Even if you do not have termites, you should have your home regularly inspected. You will generally have to do one when you are selling your house but all homeowners should think about having inspections done annually.
Termites are pretty slow to infest and damage a house but if you have recently had an infestation, you will want to get your property looked at every 3-4 months for a time afterwards.
Unlike many other pests, termites are something that it is usually not a good idea to try to deal with yourself. They are hard to kill, they often reinfest homes unless treatment is done professionally and they can infest parts of the home that are difficult to inspect.
Signs of possible termite infestation:
- Mud looking material on wooden surfaces - This can often be hard to see but termites will eat away at the interior of wood in your home. When it breaks or a hole is opened to the outside, they will try to patch it up. They use dirt as well as their own feces to create a substance to patch these holes and it looks like mud.
- Wings - When termites are swarming, they fly around and ultimately shed their wings. If termites have gotten into your house or near it after a swarm, you will see large piles of wings. Wings can be near you house either because a swarm has come by or because your house is infested and the swarm came from inside.
- Actual termites - Termites can be seen either inside the wood, in which case they usually look yellow or white, or outside as swarmers, in which case they will look like flying ants. If your house constantly has swarms of termites near it, it is likely that you or someone nearby has a colony in the home.
- Termite tubes - Subterranean termites, which are the kind that cause the vast majority of damage to homes, don't just live in wood like many people think. What they do is to burrow underground, like ants, where they get the moisture they need to survive. They then build their colony next to a source of wood for food and then burrow from the earth into the wood going back and forth between each to connect these earth and wood burrows. They then build termite tubes - little tunnels of earth running along your house that let them run back and for between the two. Look for tubes between the ground and any wood in your home. Try breaking them in one small spot if you see them. Usually, there will be little termites running around in it - and if the colony is active, the tube will eventually be repaired by the termites even if you don't see it immediately.
- Sawdust - If you see powder that looks like sawdust - that is a common sign of termites.
- Small holes in the surface of the wood - Another common sign of termites.
- Paint bubbles - If the paint is on a wood surface, you may see little bubbles in it from the termites eating the wood underneath.
- Check moist, dark areas - If you want to inspect your home for termites, you cannot just wander around the outside. Termites want a place where they can get both moisture and food. Look in all crawl spaces or areas under your house, any attics, your basement, any place you have in your house where you can see plumbing or pipes, cabinets and any place where you can see the foundation.
- Tap at wood with a hammer or blunt object - If it makes a hollow sound, there could be termites. Especially check structural wood that should not be hollow (i.e. it is pointless to do this to your walls).
- Pick at wood with a penknife in various places - If there are termites just under the surface, it will come apart instead of resisting it..