Hi guys & girls,
Ive signed a contract on my first Queensland property which Im going to live in for a little while, but will make it an investment property in the long term. I had the building and pest inspection done today and Im still awaiting the report. I was very briefly at the property when the B&P inspector was there. The property has fibro walls and a corrogated iron roof, is only 6 years old, and is built on steel poles set in concrete. There are two tree stumps underneath the house that the builder did not remove for some reason. The inspector looked underneath the house and did not see any evidence of white ants at present but said that they had been there previously. One of the stumps had a metal box attached which I think he said was 'bait' or some sort of white ant deterant. He didn't seem to think it would be an issue for them getting into the property (as far as I know white ants dont climb steel poles!).
I dont have a lot of experience of this sort of thing so I thought I mention it here. I dont want to get paranoid about white ants, and I guess they are an issue for many houses in Queensland. But they are a potential costly maintenance issue at the end of the day. The way I look at it with this property is that on the downside the stumps are probably a magnet for white ants, but on the upside is the fact that the property is high up on steel poles, so that they cancel each other out, if you see what I mean. I dont really know how these metal box bait things work - how reliable are they in your experience? Presumably they have to be updated or changed X amount of times a year? A costly exercise? How often is a good time to get regular inspections? Im just trying to get an idea of how this will impact on holding costs, not that Im overly worried about this at the moment. Otherwise the property seems ok so far.
Cheers.
Ive signed a contract on my first Queensland property which Im going to live in for a little while, but will make it an investment property in the long term. I had the building and pest inspection done today and Im still awaiting the report. I was very briefly at the property when the B&P inspector was there. The property has fibro walls and a corrogated iron roof, is only 6 years old, and is built on steel poles set in concrete. There are two tree stumps underneath the house that the builder did not remove for some reason. The inspector looked underneath the house and did not see any evidence of white ants at present but said that they had been there previously. One of the stumps had a metal box attached which I think he said was 'bait' or some sort of white ant deterant. He didn't seem to think it would be an issue for them getting into the property (as far as I know white ants dont climb steel poles!).
I dont have a lot of experience of this sort of thing so I thought I mention it here. I dont want to get paranoid about white ants, and I guess they are an issue for many houses in Queensland. But they are a potential costly maintenance issue at the end of the day. The way I look at it with this property is that on the downside the stumps are probably a magnet for white ants, but on the upside is the fact that the property is high up on steel poles, so that they cancel each other out, if you see what I mean. I dont really know how these metal box bait things work - how reliable are they in your experience? Presumably they have to be updated or changed X amount of times a year? A costly exercise? How often is a good time to get regular inspections? Im just trying to get an idea of how this will impact on holding costs, not that Im overly worried about this at the moment. Otherwise the property seems ok so far.
Cheers.