Australians have been warned not to “play with nature” after a mammoth termite nest was discovered hidden inside a homeowner’s roof recently. Experienced NSW pest controller Christopher Moschella confirmed it’s the largest nest his come across in the roof space of a home.
Footage of the discovery shows Chris precariously tiptoeing toward the nest inside the dark roof space and repeatedly marvelling at the size and “absolute destruction” the pests had inflicted inside the Sydney home. As he tries to edge closer, the framing of the house starts to crumble away under his feet.
“This is an absolute monster… Look at that. Absolute destruction,” he can be heard saying. “[They’ve] worked their way up here from the floor and living among the roof tiles, eating our the timbers and just absolutely causing destruction.”
Scars of the infestation could also be seen in the roof insulation, he said.
The Sydney pest controller said it’s one of the worst scenes he’s seen in a roof. Source: TikTok/roachsniper
According to the pest controller, the nest likely weighed as much as 30 kilograms and was more than 1.5 metres wide. Thankfully for the homeowner, it was no longer active, with Chris believing bait must have been used to kill off the thousands of termites that would have been inhabiting the nest.
“That looks like an absolute nightmare,” he said. The nest had grown so large that a sub-nest had formed.
Related: Homeowners warned after pest controller’s invasive find in roof insulation
“Don’t play with nature, get your termite inspections done yearly and take any advice given seriously, even a small leak can sustain a colony while they eat your home,” he wrote when sharing the footage this past week. Even if you have a brick home, “no one is immune” to the threat posed by termites.
“When you’ve got a brick home, a double brick home, it doesn’t really matter too much,” he told Yahoo News previously.
“A brick home still has a timber structure roof. It’ll still have doorways, windowsills, eaves that can still be eaten”.
“Because they are a subterranean species, they can come in from underground undetected. They can travel over brick, through brick, wherever they need to go to get to the next piece of timber.”
Thousands of termites would have inhabited the nest. Source: TikTok/roachsniper & AAP
Australians warned to get routine termite checks
There are 20 species of termites that can inflict significant damage to man-made structures in Australia, and Christopher is warning residents to be vigilant for any signs of them inside the home, such as hollow timber or mud tubes, which are tunnels built from dirt and saliva by the pests.
These mud tubes were recently spotted on the garage door in a home in Brisbane, and tradie Michael Marshall recently had to fork out more than $200,000 after flipping a home and finding a termite nest inside of it, leaving it to crumble from the inside out.
According to the Australian Museum, termite colonies are formed during warm, humid weather, typically in spring and autumn. While there are over 200 species of termites in Australia, only a few are of concern to humans.
With unusually wet weather in recent months, some parts of the country have been more prone to termite activity, with one pest control company on the south coast of NSW telling Yahoo in December the pests had been “on the move”.
Those in the industry almost unanimously urge homeowners to get termite inspections every year or two, typically costing a few hundred dollars. If treatments is required, however, that can range from between $2,000 to $8,000.
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