When you look at your home, you probably see a comfortable place that you can relax in, sleep in, and where you can spend quality time with your family. When a termite looks at your home, he sees the same things, except they’re all included in a 24-hour buffet. This 24-hour buffet will let him eat constantly, live comfortably, and reproduce quickly. So essentially he looks at your house and sees a perfect termite Las Vegas. Termites are known as “silent destroyers,” because they can completely devastate a home’s flooring, roofing, foundation and furniture. They do this not by using tiny, bug-sized sledge hammers to knock wood down, but by chewing it and ripping it apart with their mouths. The good thing is, that termites don’t actually eat enough to tear down a home in a short amount of time. A termite colony can eat approximately one cubic foot of wood every six months. So if you catch and eradicate the little beasts early, your home will probably remain safe and sound. Unfortunately, while they might not do extreme amounts of damage to your home in a short amount of time, a termites infestation might go unnoticed for years at a time, in which case you’ll end up having to do a lot of repair and replacement on lost wood inside and outside for your home. Thus, termites can cause over $5 billion dollars in damages each year in the U.S. alone.
For being such a huge problem for homeowners, you would expect termites to be larger and more terrifying looking. Instead, Most termite species are ¼ an inch to an inch long. This is what a normal worker termite looks like:
Termites have flat soft bodies. Some termites have wings, if they are a special type of termite that is used for reproduction in the colony. These wings are generally teardrop shaped and the same size on either side of its body. Termites also have straight antenna and large strong jaws. They will also have six stubby legs attached to their bodies.
There are different kinds of termites in a colony, much like an ant colony. Termite colonies include egg laying queens, workers and soldiers. Pretty much each of these members of the colony could win the award for creepiest bug of all time. Just wait.
The worker termites are the ones you can blame everything on. These are the termites that eat the wood of your home, because they have special digestive enzymes that help them to eat wood. These workers will feed the rest of the colony using their partially digested meals. Apparently termites have no gag-reflex, because if this was how we here at Landmark Home Warranty would have to get our food, we would just be set on starving.
A soldier termite doesn’t really eat any actual wood, but they do have the fantastic ability to spray a noxious liquid through their nose, in order to keep ants away from their colony. This liquid will kill any ants that are trying to invade the termite’s tunnels. Soldier termites can’t actually feed themselves because their jaws are so big, so they must rely on worker termites to help them. This means that sometimes soldier termites are left to die during a fight if there is a tunnel breach. Once the breach in tunnel is fixed, soldier termites can’t get back into the colony, so they end up dying en masse.
A queen termite is a baby termite making machine, and can produce up to 30,000 eggs a day. Other termites called alates, or reproductive termites are infinitely more terrifying. Reproductive termites have wings, which is fine and all, until suddenly they start pouring out of your wood floor in giant clouds, trying to find a mate. They will cloud around lights and windows, trying to get out and find another termite to mate with. This is probably one of the most frightening sights you can see in your home, besides a person you don’t know walking up from your basement or out of your closet, or an empty refrigerator. A swarm of termites can be frightening for many reasons, one being the fact that a cloud of termites swarming your living room is disgusting, and second that it means a large, established termite colony is living in your home. Huzzah.
HOW DO YOU GET RID OF TERMITES?
Some people try to DIY their own pest control, but since termites move around and are hard to spot, this can proof problematic for homeowners. Most of the time it will seem like the termites have left, when instead they’ve moved to a different part of the house to wreck havoc there. The best way to get rid of termites is to catch them early. If you have caught them while they are young and in a smaller colony, they will most likely have not done as much damage to your home. However, when you first notice signs of termites, you should call a professional. Or if you have a home warranty company, you should call them. If you have the best home warranty, which is a Landmark Home Warranty, in the right state, you can get termites removed from your home for a fraction of the cost. Most pest control for termites will reach up to $3,000 for around $2,000 per square feet of a home. With a home warranty, homeowners can get their termite problem eradicated with only $195. If you want more information on how to protect your home from pests, or from failed or damaged home systems and appliances, go to Landmark Home Warranty’s website at www.LandmarkHW.com. There you can look up home warranty coverage, home warranty reviews, and see why Landmark is the best home warranty.