Thatch Treatment for Monte Vista homes and businesses

Monte Vista is a settled family suburb with established gardens, and most of our work here is the slow, steady stuff: rats that have moved into a roof, ant trails in the kitchen, fishmoths in a back bedroom. Houses are close enough that one neighbour's problem often becomes the next one's.

Timber pests around Monte Vista

Older pine roof timbers and built-in cupboards can carry common furniture beetle, so get a beetle inspection done before a sale. We check the trusses from inside the ceiling, not just the exposed beams.

Most homes are freestanding brick houses from the sixties and seventies with tiled or corrugated roofs, wooden eaves and mature gardens. Plenty have had additions over the years, and the joins between old and new rooflines leave gaps that rodents find. Wendy houses, garages and outside rooms are common and often hold stored boxes, which fishmoths and mice enjoy. A few newer townhouse complexes add shared walls to the mix.

The suburb sits on gentle slopes near the N1 with Plattekloof and the Tygerberg hills rising to the east. Summers are hotter and drier than the coast, which pushes ants indoors looking for water. Winter rain soaks the clay-ish soil and sends rodents up into dry ceilings.

Roof rats and house mice in ceilings are the most common call, particularly from May onwards. Argentine ants and pugnacious ants are close behind in summer. Fishmoths, German cockroaches and the occasional wasp nest under the eaves make up most of the rest.

Signs to look for

1. Fine powder dropping from the poles or laths onto floors and furniture below.
2. Tunnels or loose patches in the thatch where rodents have been moving.
3. Droppings on beams or along the top of walls under the thatch.
4. Insects such as cockroaches or spiders falling from the ceiling.

Borer in the poles and laths weakens the timbers that carry the weight of the thatch, which is heavy, and serious damage can mean replacing structural members. Rodents nesting in thatch chew electrical cables, and in a thatch roof that is a fire risk to take seriously. Insects dropping from an open thatch ceiling are a nuisance in homes and a real problem in guest lodges and restaurants. Bird nests in thatch can bring mites into bedrooms below.

Worth knowing

Cables running through thatch should be in conduit. Rodent damage to a bare cable in a thatch roof is a fire risk that is easy to prevent.

Our process, step by step

We start by inspecting the underside of the roof, the poles, the laths and the eaves, looking for borer exit holes, frass and rodent or bird activity. Affected poles and laths are treated with a borer spray or injection designed for timber, applied to the wood rather than soaked through the thatch. For insects living in the thatch, we use a targeted residual treatment on the underside, keeping it as light as will do the job. Rodents are handled with traps and tamper-resistant bait stations placed at wall plates and entry points, and we advise on bird netting or proofing at the eaves. Fire safety of the thatch itself, such as retardant treatment, is a separate specialist job and we will tell you if it looks overdue.

Want the full step-by-step? See how our thatch treatment service works.

Keeping them out afterwards

• Fit bird netting or wire at the eaves if birds keep pulling reed or nesting there.
• Have open thatch ceilings in lapas and lodges checked once a year, since problems are easy to see early.
• Do not store firewood or boxes against the walls under the thatch, as they give insects and rodents cover.
• Have electrical wiring in the roof inspected regularly, especially if you have had rodents.
• Ask your thatcher to check the poles and laths for borer whenever the roof is being repaired or re-combed.

How much will it cost?

The price depends on the size of the roof, how much of the structure is exposed and how many poles and laths show borer activity. A small lapa with an open underside is a very different job from a double-storey home with a closed ceiling. Rodent and bird work is added where needed, and timber that is too damaged to treat has to be replaced by a builder or thatcher.

Adult borer beetles emerge mainly in the warmer months, so fresh powder and holes often appear from late spring into summer. Rodents move into thatch most during the wet Cape winters when it offers dry shelter. Treatment can be done at any time of year, though a dry day makes inspecting the roof easier.

Questions we get asked in Monte Vista

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