Termite … from a Realtors prospective

Termite … from a Realtors prospective.  Realty Professionals  805-473-0300.  So after being in business for over 25 years I had never been subject to having the opportunity to taking part in the tenting process as I have always negotiated our own properties to be done after we have moved out.  Well that is until now, we are in a property that needed to be tented but had no intentions of moving.  With the heavy rains our rooftop deck failed and we had water intrusion which led to the damage of the master bath ceiling that exposed the extent of the termite infestation.

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So we called LD Termite and Larry came out gave us a bid for work to be done and how much it would be for the tenting.  He then explained the process and provided us the information we needed to prepare the house for fumigation.  Once we started reading we had questions about this and that which I will explain the process throughout this brief article.

The first thing you must do is take any digestible products out of the house or double wrap them up in these special bags that resist the vikane gas.  You will also need to remove any and all plants, pets (including fish) and humans of course. Everything inside the house including the refrigerator and freezer will need to be double bagged or removed.  We used large buckets and transported a lot of the dry storage items to an offsite location along with bottled water.  How long did all this take?  We spent the week before bagging, boxing and transporting the items we wanted offsite so that it did not dominate a whole or half day.  When we returned we dedicated the entire day to getting the house back in order.

The day of the fumigation, we were told that they could be there as early as 0700 to begin the process.  I got the number of the fumigation company because they are sub-contracted by the termite companies due to specific licensing.  Leadership Fumigation was great, they explained the process to me that they remove the tents from houses in the morning and put tents on in the afternoon.  They have to have the tents off prior to 12 noon because the gas company has an 8 hour window to turn your gas on from 12-8pm.

NOTE: The termite company will schedule the gas service off but YOU have to schedule it back on.  If you don’t want to take a cold shower for a week, get this scheduled as soon as you know the exact dates that the tent is coming off. When the gas company comes out they will do a complete inspection of your gas appliances, if anything is not in working order you may have another opportunity for something else to tackle.  The gentleman that did our inspection was great, he also adjusted our appliances for better and more efficient operation and explained the things I needed to do for preventative maintenance like taking my burners out and wire brushing them from time to time to create the best possible flame and efficiency.

For us the tenting process started around 4pm.  These guys were really efficient and were done in about an hour, covered up and those nasty termites were getting their first taste of the gas!  The tent will be on with circulating fans to allow the gas to travel throughout the property for about 24 hours and then they will open a part of the tent to off gas and allow the poisonous gas escape. The following day they will remove the tent in the morning and use a poison meter to make sure that it is safe for re-entry.

Once we got the ok, we went in and my wife didn’t want to be in there because she was sensitive and said it was difficult to breathe, so we turned on the fans, opened all the windows, doors etc and went to grab a bite to eat. A couple of hours later we decided to re-enter and it was better for her.

We spent the rest of the day putting everything back and transporting the dry goods back to the house.  The interesting thing was literally within a few hours, the same day the tent came off the house spiders were back on the windows.  We have large trees near us and spiders live in trees, speaking with companies that treat pests, spiders seem to be the one thing that they cannot guarantee a success rate.

For me the overall process was enlightening, I have a new understanding and will have a much higher level of compassion for my clients that go through this process and my apologies to any client that I was not as supportive as I should have been or understanding enough while you went through this process.  If you are a prepper  then you will want to start early and not wait until the last day or two.  It will be a process of moving all of your storage to another location and back.

Overall it is not a fun process, you are displaced from your home for literally two days but the series of events carries on for 4 to 5 days.  Like for example, the day before you have to do all the prep work, dropping the dogs off at the kennel, making sure and/or removing all the last minute food is either packed and removed or bagged and sealed with proper bags and lets not forget about the plant trimming 1 foot away from the house.  We had several large pots near the home and takes two people to move them so my son came over to help me move 6 large potted  plants outside and several inside.  Then you are in a hotel for a couple of nights then you get to put everything back in that you took out.

I could imagine trying to do this on top of preparing for a big move also when you are selling your house!

Kevin Jones is a licensed California real estate Broker (CalBRE#01128892) and owner of Realty Professionals, licensed for over 25 years, if you have any questions please feel free to contact him at 805-473-0300.