50 Termites in my Bathroom

[Jack_Dawson]

They have wings. They are trying to fly but are fluttering around the floor. Just vacuumed them up. Do I have a problem? BTW it's very hot in San Diego today.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

1. 50? So you counted them?

[Whoa_Nelly]

2. It's probably flying ants

But check out these info sites anyway:

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-flying-ants.htm

Pic to compare ants to termites:


Another info site:
http://hgic.clemson.edu/factsheets/HGIC2400.htm

[Jack_Dawson]

4. Definitely Termites

Those long freaky looking wings. Yeesh.

[Chan790]

3. Yup

rule of thumb for bugs is the 1 is a 1000 rule. If you see one ant, you've got a thousand. Roaches, Mites, termites. That doesn't grow exponentially, thank diety or lack-thereof. 50 doesn't mean you have 50000. You're in San Diego...that's always going to be a problem, no cold season to killdown their numbers. Your house isn't wood-framed is it? You may want to have some general-carpentry (cut out a few wall sections to take a look) done to make sure you don't have structural damage, if so.

Call Orkin (or whomever) ASAP and make sure they put down the stuff that is supposed to keep them away.

[sendero]

5. Yep..

.... you really need to get a termite treatment. Look at the pipes under your sink, they probably came in there. If you are seeing a swarm, you have them and they may have been there a while.

[Jack_Dawson]

6. That's what I was hoping...

you weren't going to say. $4,200 to tent our 4-unit complex. That's about what we have in our HOA funds. Hmmmm...

[sendero]

9. I don't know about tenting..

... we just had a treatment for our TX single-story slab brick veneer house. I noticed some dirt in the garage at the bottom of an interior wall. They came out to do an inspection and said "those are carpenter ants". But while they were here they did a termite inspection and found two dirt tunnels going up the slab into the house on the exposed slab (yeah, I poked them open and saw the little while wriggling boogers :))

They dig a small trench around the perimeter and pumped tons of liquid termicide into it. Where there are patios/sidewalks at the foundation edge, they drilled holes and pumped the chems through them.

What a PITA. All we had to do was write a check for $1800. :(

[Jack_Dawson]

10. PITA...

?

[Broken_Hero]

14. Pain In The Ass PITA...:) nt

[Digit]

7. My first house in San Diego had termites when we purchased it in 1976

Thankfully, it was only in the garage, but it had to be tented to get rid of them. Part of the pre-purchase, so it was not on our tab.

I now live in the part of the east coast where we deal more with subterranean termites, so tenting is not necessary.

Good luck with that.

[Shakespeare]

8. Aw, fuck. You've got a swarm.

I've had that happen ONCE in all my years as an apartment dweller, and it was one of the most singularly disgusting, horrifying bug encounters of my life. I'm not even afraid of termites (all my fear is directed at spiders), but it was just disgusting.

[Broken_Hero]

11. time to get some termite spray

and bait...we have the same problem...we use the termite spikes...we put them all around our house, and use spray/bait inside the house...we priced getting Terminex out here, and they wanted WAAAYYYY to much to spray our house, and its not even guaranteed either...

on edit:its Terminex, not Orkin...

[Jack_Dawson]

12. What exactly...

are those? And I should say I'm in one unit of a 4-plex. And the termites are in my upstairs unit (3rd story).

Thx.

:beer:

[Broken_Hero]

13. well, it looks like spray/bait

then...the spikes, go into the ground around the house...I didn't know you were in a apartment, so I apologize. I would advise a trip to Lowe's, Home Depot, or a store similiar to that, and go through their garden section...they have tons of different sprays/baits/traps for all sorts of pests, and pick and choose which one will work the best...or you can ask around...I prefer the Terminate(spectracide) spray the best...:)