Within the Institute Building’s gleaming, palatial exterior lies the carnage of a years-long war with a hidden enemy almost too small to be seen — termites. Over the better part of the last decade, University facilities staff and teams of pest exterminators battled with hordes of termites that caused devastating damage to the building’s southwestern wing. New documents and photos reveal the extent of termite damage to the now-closed southwestern wing of the building, and the secret story of the battle to hold the insects responsible.
In late 2018, pieces of ceiling plaster inside the Institute Building began falling to the floor. Spurred by the alarming decay in the building’s condition, a structural engineering inspection found water in the building’s walls, ceilings, and floors. But it was a look below the carpet that horrified the inspectors. An enormous nest of termites was within the third and fourth floors of the building, home to an army that had burrowed through the hardwood floor joists and was eating its way through the heritage building. In a report, the inspector noted that based on the “severity of the damage… it seems to be the termite entrance gate into the building.”
Caption: The Institute Building termite nests. (Source: TTW 2019)
Building occupants were left with only one option — a full-scale retreat. The inspector immediately recommended that access to the third and fourth floors be restricted due to the structural floor damage and ordered an extensive inspection of the entire building “to identify the extent of [the] termite invasion.”
A key vulnerability in the fortress that is the Institute Building is the abysmal state of its waterproofing. Water damage is a notorious feature of the building, and a key risk factor for termite invasion. The building’s heritage listing also hampers effective defensive measures, with repairs made more complex and expensive given that structural repairs must be concealed beneath the building’s exterior.
By September 2019, a Rentokil battlefield inspection found live termites on the second, third and fourth floors of the southwestern wing, with “severe structural damage” and water damage around the termite mothership. For the first time, the inspectors unmasked the enemy they were fighting, naming the invaders as dreaded coptotermes termites. Coptotermes is known as the most economically destructive genus of termites on the planet and is responsible for up to a billion dollars’ worth of damage around Australia each year. According to University of Sydney termite expert Maxim Adams, “coptotermes colonies typically establish in the bases of tree trunks or the subfloors of houses, then progressively tunnel through any wood they can find.”
Rentokil’s report noted “extensive fungal decay” from water seepage under the termite-ridden wing of the building and recommended improving the disastrous subfloor ventilation. Part of the reason the termite hordes had managed to overrun the building in such short order was the failure of the buildings “termite shields” — metal barriers designed to reduce termite movement — which the report found to be inadequate and in urgent need of replacement.
A host of other issues compromised the building’s natural defences against incursion: downpipes were unconnected to drains and filled by overhanging trees, and the building’s concrete slab sat too low to the ground, allowing the six-legged siege engines to roll right into the building’s foundations.
Together, these failings made the building a soft target at “very high” risk of future infestation. The building’s human defenders decided to get serious. Rentokil recommended installation of a chemical soil treated zone, termite monitoring systems, drilling of trees to inspect for colonies, repair of the termite shields, fixes to drainage and biannual termite inspections “to determine presence or otherwise of live concealed termite activity.”
Yet despite the recommendations, structural engineers from Taylor Thomson Whitting (TTW) consultancy wrote in a November 2022 dispatch that despite Rentokil’s call to arms three years earlier, no remedial action had been taken. Only temporary props had been installed to stop the third floor from collapsing, yet it still “deflect[ed] significantly when walked on.” Water damage had become severe, with an “extremely high” risk of further termite attacks. TTW engineers recommended an inspection of the entire building by a termite specialist “to identify the extent of termite invasion especially to the structural timber joists… It is recommended to carry out treatments to eradicate the termites and to protect the building.”
Photos of the building’s quarantined wing revealed a dire situation, with debris strewn in corridors and ceilings falling to pieces.
Caption: Water and termite damage to the Institute Building. (Source: TTW 2022)
Thankfully, the end of 2022 finally brought with it the end of the termite colony. “There are no more termites,” declared waterproofing experts in a January 2023 building report. The University was left to pick up the pieces from half a decade of termite takeover, beginning with “the extreme stench of stale water and rotten wood” in the building’s roof. Inspections revealed that a woeful lack of rooftop waterproofing around the building’s stonework and gutters had caused water damage that assisted the ravenous termites for years.
To this day, most of the Institute Building’s derelict southwestern wing remains sealed. Termite inspectors slowly pace through the building every few months, tapping walls to check that termites have not returned to the scene of one of their greatest campus conquests. An uneasy peace has settled over City Road, but how long it will hold is anyone’s guess. And inside the building’s southwestern wing, dozens of rooms still lie empty in quiet disrepair, victims of the University’s hungriest residents.
