I don't mind a couple for a small hint of flavour in various foods. With baked apples you push a couple in, then discard once cooked. Yummy. Or with silverside, boil with cloves, vinegar and brown sugar. The hint of flavour is nice. Too many though and your tongue tingles in quite an odd way...
Use the pure baby talc, unscented, and make sure when you use it you don't have it in a fog type situation. When I use it in my wooden enclosure, I puff it into the cracks, and then use a dry chux to wipe the excess out. When I use it around other enclosures, I sprinkle it around the outside where the snakes don't go anyway.
Anyway, if it happened, I doubt that a small amount of talc in the lungs would do any more damage than the residual TOD chemical would.
There is a modicum of truth to this, however, it is very overplayed. Daily I hear people tell me this and I have to smile. (Yes, I work in the Termite Industry)
Termites and ants, if their paths cross, will fight and the black ant does have a small advantage being better suited to our external conditions and not requiring the safety of the warmth and humidity that the termite does. However, the termite has a nasty pair of 'nippers' at the front that will dispatch a black ant pretty quickly.
Black ants will raid a termite nest for the tender young as they make a tasty snack.
However, black ants and termites have been found, often, to cohabit a single dwelling, passing within millimetres of each other, fighting occassionally and getting over the spats, and travelling around, with only thin wall of timber between, without eliminating one of the other species.
So, black ants about, your chances of termites might be marginally lessened (depending on circumstances, black ants might repel a termite foray party for example), but not enough to warrant the damage and inconvenience caused by black ants in your home.
Incidently, black ants can cause significant amounts of timber damage too. They tunnel it for access to other areas, and live happily within it. They dispose of the sawdust, rather than going munchity crunch, so those little piles of fine sawdust you see about was the result of black ants.
(Edit note: Couldn't spell sugar
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