In Brief
This is a general guide to termites. It is aimed at helping people with pest issues, as a guide for students of the beasts and a resource for the just plain curious.
Why?
About 15 years back, at CSIRO, I hoped to reduce the time I spent answering telephone queries (instead of getting my work done). But a dawn-of-the-web homepage didn't reach many of them. Now it can.
What's here
You'll find a jumble of information built from all my email answers to people around the world. You can learn lots about termites, what they are and what they do, about avoiding termite problems, how to get rid of termites if you have them and how not to get rid of termites.
Now
If you have any concerns, right now is as good a time as any to have your home professionally inspected. If you are super-confident, infallible (& rich enough to bet-the-whole-house), then do your own inspections.
In my part of Southern Australia (yes, I probably live on a different continent to you) it's a hot summer but early rains means that it's also a good termite summer.
Where's Wally Don?
I'm doing various tasks f
or various people and, of course, still working on my home. In the fire season, I'm not straying very far (except perhaps to the beach with Freya the boogie board riding dog). Emailed questions may well take two or three days for an answer.
As usual, I'm trying to make these pages a lot better, but things get in the way. And yes, there are pet termites in my yard. Three species. Two subterraneans and a dampwood (although the drought has been very hard on the dampwoods). As long as they are not in the house, I have no problem with them. Haven't found any drywoods yet but there are some in the area. Anyway, the project now is to re-wrie the baiting advice and update the FAQ. Should keep it up to date. Meanwhile, here is a link to the old, original Bait Box Page
History
When I started this site, Alta Vista (the original search tool) indexed 35 pages that included the word "termite" in the whole of the known web. Now Google knows a hundred thousand times that count. Many of them are barely disguised business sites claiming to offer good advice. Be wary out there. Be especially wary of bad advice coming through social networking as a lot of reptile-brained sales people have moved in.
When it all began, back at CSIRO, each month only about a thousand people would drop by. Now the site averages well over 3,000 hits per day. Keeping with the outdated fashions, Webcounter; says that you are visitor number to this page (not the whole site!).
I wish that a million and a half people would also read my research papers!
Please feel free to drop me a note.
Syndicate
