Termites can cause a lot of damage to your home. In fact, the termite problem in the U.S is so bad they cause about $5 billion in damages each year. It doesn’t matter where you are, what home you have. All homes are potential termite invasion sites. All this means that you need to be vigilant. Another thing that you need to be aware of is that termite damage is not always included in your home insurance policy cover. So, that means you will have to pay for all the repairs yourself, and if the problem has been going for a long time, you are going to have a financial disaster on your hands.
Headbanging
Termite soldiers raise the alarm in the colony to any danger by banging their heads onto the wood. When this happens, you may well hear a clicking sound emanating from your walls. Other sounds you may hear are termites eating your wood as they are loud eaters. Place your ear against your wall and listen to anything unusual.
Flying Termites
If you see any flying termites, otherwise known as swarmer’s, there is a huge chase that you have n invasion. Termites generally fly from the nest when they are ready to mate and start their own colonies, which could be in your house. Some termite species are attracted to lights, and some are known to swarm drawing daylight hours. Other termites, such as dry wood termites, generally tend to emerge after the rain.
Piles of Wings
Sometimes you will only notice piles of discarded wings lying about. Shortly after they have flown, the swarmer’s, or flying termites, will shed their wings, ready to munch on a new house.
Dry Mud Tubes
If you see strange-looking tunnel-shaped or tubes running along the side of your foundations, you need to take action. You probably have termites. If you want to do some further investigation, take a look in your crawl space, and you may well identify the problem there too. Call pest control straight away. Termites are subterranean creatures and like dark, moist places. So they construct these tunnels to remain in this condition while they cause havoc on different areas of your home. Fortunately, these tunnels are really easy to see, but it may indicate that the problem is quite pronounced.
Hollow Wood
Hollow wood, where there should be unhollow wood, is a sure warning sign that you agave a termite invasion. Do a little investigation and knock on your wood. If it sounds like it’s hollow, or has a papery sound, be warned. Sometimes the termites will eat so much wood that all that remains in the paint over the top of the wood, and this can cause holes when you knock it. Termites live underground, and that means they will chow your wooden beams from the inside out. They will attack any wooden feature, window frames, door frames, beams, floorboards, etc. Sometimes you may notice cracks or warping or blistering woods too. So, be wise to these warning signs.
