Tentless Termite Treatment: No Tent, No Moving Out
Did you know you can get rid of drywood termites without tenting your house? Most people have no clue about that. You stay home. Your pantry stays packed. Your pets never leave.
Found droppings on a windowsill, wings by a door, or wood that's gone soft? Austin, our termite tech, comes out, looks at what you've actually got, and tells you straight what it is and what it'll take. There's no charge to come look.
Dear Florida homeowner,
My name is Coby McConnell. I founded Coby's Tentless Termite and Pest Control in Clearwater, and I've been in this trade since 1986.
Here's how the tentless work started. Years before I had my own company, the outfit I worked for bid a fumigation on the Belleview Biltmore in Belleair. Built in 1897, and for a long time the largest occupied wooden structure in the world. A small competitor came in and proposed injecting the walls instead of tenting the whole building. That idea took me the better part of a decade to chase down and understand.
Years later the Biltmore's chief engineer called me back. Not to try something new. To fix a tentless job that had already failed. Somebody else's work.
That's how this got learned. Not in a seminar room, and not all at once. On job sites, on a piece of scaffolding, going back to houses that didn't hold and figuring out why.
We started treating drywood termites without a tent in 2003. From 2003 to 2016 I was personally on every one of those jobs but five. That's more than 2,500 termite services. Counting all the pest work going back to 1986, I've made more than 70,000 stops.
What tentless actually means
Fumigation kills what's in the house today. Then the tarps come off, the gas goes with them, and your wood is exactly as open to the next swarm as it was before. That's not a knock on tenting. It's just the honest limit of it.
Here's the other thing most people don't know. Drywood termites don't live in one nest. Every colony is its own separate infestation, living inside its own piece of wood. The pile you found under the window might be one colony out of several. So a spot treatment on the one you can see leaves the ones you can't.
That's why we treat the whole house. We put the treatment into as much bare wood as we can reach. The attic, the crawl space, inside the walls. Once it's in the wood, nothing is known to pull it back out. You sleep in your own bed the entire time.
When a tent is the right call
Tenting works, and the people who do it are professionals doing their job. There are homes where a tent is genuinely the right call, and I'll tell you that at the inspection instead of selling around it. If that's your house, you'll hear it from us first. And if a tent is on the table, here's what it really costs to tent a house in Tampa Bay, past the number on the quote.
What the work looks like
These are from a home we treated in Belleair. You'll see the extent and difficulty of some of the work we do. The dotted lines are where we drilled and treated.
The guarantee
If the bugs come back, so do we.
That holds as long as you keep your annual renewal inspection current. Once a year we come back, look the house over, and if anything's moving, we take care of it.
Questions people ask
Can you get rid of termites without tenting?
Yes. What you need is a whole house treatment, not a spot job. We treat as much bare wood as we can reach. The attic, the crawl space, inside the walls. That does two things. It kills what's in there now, and it protects that wood from them coming back. There are reasons we'd tell you to fumigate instead. But if you'd rather not tent, we can still do it your way. It may just take us longer to get everything under control.
Is tentless treatment as effective as tenting?
Depends on what you've got. If your house is loaded with colonies, I'd take the tent all day long. Not because it's more effective. Because it's quicker. If you've got three colonies, tentless kills them and protects that wood for years after. And they will come back. They always do. That's why we back it with a warranty you can carry for life, so we keep coming back and checking. How your home is built matters too, and how many separate colonies you're dealing with.
Do I have to leave my house during tentless treatment?
No. We've treated homes with a customer on oxygen. Homes with a fish tank in the room. Pets, kids, everybody stays. We'd rather you step out of whatever room we're working in, but that's it. You're not packing up your family for three days at your mother-in-law's.
Is termite treatment safe for pets?
Depends entirely on which treatment. Fumigation, absolutely not. Nothing living stays in that house. Not pets, not fish, not plants, not people. Subterranean work is different because we're treating the ground outside with liquid or bait. For tentless, we're up in the attic, under the house if there's a crawl space, and injecting inside the walls. There's nothing sitting out where an animal gets into it. The products are low odor too. Usually all you smell is a little pine or fir coming off wood that's been dry a long time and finally got wet.
What happens if termites come back after treatment? Is there a warranty?
If the bugs come back, so do we. You see something that concerns you, you call. If it's an active termite infestation, we treat it at no additional cost. Keep the warranty current and we'll keep protecting your home, and you can carry that for life.
What customers say
"From the initial phone call for information, to the consult and actual treatment of the house, everyone at Coby's has been nothing short of amazing. Top notch customer service from the owner, not a contractor, is so hard to find. I did not have to move out, there was no nasty odors and an automatic guarantee for retreating if termites come back! I would (and have) recommended Coby without hesitation!"
— Jennifer Jordan"Great job at a great price! We noticed some termite signs in our home and called Coby. He showed up right on time and gave us an estimate of the cost of the work to be done. He gave the rest of the home a very thorough inspection and came back a few days later and took care of our termite problem. We couldn't be happier!"
— Al LefflerHere's the honest reason not to sit on it. A drywood colony takes about five years to get big enough to throw swarmers, the winged ones that leave and start new colonies somewhere else in your house. Once that starts, one colony becomes several, and several becomes dozens. Caught early it's a straightforward job. Caught late, I've seen it take years to track them all down. That's not a sales line. That's just how they work.
If you've got a problem, or just a question about termites, call me. I'll be happy to talk with you anytime.
Here's to helping you live pest free,
Coby
P.S. That's me up on the scaffolding in those pictures.
As long as GOD keeps making them, we'll keep killing them. You have a great day.