What to Do About a Termite Infestation in Your Home

As a homeowner, you may prioritize protecting your home from a variety of pests. You may take decisive action to prevent bugs like roaches and spiders from getting inside.

Additionally, you must remain vigilant and take proactive measures to safeguard your house from termites. When you suspect you have them in your home, you can eliminate them effectively by hiring a professional exterminator service to find and treat your home for a termite infestation.

What is a Termite Infestation?

A termite infestation stems from termites in an outdoor colony making their way inside of your home. Termites by nature eat through materials like cardboard, wood and paper. Out in the wild, they serve an important purpose by eating the cellulose in dead or dying trees and plants. 

Inside of a home, however, they can wreak expensive and ruinous damages progressively over the course of several years. By the time you confirm their presence, you may have thousands’ worth of damages to your home.

With that, it can pay for you to know how to detect the presence of termites quickly. Some of the tell-tale signs of a termite infestation include:

• Hollow sounding wood

• Blistered wood floors

• Mud tubes

• Discarded termite wings

• Pellets or frass

• Termite droppings

• Bubbling or warped paint or drywall

You can also determine that you have a termite infestation if you see swarmer termites in your home. These termites fly away from their original colonies and start their own once they are inside of your house.

You may see them when you remodel your house, for example, and remove materials like cabinetry or drywall. Their presence can confirm that you may have a large termite infestation in your house that calls for professional pest extermination.

What to Do About a Termite Infestation in Your Home

Once you suspect or confirm that you have a termite infestation in your house, you should take quick and decisive action to get rid of it. You could try do-it-yourself methods, such as laying out bait traps to lure and kill termites. You can also buy liquid and non-liquid pest sprays at your local grocery store or hardware retailer.

However, many of the DIY methods available to you fail to get rid of termite infestations effectively. If anything, they may kill off a handful of adults and do little to nothing to exterminate the remaining termites, as well as any termite nests and eggs in your home.

Rather than continuously fight a termite infestation, you can hire a professional extermination service to come to your house to treat it for you. Professional exterminators know how to find termite infestations, detect how many and what kinds of termites you have in your home and use professional-grade chemicals and resources to get rid of a termite infestation.

Further, professional exterminators can offer continued treatment services to keep your house free from termites. You may avoid future infestations by entrusting the treatment of your house to an experienced pest control business.

Different Kinds of Termites to Know About

Finally, you may want to take note of the different kinds of termites that can make their way into your home. The most common kind are formosan subterranean termites. They get their name for their proclivity to live and remain underground for much of their existence.

They are difficult to detect because they thrive underground. However, once they get inside of your home, they can cause extensive damages to it.

The other common type of termite are drywood termites. These termites are typically not as destructive as the formosan subterranean variety. Still, they can cause enough damage that can cost you time and money to fix.

Within each termite colony, you will find several different types of termites. For example, swarmers are black or brown in color, have wings and are often as long as one inch.

You will also find worker termites and soldier termites. Worker termites are the most plentiful and are white in color while soldier termites have a yellowish color. Soldier termites protect their colonies from perceived threats like predators.

Some of the more common places to find termites in your home include the:

• Attic

• Baseboards

• Basement

• Door frames

• Windowsills

You may also commonly find them under the floorboards.

Termites can cause expensive and devastating damages to your home progressively over the course of several years. You can benefit from knowing the signs of a termite infestation and the types of termites that are in your home. You can also eliminate infestations by hiring a professional termite extermination service.

Written by Taylor McKnight, Author for North Mississippi Pest Control