Home Ownership Recommendations To Keep Your Property And Residence Safe From Termites
Termites can be present in a variety of different regions and climates, but when your home is built in a zone that is within a termite area, you need to be careful to keep them from causing damage to your home's wood structure. Here are some recommendations to help you keep your home safe from termites and get rid of them if they live around your dwelling.
Protect the Outside of Your Home
The outside perimeter of your home is a prime place for termites to live and infest, where they eventually can get into your home's wood structure. When termites begin to make tunnels through the wood of your home, they will continue to feast and eat until the wood is riddled with tunnel pockets and termite colony damage.
Watch out for moisture around the exterior of your home and where it collects and is trapped, as it can be a breeding ground for termite colonies. Remove any vegetation around your home that promotes wood contact onto your home's exterior. Instead of placing wood chip mulch over the soil of your landscaping or building the soil right up to the wood exterior of your home, keep several inches of space between the two. You can also lay down a layer of sand onto your landscaping soil. Termites are not able to build their tunnels or live inside sand so this is a good prevention for them getting to your home.
Plug up any water leaks around the outside of your home, which includes a leaky air conditioner or evaporative cooler, and leaky rain gutters or drain pipes. Be sure the soil slope is sloped away from your home to stop water from pooling around the exterior of your foundation.
As another prevention strategy you should also avoid stacking up any wood, such as logs, stumps, and paper products around the outside perimeter of your home and yard. These environments will attract and harbor termites as well as provide them food and protection.
Arrange Professional Inspections
Another recommendation to keep your home and its structure free of termite problems is to arrange for a regular professional termite control services. Your local pest control specialist is trained to investigate for signs of termites and potential areas they may live within. So, if your pest control professional finds, for example, a nest of termites or an area containing wet wood, they will recommend you clean out the area and they will apply a treatment for the site. They have specially formulated pesticides to kill off termites in the area.