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Truly Nolen Treats Termites at the O.K. Corral
Ron DeSear and Larry Riggs are like any other “Old West” history buffs and they understand the historical significance of the town of Tombstone. Recently, DeSear and Riggs were working on their Holy Grail of projects — the O.K. Corral and several attached buildings.

The O.K. Corral was the site of possibly the most famous shootout in “Old West” history — the October 26, 1881, shootout between Wyatt, Virgil & Morgan Earp, Doc Holiday, the Clantons and the McLaurys. The gunfight at the O.K. Corral is reenacted there daily. In an attempt to preserve history, DeSear, Western U.S. operations manager, Truly Nolen of America, and Riggs, technical operations coordinator, Ensystex, banded together to protect the O.K. Corral and surrounding buildings from termites.

“Our Sierra Vista office services this area, and our Sierra Vista branch manager Bob Dillard had been working with the property’s owner, Bob Love, for quite some time,” said DeSear. “Once Mr. Love agreed to having us handle the job, we found even over 100 years later, the property still has a lot of original lumber, timber and walls — portions of which were infested with drywood termites.”

“Because Ron and I have known each other for many years and we are both history buffs, our company donated the product to Truly Nolen for the treatment process,” Riggs said.

 “I agreed that in order to preserve the historical buildings, this type of treatment is an absolute necessity,” said Love. “Truly Nolen is working around the schedules of our businesses which are open seven days a week, including the Historama, in order to get the job done as quickly as possible.”

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Fumigation Helps Preserve Nixon Birthplace Home
It’s well-documented that our nation’s 37th President, Richard Nixon, was a fastidious record-keeper. In fact, it can be argued that Nixon’s propensity to record conversations was instrumental in his demise (think Watergate). If Nixon were alive he probably would enjoy the collection of documents and memorabilia on display at both his birthplace home in Yorba Linda, Calif., and the adjacent Presidential Library on the same site. While the Library is a relatively new building and thus well preserved, the same cannot be said for the home, which was built by Nixon’s father, Frank Nixon, in 1912. It was facing a serious threat: termites.

After Mike Marquez, president of Pest Solutions, South Gate, Calif., discovered drywood termite fecal pellets in the attic, subcontractor Mega Fume, Orange, Calif., was brought in to fumigate the historic site using Vikane gas fumigant. A team of four licensed professionals from Mega Fume, led by President Dave Wadleigh, performed the work earlier this year.

Wadleigh said that the home sits on the original site because Nixon did not want to have it turned since it was built by his father, so it actually faces away from the library. Also, the Mega Fume team had to park about 200 feet away, so getting equipment there was a challenge. The Mega Fume team had to shoot (the fumigant) from about 150 feet away. “Since everything is so old, we did not want to have a fog out, and being so far away it eliminated that concern. The extra long lines were used to slow down the gases that shoot in. That minimized any chance of a fog out. It’s always a little tense working in a structure with items that can’t be replaced.”

Additionally, Wadleigh said security was tight and that Secret Service agents observed them during the entire fumigation.

Wadleigh said the structure was about 16,000 cubic feet (with the home being about 1,200 square feet) and the Mega Fume team shot 10 pounds of gas. He was impressed by the overall structure, which has been renovated throughout the years. “The main timbers are made from Redwood trees and that is something you will see with older homes in this area. Probably one of the reasons why the damage was minimal was because the Redwoods do sort of resist termites, but eventually the enzymes in the Redwoods will break down and the termites will infest it.” — Brad Harbison