The following article appeared in the June 16 edition of the Guelph Mercury:
They’re believed to have started hatching in Guelph about 40 years ago but no one knows exactly how they got here.
There are probably hundreds of thousands of them now — creamy-white insects munching their way through tree stumps, fence posts and anything else wood.
And residents often don’t realize they have an infestation until they discover a piece of their property rotting from the inside.
That’s what happened to Paul Aquilina on a spring afternoon about three years ago. He snapped off part of the roof from his decaying shed — which was attached to his home north of downtown — to find dozens of termites crawling through crevices in the wood.
“I was able to see them plain as day,” said Aquilina, who lives on Pipe Street. “The whole roof was rotting. . . . They were just everywhere.”
Aquilina ended up paying more than $3,500 to have the shed removed and hire a pest-control service. He hasn’t seen any termites since but said others in his area have, and many homeowners are worried about the prospect of expensive damage.
“Obviously everybody has concerns in our neighbourhood and throughout certain parts of Guelph,” Aquilina said. “Everybody wants their property protected and I think it’s up to the city to help us do that.”
The city announced last month that it was taking a “proactive and leading-edge role” by hiring a renowned entomologist as Guelph’s new termite-control officer.
Tim Myles, former director of the urban entomology program at the University of Toronto, started his new job Monday. He hopes to eradicate Guelph’s termite population with the safest and most environmentally sustainable methods possible.
Council set aside more than $65,000 in the budget for his position, along with $25,000 to support public education and a termite-control program. City officials said Guelph is the only municipality in the province with a full-time termite officer.
Originally from the U.S., Myles knows the bug. He’s had a deep interest in termites since the late 1970s, when he discovered a colony while hiking in the foothills of Honolulu.
He was pursuing his master’s degree in Hawaii and he yanked on a dead tree branch that cracked to reveal a clump of insects feeding on it.
“It’s shocking to suddenly open a piece of wood and find a termite colony,” he said. “Suddenly you see this huge mass of squirming things. Some of them are soldiers and some have big mandibles snapping at you and it’s just a shocking thing to see. . . . I was enthralled.”
Myles’s research has since taken him around the world. Days before arriving in Guelph, he was in Honduras, scouring the countryside on early mornings with other experts in search of new termite species. He was in Guatemala last year and plans to head to Costa Rica in 2008. He has studied termite behaviour and seen the destruction the insects leave in their wake.
“Termites are several orders of magnitude more destructive than any other kinds of insects,” he said. “Even carpenter bees, carpenter ants, all of these other sort of secondary things that can cause a little bit of structural damage are nowhere close to termites.
“I’ve seen houses demolished. I’ve seen houses condemned that are literally leaning.”
Myles is also quite familiar with the infestation in Guelph and this isn’t the first time he’s helped the city fight it. In fact, he has worked with the city off and on for nearly a decade.
Termites were discovered in Guelph in 1975 but city officials believe they’ve been here since the late 1960s. Bruce Poole, manager of building services at the city, said the bugs were found in an office building as it was being demolished near the intersection of London Road and Cardigan Street. The city then discovered other colonies in fence posts, wood piles and tree stumps along Cardigan, near the Speed River. The infestation has spread to other blocks.
According to city records, the main termite zone is now bound roughly by Woolwich Street, Earl Street, Exhibition Street and the Speed River. But city officials were shocked to find a new infestation seven years ago in a separate neighbourhood in the north end.
The bugs were discovered on 21 different properties in the area of Inverness Drive and Windermere Court. The city believes someone in that area removed contaminated wood from the main termite zone.
Mayor Karen Farbridge said the infestation’s jump from one neighbourhood to another demonstrates the problem is significant enough to warrant the municipality’s involvement.
“If there is a termite infestation in our city, there is a risk there for every homeowner,” Farbridge said. “So if we’re going to be effective, we need to have a collective response to it.”
Tim Mau, a Woolwich Street resident and University of Guelph professor, felt his stomach drop when he noticed termites eating the pressurized wood in his backyard about three years ago. Since then, he has spent thousands of dollars treating his home and landscaping his property.
Mau later took a petition to the city with nearly 700 signatures calling for a more effective termite strategy.
