Angela and Patrick Beyers have been running from the truth for years. It was back in 1993 that they discovered the first crumbling floorboard in their house in the Gentilly neighborhood of New Orleans. They found the second a short while later. "Of course we knew," says Angela. "But we didn't talk about it. We just kind of pretended it wasn't happening."
But two months ago the truth finally became impossible to ignore. A tiny mound of dried mud appeared on the bathroom ceiling; when Patrick scraped it aside and peered into the quarter-size hole underneath, he saw them--pale white termites,...