Nobody wants termites, but people don't always get what they want, so you may need to find out about ways of eliminating termites.
Top methods to dealing with termites include tenting, baiting and barriers, but the key is to know what method is going to work for you.
Termites are one of the most common problems that homeowners have that can't wreck their house, but it's easy to ignore the problem until it's too late.
But if you see the signs of termites, like rotting wood or mudtubes, then you need to get rid of them immediately, or run the risk of serious damage to your home.
One of the newest and most popular methods these days is baiting, which is basically getting the termites to kill themselves for you.
You use bait stations embedded in the ground which actually attract the termites.
They eat the bait and move back to the colony, taking the poison with them and killing the colony from the in side.
Baiting is popular, but it's not for use in every situation.
It works best when the termite problem is not yet extreme, and the baiting process can take months to kill the colony.
Still, it's a lot less time consuming and irritating than having your house tented and treated.
Baiting is often used in conjunction with the next method, which is a chemical barrier.
A chemical barrier is exactly what it sounds, a chemical that prevents termites from crossing over it.
It doesn't, in and of itself, kill them, but it's useful for preventing infestations and reinfestations.
The chemical barrier method doesn't actually kill termites, as I mentioned, so it's not useful by itself for eliminating termites.
Another problem is that it can be difficult to know that the chemicals have saturated the ground, so it may not always be effective.
The standard method for dealing with termites for decades has been tenting.
This is the process where exterminators erect a plastic tent around the house, then fill it with an insecticide.
The process can take several days, and it can be very expensive, because of the costs associated with clearing out your house for several days.
The advantage to this is that the process is very effective, and most pest companies will offer you a guarantee.
Be advised, though, that the standard two year option is fairly worthless, as termites don't generally come back with in that time in any case.
Look for longer guarantees.
The downsides, though, are also numerous.
The tenting process can be expensive, and the fact that you are filling your house with dangerous chemicals is not one that's easily ignored.
It requires you take a lot of care in getting your house ready, and this can be incredibly time consuming.
A variation on tenting is using the tents to heat up the house.
Termites actually keep their tunnels warm and humid, but they lack to ability to compensate when the heat gets too high.
So what some clever exterminators have done is create a process where the house is tented and then propane heaters are used to heat the interior to more than 120 degrees.
This has the advantage of being environmentally and health friendly, but it also takes longer than regular tenting, and can be more expensive.
Be prepared to be out of your house for weeks if you this method for eliminating termites.
Top methods to dealing with termites give you lots of option, but only you can determine which one will suit you best.