Termites - that gnawing feeling

Quoted for truth.

Hi Davo111 – what does this statement mean?

tylersmayhem said :

do a full inspection ASAP, and just foot the bill. If it has poor results, $270 well spent. If the inspection has good results, $270 well spent – particularly if this is your “dream home”.

Quoted for truth.

Our sincere thanks to everyone for all the sensible and very valuable advice.

Once we’ve viewed the place we’ll agree on a price with the vendor, conditional upon a termite guy (one of the smaller operators) being allowed to inspect the house and giving it a passing grade.

This could have been a “where to get good coffee?” thread, but I think that the termite issue is widespread enough (and the advice given here good enough) that any potential home buyer would benefit from reading it.

Thanks again,
2604 (possibly soon to be “2607”)

Watch out for wood chip mulch!!!! I have a wooden house, and we put some of that around the box hedge planting, and it’s full of termites! bloody things. Some years back, the local echidna took a close and personal interest in the house and took to coming in underneath, whereupon a termite bloke was summoned.

I’d have a pest bloke have a look, and then if you buy the place, jackhammer out the problem bits and open up the bits around those holes. If you love the house that much, there’s always something you can do.

Bugs have scared you away from your dreams??!! Wow you know I didn’t buy my Audi R8 because it might need a wheel alignment either…

I suspect that a slight concern is 2604’s concern of another buyer coming in and grabbing the property without any inspection requirements. With a big drop in interest rates released yesterday, this could drive a stronger buying market – therefore adding more interest in all properties on the market.

My advice would be to get a pro like Pesty to get in and do a full inspection ASAP, and just foot the bill. If it has poor results, $270 well spent. If the inspection has good results, $270 well spent – particularly if this is your “dream home”.

How old is the house – 30 years? It’s still standing so the risk can’t be that high!

this is fallacious advice – the house will be ‘still standing’ until the moment before it crumbles. if it were as easy and failsafe as looking from the street, seeing the house still there, and so concluding no termites, there’d be no need for this post in the first place and a lot of exterminators wouldn’t be…

i would second berlina’s suggestion. and in the current market, i rekkun the vendor would be mad not to agree, 2604, (and if they are mad, there is another post relating) but option two is to in any case get a reputable pest controller in to appraise the situation.

i hardly imagine your dreams include termite infestation gnawing at the structure of your castle!

tylersmayhem said :

The building inspection report rates the risk of termite infestation as “moderate to high”.

You’ll find that about 90% of houses, if not 100% in Canberra will have “moderate to high” as a rating. Because of the Canberra climate, proximity to bush reserve etc, it’s a natural environment for termites.

This is very true, we recently purchased a house that is nearly 30 years old…the whole place was overgrown and it was a mess. The standard inspection told us that the risk of a bunch of pests was moderate to high.

We purchased the property anyway and got another pest inspection done. Nothing was found which was reassuring but we were told to make sure there was no dead wood lying around, overgrown plants etc. They did also mention that concrete around the house was not the best idea but it seems like everyone has been getting conflicting reports on this one.

My advice is like others here, get your own inspection done, i don’t think the standard ones that are completed to sell a property are that great but don’t get put off by the ‘Moderate to High’ comments…i think it’s pretty standard. Covers the companies i think!

A full termite inspection around $270

there is NO fool proof termite protection. baiting stations can be by-passed, gaps in chemical barriers can alow them to pass (you have no way of knowing if there is a gap or not)concrete slabs can have cracks, poor seals around service pipes can allow them in, regular inspection is the best preventative measure. If there is a big gum tree within 50 meters of your property, be vigilant.

There are a lot of cowboys out there in this industry, bigger is definately not better, this is true of pest control in general, not just termites. So many of the “technicians” are just low paid labourers with little knowledge doing the job until something better comes along, which is why independent smaller operators are best. But be careful! Easyrid, Pestkil, Checkpest, Capital Pest Control (CPC) are all part of Rentokil, I’m not saying they are bad, just not small anymore!

OK, this is where your negotiation skills come in. Phone the real estate agent and propose the following deal:

You choose a pest inspector and get the inspection done. If you decide not to go ahead with the property inspection on the basis of the pest report, you pay for the report. If you buy the property, the vendor reduces the price of the property by the cost of the report. That way, you get to find out if the termites are really there. If there are termites, you found out cheaply and learnt something. If there are no termites you still get the property and didn’t have to pay for the report. The vendor will be very likely to agree, since their property has been on the market for ages and it’s only a few hundred bucks anyway (if that).

If this really is your dream home, and the price is right, don’t let a little thing like a pest inspection stand in your way!