Termite Control in Avon, CT

Termites need three things, and the hardest for them to find is cellulose in contact with workable, moist soil. Ordinary construction goes to some trouble to avoid providing it, which is why construction generally keeps structural wood clear of the soil.

Two things about Avon ground are worth knowing before we get to the landscaping. When Avon adopted zoning in 1957, it placed 1,200 acres in an agricultural district; two parcels totaling 38 acres remain in it today. And the Avon Old Farms School, which once held thousands of acres, sold off more than two hundred in the 1960s to create the Stony Corners neighborhood and five hundred more in the 1980s. A great deal of this town is houses standing on ground that was field, pasture, or woodland inside living memory, and farm and forestry wood does not always leave when the use does.

Landscaping then frequently provides the same thing on purpose. Timber bed edging. Railroad ties on a terrace or a driveway edge. A raised vegetable bed built from untreated boards. Sleepers forming steps. Decorative posts set in the ground. Bark mulch piled deep and kept damp. Each of those is cellulose, at grade, in soil that gets watered, and where they run toward the house they form something close to a guided route.

The compounding problem is that this material is rarely considered part of the building, so it is not looked at. A rotting tie at the back of a border can carry an active colony for years with nobody giving it a glance, and the distance from there to the foundation is often only a few feet.

Treated lumber helps, but it's not a guarantee. Retention levels vary between products, and a cut end exposes untreated core. An old treated timber half-buried in a damp bed is worth a screwdriver test, and we find activity in them regularly.

Termite treatment is unusual in this trade because the same application that resolves an infestation also serves as a preventive measure. We do not use a separate, reduced preventative product. It is the same application either way.

Which makes the timing question simpler than people expect. On a property with a lot of wood in the ground, the argument for treating before there is evidence is that you are buying the same protection either way, and buying it without also having a colony in the structure to deal with.

We will not push it. Plenty of Avon properties do not need it, and we will say so. But if you have timbers going soft, a heavily planted perimeter, and no treatment on record, it is a reasonable conversation to have, even if nothing is wrong.