odor but I guess it really isn't much worse than the diesel/asphalt smell - plus , it stays on for a long time. I put it on some pieces of plywood that I sat some potted plants on and nothing has touched them in a couple of years.

Hook - 4-11-2007 at 10:22 AM

I will occaionally find the telltale holes and the dropping piles in some of the teak of my boat. The product Bernie is referring to works very good when you locate these holes. It's an aerosal can with a long piece of thin tubing that has a small hypodermic-like end with a rubber cap. You push this a short way into the hole and the cap seals around the hole and then discharge. In theory, you do this till you see the poison escaping from another of their holes.

Works very good on localized areas.

capitolkat - 4-11-2007 at 11:18 AM

I'm no expert with Baja Fauna but I wonder if what we're seeing in furniture isn't carpenter ants or some similar boring beetle. Termites are generally associated with soil contact to cellulose materials (wood , paper products, straw etc.) but carpenter ants will go from the ground to a wood surface with no soil contact. the old timers used to build barns and houses on an open stone foundation to ensure the termites wouldn't have access to the soil in direct contact with the wood, and any route from ground to wood was not sealed.

just a thought?

jerry - 4-11-2007 at 11:33 AM

baja sur has 2 types of termites one in the ground and another that flys i spray everything with diazonon twice a year and leave for a day or so seems to be working
palm roofs are a great place to have termite problems

comitan - 4-11-2007 at 11:46 AM

I have a product that works but it says cuidado on the bottle I did research the ingredients on the internet and found nothing that was legal to use in the USA, I bought it about 12 years ago and have another year left. I got it at an agricultural chemical store here in La Paz.

TYSON 4E Plus Tridente.

Ciorpirifos etil

I know I shoulda been dead years ago using this stuff it is diluted with water and sprayed.

Bob and Susan - 4-11-2007 at 12:39 PM

microwave em....

micro.jpg - 18kB

vandenberg - 4-11-2007 at 12:54 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Bob and Susan
microwave em....



How many to make a sammich:?::?::lol:

Cypress - 4-11-2007 at 03:49 PM

The flying termites are "queens" looking to make a new colony. Saw a major "hatch" occur once, lizards were converging on 'em from as far away as 15', snapping 'em up as soon as they took flight.:D Lizards have very good vision.:bounce:

longlegsinlapaz - 4-11-2007 at 04:40 PM

For everyone who thinks that Mexican termites ONLY have an appetite for wood....TAIN'T SO!!!!:( Here in La Paz, they come out of cement block walls, solid 5- 8" thick cement poured floors, as well as getting in (GAWD knows how) behind & under wood door frames & jambs & into the doors themselves. I go to the local fumigation supplies place & buy a termite product that's supposed to be mixed a few ounces per gallon of water, I buy a needle from the farmacia & I inject the pure concentrate into every termite hole/or damage point that I can find; be it in the plaster or wood. The stuff is potent enough that it doesn't take direct contact. It effectively stops them chomping for about a year. Comitan's right...the stuff you can buy here hasn't been legal in the states for 20-40 years & it does smell to high heaven for the first 24 hours! But it works! If you use it inside & you have birds, move the birds outside until the smell gets down to barely there level! I don't bother to close up the casa...I've gotten good results treating inside areas with all the doors & windows open.:bounce: Good stuff Maynard! :bounce::bounce:

Bajalero - 4-11-2007 at 07:19 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by comitan
I have a product that works but it says cuidado on the bottle I did research the ingredients on the internet and found nothing that was legal to use in the USA, I bought it about 12 years ago and have another year left. I got it at an agricultural chemical store here in La Paz.

TYSON 4E Plus Tridente.

Ciorpirifos etil

I know I shoulda been dead years ago using this stuff it is diluted with water and sprayed.



Comitan. I think this would translate to ethyl - chlorpyriphos
which was called Dursban at one time in the US. Like you said , not legal to the average joe in the US anymore . I used to buy sacks of the granules at Home Depot . Good stuff. But I guess not so good for you or the environment.







.

Hook - 4-12-2007 at 11:02 AM

Another tip I've heard........dont discourage ants on the outside of your house with pesticides. They attack termite larva.

Tim-bor!!!!

El Camote - 4-12-2007 at 12:13 PM

I'm in the long term process of converting an old shed in our back yard to my home office. I toyed with the idea of tearing it down and starting new but the parsimonious voice in me said I, who received a C- on my chopping block in 7th grade shop, could refurbish this pile of termite-eaten, open-studded wood pile into a show place...or at least a work place.

One of the first jobs was to get bids on having it treated for termites. There was evidence everywhere of dry-wood termites. The inspector said they swarm every year in late summer but I had never seen it. Several weeks later, we were hosting a client/friend and her family to a BBQ in the back yard when the swarm got underway. I was like a nut-job with the fly swatter trying to kill these bastards before they got into my new framing.

Anyway, to make a long story never ending. I got two bids on the treatment and they both recommended using the same product, Tim-bor, which is the trade name for Disodium Octaborate Tetrahydrate. Which I believe is just a form of Boric acid. The nice part is if you have open walls, they just spray this product onto the wood in a liquid or foam. No need for tenting.

After the 2nd bid of $600. to do a 200 sq. ft. shed, I did a little research and found this stuff can be bought anywhere and applied with a garden sprayer in two coats. I bought my supply at www.doyourownpestcontrol.com Lots of great information on their website. Total cost for my supply: $38. I have yet to do the job though. I realized this winter after the first good rain that I need to redo the roof first. :barf: This product supposedly works as a preventative as well as treatment on existing infestation.

If I can finish by July, it will only a year long project. Anybody out there do drywalling for beer and BBQ?? :yes:

BajaBruno - 4-13-2007 at 04:52 AM

There are lots of different bugs that can bore into wood and I think this thread is describing two or three different ones. The treatments are different for all of them. Have a look at this site and you should be able to diagnose what you have and then you can check on what to do about it.

http://www.oldhouseweb.com/stories/Detailed/10324.shtml

bajabound2005 - 4-13-2007 at 05:57 AM

the stuff at Home Depot is called Terminate and we did not find it at Home Depot in Ensenada. They do have it in Chula Vista. There are a couple different forms of it. One is a the foam described in an earlier post. Another is a spray on. Then they have these stakes that go into the ground. We bought it all and are using it all and so far, so good; and we did have evidence of termites before applying it.