Termite Identification & Prevention

Termites are social insects of the order Blattodea that live in huge colonies. Each termite colony has fertile males called kings and at least one queen that rules the roost, mating with the males and laying eggs for the entire colony. Lower castes are normally sterile and divided into workers and soldiers. Termites mostly eat cellulose and other plant material. Their favorite thing to chow down on is wood – which is why they're such a threat.

Termites are incredibly dangerous to your home. They love to eat wood, and their constant snacking means they carve deep tunnels and trenches through whatever wood they infest, weakening its internal structure. If they're doing this to your home's support beams, wall studs, or floor joists, then the damage they cause can lead to a total loss if left untreated.

Termites eat the wood they infest, meaning that, unlike ants and other common pests, they don't have to forage for food; this often means termites can infest your home for months or even years while you're none the wiser because you'll never see one. You need to look for signs of termites.

In the early stages of a termite infestation, you may not see many signs of them. However, during the later stages, you will notice damage like buckled floors, bulging walls, warped window and door frames, sagging ceilings, pinholes in drywall, and piles of termite sawdust.

You may also notice other signs like rustling sounds in walls or mud tubes around your foundation. 

You'll find termites anywhere there's wood. That means they could be in your walls, floor, or ceiling. They may also be infesting your deck, stairs, railing, or other wooden elements in your home. Any wood is fair game, but rotten or damaged wood is especially likely to host termites because softer wood is easier to carve through.

There's virtually no way for homeowners to get rid of termites on their own. Termite colonies are complex and often vast entities with multiple queens. Mature colonies also create nearby satellite nests, meaning there might be smaller nests you miss when trying to get rid of the big ones.

If you try to handle termites on your own, you're seldom doing anything more than temporarily reducing your termite population and making room for the smaller nests you missed to grow. That's why you need to contact the experts at Bite Away Termite & Pest Control for total termite control services as soon as you notice signs of a possible termite infestation. 

There may not be much you can do to eliminate termites, other than professional pest control, once you already have them, but there's plenty you can do to prevent an infestation in the first place. These include storing firewood off the ground and away from your home's exterior, trimming trees and shrubs back away from your house, keeping a barrier of bare dirt between mulch and your home, making sure all wooden components of your home are hard and dry and sealing cracks and holes in your home's exterior.

You must take as many termite prevention measures as possible because termites are some of the toughest and most expensive pests to eliminate after an infestation. Reach out to us today to learn more about our home pest control options in San Diego.