Has anyone packed up food/house in prep for termite tenting?

M

mariadnoca

Moderator
It looks like I will need to tent my house. Spot treatments are not an option. It needs to be the whole house.

Turns out everything (food, medicine/cosmetics/etc) not factory sealed in glass or metal have to go or be sealed in special bags (and I have no idea how much they cost). I hadn't thought about cosmetics/unopened items in plastic/everything inside the fridge.

I have a huge amount of pantry items, not to mention other stuff, and the WINE! (There is no way I'm giving away/tossing the wine.)

Part or me thinks I should just start trying to toss some of the more easily replaced stuff and I'm sure some of it should be tossed but even that will take awhile one can at a time. They won't let you toss afterward. Sigh...

Has anyone done this before? Any advice? One thought I had was to have one of those portable storage units dropped on the driveway for the duration to get items out of the house so I'd have someplace to move stuff to.

BTW, I *really* hate the idea of pumping the house with posion, read one option instead was tenting and heating the house but can't find much info/anyone who does that (an article I read said most won't do this as some companies have burned houses down. Yikes.)

 
We avoided this 3 times now yet the house is still standing. We had them do "spot" treatments >

The only really safe way to benefit from tenting a house is if the house is unoccupied and devoid of everything.

I have a 300+ wine cellar and apparently EACH of the bottles would have needed bagging, not to mention 2 fridges, 1 freezer, toothpaste, medications, mouthwash, pet food and a dozen cases of preserves. While they'll tell you that sealed containers don't need to be bagged, EVERYTHING that gets near your body, will have the residue on it. Think linens, kitchen towels, clothing, caps, hats, dishes, glassware, utensils, serving pieces, coffee mugs etc.

Not to mention the impact it would have on your animals. We have cats and a dog. What about the places THEY go that we can't clean.

Anyway, while this doesn't seem to be contributing much to your knowledge base, it's the journey we took when making our decision.

(Oh, we also couldn't figure out how to keep our home secure on the day when the house is untented and every door and window must be left open for like, 12 hours?)

 
We did this, but it was right before we moved to another place so I tossed a lot of things.

Is it possible to store some in your vehicle? Economically, I'm not sure if renting a storage unit for the 24 hours you'd have to have the stuff out of the house would be worthwhile. Could you box it and store in a neighbor's garage?

If you are planning on moving other things out as well, then it might make sense to rent the storage unit.

 
Public Storage (I don't work for them) only charges $1 for the first month.

When we took our son to Chicago for school we put his stuff in Public for a week while finding him an apartment. One dollar was pretty good. I checked the website for LA and you have lots of them and they all are still doing the $1 deal.

 
Your amount of stuff sounds almost like mine

Though I don't have quite that much since DH passed, but I've got a whole wall floor to ceiling of shelves in the garage of pantry items, plus the kitchen/bathrooms/medications & supplements/just plain stuff I want away fromt the gas/and in the neighborhood of 50-75 bottles of wine and a full bar.

They make you bag bottles of wine one at a time? Not sure which is worse, bagging them or moving them. Hoping overnight outside in storage won't hurt it temp wise -- the most $$$$ I'll take with me.

For the first time since I was about 5 I am petless so at least there isn't that right now.

I've spot treated about 3-4 times over the years but now they are in multiple locations. And not everything is accessible -which only leaves full house treatment as an option.

They *claim* there is no residue at all and you don't even need to wash dishes. Ummm, yuck. I'm still going to see if I can find someone that will tent using heat. It won't help with the moving out of stuff but there won't be residue.

Yeah, not sure how to air out the place -- I'd wanted to do this in the spring/summer but got stuck on a work project and put it off. Now they've shown up in a new area. Sigh...

I'm SO not looking forward to this!

 
Still have the $1 first month up here too

However, per their site, they don't come to you. Even though I actually have some stock in this company I'm not going to schlep my stuff over in my convertible (or a truck) and move this stuff.

Sigh. Bagging it up or getting it to a storage unit in my driveway is more than enough for me.

Thanks for the infor though!

 
My Saturday six for the rest of the year...

I'm going to start tossing/sorting things this weekend. Most of the neighbors are like me -- no room in the garage for cars let alone more stuff. My dreamhouse always was one with a basement but trust me driveway storage is worth it's weight in gold compared to moving all this stuff.

When I go visit friends out of town one of the things I've done in the past is go to Walmart and stock up on things. (We don't have Walmart nearby.) I 'm so regretting that and all my earthquake preparedness stuff now.

 
Yes, we did for fleas and it was a pain...

We had to remove all food items, all toiletries, pets etc.

After the tenting, we had to wash all kitchen and bathroom surfaces, all woodwork (any area you would touch), mop all floors, have the carpets cleaned, wash all clothes, linens, beds, clean soft furniture etc.

It was a week of work and my mom wasn't working at the time, and we all had to help, and with 3 of us, exhausting.

But it was necessary.

I would, if I could, remove all items that you can, get a storage room or one of those curbside storage pods, so that you don't have to clean up so much stuff later.

Good luck

 
You can always freeze stuff you want to save that you think is still good.

Freezing will kill the eggs for food moths, not sure about termites.

 
Oh, the horror. I live in fear of that down here. Creepy, crawly creatures.

No advice, but wishing you a good experience, M.

 
Yes, did it a few times.

You don't need to bag sealed containers. If you are so concerned about the "residue" then make a large pile of cans, wine bottles, etc and put a plastic sheet over it all in the middle of the room. Yes, it is a pain to have your house tented but I looked at it as a chance to do a deep clean of the house.

I made use of neighbor's refrigerators- they were more than happy to let me store stuff for a couple days.

 
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