When working on a home improvement project, you’re probably thinking about ways to make your house more appealing. New paint cover, new cabinets, new trimming... An appealing home is a great idea, but there’s one thing you absolutely do not want to attract into your Lewisville house: termites.
Termites can create long-term, irreversible damage to your Texas house if the problem is left untreated. These pests will undo all of your home improvements, weakening your floorboards, foundation, and furniture with barely a trace. The best way to get rid of termites is to prevent them from coming in at all, so let’s explore how you can make your Lewisville home less appealing to termites.
Other Termite Attractions
Termites are some of the hardiest creatures on earth, which makes them attracted to a lot of different things that culminate in their ideal habitat. These include:
- Dark, undisturbed spaces: termites thrive where people can’t reach them, whether it’s piles of junk in the front yard or the space below a heavy appliance. Make sure your spring cleaning is thorough and reaches every possible square inch of your home.
- Accessible wood and cellulose: if you have lumber piles or other organic material in large quantities near the foundation of your home, you can bet that termites will make it their home, too.
- Excess foliage: if leaves are scattered everywhere or clogged in your drain pipes and gutters, termites will find food and shelter in these leaf piles, then move into your home when the leaf piles run out.
Preparing for a termite infestation helps guarantee that it never happens. However, even the best prevention plans aren’t perfect, because termites are small, persistent critters. If you find yourself dealing with an infestation, don’t wait a minute longer - contact the Lewisville professionals today at Texas Star Pest and Termite.
Termites In The House
If you’ve never seen a termite before, you’re lucky. They’re not the prettiest insects out there. Termites have whitish, rounded bodies that grow to about ¼ of an inch. They have six, slightly bent legs, straight antennae, and their bodies often look mildly transparent. You may see wings on a termite, but these wings are only used in the springtime by “swarmers” - a special group of termites looking to colonize in new places.
If termites colonize near your house, the damage they can do is extensive and can affect every part of the property. Termites will eat any organic matter that holds up your house, so the wood and insulation in your foundation, floorboards, walls, ceiling, and furniture are all fair game. Prolonged termite problems result in sagging, buckling ceilings, discolored paint, weakened floorboards, and indented furniture - costing U.S. homeowners over $5 billion annually.
Termite infestations are notoriously hard to get rid of because they create tunnels in the ground beneath your property. Exterminators must perform extensive fumigation and pest control in order to kill off the deepest layers of the colony, otherwise, they will continue to reproduce. So the best termite solution is a termite prevention plan.
What Attracts Termites To My House?
Termites find your house attractive for a whole list of reasons, but the biggest factor to watch out for is moisture. A colony won’t survive for long if it doesn’t receive adequate moisture in and beneath your floorboards. Of course, water is everywhere, so you can’t dry your house out completely; however, if you have a leaky pipe that runs into your home’s crawl spaces, or if too much rainwater drains into the soil around your house, it could be enough to call a termite’s attention, and an infestation could soon follow.
An easy prevention tip is to assess the moisture around your property, especially in your soil and crawl spaces. An local exterminating service like Texas Star Pest and Termite can assess your home’s moisture and make recommendations. If you do need to dry out your house, you can fix those leaky pipes and divert water away from your property using gutters and downspouts. Contact us and schedule your inspection today!