If your home was treated for termites and they came back within a few years, the pest control company may tell you the chemicals simply "wore off." That explanation is usually wrong. Before a soil termiticide can be sold at all, it has to prove — in federal field testing — that it controls termites for at least five years. When treatment fails inside that window, the problem is much more likely the application than the product.
Key takeaways
- Under EPA registration policy (PRN 96-7), a soil termiticide must demonstrate complete termite control for at least five years in standardized federal field testing before it can be registered and sold.
- So a failure within a few years of treatment usually points to misapplication or a missed retreatment — not to the chemical simply "wearing off."
- That inference supports both negligence claims (the company failed to apply the product with reasonable care) and breach claims (it failed to treat or retreat as the bond required).
- Evidence is fragile. Do not repair the damage before it is documented, because the physical proof of a bad application can disappear with the repair.
The five-year standard, in plain terms
Soil termiticides — the liquid products applied to and around the soil to create a treated zone against subterranean termites — are pesticides regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Before the EPA will register such a product for sale, the manufacturer has to put it through standardized federal field testing. Under the agency's registration policy (PRN 96-7), the product must demonstrate complete termite control for at least five years in that testing before it can be registered and sold.
Read that again, because it reframes the whole conversation about failed treatments. The five-year performance is not a marketing promise from the pest control company. It is a precondition to the product being on the market at all. A properly applied, EPA-registered soil termiticide is one that has already been proven, under controlled federal testing, to hold up for at least five years.
Why "the chemicals wore off" usually doesn't add up
Given that standard, the common denial — "the treatment just wore off, that happens" — starts to look implausible when termites return quickly. If the very product used was required to demonstrate five years of complete control before it could be sold, then early failure is hard to blame on the chemical.
The more logical explanations for an early failure are on the application side:
- Under-application. Too little product, or product applied at the wrong concentration, leaves gaps in the treated zone.
- Incomplete coverage. Termites exploit untreated gaps. If the applicator skipped areas — along a foundation, around plumbing penetrations, beneath additions — the barrier is not continuous, and termites find the opening.
- Improper technique. Failure to trench and treat properly, failure to treat voids, or failure to follow the product label can all defeat an otherwise effective product.
- A missed retreatment. Under many bonds, the company is supposed to retreat when activity is found. Skipping or botching that retreatment leaves the home exposed.
None of these is the product's fault. Each is the company's. That is the core inference the five-year standard supports: when a treated home is reinfested well inside the five-year window, the likely explanation is that the application — or a required retreatment — failed, not that a federally validated chemical inexplicably quit early.
This is an inference, not an automatic conclusion. Site conditions, construction, and other facts can matter, and each case has to be evaluated on its own evidence. But the five-year standard shifts the starting point of the analysis. It is a reason to look hard at how the work was done, rather than accepting "the chemicals wore off" at face value. (For the broader catalog of denial tactics, see "The 19 Excuses Termite Companies Use to Deny Claims.")
How this connects to a negligence claim
Negligence is about the failure to use reasonable care. A licensed pest control company holds itself out as competent to apply termiticides correctly, and it is expected to do so with the care of a reasonable professional in that field. The classic negligence framework has four parts:
- Duty. The company owed a duty to apply the treatment (and perform inspections and retreatments) with reasonable professional care.
- Breach. It failed to meet that standard — for example, by under-applying, skipping areas, or botching a retreatment.
- Causation. That failure caused the reinfestation and the resulting damage.
- Damages. You suffered a loss — the cost to correct the infestation and repair the damage.
The EPA five-year standard is powerful on the breach and causation elements. If a competent applicator using a properly registered product should have achieved at least five years of control, then an early failure is evidence that the applicator did not meet the professional standard — and that the shortfall in the work, rather than the product, is what let the termites back in. It helps answer the company's inevitable "it's not our fault" defense with a standard the company itself is measured against. (For a full walk-through of the negligence elements, see our companion article, "Proving Negligence in a Termite Damage Case.")
How this connects to the bond and breach claims
The five-year standard also reinforces a breach-of-contract theory. Most termite bonds obligate the company to treat effectively and, when activity is found, to retreat. A treatment that fails well inside the five-year window is evidence that the company did not perform the treatment obligation properly in the first place. And if the company was notified of activity and failed to retreat — or retreated so poorly that the infestation continued — that is a straightforward failure to do what the bond requires.
Alabama courts have recognized that ineffective termite treatment can support substantial recovery. In Orkin Exterminating Co. v. Donavan, 519 So. 2d 1330 (Ala. 1988), an improper and ineffective treatment left a home heavily infested, and the Alabama Supreme Court upheld a $60,000 verdict and approved mental-anguish damages for breach of a termite-protection contract affecting the home's habitability. Donavan illustrates that a failed treatment is not just a technical dispute — it can be the basis of a real claim with meaningful damages. (For the mechanics of a bond breach, see "Breach of a Termite Bond.")
The evidence problem: don't repair before you document
Here is where many strong cases are quietly lost. The physical evidence of a bad application — the untreated gaps, the pattern of reinfestation, the extent and character of the damage — often gets destroyed the moment repairs begin. Once new lumber is in place and the treated soil is disturbed, it becomes much harder to show what actually happened.
So before anything is repaired:
- Photograph and video everything. Capture the infestation, the mud tubes, the damaged wood, and the surrounding conditions from multiple angles.
- Retain physical samples. Keep pieces of damaged wood and, where possible, evidence of where and how the treatment was (or was not) applied.
- Preserve records. Save the original treatment records, the bond, inspection reports, any termite letters, renewal receipts, and all correspondence with the company. In termite litigation, the disappearance of a company's own records has itself been significant.
- Consider an independent inspection. An independent, qualified inspector can document conditions before repairs and may be able to identify application deficiencies.
- Do not let the company control the narrative or the cleanup. If the company wants to repair or re-treat immediately, make sure the evidence is fully documented first.
Preserving this evidence is what lets an attorney and any experts later connect the reinfestation back to a failed application rather than to a phantom "chemical breakdown."
What to do
- Question the "it wore off" explanation. Ask when the treatment was done and what product was used. A failure well inside five years is a red flag for a bad application.
- Get the denial and the explanation in writing. Pin the company to a specific reason.
- Preserve all evidence before any repair or re-treatment. This is the single most important step, and it is easy to get wrong under pressure.
- Collect the paperwork. Treatment records, the bond, inspection reports, termite letters, and correspondence.
- Mind the deadlines. Negligence and fraud claims carry time limits. In Alabama, many tort claims run on a two-year period, with fraud accruing on discovery. See Ala. Code § 6-2-38(l) and Ala. Code § 6-2-3.
- Consult counsel early. A termite litigation attorney can evaluate whether the failure points to negligence, breach, or both, and can help ensure the evidence is preserved.
Closing
The EPA's five-year field-testing standard is one of the most useful facts a homeowner can know. It turns "the chemicals just wore off" from a conversation-ending excuse into a question worth investigating — because a product proven to control termites for at least five years usually does not fail early on its own. When a treated home is reinfested inside that window, the more likely story is a failed application or a missed retreatment, and that is exactly the kind of failure that negligence and breach claims are designed to address. Protect the evidence, gather the records, and have the situation reviewed before you accept that the product simply gave out.
Talk to Yates Anderson
If a pest-control company has denied a termite claim, buried damage, or filed an inspection you believe was wrong, the analysis above only goes so far. Request a case evaluation and a Yates Anderson attorney will respond within one business day.
Informational only. Not legal advice. No attorney-client relationship is created by reading this post. Consult a licensed attorney in your jurisdiction.