Termites in Dubai villas: signs and treatment

What are the signs of termites in a villa?

Termites avoid light and dry air, so the insects themselves are rarely seen. What shows is their construction work, and the damage behind a surface that still looks whole.

• Mud tubes. Brown, earthy tunnels about the width of a pencil, running up a foundation, a wall or the back of a cupboard. They are the clearest sign there is.
• Hollow timber. A door frame or skirting that sounds papery when tapped, or gives way under a thumb, with a thin skin of paint holding its shape.
• Blistered paint or laminate with fine mud behind it.
• Wings. After a humid evening, winged termites swarm, shed their wings and leave them in small piles on sills and floors.
• Mud filled cracks, and soil appearing where it has no reason to be, such as the corner of a wardrobe.
• Doors and frames that begin to stick, where the timber has been damaged and has taken up moisture.

Why do termites attack Dubai villas?

Desert sand on its own is poor termite country. A villa garden changes that. Daily irrigation keeps the soil around the foundations damp through the year, lawns and planting beds run right up to the walls, and mulch, timber edging and decking add food. The colony lives in the ground and sends workers out through the soil in search of cellulose, which means timber, paper, cardboard and the paper face of gypsum board.

They do not eat concrete or block. They pass through it, by way of expansion joints, cracks in the slab, the gaps around pipes and conduits, and the cavities of hollow block. Many villas had the soil treated before the floor slab was cast, but that treatment fades with the years and is broken wherever the ground has since been dug for landscaping, a pool, a new pipe or an extension. Door frames, skirting, fitted wardrobes and kitchen plinths standing on the ground floor slab are then the first things reached.

How do I check my own villa?

Twice a year, and again after any garden or building work, spend half an hour on the following.

• Walk the outside of the house and the boundary wall, looking at the bottom half metre of every wall for mud tubes, including behind AC units, planters and stored items.
• Check the garage, the store room, the space under the stairs and any room where cardboard boxes sit against the walls.
• Tap door frames and skirting on the ground floor with the handle of a screwdriver and listen for a change from solid to hollow.
• Open the base of fitted wardrobes and the kitchen plinth panels and look along the back edge with a torch.
• Probe garden timber, such as pergola posts, decking joists and gate frames, where it meets the ground.
• If you find a tube, break out a short piece from the middle and look again after a few days. A tube that has been rebuilt is in use.

How are termites treated?

An inspection comes first, to confirm that the insects are termites, to map where they are entering and to see how the villa is built. Treatment then follows one or both of two routes.

A soil barrier puts a termiticide into the ground around and under the building. Outside, a narrow trench is dug along the foundation where there is open soil. Where there is paving or tile, small holes are drilled at regular spacing, in the joints where possible, the liquid is injected into the soil beneath and the holes are plugged to match. Indoors the same is done along the affected walls.

A baiting programme places stations in the ground around the villa. Workers feed on the bait and share it through the colony, which declines over a period of months. The stations are inspected and refilled on a schedule, so baiting is a programme and not a single visit. It suits properties where drilling is unwelcome or the soil cannot be reached.

Mud tubes are removed, damaged timber is cut out and replaced once activity has stopped, and new timber can be given a preservative treatment. The product, the method and the period of cover are chosen by the technician for the site and set out in writing.

What should I do, and not do, when I find termites?

• Leave them largely undisturbed. Spraying household insecticide into a tube kills a few workers and sends the rest to a new route you cannot see.
• Photograph each sign and note where it is.
• Do not rip out damaged timber before the inspection. It shows the technician where they are travelling.
• Move boxes, books and stored timber away from the affected wall.
• Fix any leak, dripping AC drain or irrigation spray that is wetting the wall or the soil beside it.
• Mention the termites before any renovation, new flooring or fitted joinery goes in, so that treatment is done while the floor edges are exposed.

A pest control technician from The MELLS inspects the villa at a site visit and describes the treatment and its cover period in a written quotation, and a supervisor checks the completed work with before and after photographs.

How do I make the villa less attractive to termites?

• Keep soil, mulch and planter beds below the level of the floor slab, with a clear strip between them and the walls.
• Adjust sprinklers so that they do not wet the house walls, and repair leaking taps and irrigation joints.
• Lead AC condensate drains away from the foundation, not onto the soil beside it.
• Store cardboard, timber and firewood off the floor and away from walls, on metal shelving.
• Keep garden timber off the soil on metal shoes or concrete footings.
• Have the perimeter inspected yearly, and after any excavation that cuts through treated ground.