Contact your Tulsa pest control company for help with termites. These wood destroying insects can destroy a home if they’re allowed to. The average colony can eat up to a full foot of a 2 x 4 in a year. And if you’re dealing with Formosan termites, they can double that amount. The structural damage can be devastating to your home or business if it goes unchecked. That’s why it’s important for you to understand termites, and everything about them. So in this article, let us take a good hard look at termites, their life cycle and what you and your Tulsa pest-control company can do to stop them cold.
TERMITE CONTROL AND TULSA PEST CONTROL
There are two modern ways of dealing with termites. The first is a liquid treatment. These insects must stay underground in order to maintain the humidity that they’re required to survive. If they come out in the open air, they will die within a matter of minutes because they will dry out. The underground, humid air protects them from this process. So when they forge for food, they will forage in the top 6 inches of the soil. So in order to protect your house from these insects, often a liquid treatment can be applied.
This is where the technician will dig a trench all the way around your home. They will pour a lot of pesticide in the trench draining down the side of your foundation. This will create a curtain of pesticide about 4 feet deep. After they do this, they’ll treat the dirt that they put back in the trench giving you complete coverage of your home. If there is a place that your foundation comes up to a concrete slab, such as a patio or driveway, the technician will drill holes and force pesticide up underneath that pad. They will create an unbroken barrier all the way around your home to protect it from termites.
TERMITE BAIT STATIONS
In addition to liquid treatments, termite bait stations are the new and effective way of dealing with termites. These bait stations contain a cellulose bait that’s laced with a special pesticide known as an IGR. Cellulose is the actual substance that termites use to build the energy inside them. Wood is made up of essentially two substances. These two substances are lignin and cellulose. Lignin is unusable to them but that cellulose is what they’re looking for. So because of this, these baits are like candy to them.
The IGR or insect growth regulator that is found inside the cellulose will inhibit the growth of adolescent and juvenile termites. It will actually make it so that these insects cannot produce the chitin that’s required to make their exoskeleton. Without that ability, they will not be able to develop, and they will die at a young age. That means that by the second generation, the colony will be wiped out. The reason that lethal pesticides are not used in bait stations is because if it can be an environmental hazard, if it’s buried in the ground. Rainwaters will wash it into our drainage system and therefore into our drinking supply. Obviously, this could be a terrible problem. Contact your Tulsa pest control company for help.
TERMITE SIGNS AND TULSA PEST CONTROL
So now that we know how to control termites, we have to be able to identify if we have them in our home. As stated before, these termites can dry out very easily in the open air. So if they have to go above ground, workers will build mud tubes of the side of structures in order to forage for food above ground. These mud tubes will carry the humid air up above so they can use them to continue their work. If they build mud tubes over wood, they will eat away at the floor of the tube carrying the wood back to their colony. So if you’re seeing mud tubes, then you know you’ve got a problem with termites.
Sometimes termites can come up through cracks in the foundation and find themselves inside a wall. In this situation, there’s no way to tell if you have a termite problem unless you break into the wall. But termites will give them selves away because they like to eat the paper and gypsum that the dry wall is made of. As a result of this, the drywall will start to become weak in those spots. Eventually, they will break through the outside paper, revealing a hole. This leak in humid air must be plugged by the termite. So they will plug this up with mud. If you’re seeing either weak dry wall or mud sticking out of your dry wall, then you know that you have a problem inside that wall. Contact your Tulsa pest control company for help with termites.
TERMITE SWARMERS AND TULSA PEST CONTROL
Once a colony gets to a certain level where it’s mature, it will seek to multiply the colony itself. In order to do this, it will create what’s known as a swarmer. This is a winged termite. It’s much hardier than the average termite. It can survive in the outside air for long periods of time. Every spring, these swarmers will be ejected from the colony, in order to fly away and find a mate and create a brand new colony. If you’re having a problem with termites in your home, the swarmers can come up inside your home. They will head for the windows and die there. If you’re seeing these swarmers in the windowsills or inside your home in anyway, then it’s important that you contact your Tulsa pest control company for help.
If you’re having a problem with termites or any other pests, then it’s time to contact your Tulsa pest control company for help. Here at TermMax pest control, we are the best in the business when it comes to dealing with termites or any other insect. We are service the greater Tulsa area, including Broken Arrow, Sand Springs, Prattville, Sapulpa, Coweta, Catoosa, Claremore, Bixby, Jenks, Owasso, Turley, and so much more. Call today for free estimate. We’re here to help!
