Did you know that termites never sleep? They stay up all day and night building their colonies, and they could be doing so in your home right now. Thinking about the damage they could be doing to your home may keep you awake at night too!
To the untrained eye, termite damage can go unnoticed for months or years. If there is even a small warning sign of an infection, it is imperative that you take control of the situation and start to eliminate them as soon as possible.
Preventative Measures
Besides being hyper-observant, there are some actions that you can take to make sure termites don’t continue to get into your home. This could be removing yard clutter like firewood, old piles of wood or stumps and rerouting gutters to deposit water, so it is away from your foundation.
Making sure any entrances are covered could also help keep termites at bay. This means inspecting and replacing decks, fences and other wooden structures. Another effective solution would be to add steel mesh to vents or adding certain fungi to keep termites away.
You can install a waterproof membrane to your house’s foundation to cut off the termite’s water access, which they need for consumption and nest-building. Sandy soil will also slow them down.
Killing Termites
Chemical Solutions
This includes using bait that you put around the area of the colony that they can feed on that slowly kills them. Other chemical solutions include:
- Liquid pesticides-this treatment is added to the soil and is specifically formulated to kill termites.
- Building materials- much like the aforementioned barriers, there are structures that you can have around your house that come infused with pesticides in them to keep termites away.
- Wood treatments- this is an as-needed chemical that you can add to your wood.
It is imperative that you follow the directions and instructions for these chemicals precisely, because, if used improperly, they can affect nearby water systems. This can make them ineffective and can harm you or your family.
Non-Chemical Solutions
If you are against using chemicals and want a more natural solution to eliminating your termite infestation, try these solutions:
- Cardboard traps-when cardboard gets wet, it makes the perfect cellulose-infused meal for termites. Place it near a colony and let them come to you then burn them.
- Sunlight- Natural light is deadly for terminates, so exposing a colony to it can be a fast way to kill them. If sunlight is impossible to get, using UV lights is a good substitute.
- Nematodes-along with certain fungi, nematodes feed off of termites and are easy to get.
The Best Way to Eliminate Your Termite Infestation
The most guaranteed way to eliminate termites is to hire a professional. The experts at Germantown Pest Control & Termite are willing to come to you and deploy methods that are continuously proven to eliminate termites before more harm is done.