Termite Control: Sentricon System Vs. Liquid Treatment

Termites don’t exactly advertise their presence – at least, not until it’s too late. Signs of an infestation are often invisible until major damage has been caused. But once you start noticing the signs of termite activity in and around your home, they’re unmistakable.

First, there are the tunnels they create as they go about their business of boring into and eating your wooden structural material. Made from dirt and saliva, the tunnels, known as mud tubes, are a termite highway and are used to get to and from the wooden food source without being exposed to light.

The tubes look like little dirt trails and can often be found under decks or in crawl spaces, or anywhere there is dampness and lots of shade.

Other sure-fire indications of a termite infestation are swarms of winged termites on or around a building investigating potential nest sites, or tiny piles of sawdust-like droppings at burrow entrances, or even a hollow sound when tapping on wood that should be solid.

Once an infestation has been identified, there are a number of options for treatment. But no matter which treatment you end up with, it’s essential that you call in a Cayman Islands pest control specialist who has the tools and the training required to deal effectively and permanently with a termite infestation.

A single termite queen can lay millions of eggs that grow into workers, soldiers, and swarmers. Each has a role in the colony as a food forager, a nest defender, or an explorer looking for potential sites for new colonies.

One of the most common termite control methods is liquid treatment, a highly effective remedy used in residential Pest Control in the Cayman Islands but one that can fail completely if preparation and application instructions are not followed to the letter. It requires a trench dug around the structure and a liquid treatment mixed with the removed soil that is then put back into the trench, creating an underground barrier that kills termites as they tunnel towards your home searching for food.

As the barrier kills off the forager termites, the rest of the colony starves, or so the theory goes.

As noted, liquid treatment is a highly effective method of termite control, but any gaps in the barrier, any areas in the trench that did not get properly treated, or where the treated soil can be bridged or detoured around soon becomes a safe termite highway between nest and food source.

Another treatment option, one that is increasingly used by termite services in the Cayman Islands, has been developed by Sentricon, part of US chemical giant Dow AgroSciences. It is a termite baiting system marketed as a simpler and more effective alternative to liquid treatment soil barriers. It also involves no trenching or drilling of holes.

The baiting system works by setting up a perimeter around an affected property with bait stations containing a treated cellulose material that is designed to be irresistible to worker termites, far tastier even than the wood in your home.

The bait stations are designed to be found quickly and easily by foraging termites. The workers consume and digest the treated food and return to the nest, where they regurgitate it to feed the rest of the colony. In this way, the treatment spreads quickly through the entire colony and kills it off.

Active ingredients in the bait prevent termites from molting, killing them, and eventually exterminating the colony. Research shows that infestations can be eliminated in as little as three months, although ongoing monitoring and re-baiting for up to a year are essential to ensure there is no repeat infestation.