HOUSEHOLD PESTS Tackling termites

Pest control companies educate consumers on treatment products.
WASHINGTON POST
The termites are coming! The termites are coming!
But you probably already knew that. Even if you have not personally experienced a spring swarm, which typically occurs when a sunny day follows a rain, you might have noticed the swarm of TV ads prophesying impending doom.
A barrage of advertising by national pest control firms is not unusual this time of year, warning homeowners about the voracious bugs that cause more than $2.5 billion in damage annually.
But the companies that make termite treatment products also have started pouring millions of dollars into aggressive advertising campaigns, hoping nervous homeowners will ask pest control operators for their particular remedies by name.
Since January, BASF Professional Pest Control, maker of the Termidor Termite Control liquid treatment, has launched a national ad campaign and a public relations blitz that features a traveling two-story inflatable termite. The giant bug, 69,000 times the size of the actual insect, is being dispatched to zoos, museums and other public arenas in 21 cities, starting in the South, where termites swarm the earliest. Visitors can walk through the 20-by-60-foot insect to try interactive exhibits and games offering facts on termite biology and extermination. (The schedule can be found at www.toweringtermitetour.com.)
Dow AgroSciences, maker of Sentricon Colony Elimination System, the leading termite baiting system, was the first to direct ads at the general public almost 10 years ago. The company claims that over the years its "authorized operators" have treated the White House, Mount Vernon, the Alamo, the Statue of Liberty and Independence Hall.
Marketing campaign
Bayer Environmental Science, which heavily markets the Premise Termite Elimination liquid treatment in states hard-hit by termites, recently announced a new nationwide campaign with the National Trust for Historic Preservation to educate consumers and save historical sites endangered by termites.
The direct marketing of termite control products to homeowners is "revolutionary," says Greg Baumann, technical director of the National Pest Management Association, a nonprofit organization of more than 5,000 companies that is based in Dunn Loring, Va. "They're producing consumer information sheets so that consumers will be in a better position to understand their products and to ask for them."
The outreach is seen by Baumann as the latest turn of events in an industry that went into shock in 1987 when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) banned chlordane and heptachlor, the main pesticides used for 40 years to control termites. The major chemical companies gulped and regrouped behind other products after the ban, and regrouped again in 2001 after another widely used pesticide, Dow's Dursban, was withdrawn from household use because of environmental and health concerns.
When the dust -- or the cloud of termites -- settled, there emerged three basic methods for combating termites: repellent liquids, nonrepellent liquids and baits. The five largest manufacturers in the multibillion-dollar business are Dow, BASF, Bayer, FMC Corp., Syngenta and Whitmire Micro-Gen. And it seems that competition for customers has become as fierce as the bug itself.
Various products
Liquid repellents, which have been around for years, are now formulated as the more environment-friendly successors to chlordane and heptachlor. These products, injected into the soil, repel and kill termites by setting up a liquid chemical barrier around the perimeter of a building.
One of the major repellent manufacturers is Philadelphia-based FMC Corp., maker of Dragnet, Prevail and Talstar.
FMC has been on the market about 20 years, company spokesman Neil DeStefano says.
"Our generation of chemistry ... replaced those other repellent technologies," he says, adding that all liquid repellents today meet EPA requirements.
"They have to go through significant testing both from an efficacy standpoint and from a human toxicology and environmental standpoint."
But repellents have lost ground to the newer nonrepellents, industry analysts say.
These treatments also must be injected into the soil or laid down in trenches, but instead of repelling, they invite termites to come into contact with the poison and carry the toxin back to the colony.
Premise, one of the top nonrepellents, "eliminates pests three ways: through ingestion, contact and the 'Domino Effect,'" says Byron Reid, a Bayer entomologist.
The product is deadly to termites if eaten, touched directly or touched indirectly from another termite that has crossed the product's odorless "treated zone."
Termidor, a competing product from BASF, is also lethal to termites when ingested and through contact, a process the company calls "the transfer effect."
Baiting, the third popular option, was developed before nonrepellents were introduced.
Dow's Sentricon debuted in 1994 in reaction to concerns over the EPA bans and homeowners' objections to having holes drilled every few inches through concrete surfaces to inject liquids.
The typical baiting setup works this way: Monitoring stations, or containers of wood or cellulose, are placed in the ground around houses. If termite activity is discovered, the wood is replaced with a material that poisons the insects or affects their growth cycles. Foraging termites take the bait and share it with nest mates. Some bait systems start with the poisons inside.
The leading bait-makers contend that they can kill an entire termite colony through the shared bait, without drilling or pouring chemicals in the ground.
Concerns
Brian Forschler, an entomologist at the University of Georgia, worries that the claims and counterclaims make it hard for consumers to see the forests for the trees.
Termites are a part of nature, he says; they will always be in our yards.
"I can go to any house in the Southeastern United States and find termites in people's yards, but I doubt that in most cases their house would be infected," Forschler says. "The point from the consumer perspective is not whether there are termites out there, but whether or not your house has them."
Another noted termite expert, University of Kentucky entomologist Michael Potter, says on a homeowner-advice Web site that "overall, the nonrepellent products are proving to be more reliable in their ability to resolve termite problems in the first attempt" than repellents. He says, though, that all registered termiticides, both repellents and nonrepellents, "can be effective."
Cindy Mannes, public affairs director for the National Pest Management Association, says "both liquids and baits are effective. What it really comes down to is the partnership between the professional and the homeowner." The decision of which product to use, she says, is partially based on how a customer feels about drilling, liquid chemicals and baits, and partially on how a structure is built, the soil conditions, the extent of infestation and the geographical location.
Cost
Whichever type of treatment is used, the typical cost to treat a 1,500-square-foot house is $800 to $1,800 for the initial treatment, depending on where the house is, the construction of the house, the severity of the infestation and the type of contract, Mannes says.
Most treatments take no more than a day.
Renewal fees vary.
Product guarantees also vary, so the experts advise that homeowners pay close attention to pest control firms' contract language. Industry leaders also stipulate that guarantees will be affected if there is new construction or renovation on a treated property.
Forschler says above all, homeowners should not panic if they see a swarm in the house.
"Most termite damage isn't sudden or catastrophic," he says. He advises taking the time to talk to several pest control firms, weigh the alternatives and check prices and contracts.
He also says he thinks, however, that most of the products on the market today, while effective, are based on "old science" and that a lot more is to be learned about the complex social structure of termites.
He notes that in a recent study, his research team found that doing nothing led to success: When the team watched six bait stations with no baits over a three-year period, two of the three colonies observed by scientists went away on their own.
Forschler and Potter are among the independent voices and pest control companies who warn against do-it-yourself treatments. Forschler says prevention -- sealing holes, fixing leaks and keeping termite "food" away from houses -- is the best medicine.