Subterranean termites cause millions of dollars in damages to buildings every year. You cant hear or smell them while they eat away at your biggest investment, your home. You can pay lots of money for a Pest Control Service to do an annual inspection or you can save lots of money by inspecting your own home. It is not difficult, all you need is a little knowledge and your eyes.
Subterranean termites need moisture and wood to grow their colony. Unfortunately, this makes our homes prime candidates. Our homes contain lots of wood and our roofs shed large amounts of moisture into concentrated areas via our gutter downspouts. We even make it worse by building nice dark and damp crawlspaces. Your best defense against these pesky critters is vigilance.
First off, try to make your house not so appealing to termites. You can do this by making sure your gutters are working properly and that the downspouts are carrying rain water away from your foundation. Next make sure your sprinklers are not soaking the side of the house and make sure your outside water spigots are not dripping. Do not stack firewood close to your house either. Now that you have cleaned up around the outside of your house, you can take a look inside your crawlspace. You need to remove any debris under your house, especially wood. Make sure there are no water leaks or pipe condensation occurring too. Okay, you have completed all these tasks and now you are ready to save some money and inspect your house for signs of termite activity. You will need a flashlight and some patience. Simply walk the perimeter of your house and look at the foundation for shelter tubes, sometimes called mud tubes. This is really easy to do if you know what they look like (See Pictures). Termites build these tubes from dirt in order to protect themselves when they travel from the ground to their food source, aka your house.
Now that you have checked the outside of your home, it’s time to go crawl around in your crawlspace. It’s very uncomfortable under there, so prepare yourself to be patient and take your time. Use your flashlight and inspect all the interior walls and any support columns for shelter tubes. This means crawling slowly over the entire foundation. Remember that Subterranean termites do not live in your house, they need to return to the ground to get food back to the colony, just like ants.
Now that you have completed your inspection, lets hope you didn’t find any signs of active termites. If you did find shelter tubes, knock them down. If you knock them down but didn’t see any termites, come back in a few days to see if they are built again. This will let you know there is an active colony at work. Now lets go with the worst case scenario and say you have an active colony. Don’t spaz, your house wont collapse anytime soon. You have some options as to what you should do about it. You can call a pest control company to come and treat the area with a termiticide or you can purchase and apply a termiticde yourself. If you do the latter, make sure you follow any applicable laws and follow the manufacturers instructions. Happy Termite hunting!