Exterminators on overtime as termites feast
Print Edition
ENTOMOPHOBICS beware: The termites are back in Shanghai, and this year they really mean business.
The recent sultry weather has been the catalyst for the emergence of the pesky pests and huge numbers of them have begun appearing in buildings across the city, exterminators told Shanghai Daily yesterday.
“Already this week I’ve been called out to several houses that were home to colonies of between 20,000 and 30,000 termites,” said Zhang Baoxing, an exterminator with Xufang Greenery Co Ltd.
The company is based in Xuhui District, which has a large number of old wooden buildings, the favorite hunting grounds of the hungry mites.
“We dealt with 48 cases in May and have handled 62 already this month,” Zhang said, adding that a further 70 to 80 homes are on the company’s waiting list.
“We’re working flat out to cope with the huge demand,” he said.
Termites do not limit themselves to residential buildings, however. Several of the infestations handled by Xufang recently were in high-rise office blocks, Zhang said.
Wherever they decide to call home, the one guarantee with termites is that they reproduce very quickly, Zhang said.
“In two or three years, a dozen or so of them can multiply into a colony of thousands,” he said.
Zhang is not the only termite terminator working round the clock to defeat the hungry hordes.
In Huangpu District, another man called Zhang is matching his namesake pest for pest.
“We’ve been dealing with at least 20 cases a day over the past week,” said the exterminator with the Nanfang Greenery and Termite Control Service Center.
“Colonies can be found in all sorts of homes, not just old, wooden-frame ones,” he said.
Termites feed mostly on cellulose, the strings of sugar molecules that can be found in wood, and are capable of squeezing through gaps and cracks in concrete to get into it.
Despite a steady rise in the number of termites nibbling their way through the properties of Shanghai, the amount of people answering the call to fight them has been dwindling.
Few young people want to become exterminators as the work is difficult and poorly paid, Zhang said.
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