T-Word

Have you ever been trapped in a basement apartment with 400,000 swarming termites?
I have.
After they were done, my house was full of dead termites, which I swept up and placed in a heaping pile in the main foyer of the apartment so that my half-dozen upstairs neighbors could see what was living in the walls of their $1000 a month ( 199o's) apartments.
I was trying to get my negligient landlord to let me break my lease, and those bugs did the trick.

Termites are a homeowner's nightmare. During my various temp jobs in real estate and insurance, I learned the true power of the T-word- agents and adjusters spoke it in hushed tones, as termites mean spending lots of money. A Termite Report can make or break a deal, which also involves money and risk.

Which brings us to the other T-Word: Terrorist.

If Terrorists were Termites , this is how our War On Terra might look:

House has termites. Lots of them.
Spread poisoned sawdust out as termite bait. This is obviously a really stupid idea, but somehow you convince your spouse that it'll not only work, it'll save you thousands of dollars.
This kills a few termites , but the rest mutate into Terromites and adapt to the poison in the sawdust, converting it into food and using all the free fuel to breed faster than ever before.

After the spreading of the sawdust fails, the next step is to rid your home of terromites by using a wooden baseball bat to smash the walls. The smashed walls are even easier for the termites to devour - the faster you smash , the faster they eat, hastening the collapse of your building.

What happens after that? You are homeless and you now have a reputation for being the kind of fellow who smashes the walls of his house with baseball bats.

And all your money is gone.