He said a lot of residents have been worried about the infestation for a long time and he’s glad council decided to attack it.
“Termites are so insidious in terms of the damage that they do,” Mau said. “They’re working 24-7 from April until November and the reality is they can create billions of dollars worth of property damage if you don’t address the problem.
“If people’s homes are affected and property values go down, it’s an issue for the entire city in terms of the ability to generate local property taxes to provide services to the people of the community.”
Some councillors are fine with the fact there’s a full-time termite officer for now, but they hope Myles won’t be needed for long. Councillor Leanne Piper said that once Myles deals with the city’s infestation, a full-time officer shouldn’t be necessary.
“If we have a full-time position for 20 years then we’re obviously not handling the problem,” she said. “I would say that if we don’t have an effective measurable improvement in five years, we have to start looking at something different entirely.”
Councillor Bob Bell said he would like to see city staff learn to handle the problem on its own.
“I don’t think there’s enough work for a full-time guy,” Bell said. “I think that’s a bit of a stretch.
“After the knowledge is there, it’s not rocket science to set these traps around town.”
Through 1999, 2000 and 2001, Guelph was one of three cities — along with Toronto and Pickering — that took part in a termite-control program developed by Myles that used a method called trap, treat and release.
He captured thousands of termites and painted them with a slow-acting insecticide, which they spread to their colonies after being released. Myles said the program was “radically successful” and the bugs looked to be gone from most of the residential blocks involved in the program. But they seem to have returned and spread over the last six years. Myles said his first job will be to determine the scope of Guelph’s infestation and its real boundaries.
He will also oversee public education and the enforcement of Guelph’s termite bylaw after it gets updated. Passed in 1984, the bylaw allowed for a fine of up to $2,000 for people who didn’t obey the chief building official’s orders to get rid of termites or prevent their spread.
Poole said no one has ever been charged under the regulation but the city wants to become more active on enforcement once the bylaw is updated. He couldn’t say how long that will take.
Myles said people need to understand that termites use all kinds of wood as a food source. Any wood on the ground can be problematic.
“That’s a simple piece of information but still, you will walk through these yards and people won’t quite get it. That little board sitting on the ground over there. That is a termite habitat . . . Every single piece of wood must go.”
Not everyone believes Myles can rid Guelph of its infestation. Mark Newman, a licensed termite-control specialist with Orkin Pest Control, said it just isn’t possible.
“I don’t think we’re going to be able to put a dent in the colonies,” Newman said. “Not right now with what’s available. There’s simply nothing out there that’s capable of doing it.”
Myles is more optimistic. He plans on attacking the termite population with a variety of methods, including the elimination of potential habitats, the use of area-wide trapping and safe biological agents. He also hopes to link with researchers at the University of Guelph to develop new approaches to termite-control.
He will develop one-, three- and five-year strategies to present to council. With the right amount of public participation and if everything goes as planned, Myles said, the city will eventually reach what he calls “apparent eradication.”
“The most you can say is it looks like eradication,” he said. “Whether or not that means not a single termite in any little root anywhere is alive — who can know? I don’t know.”
Even if the termite population can’t be abolished, Newman said, having the city take an aggressive stand is a good thing because it draws attention to the issue. It should prompt residents to get more active on watching for termites and getting rid of wood that’s touching the soil on their properties, Newman said.
He said there’s no way it will eliminate the need for a regular exterminator.
“Awareness always breeds a certain percentage of control,” Newman said. “And in the past, people have buried their heads over this. It hasn’t done anybody any good and this is not going to go away.
“Once the termites are in on a food source, they’re in on a food source and if that’s your house, something dramatic has to be done.”
TACKLING TERMITES
Termites eat and nest in wood that’s touching the ground. Homeowners can move toward prevention by breaking any wood-to-soil contact on their property.
Remove stumps and dead trees, which are often ideal places for termite nests
Get rid of piles of branches or dead wood
Don’t use lawn ornaments that are made of wood
Raise wooden sheds off the ground
Use stones or termite-resistant mulch instead of wood chips in the garden
Stack firewood on a platform made of metal or concrete
Source: The University of Toronto’s Urban Entomology Program