The Red & Black Tent of Death

Living in a tropical location we enjoy many wonderful sites everyday that we did not get the pleasure of seeing on the east coast, from palm trees and plumerias to houses covered in giant tents.  Nearly weekly we will see a tented house in the neighborhood being fumigated for the popular tropical pest, termites.

While we were fortunate to not see evidence of termites in our apartment they were causing a lot of destruction to our house and leaving their droppings all across the floor of the main house above us.





Preparing the house to get
ready for the tenting was. . . annoying.  All food items, medicines, and most toiletries had to be placed in special bags or removed from the house.  We also took the extra step of bagging many of our dishes to save ourselves from washing everything in our kitchen after the fumigation.  We thought this would be a relatively simple task but it took hours.  The bright side(?) is that we were forced to clean out the 'fridge and all of the cabinets and we rearranged things once we "unpacked".  We also had to remove all valuables since houses that are tented are prime targets for break-ins.

Other than the clean-out, the fumigation process is pretty simple.  One or two fans are placed inside the house with a thin plastic hose clipped to the front.  Once the house is securely tented the Vikane is turned on for approximately five minutes; the fans continue to circulate the gas overnight.  The next day the tent is removed and the house has to air out for at least six hours before it can be reoccupied.

Fortunately we did not experience any harsh side effects, such as migraines, though our throats did hurt for a few days.  Sadly the geckos and lizards did not fare as well.