How do you prevent termites?
Keeping termites out of your home begins with maintaining the exterior of your house. Remove wet or rotted wood near the house and trim back shrubs and bushes that have grown too close to the foundation. Avoid having areas with excess moisture by fixing leaky water hoses and making sure that water slopes away from the house. Store firewood away from the home. Seal cracks and crevices in your foundation with silicone. Create an 18-inch wide border of stones or gravel, beginning at the base of the foundation, to separate landscaping from the house and help prevent these pests from getting inside. All of these practices will help eliminate shelter for termites.
Benefits of Professional Termite Pest Control
A subterranean termite problem is best addressed by a pest management professional who has the education, equipment, and skills needed. Finding and treating the subterranean termites can be difficult, especially hidden inside the wood of your home. A pest management professional provides the expertise to identify the pest problem and determine the best possible solution to resolve the termite infestation.
Termite Identification
The size of an adult termite ranges from ½ inch to about an inch. All termite colonies have a social caste system made up of workers, soldiers, and reproductives (also known as swarmers or alates). Workers are a milky white color with a dark head and no wings. Soldiers are a similar color but have large mandibles to help defend the nest. Reproductives can range from tan to reddish brown to almost black depending on the species. They have two pairs of wings and a pair of bead-like antennae.
Swarming termites are often misidentified as winged ants. There are a couple of key differences between these two insects that homeowners should know when determining a pest problem. Termites have two pairs of wings that are the same size while ant wings are unequal. Ants also have a tiny “pinched” waist while termites have a broad waist that hardly tapers.