THE annual battle between local homeowners and invading termites is well and truly under way, the Shanghai Greenery and Public Sanitation Bureau said yesterday.

People have been reporting evidence of the diminutive pests since February, and these are likely to continue until the end of June, the bureau said.

Zhou Songxin, an exterminator with Shanghai Xufang Greenery Co in Xuhui District, said that the yearly conflict with the tenacious ticks is most definitely on.