Termiti, Scorpions & Topi, Part 2 – Focus on Termiti – Italian Adventures

In May 2023, I was feeling fairly confident in my ability to manage this new life in Italy. Projects were getting done, new projects were being planned, and life felt good.

Andrew’s parents came for a visit and while we were getting to know each other, overall things were going well as we introduced them to Italy. I began my morning in the normal fashion with a walk up and around the hill, back down to the house. The weather had been a bit rainy in the last few days but today was lovely, a perfect day for a walk, albiet very muggy. When I arrived back at the house, everyone was up and ready to go so we went into town for cappucino and cornetto. Today was shaping up to be a really great day.

After town, I walked back into the house and into the kitchen to find thousands of bugs on the walls, ceiling and oozing out of the door frame. YIKES! WTF?! I grabbed a broom and some bug spray, but the broom was a bad idea. All it did was smear the bugs on the wall, making a gross mess. The spray seemed to be working, as the bugs were falling off of the wall.

Meanwhile, Jessica and Staci, Andrew’s mom, started researching on Google and discovered they were termites and a natural spray of lemon juice and white vinegar would kill them. Off to the store they went as I continued to sweep up the dead bugs and continue to spray the areas in which they were presenting. It was SUPER gross watching them ooze out in droves from the old wooden door frame.

After the 2nd day, you could literally pull the wood away in crumbles, it was so decayed from being eaten by the termites. I started pulling away as much as I could to expose as much as possible for future treatment and disposal.

Che schifo!!!

We had an exterminator come and spray. More than once. The first guy just haphazardly sprayed and then wanted to seal off the kitchen with some plastic sheeting. The second time, a man & his son / apprentice, pulled up in his little Smart car, took a tour of the area and then began his work. He, nor his son, had on protective clothing. They did, however, put on filtration masks before they went in to spray and treat the area. He came out and immediately lit up a cigarette and jumped on his phone. After about 15 min., he went back inside to spray again, repeating everything 2 more times. We then were told to close up the house and remain outside for at least 8 hours. He and his son then put their equipment in the trunk of their car, got into the front seats and drove away.

HOW are these men not dead?! All of the poison they sprayed MUST be on their clothes and they both got into the tiny little Smart car and drove away. Not to mention lighting up another cigarette.

For the next several days I sprayed all of the ‘exit’ areas with the lemon & vinegar mixture several times per day until I had to leave. Each morning I would find a few dead termites on the floor in various areas of the kitchen, providing me with an indication of where I needed to continue to spray. Unfortunately my flight home was in one more day so I prayed my house would not be overtaken by these nasty bugs in my absence.

Marco, my contractor arrived and helped strip away all of the old door frame and woodwork to help remediate the problem. Marco sealed up the openings with plaster. This, of course, did not solve the problelm but certainly helped. I would eventually find what we needed to do to erradicate them at the source.

I am REALLY fortunate to have made friends with a British woman up the hill who agreed to check in and make sure there were no additional outbreaks. Terry is the best and deserves her own post!

Fast forward to 2024. YEP! Those assholes are not gone.

Here we go again!

May 2024 was another rainy and humid month. The humidity is what wakes and spurs the termites into action. This time, they oozed out of a few different areas. Last year they were predominantly around the doorway from the hallway into the kitchen, on the kitchen side of the door, and then also the door to the outside. They seemed to have initiated from the hallway side of the doorway so that’s where we concentrated. Little did we know, they were infested now inside the door frame on the other side of the kitchen at the door to the outside. (2023 picture that should have been considered more seriously)

Similar to last year, I came back inside the house after a walk only to find the kitchen & hallway swarming with termintes. F**K! Not again! WHY didn’t we think about just removing the door frame on the hallway side of the kitchen last year? Serioiusly?!!!!! Oye.

It actually didn’t surprise me that they were around the door to the outside from the kitchen, given the thousands we found in that area last year.

Unfortunately we did not learn from last year and started with the stupid exterminator. He did his usual thing, we taped off the area with plastic sheeting and closed up the house for 8 hours. Needless to say, this did NOT solve the problem. So much money wasted.

Marco was up on the roof and came down to strip away the remaining wood around the hallway side of the kitchen door. While this helps, it doesn’t solve the problem.

Time to hire experts.

The Dottoressa from Biancolini came to inspect the house and took samples of the termites back to her office. She confirmed the type of termites and the most appropriate action to get rid of them once and for all. She sent me some documentation and a video of the lifecycle of a termite. Seriously gross but it makes sense why they continue to surface in May.

The Biancolini team came in and set trap boxes throughout the main floor of the house, as well setting more than 40 traps in the garden around the house. These proved to be a pain in the ass for mowing but hey, I’m willing to deal with it for 2 years if it really means erradicating the termites from my house. Once a quarter, one of the experts comes to the house to check the boxes for activity, replacing the poison food inside where necessary. No surprise, the box in the corner of the doorway in the kitchen leading to the hallway had extreme activity. Lose nasty creatures were alive and well living in the wall. He set up a second box, being careful not to disturb the first box, for fear of letting them out into the house. The box at the doorway to the outside was also full of activity. Fortunately, there was no sign of activity anywhere else.

Time to check the outside traps. I was curioius about this so followed the guy around the garden. They had set about 12 inch tubes into the ground and inserted a piece of clean wood then capped it off. Of the 40 traps outside, only one showed any sign of activity. It’s actually the one in the picture below where you see the orange flag in the center right corner. At least this was working.

The orange flags in the garden indicate where the termiti traps are in the garden

In 2023 and 2024, I coated all of the woodwork throughout the house with termiti treatment oil just to be safe. I never want these things in my house again!

2025 – No termites to be seen!!!

There has been no new activity in the house or garden so I think we are making progress on the termite situation. Grazie il mio Dio!!!

But the Dexter Exotic Zoo was not complete without finding other creatures in the house. Remember that the house went 7 months without a roof, meaning many things had easy access inside. We found several dead birds throughout 2024 and when I arrived in the Fall, the cleaning ladies found evidence of mice. They thought they were contained to the ground floor, but NOPE! The mice had made themselves at home throughout the entire place.

In comes the exterminator, again, but this guy was much better and knew what he was doing. After I cleaned everything from top to bottom, including cleaning out all of the drawers and doing days and days of laundry, the exterminator came and set traps exerywhere. These were the kind of traps where it’s a flat piece of wood covered with some extremely sticky stuff, then some food was placed in the center to attract the mice. I wasn’t taking any chances so I doubled down and ordered these plugs from Amazon that put out some sonic sound that disturbs the mice and forces them to leave. All of this worked like a charm and we even caught one.

The other thing I discovered in the Fall of 2024 were tons of large holes dug throughout the garden. One person suggested Chingale but the holes weren’t big enough. Then someone else declared foxes, which was possible as I had a Volpa Rossa run through the garden and into the gulley on the other side of the cantina. But when Adriano arrived, my gardener, he declared Istrice! Porcupines. They found where they were entering from the gulley area under my fence and into the yard. So we installed heavy metal fencing deep into the ground and about a foot up the existing cyclone fence to help keep everything out.