Spring has arrived throughout much our service area in Indiana, Kentucky and Illinois, which means we're getting more calls and questions about swarming insects. This is the time of year when insects are most likely to swarm, and there are two insects in particular that get noticed this time of year: carpenter ants and termites.
While carpenter ants and termites are usually quite stealthy, when the warm weather returns and the humidity climbs, mature carpenter ant and termite nests send out winged reproductives to locate and establish new nests. When these swarmers are launched from a nest inside a home or business, they can appear on interior and exterior walls in disturbing numbers.
When either of these two insects appears, it is vital to call a professional home pest control company to have your problem looked at. Carpenter ants and termites are destructive pests that can do a lot of a damage to a home.
Carpenter Ant Damage
These insects prefer wood that has been softened by water damage but they are more than capable of chewing through sound wood as they establish galleries and tunnel systems. This damage is usually done inside wood, but carpenter ants can also chew on external, exposed wood.
Damage from carpenter ants can have many visual traits. If you see wood that looks like it has been scraped or chipped, it could be these insects. Look for sawdust stuck to the wall or in a pile underneath kick out holes. Carpenter ants don't consume wood.
Termite Damage
These insects can feed on any type of wood but are drawn to water-damaged wood. This is partly due to their need for moisture. The termites we have here in Terre Haute are subterranean termites. These termites live in the soil and must build mud tubes on foundation walls to get to the wood of most homes. Like the sawdust left by carpenter ants, these mud tubes are a good indicator of which of these two insects you have.
Termites do almost all of their work on the inside of wood, unless they feed near moist ground or in a humid shaded area. Most often, termite damage looks like water damage: bulging walls, sagging floors, dipping ceiling, and bubbling wallpaper.
If you find termites or carpenter ant swarmers on your property, take action and call Action. Your home is a big investment. Don't trust your equity to just anyone. At Action Pest Control, we have the education, certifications, experience, and track record to get the job done right.
We can also protect your investment "before" it is damaged by these wood-destroying organisms. The termite protocols we use are effective at stopping termites in their tracks and use termite workers as a weapon against the colony that sent them. That is protection you can trust. Every time.