Beetle Mania at Harison House

Like most new home-owners We have a list of stuff we want to get done, and a list of stuff we want to know. The stuff we want to know involves things like ‘how much it will be to install bottled gas for a gas range’ (Gardiner has no gas-lines), and ‘how safe is the wood stove/ 20 year old furnace/ morphine pills I found in a WWII med-kit in the basement?’ One thing we inquired about was the pests living in the house. What we now know (after a pest inspection) is that there are a few mice, some spiders, and POWDER POST BEETLES.

We actually knew about the beetles before we bought the house. The inspection noted they were there, and diagnosed it as a small problem. In the potential of infestation I suppose it was a small problem, but it was still a pain in the ass to solve… if it is solved. Here’s some info on the beetle from wikipedia

“Powder-post beetles are a group of wood boring beetles in the insect subfamily Lyctinae in the family auger beetle family Bostrichidae. The term "powder-post" comes from the fact that the larvae of these beetles feed on wood and, given enough time, can reduce it to a mass of fine powder.”

So there were some tiny holes in a few places in the beams, like someone drove in a small finish nail and then pulled it out. Under these beams was a fine brown powder (wood that has been passed through a beetle larvae) like brown talcum. The wood of the beam was brittle and could easily be penetrated with a screwdriver stab. The wood fiber no longer held strongly where the beetles had chewed and could be broken off with finger strength.

The solution to Powder post infestation is to cut back all the rotten wood and poison the exposed good wood. This will kill any larvae that tries to burrow out and the circle of life is broken. The problem is that it is difficult to be sure you cut out all the rotten wood, and poisoned everything enough. There is no immediate completion of the job. You need to wait a year or two and see if more fine brown powder pops up under the beams.

This wouldnt be a problem if beetle dust tasted like chocolate and cutting into the foundation beams of your house added years to your life. Unfortunately this is not the case and I dread having to go back in two years to carve out more nasty, blinding, carcinogenic, rotten wood next to electrical cable-runs and water pipes. Geez I hope I got em all. They are officially on my hate-list, right next to people who don’t accelerate on the on-ramps of highways.
Kerstin