The Termite Wars

One of the first signs of termites in the house are the termite poop. Just seeing them sends a chill up your spine. Whenever I hear my mother's scream, "Kay, Art, come look!" I hold my breath.

This time she found the poop at our back door. Sorry the photo is blurry. My macro is not the best.

We found poop by this door last year and Art took it down and shot termite poison into it. However, because the door was so heavy, we didn't take it down to patch it. We were going to but got caught up with other things.


We called our favorite termite inspector and consultant, Alvin of State Termite (486-7378) and he came to give us his assessment of our situation. He said we didn't need to tent the house if we keep on top of things. He also said that a new door would probably cost us $700.00+ to have installed. Instead of doing that, he suggested we take the door to Aloha Termite who could gas just the door for perhaps $75.00. Then we could patch and paint the door and put it back up.


My brother came over yesterday since it's difficult for me, and helped Art remove the door. They then screwed on a plywood sheet to prevent burglars and mosquitoes from entering the house.


Then Dennis and Art loaded the door into the car for us to bring to Aloha Termite to have fumigated. I'm thinking we should also bring our other folding door that we also found termites in last month.


On the way out the front door, Alvin also found termite poop on the old front screen door. So Art removed it and bought a metal screen door to install. He's struggling right now to make that metal door fit onto the old frame style of this house. There's a 4" gap at the bottom of the door which means we'll need to come up with some kind of step or threshold.

If we're putting a step in, we need to see if there's something else we'd prefer doing to the stoop. And then, if we're going to do that, what about the door by the kitchen. How soon before the termites attack there while we're distracted?

Alvin says I need to walk around the house and patch any needle head sized holes I see to prevent termites from entering to make a home. He says I can stop them with one foot (stomp on them). Ha! Ha!

I told Art we'd better go buy a crate of caulking because we have holes and spaces everywhere.

Other than this, our electrician, Mariano is stopping by this morning to fix our suicidal electrical outlet in the kitchen.

Home maintenance is so much fun! (How do I show sarcasm dripping from those words?)