Got termites?!

When we move to San Diego, we didn't take much furniture with us. For one, we'll only be moving back in 8-months time. For two, well, let's just say I never know of anyone who enjoys lugging around heavy couches as a passtime. Hubby said we can buy what we need in San Diego. Is it wasteful? Yeah, a little bit. But I'm a woman who enjoys shopping, especially furnitures. So if my husband said we can have a new set of stuff for our apartment, who am I to say no? :)

Our quest for our "barebone" furniture need began soon after our arrival at San Diego. We got most of our stuff from Ikea. :) Remember my obssession about Ikea? At least I got hubby into Ikea. :) For certain other stuff, we settled for inexpensive pieces from Target or Walmart.

So we bought this end table from Walmart. When my hubby put it together, the screw came poking through the top. He thought he overscrewed it. On hindsight, that should have been our first clue. But who would have thought?

Ever since the first day, we've always seen saw dust underneath the table. We just assumed it's a cheap piece of furniture and the wobbling cause by us putting and picking stuff on and off the table cause the screw to grind more saw dust. It never occurred to us that we really barely touched the end table on a daily basis. Time goes on, more saw dust everyday.

A couple of months ago, hubby noticed saw dust coming out on TOP and SIDE of the table. There are also these small holes diameter that of an ant associated with the saw dusts. Being a boy that he is, he went as far as grabbing a can of air spray used for cleaning computer and keyboards and discovered that when he blew air through one hole, air came out of the other holes. But that still didn't give him a clue!! (I had no idea he did that at the time. I was still thinking it was the screws and cheap furniture. :D)

Couple of weeks ago, hubby FINALLY brought up the possibility of termites! He looked up termites on the internet but all too quick to discard it as "they (the websites) didn't tell me much."

A week ago, even someone slow like me finally noticed that the piles of saw dusts were appearing on top of the table at an astonishing rate. When I discovered the ant-size holes, I diagnosed the table as suffering from an infestation of termites.

Yet hubby stil wanted to keep this piece of furniture in our apartment for another FIVE weeks!!! I don't understand men!! (Yeah, yeah, I know. My husband hardly represent all men, not even all white men. :P) Regardless, I insisted that we toss the table out immediately.

Hubby wanted to break it apart. He was still skeptical at the suggestion of termites. We brought the table out to the parking lot. We discovered MORE holes on the bottom side of the table. Hubby tossed the table repeatedly onto the ground. The first crack revealed nothing. Just your regular piece of wood. I started questioning whether it's a correct decision to destroy a "perfect" piece of furniture (termites or no termites, isn't it kinda creepy that saw dusts appear from ALL DIRECTIONS of the table?!) Hubby proceeded onto breaking the bigger piece of the two into halves. This time we see tunnels, lots of them, but still no termites. One more time, hubby halved the pieces. This time we could hardly see wood in the middle, it was all dust. After blowing off the dust, we finally found what we were looking for -- an itsy bitsy termite and hubby was finally convinced.