Fumigation in San Juan Bautista, CA

Local Context

Tenting a Building Here Is a Logistics Problem Before It Is a Gas Problem

Fumigation is the right call in San Juan Bautista when drywood termites (Incisitermes minor) are established in more than one part of a structure, or in framing nobody can reach. That happens most often in the 19th- and early-20th-century wood-frame houses on the streets around the plaza, where balcony joists, eave tails and attic framing have all been exposed to the same swarm flights for a century. A tent puts Vikane (sulfuryl fluoride) into every void at once, including the ones a drill and a probe will never find.

The town itself complicates the job. Lots in the historic core are narrow, some buildings sit within a few feet of a neighbor, and the tarps have to seal to grade against surfaces that are not flat or square: adobe skirts, stone bases, brick steps, settled porches. Overhead there are the mature street trees along Third Street. We measure the structure, walk the setback on all four sides and plan the tarp layout and the tie-down before a date goes on the calendar.

Not every building here should be tented. On a masonry or adobe structure a full-structure fumigation is frequently the wrong tool, because the seal depends on irregular historic fabric and because the infested wood is often a limited set of reachable members. On those buildings we look hard at local treatment first and tell you plainly which option the evidence actually supports.