Hello, I have purchased ENZ-A-BAC and Lemon Air for my drains. Ok, let me tell you my story. I moved to this house 3 years ago. I put down sticky traps to see what pest we had. The upstairs had no issues, but the basement had springtails. The basement is mostly finished, the walls are drywalled but the ceiling is not and has insulation installed. I could see them up top, around the sill plate and floor beams but couldn’t tell where they were coming from. I called an exterminator and he sprayed for a year and couldn’t get them under control. They just kept coming from outside even though he was spraying there too.
So I called different exterminator. He laughed and said he could get rid of them. Well one year later he couldn’t get rid of them either. So I called Orkin and they said they could get rid of them after 3 months. I got mad and asked how because no one could. Well he wants to pull down all the wall panels and spray the cement and wood with Bithor charging me extra for the treatment. Do you have any suggestions? They have bombarded the exterior of my house with pesticides but I feel they are inside somewhere.
So first, you are 100% right! Finished basements can become a springtail production plant (actually, for many pests!).
This will happen for several reasons.
First, springtails love to live on wood. This is where they naturally thrive so trees and fallen timber are the favorite locations in the wild.
Second, they also thrive under rocks. And around most any home, it will be under CEMENT slabs (or rocks and logs if available).
But what about a finished basement? Well it’s heaven for them BECAUSE IT OFFERS BOTH CEMENT (ROCKS) AND LOGS (THE COVERED WALLS). Finished basements may have 2×4’s or furring strips like you see in the picture above (to the right; click on it to enlarge) and they love these items. And that space where the wood touches the foundation wall? That’s springtail heaven!
We have many customers who have to spray their basement walls because they find springtails hanging out there. This is because cement is a giant sponge. Remember, the exterior side of that cement has dirt against it and that means moisture will wick through and help grow mold and algae on the interior side. This growth will be nominal and usually not anything people can see. But for small pests, plenty to keep them happy food wise.
And when you cover the walls, that area becomes enhanced meaning it can now grow even more food AND since it’s covered, you won’t see what’s happening. You won’t know if anything is living there and you won’t have direct access to the concrete. For this reason, finished basements with pests like springtails or cave crickets will often be breeding them behind the very walls the put up.
So it’s entirely possible you’ve had some migrate down from the sill plate above. And once behind the wall, they’ll be content finding everything they need: shade, cement (rock), wood (the finished wall) and food (mold/algae/fungus). From there, they’ll migrate up behind those furring strips and at some point, be seen once they get into their mating mode.
Now whether your basement wall is solid or block like you see in the picture, most will get cracks at some point and they enter there too. And don’t forget that any area around a window will be targeted. Windows are springtail magnets – especially during the winter – because they give off heat which in turn attracts most any pest when it gets cold.
On the flip side, if you have an unfinished basement and some enter from the floor gap (where it meets the cement wall), they’ll end up dying. They can’t live out in the open and they will readily run out of energy when migrating to start a new family. Their range is 5-6 feet, no more than 8-10 feet, and so without finding safe shelter by then they’ll be in peril. But if the walls are covered? They’ll have plenty of places to live in your basement.
So for sure, they are living inside your home and based on the information you provided, most likely thriving behind those basement walls.
But how do you treat this area? You have a few options.
The first is what Orkin is suggesting. Pull down the walls and treat the cement and the wood. We would recommend MAXXTHOR for the wood since it will soak in and provide longer control compared to the BITHOR. As for the cement walls, mist it with Bithor since its labeled for such use (Maxxthor is only labeled for direct wood treatments, not walls).
Now would it be possible to treat these areas without taking the walls down? Maybe.
So lets say there is no insulation behind the walls. If so, you could opt to apply dust along the top of the wall in the space between the sheetrock and foundation walls. XEMPT DUST would be the best option for this since it will work even when wet.
We also recommend you POWER INJECT . For your situation, you’ll want to treat under the exposed sill plate that rests on top of the foundation wall along with the floor joists, where they rest on the fill plate.
The other very important place to treat will be under the BASEBOARDS. This will be where most are likely nesting. Use the Maxxthor for this treatment too since its exposed wood.
But if there is insulation behind the finished walls? Now you have a challenge we’re not sure you can defeat. The insulation will effectively block the dust so the only chance you will have of getting all the spaces between the wood/cement (where the studs that hold up the sheetrock is resting on the foundation walls) properly treated will be to use BASE OIL with Maxxthor added. As you will learn in the video on our Base Oil article, it can penetrate through the wood almost instantly. This means it can “carry” the Maxxthor so even those little spaces and gaps where the wood touches cement can be protected. But it would involve tedious injections along each beam. This would be difficult to do in the whole basement BUT in most cases, the problem is usually limited to one side of the basement. And if you’re really lucky, just a few beams. So if you feel the problem is isolated to one area, you could focus treatments there and see if that resolves the issue. You’ll know within a week or two meaning if you see very good results after 1-2 treatments, you might be reaching the bulk of the nests and won’t have to take down the walls.
One last option before wall removal would be to try and “contain” them behind the walls by Power Injecting under the baseboards and dusting all points of entry in the mid section of the sheetrock. So Bithor or Maxxthor under the baseboard and then Xempt Dust down the top of the wall and under all electric outlets and light switch covers as explained here:
HOW TO TREAT ELECTRIC OUTLETS, AIR VENTS, WALLS and CEILINGS | BUGSPRAY.COM
Now to be clear, we have seen all kind of insulation. Some are made with recycled cellulose which is what most any insect loves. That means if those walls are insulated, they could be food for an active springtail population. Dusting every foot or two would help but we can’t say it would get rid of them for good because the insulation will be impeding the dust from covering everything thoroughly. That could allow some pocket nests to keep living.
But if you want to go that route to start, use the Xempt Dust pumped through our PEST X-JECTORS. They go through sheetrock and have a port so you can pump Xempt Dust behind walls as needed. To install them is pretty easy. Just drill a 3/8″ hole in the sheet rock and then hammer them in. They come with an attached “cap” so you can seal off the port after spraying.
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