Treatment terminates termites

A new insecticide takes out the termites infesting a Dade City public housing complex.

By CHASE SQUIRES

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 17, 2000

DADE CITY -- By the end of the month, Dade City will have completed its tour of duty in the Great Termite War.

For the past 11 months, a public housing complex in the city has been ground zero in a bug battle that has escalated in recent years with the invasion of the dreaded Formosan variety of the wood-consuming menace.

The complex, overrun by subterranean termites, has been a proving ground in what proponents are touting as the ultimate new weapon against the insects.

University of Florida distinguished professor Phil Koehler brought the field test of a new product called Termidor to the Dade Oaks apartments for seniors. The 24 apartments, spread through five buildings, posed a nearly impossible task, he said.

"They had wood going all the way into the ground, then a plastic vapor barrier so you couldn't get chemicals to the colony, then it was covered with stucco," Koehler said. "I think the company was uneasy about testing the product there, but we went ahead. It was one of those impossible-to-treat situations. We had no idea if it would work."

Koehler estimated several active colonies infested the grounds with millions of termites.

Within three months of the sole treatment, inspectors found no living termites in any of the buildings. After six months, Koehler said, he couldn't find a living termite anywhere on the 4-acre property, even in dead trees and under rock piles where the insects often hide.

"It was pretty bad," recalled Jaya Radhakrishnan, executive director of the Pasco County Housing Authority. "Knowing there was a problem, I couldn't put anybody in the apartments where we had found the termites, and I wanted to be very cautious about how we treated the apartments because we have elderly people living right there, right next door."

Radhakrishnan said she had known Koehler since 1995 when he helped her with a stubborn cockroach problem.

"I called him," she said. "I said, "Can you help?' "

Koehler took a look. The housing complex was in dire need of a secret weapon, and the professor figured it for a perfect match to pit the highly touted new product against tough odds.

The 12-month test, one of four Koehler conducted in Central Florida, ends in August. Termidor went into use commercially this spring on a limited scale and is expected to be made available to all pest control companies on Sept. 1, he said.

At one of the largest companies already using Termidor, the Orlando-based Middleton Pest Control, the company president is impressed.

"It's the best termiticide ever offered, ever," Middleton president Greg Clendenin said. "This stuff is better than anything we've ever used."

It's also about a third less expensive for homeowners, he said. Termidor must be applied by a licensed professional, with an average home treated for about $1,000 Clendenin said.

Aventis Environmental Science, the company that invented Termidor, claims test homes in Japan have been termite-free for up to seven years after the initial application.

Aventis has tested Termidor since 1993 in Japan and France and has tested it in 120 homes across the United States since 1997 under experimental use permits, according to a company fact sheet.

Koehler said he tested the product in Dade City the same way pest companies would treat a home, he said. Contractors were hired to bore a limited number of holes into areas where termites live, then ringed each building with the chemical poured into a shallow trench that is covered back up.

Subterranean termites feed on the wood inside walls and under floors, but they must go back into the earth regularly for moisture, Koehler said. They eat wood treated with Termidor, and they walk freely across dirt treated with the spray.

The old way of treating a home was to use baits inside the house and repellents to form a barrier around it. The problem was that there was no guarantee termites would eat the bait, and even the slightest gap in the repellent barrier opened the door to the persistent invaders, Koehler said.

The key to Termidor's effectiveness is that it takes several days to kill termites that come in contact with the poison. Because it is undetectable, termites who have eaten or touched the chemical continue to track it around the colony, rubbing off fatal doses to others as they brush against them or as the insects groom each other.

"It becomes a carrier," Aventis literature states. "Every other termite it contacts will be infected, which in turn infects every other termite it contacts."

The company lists the Tampa Bay area as the third most termite-infested metropolitan area in the United States, behind Miami and Los Angeles.

Tampa is also one of the breeding grounds of the new Formosan invaders, Koehler said. The imported super-termite is known for its aggressive hunt for wood and colonies that can grow to 10-million termites and devour 1,000 pounds of wood a year.

"I've seen six-figure homes completely destroyed before the owners knew it," Clendenin said. "By the time they new they had a problem, the home had to be condemned."

"They work pretty fast," Koehler said of the common Florida subterranean termite. "They're coming up from the soil, so you can have a million termites in your home overnight."

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