"Lar" wrote

7-11 years. If the property was properly treated who's to say when they
may show up. But unfortunately, the pre treatment side of the pest control
business is considered by many the scourge of the industry. Builders will
look for and usually get very cheap prices, cheaper than what the cost of
the chemical alone would be, especially with large projects such as town
homes and apartments.

Yup.

If you could find out what type of treatment and chemical that was used I
probably could give you more of an answer.

I snipped alot but very good info there. This last one, the main bit. I
made that mistake *twice*. Gosh I was dumb. Its not enough to just treat
an infestation. In my area, you need the preventive stuff too for the
ground termites.

If you want a laugh, here's a goodie for a professional on how we made these
mistakes. Might help the new fellow too or someone else avoid our errors.

Infestation #1. We had wood shingles on all the house. Lovely and very
distinctive dark wood. Figured we'd never have to paint the house and it
wasnt the ubiquitous vinyl siding. Come spring, we find the master bedroom
along a window as a huge number of 'flying ants' and if you lift a shingle,
wings fall out. Long story cut short, 900$ for termite treatment where they
tunneled up from the ground into the wood, 4,000$ to remove all shingles (we
had to pull them down but they removed the debris) and vinyl side the house.
Did not know about how long the treatment chemicals vary on prevention so
used a company that sounded good (wont say who, dont want to be sued for
slander).

Infestation #2. About 3 years later, about 50ft away. Place is a rental
unit at that time and realtor emails us specs and we select one that sounds
middle price and seems to have a warrentee. House across from us has major
problem and the little buggers just drifted over to us across about a 30ft
distance. Another 1,200$ this time but the chemicals used turn out to last
only 6 months although we do not realize this. Company goes out of business
so warentee useless. Realtor and renters unaware (it's not like they email
you 'hey, we went bankrupt, see ya) so all they knew was to call a number if
anything went wrong and nothing obvious did.

Infestation #3. Real close to same spot as number 1. Get back home from
Japan and notice crumbling baseboard. Luck out *major* that there is no
other significant damage yet. Do the 'Whisky Tango Foxtrot' and find out #1
and #2 were good at 'killing termites' but minimal on prevention. Had to
have the whole house treated (exterior and through the slab) then pay it off
in installments bundled with the maintenance checks. Costs me far more
than if I had just known the details about the chemicals that first
infestation and gone the right way then.

Next infestation project not related to termites. Got a lovely spider
situation in rhe attic. They crawl in at night in the bathroom through the
bathroom ceiling fan and drop into the tub. So much fun. They also come in
from the fireplace if not lit every other day or so (getting cold and they
are looking for inside for the next month or so) and run across the living
room trying to get to a 'safe zone'.

Grin, I'm trying to figure out how to deal with that one without just
driving them into the house proper if we 'spider bomb' the attic after temp
sealing the vents so the poison stays inside. I dont want to come back to
'carpet critters everywhere' of the 8 legged sort after doing the attic.
Might just get it professionally done but still looking up the info on such.