Tips For Dealing With Drywood Termites In Your Home

Your home is one of the most expensive assets you'll ever own, and termites can cause a lot of damage to it. If you think that you have a drywood termite infestation, it will help to know some tips for getting rid of them for good.

Identity The Termites

The first thing you need to do is identify that the termites are actually drywood termites. If you see swarmer drywood termites, you'll notice that the pest has a body that is reddish-brown in color and has two pairs of wings that are the same size. They generally live in wood but will leave their colony once they fully mature. 

However, there are also soldier termites, which have a cream-colored body with a rectangular head that is orange in color. The front part of the body will have large mandibles that are used to protect the colony from potential intruders. Worker termites are cream-colored and make up the vast majority of the termites in a colony. They do most of the damage to your home by collecting and eating the cellulose.

If you can't see the termites, then you'll likely see the signs of an infestation. For instance. the swarmer termites will leave their wings behind. You'll also notice mud tubes leading to your home and going into small cracks. Termites can also leave droppings behind, which look like granular pellets. 

Control The Termites 

You'll want to treat the wood in your home with a pesticide that is designed to get rid of the termites for good. You can mix the pesticide in a pump sprayer and apply it directly to the woods so that it kills the worker termites as they feed on the wood. 

You'll also want to go around your home and seal up the small cracks and crevices where they may be getting inside. This can be done with a special type of spray foam that you apply by inserting in these cracks, and it is designed to get deep in the crevices and fill in any tunnels that were formed. 

Prevent The Termites From Returning

You can place termite prevention stations around your homes. There are stakes that you can place in the ground, which have a wooden rod inside them. When the wooden rod is eaten by the termites, you can see inside the top of the station that the wood had dropped to confirm that it's being eaten. You can inject the station with a pesticide so that any termites that eat the wood in the station will be killed off. 

For more information on termites, contact pest control services near you.