20240315 Termite Attack: 20 years later

The Silent Destroyer

 When you hear sounds in the wood, it is never a good sign. The house is not shaking because it was built on a firm foundation. And besides, the railway is about 2 kilometers away. This can only mean one thing: Termites. And I hate Termites. I also hate Silverfish and Mosquitoes but Termites is right at the top of the list.

 It is the very pest which destroys every thing that is moist and pulpy in its path. It is also the same pest which also destroy things you hold dear and to add insult to injury, whatever it ate is replaced with its brown gunk aka poop. By the time I was in my early thirties, I have amassed a lot of stuff to which some might say, junk. And I like store them junk in boxes so that I won't trip or accidentally stepped on them.

All is lost

Around this time, in the early 2000's, the surrounding neighbours were renovating their house like every few months. So, if one of the house has a hidden termite nest, the construction work would have disturbed it causing them to relocate to another house. And months later, if that house also has some renovations, it would move on to the nest house and so on.

Unfortunately, we do not have any plans to renovate the house (yet). And so, unknown to us all, our house was the next target. Nobody noticed the termites until I did a routine quarterly check on my stuff. And on that day, I had a very bad day. We quickly checked on other spots but apart from my Parent's bedroom and the Kitchen, everything was still standing.

 With a sad heart, I had to rummage through the debris to recover what I can. Most of them were model kits and some of them were Special Editions or Limited Editions, whatever. By the time I have separated them from the gunk, I laid them on to about three big basin containers. Sadly, because they were so big, whatever available makeshift covers were not enough when the rain came. Most of the stuff, tiny little parts, carefully separated from the poop were washed away into the drain. Also, because of my panicking, I tipped one of the basins over, thinking they contained only plastic bags.

 

This photo was dated: 27th August, 2004 at 7:03:42PM.
I remembered holding the wet plastic bag of Revell's Special Edition USS Voyager. At that time, I described it as holding a dead cat by the skins while its insides were at the bottom. That was how I felt. The plastic bag is the original factory packed which the termites found a hole and had a field day.
It's been 20 years and I was almost at the stage of forgetting the event and cutting my losses until I discovered this image on a Hard Disk. Now I am sad all over again.