Termites - do we stay or do we go?

Hi all

I have been a reader of these posts for some time and have finally worked up the courage to post.

We have serious termite damage in our home and are trying to decide what we should do - repair damage obviously - but not sure about afterwards. We purchased the house approx 6 years ago and had a building and pest inspection done - no damage was found though there was evidence of activity in the rear yard. We had treatment done after we purchased the house just to be on the safe side. However we subsequntly found live activity in our ensuite - had treatment done again. A year later found more live activity - this goes on. We have had the property treated several times, have it checked EVERY 6 months and have still had live activity. We even changed pest companies as I was VERY fed up with who we were using. The new company came in treated and inspected just before the birth of our 2nd child. They assured us that there was no activity. After the baby was born I was having the carpets cleaned and lo and behold found more live activity!

They cannot tell us where the termites are accessing the property from and we believe they may have moved to the back of the house (had it treated just to be safe). We have stripped the walls in our bedroom and WIR and have taken down fittings in WIR- damage is huge. We need to replace the frames and skirtings as well as completey redo WIR- may have to do the roof but haven't taken off the plaster as yet. We do not know how bad the damage extends into the roof line as we have a flat roof with no access. We have found some damage in our study and near our front door.

We are currently weighing up our options. We like the location but are unsure if we should stay here when repairs are finished. If we stay we are wanting to build out and up. We only have one open living kitchen area and with young children (5 yrs and 8 months) this is not enough space!

So do you think we should stay and do the renos or cut our losses and buy or build elsewhere? If we stay we would covert exisitng master bedroom (at front of house) into a rumpus room and get rid of ensuite and WIR to have one huge room. There is a courtyard off exisiting ensuite that is really a waste of space and opening up this room would make courtyard more usable. Original owners had a spa in this area. We would also like to go out 5mx6m at rear of house with 2nd storey above the new space and extending a further 2.5m over existing roofline. We would move the laundry from next to kitchen to rear of house. Convert existing laundry (only small) into a butlers pantry. To go out we would have to go through one bedroom turning this into a kids lounge approx 5mx3m leaving us 3mx3m for staircase and laundry. We would pull down exisitng back wall and extend one bedroom and add another bedroom both would be 3mx4m. Upstairs would be master bedroom with ensuite and WIR plus a parent lounge. Is this exessive? How much do you think it might cost? We thought to allow $200k or is this unrealistic? We live in regional NSW.

DH's uncle suggested we knock down and rebuild. We had considered buying another exisiting property or building new. If we do renos I would like to do all in one hit, but DH is inclined to repair master bedroom etc and then consider the renos. I think it would be more cost effective to do it all at once. We would have to move out true - but if we do renos we would have to move out anyway. We are currently sleeping in spare room not master.

Sorry for the essay - but your advice, thoughts and input would be greatly appreciated.


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