When most Singaporeans think about termites, they picture something happening beneath their feet: tunnels in the soil, damage to skirting boards, a ground-floor problem in a landed property. The assumption is that height offers protection. The higher up you live, the thinking goes, the less you need to worry.
Dr. Foo has spent decades studying multiple types of termites across Singapore’s and Malaysia’s urban environment, and she is direct about this assumption: it is wrong.
"Despite having built many seemingly large and impenetrable concrete, steel, and glass-clad high-rise structures, termites have found their way in," she says. "They have adapted well and survived Singapore's urban transformation."
Understanding how, and where, requires a closer look at the buildings themselves.
The soil mixes used in high-rise planting areas typically contain organic material, and the mulch commonly laid over them, consisting of wood chips, bark, and grass clippings, is a direct food source for termites.
The planting beds themselves, often built as waterproofed troughs with significant depth to support root growth, create moist, sheltered microenvironments that termite colonies find extremely hospitable.
Once established in a rooftop garden or a green wall, a colony has access to the building's structure through the very pipes, conduits, and drainage systems that keep the garden alive.
"The mere act of introducing soil and plants to create gardens inadvertently brings all types of garden creatures into the structure, including the termite," Dr. Foo notes.
The hidden termite highway inside every high-rise
To understand how termites move through a multi-storey building, it helps to think about what lies behind the walls and beneath the floors of a modern high-rise. Service risers run vertically from basement to roof, carrying electrical cables, telecommunications lines, water supply pipes, sanitary drainage, and rainwater discharge systems. These risers pass through every floor of the building, and at each penetration point, there is a potential gap.
During construction, pipe sleeves are cast into concrete walls and floors to allow cables and pipes to be threaded through later. Fire-stop systems and multi-cable seals are designed to close these gaps, but installation is rarely perfect, and over time, even small fissures are enough.
Termites do not need much space. They need only a crack wide enough to begin building their shelter tubes, and from there, they can travel vertically through a building's infrastructure with remarkable efficiency.
Termite hotspots in skyscrapers
Dr. Foo highlights several specific locations in high-rise buildings that are particularly vulnerable:
- electrical substations: where cable trenches provide direct access from the ground; bin chutes, where moisture accumulates and wooden formwork is sometimes left behind during construction.
- telecommunications switch rooms: where external communication cables enter the building.
- toilet areas: where incoming water supply pipes and floor drainage systems create consistent moisture and multiple entry points.
In each of these locations, the combination of moisture, concealment, and structural complexity gives termites both the conditions they need and the cover they require to go undetected for extended periods.
Termite inspection can be a challenge
Dr. Foo describes this challenge candidly. Termite activity in a high-rise building often goes undetected until it surfaces as visible damage, by which point the colony has typically been established for some time.
The reactive detection model that is standard across much of Singapore's pest management industry, waiting for signs of damage before investigating further, is particularly ill-suited to the hidden complexities of multi-storey buildings.
This is why she advocates for proactive monitoring as the only genuinely effective approach. Knowing where the vulnerabilities are, which areas carry the highest risk of termite entry, and monitoring those points continuously rather than periodically, is what separates a management programme that prevents damage from one that simply responds to it.
What residents and facility managers should know
For residents in high-rise developments, the practical takeaway is straightforward: the absence of visible termite activity is not evidence of its absence. Termites move through spaces you cannot see, along routes that are rarely inspected, in buildings whose complexity works in their favour.
Facility managers in commercial and residential high-rises should ensure that pest management programmes specifically account for the building's green infrastructure, its service riser penetration points, and its moisture-prone areas such as water features, planters, and drainage systems. These are not standard elements of a generic pest inspection. They require professionals with the specific knowledge to assess them.
Staying ahead: Anticimex offers real-time termite monitoring
Dr. Foo is clear that this is not a counsel of despair. "Not only does one need to understand termite control measures, but it is also imperative to have a comprehensive understanding of how complex high-rise structures are constructed," she explains.
The knowledge exists. Applied correctly, with the right monitoring tools and a genuinely proactive approach, it is possible to manage termite risk effectively in even the most complex urban buildings.
For architects and developers, the conversation starts even earlier
Pre-construction termite management, treating and proofing a building before it is completed, is significantly more effective and less disruptive than post-construction intervention.
Anticimex works with developers and construction teams at the planning stage, identifying the specific penetration points, planting areas, and moisture-prone zones that carry the highest termite risk, and putting protection in place before the building is handed over.
Dr. Foo is clear that this integrated approach, combining biological knowledge, proactive monitoring technology, and early-stage construction planning, is what genuinely effective termite management looks like in Singapore's high-rise landscape. The termites have adapted to the vertical city. With iTAS and a properly structured programme, facility managers, developers, and building owners don't have to wait to find out the hard way.
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