If you wait until after the bamboo sends shoots that leaf out all the way, those rhizomes underneath the house will be de-energized by then, and you can kill them off by simply severing them from the mother plant which requires digging a trench.

Some regrowth may occur on the other side, but most of it should rot away. Bamboo also can't thrive under shady conditions.

Thx for the affirmation; I was hoping that the bamboo couldn't live in the shade, and thank goodness I only let it spread to a small area. Actually, it did spread to one other spot in my yard where it sent up 4 huge culms, bigger around and taller than the clump it came from. People would stop and look at them as they passed by, but our recent ice storm broke them and now I'll dig the roots. It seemed that when the bamboo broke out of its clump, it had enough energy to send up a much much larger culm, which surprised me (since I only planted bamboo, and didn't know much about the consequences).

If you keep a trench there, or install a barrier, that will deflect any rhizomes from crossing into territory you don't want to because they have pretty shallow rhizomes that would be the only reason why you have it spreading.

If you have a screening type bamboo in zone 8, those can spread like 20ft in a season as you have the fastest spreading type along with a conductive climate for them to run rampantly.

If they got fried from this winter, the re-growth may be smaller, but if you want to get rid of the bamboo altogether, all you need to do is get a lopper, or chainsaw, wait until new shoots reach full height, then cut everything low enough so a lawn mower can run over it no problem, and then that should be close to a finishing blow without a need to dig anything out.

Thx Stevelau for the info. I'm going to dig a trench and put in a barrier and also cut and dig out the rhizomes. Lots of ppl have asked me for "starts" and I enjoy explaining how bamboo grows. So I'll have lots of rhizomes to share. I definitely do not want to get rid of it. I planted the large tall running bamboo with the "fishing pole" clumping bamboo, and it looks good together. I need to get back into my bamboo book and re-identify what I have so I can speak a bit more intelligently about them.

If you post some pictures and it happens to be a common species, I might be able to identify it.

Just hit the browse button, and select a file to post just like this for example.