Top Secrets of the Termite Industry
We're a sucker for behind-the-scenes books about various trades, like Thomas C. Lowe's What Your Mechanic Doesn't Want You to Know, Todd Wilbur's Top Secret Recipes books that reverse-engineer brand-name foods so you can make them at home, or all those books about how to disappear and assume a new identity. (I'll admit it here, first time ever: I'm really D.B. Cooper.) In that spirit, we offer an unusual New Product: exterminator extraordinaire Mike Allen's book and Web site that shows homeowners and board members cheap, do-it-yourself / do-it-your-super ways of killing termites without using pesticides.
Allen, a 19-year industry veteran and owner of Century Termite Control, claims chemical companies tamp down information about alternatives to pesticides, and that local companies sometimes do unscrupulous things like recommending putting bait stations in your home. "But bait stations don't work. The smell from the bait attracts termites and encourages them to build underground roads and highways close to your home. While some may take the bait and die most of the … remaining termites will just wind up feasting on what's close to the bait station — your home."
If your building has a termite problem and you don't like chemical pesticides, this book, which is free and comes with a newsletter, seems like it offers some low-cost solutions in these tight-money times. At least the price is right — presumably since the book and site promote Allen's company and contribute to his existing reputation as a speaker and industry spokesperson. His MySpace page has an extended version of the roughly two-minute video that we link to in the first image above — who knew WD-40 could be such a termite terminator?
Century Termite Solutions • 114 North Glendora Avenue #102, Glendora, CA 91740 • (626) 914-6800 / -6802 • mike@centurytermitesolutions.com