any pesties on here? DIY or sell a kidney?

I am about to meet the local pestie and after a quick ask around at work, i am afraid. very afraid. that said, most of the trades at work suggested i look at Sentricon bait stations and do the grunt work myself. Has anybody done this? Does it work? Are there other similar products? Does it negate the need to drill through a slab?

we are in sth east queensland and low set, mostly metal framed shed house, on a concrete slab. There are some timber sections in the extension, one of which, i think, already has the little chewers in it.

Advice please.

I have looked into it a few times and bait stations don't seem such a good idea to me.
they just tell you they are there, then you have to treat anyway.
so many business models based on subscription services these days.

some of the cheaper chemicals sound ok (like biflex) but have witnessed infestations when used (they are just a repllant).
only product to my mind worth using is Termidor (is taken back to the nest).
you could do it yourself but the tricky bit is sourcing a quality product, I am not sure the ebay ones are full strength - if you know what I mean.

we have the bait stations installed at our house from when we bought it. I think they had a tiny bit of termite activity in the roof, must have panicked and put perimeter bait stations in.

previous owner also had a 12 month subscription with a company to come in and inspect the stations once a month. but it was around $1100 for the year. they ran a bit of a scare tactic on us about if we cancel then they'll have to charge us a FULL house inspection should we ever want to sign back up. It was also a couple of hundred per bait station install if I remember correctly



the stations just have some soft wood dropped in them and IF they find termites they treat them. So in the end I just go around the house and check all the stations left (after some reno's a good portion of them got ripped up). but there are plenty of actual baits out there that don't kill the termites eating the wood but drag it back to the rest of the nest, and I don't belive are that expensive (like the sentricon you mentioned). In the end you can just buy the bait stations and hire a core driller and probably get it done in a day depending on how many you wanted installed. But the diligence is in the inspections. set a monthly reminder in your phone to go and have a look at the stations.

I’d recommend you get someone out to do an inspection and treat any infestation asap. Then you’ll have a bit more time to research. Talk to the pestie about your treatment options based on your construction too. For instance at home we have a large attached garage that is brick so it was excluded from the perimeter treatment and we saved money. You might do something similar and only perimeter the extension, knowing you might have to keep a closer eye on the metal area replace some trims if you get them. In other words do as much as you can afford and cross that bridge and treat the whole house if it comes to it.

Thanks for the thoughts above folks. We have had the pest guy come and look and he is coming back next week to do the standard bug thing. He is also going to treat the termite spot that I mentioned in the original post. He suggested using the bait stations as a perimeter measure. and brought up sentricon with me asking about it. He seemed to think it was a good product so long as you got it from a reliable source (ie probably not fleabay). Will wait to see what he says after he does the initial treatment and has a bit more of a look around. Cheers.