The house next door will be fumigated soon, and a crew was there yesterday to start setting up. I went over and asked the young guy in charge what pesticide they were going to use. In all seriousness he replied, "It's not a pesticide, it's a gas." !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I stood there with my mouth open, wondering where to begin. You can imagine what I wanted to say! (Any ideas for snappy comebacks?) Finally I said, as mildly as possible, "You mean it's the gas form of a pesticide. I want to know the name of the chemical that will be used." After going back and forth on that for awhile, he told me.

Can you imagine a person who works with this stuff not being aware of the basic nature of what he's doing?

Not only can I imagine, I know that for a fact. Even professional lawn care applicators don't know what they're spewing out of their little mobile carts. (I asked one of them years ago when they accidentally crossed the property line between me and my neighbor - who gets the lawn treatment - and the fellow didn't have a clue).

I also constantly hear many employees of stores where pesticides and herbicides are sold tell customers those products are 'completely safe'. They'll also give them erroneous application instructions which will only exacerbate the herbicides/pesticides' harmful side effects. I just know when that customer brings that bag of poison home and opens the bag, he/she won't bother a whit to read the instructions on the bag anyway. (Instructions which would only make it marginally less toxic.) They'll just "do what the so-called knowledgeable employee told them".

As far as the house gassing next door to you, jennifer, can you find out the name of the company doing the gassing, contact them and ask them exactly what they use? As a neighbor/citizen who could be potentially harmed by their product, you could inform them that you have a legal right to know. Or ask your neighbor if they could find out... unless they already know, which somehow (w/o even knowing them) I kinda doubt. Hope you have some success in at least finding out what it is. But in the meantime, I'm sure you're taking whatever precautions you can to prevent any drift into your own home.

Jen, I might be wrong, but I believe they are required to notify the neighborhood on something like that, with the name of the pesticide, in order to minimize impact from people who might be sensitive to the chemicals. Seems I read somewhere (possibly in OG) that it is a federal law now. You might want to check that before using it to confront the company, but it might be to your advantage.

I got great chuckle out of this, but, yes, sadly, this is now the norm. Hiring, people/kids who not only don't know but don't care to know or research. It's a job, pays the bills or fun, depends on age. I have learned to just grab the item and read the lable. The first thing I look for is harmful to children and pets. Even the so called "safe" stuff has the wording harmful to children and pet. Needless to say there isn't a lot of stuff I buy anymore. "If I need to", believe me, there are no pets remotely in the area I will be using it and they aren't allowed back to that area for the full day or 24 hours.

It's Vikane, Dow's name for sulfuryl floride. Somewhat safer than the previous chemical used for tenting, methyl bromide. And Vikane was used on our house when it had to be tented a couple of years ago. A very unpleasant experience, but unfortunately necessary. I had skipped about 3 years of inspections when the least toxic company I was using went out of business, and by that time the termites were all over the place, too numerous for spot/non toxic treatments. Here's more info:

http://fluoridealert.org/pesticides/sulfuryl.f.vikane.epa.htm

And if you click on their home page, you will discover a good resource for chemical information.