On Getting Heat Treated

It’s no surprise that I’ve spent so much time writing about bugs here on Will’s Dumb Brain. They’re everywhere. They’re in the grass, they’re in the trees, they’re in my nightmares, and most unfortunately…they’re in my walls/ceilings/floors/EVERYTHING. I’ve documented how much I hate spiders. I’ve screamed into the void about how much I hate bees. Well, I’ve got a new villain to add to my Mount Rushmore of most despised bugs: termites.

We moved into our (no longer) new apartment about six months ago. We’ve loved almost every single thing about it…what we didn’t love was finding evidence of termites just a few weeks in. Nothing will ruin your day faster than coming across a tiny little pile of frass (which I learned is the proper term for termite shit [which thankfully is just chewed-up wood]). We, of course, alerted our landlord immediately because even though I really like our downstairs neighbors, I don’t really want to fall through the floor and crush their delightfully fluffy cat, Arlo.

Unfortunately, our landlord decided that a few spot treatments would take care of the problem… of course, it didn’t. Fast forward a few months and several more spot treatments and not only were the termites coming back with a vengeance, they were now in our neighbor’s unit. Faced with undeniable evidence that these lil wood chomping mother fuckers were everywhere…they decided to finally commit to the nuclear option, heat treating.

While we were overjoyed that our long national termite nightmare was drawing to a close, getting your apartment ready for heat treatment is a massive pain in the ass. They close up every window and blast your apartment with hot air until it sits at 140 degrees for like six hours. That means you have to get out plants, pills, paintings, vinyl records (which we have a lot of [and which weigh a fucking ton]), foods, alcohols, and anything even remotely aerosolized or it’ll explode.

It took almost an entire day of looking through every single nook, cranny, drawer, and storage area to gather up all of these heat-intolerant items…and then at the last minute, we were informed that we had to take down the blinds…from all seven windows! Needless to say, the entire process was a big bummer. At least we’d be able to return home to a bug-free A-P-T.

With the apartment warm enough to make the hottest recorded temperature on earth blush, we obviously had to go elsewhere. We were assured, though, that as soon as they were done roasting termites, they’d leave all the windows open so we weren’t walking into an insect sauna…unfortunately, they didn’t leave all the windows open…they didn’t even leave one window open. When we returned to the apartment the next day it was still over 90 degrees in our apartment, WELCOME HOME!

All in all, it was a minor nightmare designed to take care of a major nightmare…oh except for the fact that the entire building definitely has termites and they decided to only heat treat two units! Oh well, at least I’ll know what to expect the next time they have to turn our home into Death Valley!

Have you ever had an experience with termites?