Treating & Preventing Termite Infestations on the Treasure Coast
Termites cause billions of dollars in damage in the United States every year. A majority of this damage is in the Southeast. While termite mitigation and repairs can be extremely expensive, prevention is cheap.
Most people are not particularly interested in the detailed minutia of a termite’s diet or swarming cycles. As a homeowner, you simply want to know whether your home is at risk of damage. With that in mind we will boil it down to the most important concepts to understand regarding termites in St Lucie and Martin County.
Types of Termites Most Common in St Lucie and Martin Counties of Florida
There are two broad categories of termite commonly found in homes on the Treasure Coast: Subterranean Termites & Drywood Termites, with numerous species in each category. Below is everything you need to know to protect your home.
Subterranean Termites
The Good News: Unlike drywood termites, termite bait stations can be used to prevent subterranean termite infestations. Termite bait stations are a highly effective and inexpensive means for preventing subterranean termites.
The Bad News: Subterranean termites are extremely destructive and can do a great deal of damage to a home in a fairly short amount of time. Still worse, Formosan Termites, an invasive species of subterranean termite, is becoming more common on the Treasure Coast. Formosan Termites form massive colonies that consume wood faster than any other species of termite found in Florida.
Subterranean termites infesting a block home with metal studs
A termite being attacked by a Fire Ant
Drywood termites
The Good News: The good news about drywood termites is that their colonies are relatively small. For this reason, they tend to do damage to homes much more slowly than subterranean termites do.
The Bad News: The bad news about drywood termites is the most effective method for eradicating them is to tent and gas the structure. Tenting can be somewhat expensive and inconvenient. The other bad thing about drywood termites is they are more difficult to prevent than subterranean termites.
Effective Subterranean Termite Prevention
1. Termite bait stations
Benefits of termite baiting programs
There are several benefits to termite baiting programs that make them superior to liquid chemical treatments.
- Insect Growth Regulators are safer, more effective, and more environmentally friendly than old-school trench and drench liquid treatments.
- Bait stations are less expensive. Chemical trench treatments are laborious, time consuming, difficult work. This translates into big bills for consumers.
- The termites do the work for you! Termite colonies constantly, incessantly search for food. Their quest for sustenance never ends. Therefore, they readily find and accept bait systems meant to eradicate them (Note: This doesn’t mean bait stations attract termites to your property. They don’t smell them from far away and come looking. Termites forage around in the soil hoping to come in contact with a food source. If termites find a bait station, it’s because they were there looking for food, not because they could sense the bait station from some far-off location.) Contrast this with liquid treatments, which, depending on the chemical used, termites may actively avoid. Keep in mind, this doesn’t mean avoiding your home, it only means avoiding the narrow barriers placed around your home, which termites can pass under or probe for gaps.
2. Liquid chemical trench treatments
Liquid chemical trench treatments are another option for prevention of subterranean termites. These treatments are sometimes called trench treatments because they involve digging a trench around a home in order to fill it with liquid termiticide. On the Treasure Coast where most homes have a patio of some sort, these treatments will also include drilling through any slabs that are adjacent to the main slab of the structure. For example, a porch or patio is often a different concrete pour than the slab that the house sits on. Where these slabs meet, a crack is formed that can allow termites to gain entry to the home. A liquid termite treatment would involve drilling holes into the outside slab to allow liquid treatment of the soil where the two slabs meet. Setting aside the large amount of chemical this sort of treatment requires, trench treatments have several issues that can reduce their efficacy.
- Trench treatments do not extend infinitely into the ground. Therefore, it’s possible for termites to travel underneath the treated area and enter the home through cracks in the slab or where pipes pierce the slab to enter the home.
- The soil doesn’t always absorb the chemicals well. This is particularly true regarding the soil underneath slabs. The soil is compacted before pouring a slab. Drilling a hole through the concrete is the only way to access the soil but even then, it can often be difficult to get the necessary amount of chemical into that area, as the soil is simply too hard to absorb it.
- Disturbance of the soil around the home can impact the efficacy of the treatment. For example, a pest control company in Port St Lucie may do a termite treatment shortly after a client purchases a home. Within that same year, the new home owner decides they would like to replace the existing hedges around the home and put in something new. The removal of the hedges and planting of new ones is likely to seriously disturb the treated soil and nullify much of the termite work done in that area.
Drywood Termite Prevention and Treatment
Drywood termite prevention is less straightforward than subterranean termite prevention. (Please note that Green Pest Services does not offer tenting services. Our opinion on this subject isn’t colored by our service offerings since we don’t offer drywood termite services).
Spot treatments are a common and inexpensive option. In the opinion of Green Pest Services, however, spot treatments are not very effective. They are often an attractive option for consumers because they are far less expensive and inconvenient than a traditional tent treatment (it could be argued, however, that spending $200 on a spot treatment that fails is actually more expensive than spending $2000 on a tent treatment that works). Also, typically a spot treatment will come with a guarantee, putting the consumers mind at ease related to their effectiveness. This can be a false sense of security. Because the vast majority of wood in a home is hidden behind drywall, or in an attic and under insulation, remaining termite infestations often go unnoticed for extended periods of time. Then when the termites eventually show up in a visible area again, the client will call the company that warrantied the first treatment and they will likely come out and do another spot treatment in that area. Then some time passes and termite evidence becomes visible again somewhere else and the cycle continues. All the while, the termites were never actually eradicated from the home, and the client has continued to pay for a warranty renewal fee every year.
Subterranean Termites do far more damage to homes in Florida far more quickly than drywood termites do, but subterranean termites are more preventable and the cost of prevention is cheap.
Termite Protection in Port St Lucie and Palm City
Green Pest Services offers termite protection services in Port St Lucie, Palm City, Stuart and Jensen Beach area of the Treasure Coast. Following a thorough inspection of a home, we will put together a plan with the homeowner to eradicate and prevent these destructive pests. Our services include:
Pre-construction Termite Protection
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- Issuance of Termite Certificates
- Termite pre-treats prior to pouring of slab
- Preventative treatment for Drywood Termites
Post-Construction Termite Protection
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- Trench Treatments for the prevention of Subterranean Termites
- Treatment of attics for the prevention of Drywood Termites
- Termite bait stations
Protect Your Port St Lucie or Palm City Home from Termites with Pest Control Services You Can Rely On
Don’t wait for termites or pests to overtake your home and cause problems for you and your family. Hire a pest control service in Port St Lucie to keep your home free from pests and give you peace of mind to enjoy your South Florida living all year long.