Do I Need An Annual Termite Inspection For My Long Island Home?

How Often Should You Have A Termite Inspection Performed?

Termite workers don't require sleep. They relentlessly look for food day and night, 365 days a year. They can enter your property at any time and begin to feed on the wood inside your Long Island home. But does that mean you need to perform frequent inspections to catch them? No. An annual inspection is enough to guard your property and help you avoid termite damage. Why? Because termites don't damage your home in a month, two months, or even a year. It takes several years. If you catch termite activity within any given year, you can take immediate action to stop the termites and arrest the damage.

All year long, warning signs may appear on your property. You may see them even when you don't perform an inspection. We don't recommend waiting to see signs of termites in our yard because termites rarely provide these signs. Let's look at the signs and the challenges of detecting them.

• Interior termite swarm. When you find a termite swarm in your house, you know you need to call a professional. An indoor swarm is an obvious sign that termites have infested your home. Unfortunately, a swarm in your house isn't a good sign. It is a sign of a mature and severe infestation. Termites have had years to damage your property, and the nest is likely near or underneath your home. Seeing swarmers in your home is not a great way to detect termites. It is also a warning sign that can go undetected. Swarmers may emerge, mate quickly, and go back into hidden voids.
• Exterior termite swarm. Most of the time, termites do not exit their nests indoors. They prefer to exit the nest outdoors. When you see a termite swarm in your yard, it means a nest is on your property or near your property. While certainly a warning sign you'll notice, termites swarm for less than thirty minutes. After quickly mating, they disappear into the soil and attempt to make more nests on your property.    
• A termite swarmer. If you see one swarmer in your yard, you may not have a current infestation. Proper identification is critical so that you can take steps to stop the problem before it begins. A swarmer is about 3/8 of an inch long and has long white wings. The wings are stacked and rounded at the tips. When a swarm breaks apart, the couples travel a short distance searching for a location to establish a nest. Some create nests on the same property. Finding one swarmer isn't a great sign, but it is certainly better than finding hundreds. If you have hundreds, the nest is close or under the home.  
• Termite swarmer wings. When swarmers mate, they shed their wings. These wings are all the same size. You may find them on the ground or in concealed locations. One place our technicians check for wings is in spider webs. While we don't recommend allowing spiders to live on your property or create webs on it, their webs offer a benefit. They're like nature's sticky traps. 
• Worker termites. You might notice termite workers as you work in your yard. You might pick up a dead branch and find a few crawling on the underside or move a stack of scrap wood and see them. There are a few ways you may uncover these secretive insects. But you won't see them for long. Termites disappear from view quickly. It is critical to identify worker termites when you briefly see them. A worker termite is about 1/8 of an inch long and looks like a pale-colored fat ant. 
• Termite damage. Termites feed on the inside of wood and cause hidden damage. But there are circumstances where you might see termite damage. You could see it if you're in a dark and humid space underneath a structure. It will look like trenching, and there will be mud present. You may also see it in a humid space between vegetation and your exterior walls or near the ground where you have wood-to-soil contact.
• Shelter tubes. Termites may create mud tubes from the soil to the wood of your home. These tubes often look like thin, wiggly mud lines. They may also be shaped like a river running up your foundation, branching off as rivers do. Break mud tubes and check back in a few days. If the termites rebuild the structures, you have active termites.   

Now that you know how to check for termites, are you all set? Somewhat. But the best way to guard your property against termite damage is to have a professional perform inspections.   

Termite workers don't require sleep. They relentlessly look for food day and night, 365 days a year. They can enter your property at any time and begin to feed on the wood inside your Long Island home. But does that mean you need to perform frequent inspections to catch them? No. An annual inspection is enough to guard your property and help you avoid termite damage. Why? Because termites don't damage your home in a month, two months, or even a year. It takes several years. If you catch termite activity within any given year, you can take immediate action to stop the termites and arrest the damage.

All year long, warning signs may appear on your property. You may see them even when you don't perform an inspection. We don't recommend waiting to see signs of termites in our yard because termites rarely provide these signs. Let's look at the signs and the challenges of detecting them.

