3 Natural Termite Deterrents To Help Protect Your Home

Bec Dentec • Jul 24, 2023

In all honesty, there’s not really anything except a professional treatment that will ensure you are 100% safe from these evil little suckers that like to call your house in Dubbo home…

We’ve got three natural deterrents you can use if you’re concerned but just remember none of them eradicate the problem, they only deter it.

1. Orange Oil

Orange oil is claimed to be very effective for stopping many types of dry wood termites.

There are some serious DIY treatment difficulties to be aware of, though.

It will only work on the dry wood termites already eating your home, not the subterranean one’s in the soil right outside.

It needs to be applied correctly because it lacks the transfer effect to the other termites that the professional treatments provide.

So every termite needs to consume it separately, including the queen who will reproduce the colony very quickly if she’s not killed.

It has a very short half-life (2-3 days) which means after this treatment is done it will not continue prevention of new termites colonies, nor will it kill any who you may have missed the first time.

Applying the correct amount is crucial so make sure to figure out how many termites you have.

2. Red Hot Chilli Peppers!

No not the punk band…

Planting chilli peppers around your home have been rumoured to help deter termites along with other pests.

The only thing with this is you need to be careful if you have young kids around because if they touch the chillis then rub their eyes they’re going to know about it.

The benefit is, of course, growing your own chillis for the next time you cook up a nice curry…

3. Pyrethrum

Many fly sprays use a synthetic version of this called pyrethrin. However, it is still possible to obtain the pure plant extract.

It’s a natural plant-based insect repellant.

You can put it at all the normal entry points like door and window frames or around home foundations.

It definitely deters termites but just like everything else will never stop them completely.

The good thing about this is it stops spiders as well.

Just remember to reapply it after any heavy rain.

These DIY options are great to deter termites, but at the end of the day if you really want to protect your investment you need to have a treatment in place that wipes out the whole colony.

That’s the only way you can really have piece of mind that your home won’t be one of the 85% of homes in Australia to get hit with termites.

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