Effortless Termite eradication (say hello to my little friends!)
 

Hey folks. I just had a recent run in with Termites here in Houston and thought I would share my unorthodox, but highly successful solution. Or rather natures answer to these voracious critters. Ants. Yep, that was all there was to it.

A group of dry wood termites made their way to my abode, and needless to say I was quite concerned. I could not for the life of me figure out why they came at the front of the house when there was some perfectly good rotting wood in the back. I should also point out that there are ants in the back. Not sure of the species, but they are very small in all respects excepting their rather painful bite. For this reason I tend to leave them alone and we have formed an understanding over the years. I remembered from a Nature special that ants and termites are not real good friends as Ants think termites are yummy and tasty.

A strip of sweet soda (non diet) along a stable path guided my pals all the way around the house and to the point where the Termites were. The scouts took a while to check out the whole improvised path thing, but the fireworks began surprisingly fast and soon my uninvited guests were being dragged out feet first. Or, in some cases pieces, in no particular order.

" Say Hello to my Little Friends!!"

I know, pesticides would be faster. But this was just such elegant revenge for the damage to my house and no bodies to clean up!

And Yes,...I will be calling an exterminator and doing some carpentry in the near future as well as some landscaping. However... I will leave the ants alone. After realizing that they have been defending 3 sides of the house against termites all this time, I am beginning to appreciate them. Additionally, after seeing them go at the termites, I really don't think it would be a good idea to get them mad at me.

Cool, I'll remember that.

Hmmmm. Small ants, bad bite, Texas. Those wouldn't be fire ants would they?

My hunch says they are Sicilian.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/ultim...ons/icon14.gif
Very cool!

you may also want to get a pet echidna

Guess thats why we don't have termites...

We have Harvester ants here. They are the ones generally mistaken for Fire ants due to their size and bite. They are rather docile tho. If you don't jack with them they don't bite.

We feed them... Anything and everything. As such we have some rather active dens on our acreage.

Why would we do this you ask? Well you see... Harvester ants are the favorite food of the Horned Lizard or "Horny Toad"... We now have a nice population of "Horny Toads"


Plus its damned cool to watch the ants work.

Note this doesn't work with all species of ants. My neighborhood has an abundance of both ants and subterranean termites. The ants we have, black argentine (ubiquitous in SoCal), like sweets, and leave the termites alone.

you may also want to get a pet echidna

No termites and eggs for breakfast!

That's what I was thinking

Great story and solution.
No chemicals and you can repeat the exercise as needed.

Thanks for sharing...

When I was growing up in N. TX during the 50's and 60's, horned toads were a very common sight as were harvester ants. Over the last 30 years or so they have disappeared from much of the state. No one knows exactly why but some blame their disappearance on fire ants. During the 70's and 80's in an effort to stop the spread of fireants insecticides were sprayed all over the state (which failed) they managed to almost destroy the harvester ants which resulted in horned toads becoming almost extinct in most parts of the state. Both are making a come-back in some parts of the state but horned toads in particular are still very scarce. Meanwhile, fireants are everywhere!

I haven't seen a horned toad in probably 20 years.

Had a couple of run-ins with fire ants when I lived in Texas. Nasty little buggers!

I think this is a horrible idea. To get gid of the ants you'll need an ant-eater, to get rid of the ant-eater you'll need a leopard, to get rid of the leopard a hyena, to get rid of the hyena, a lion.

It's a slipery slope.

I have several of the big Horned Toads in my back yard, do not see them often. My theory
is when they banned DDT the fire ants came back in mass. These nasty little bastard that
are not native to Texas can kill Horned Toads, hence the Toads are almost gone. The greenies
strike again with their good intentions.

But our don't bite or sting!

Boric acid. No ants or termites.

sorry Hugh, no fire ants(hopefully) in your neck of the woods.

What Uncle Milty said

Where do you buy that?

Believe that Home Depot and places like that have it. Just bought some at my local HD last week.