Specialist Termite Control Pty Ltd was formed in 1990 with the specific intent of providing an alternative to the conventional organo-chlorine spray approach to termite treatments.
In the early days, Tom Boschma was the sole operator of the business. It was down to basics, with termite colony location and the use of a few grams of arsenical dust as the central approach.
During this time new methods were being developed and experimented with. One of these was putting the new “CSIRO box bait” system into live building infestations. Whilst this method produced mixed results at first, the response from the public was overwhelmingly positive as home owners looked for safer alternatives to the infamous spraying of chemicals.
The word spread and Tom performed box bait poisoning demonstrations on TV programs such as Burke’s Back Yard, Healthy Wealthy Wise and Our House. All of a sudden “baiting” became the buzz word in the industry.
However, early baiting methods were difficult to perform and unpredictable in outcome. It was also difficult to train technicians in the subjective art of luring termites and the methods never became widely used.