Did Termidor kill all the termites?

April 22, 2010 - PRLog -- Termidor is by far the best termite product on the market today or so say the millions of satisfied 'termite free' home owners and the hundreds of thousands of termite companies around the world. Backed with a 5 year pledge and an aggressive ad campaign Termidor made its debut in about 2000 and quickly took the lions share of sales. This new product was more of a curiosity at first and technicians were somewhat taken aback when they had to 'qualify' in order to buy and use it. Several large companies held back from buying into this silver bullet partly because of skepticism but mostly because they were fully invested in using the Sentricon Termite bait systems which up till now was the king of termite control products. Word spread quickly about this new miracle termiticide that easily wiped out nightmarish problems that year after year plagued the industry. It wasn't long before Termidor was on top and it has been there ever since.
http://pestcemetery.com/termites-bait-bait/
Termidor is unique in that is is not a repellent insecticide. In the old days products like chlordane worked so well because it strongly repelled termites and killed them if they got to close to the home. The residual was also a great benefit but the termites were relentless and if they found even a tiny break in the repellent barrier they slid right into the structure as if nothing was there at all. Termidor is not detected by termites and therefore they tunnel through it without even knowing it is there. The termites that come in contact with this product become carriers and infect others when they interact. Those infected by interaction are now also carriers and infect others and the process repeats until the entire colony is affected. This process is called the transfer effect and is the chief reason Termidor is so effective. The chemical itself is called fipronil and comes with a caution label which is the least toxic of any product. A .06% dose will give 100% kill in 3 months or less and fipronil binds with the soil so it cannot leach under normal circumstances. So far the longest test has been running for 14 years will absolutely no break in the barrier and no termites in the test plot.

With all this said, I wonder if we have shot ourselves in the foot with this silver bullet. Termites swarm every year in the spring and some companies make their entire yearly budget in just a short month or two as they chased termite call all across their areas. For the past five plus years swarms have been dramatically down. In some states like Florida you could barely put a bag of mulch on the ground and you would have workers munching on it soon there after. On my property alone, I have not had so much as a single termite in over 7 years. http://pestcemetery.com/did-termidor-ruin-the-industry-an...

Termite swarm season was always a mixed blessing for termite companies.http://pestcemetery.com/what-are-these-wings-on-my-window... It meant new customers and plenty of jobs but it also came with angry calls from a certain percentage of current customers that still had the insect and now more damage. Some homes would be classified as 'nightmare homes' for managers and techs because no matter what they did the termites never went away. With Termidor however, there are no more nightmare jobs, no more angry customers. I just hope that there are no- 'no more termites' and that we aren't on the road to complete extinction of the subterranean termite.

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Jerry Schappert is a certified pest control operator with over two and a half decades of experience from birds to termites and everything in between. His blog reflects his years of experience and has been well received by homeowners and pest pros alike.