• Interior termite swarm. When you find a termite swarm in your house, you know you need to call a professional. An indoor swarm is an obvious sign that termites have infested your home. Unfortunately, a swarm in your house isn't a good sign. It is a sign of a mature and severe infestation. Termites have had years to damage your property, and the nest is likely near or underneath your home. Seeing swarmers in your home is not a great way to detect termites. It is also a warning sign that can go undetected. Swarmers may emerge, mate quickly, and go back into hidden voids.
• Exterior termite swarm. Most of the time, termites do not exit their nests indoors. They prefer to exit the nest outdoors. When you see a termite swarm in your yard, it means a nest is on your property or near your property. While certainly a warning sign you'll notice, termites swarm for less than thirty minutes. After quickly mating, they disappear into the soil and attempt to make more nests on your property.    
• A termite swarmer. If you see one swarmer in your yard, you may not have a current infestation. Proper identification is critical so that you can take steps to stop the problem before it begins. A swarmer is about 3/8 of an inch long and has long white wings. The wings are stacked and rounded at the tips. When a swarm breaks apart, the couples travel a short distance searching for a location to establish a nest. Some create nests on the same property. Finding one swarmer isn't a great sign, but it is certainly better than finding hundreds. If you have hundreds, the nest is close or under the home.  
• Termite swarmer wings. When swarmers mate, they shed their wings. These wings are all the same size. You may find them on the ground or in concealed locations. One place our technicians check for wings is in spider webs. While we don't recommend allowing spiders to live on your property or create webs on it, their webs offer a benefit. They're like nature's sticky traps. 
• Worker termites. You might notice termite workers as you work in your yard. You might pick up a dead branch and find a few crawling on the underside or move a stack of scrap wood and see them. There are a few ways you may uncover these secretive insects. But you won't see them for long. Termites disappear from view quickly. It is critical to identify worker termites when you briefly see them. A worker termite is about 1/8 of an inch long and looks like a pale-colored fat ant. 
• Termite damage. Termites feed on the inside of wood and cause hidden damage. But there are circumstances where you might see termite damage. You could see it if you're in a dark and humid space underneath a structure. It will look like trenching, and there will be mud present. You may also see it in a humid space between vegetation and your exterior walls or near the ground where you have wood-to-soil contact.
• Shelter tubes. Termites may create mud tubes from the soil to the wood of your home. These tubes often look like thin, wiggly mud lines. They may also be shaped like a river running up your foundation, branching off as rivers do. Break mud tubes and check back in a few days. If the termites rebuild the structures, you have active termites.   

Now that you know how to check for termites, are you all set? Somewhat. But the best way to guard your property against termite damage is to have a professional perform inspections.   

Why Annual Termite Inspections Are Worth It

Can you do it yourself? Sure. But there are many reasons to get annual inspections from a licensed pest control service provider. 

• A certified termite control professional uses methods and equipment to detect termites in ways you can't.
• A professional won't forget to do your inspection. Life gets busy, and homeowners often put termite inspections on the back burner.
• Termite inspections are a lot of work. We're willing to bet you have enough work on your plate.
• A professional can offer options to address termites when they're detected. When you detect termites, it is tempting to fix the problem yourself, which can lead you down a road that could lead to more termite damage.

There is peace of mind knowing your termite inspections are protecting your property. When a trusted professional handles your inspections, you have the greatest chance of detecting termites. 

What Happens During A Termite Inspection?

There are many ways a professional will inspect a property for termites. Some are better at it than others. At A&M Quality Pest Control, our technicians aren't afraid to get dirty and do the hard work necessary. They'll check under your deck and the crawl space under your home, and get into places you may have never seen. During the inspection, your technician will catalog termite activity, warning signs, conducive conditions, and other factors, and present their findings to you. Hopefully, everything is good and you're all clear. If vulnerabilities exist, we offer recommendations to help you reduce the risk of a termite problem. 

The options we provide are industry-leading solutions that work to address the source of your problem. What do we mean? Many termite treatments address the symptom by eradicating termite workers. But doing this will never stop the termite colony from attacking your home. The queen will keep making offspring and workers will continue to apply pressure to your home. You need to stop that queen and eliminate her colony. We use termite control products that strike at the heart of the colony and eliminate the queen. How do they do this? Worker termites take the active ingredient and spread it from termite to termite until it gets to the queen. No more queen means no more threat. There is no better way to address termite problems. If there were, we'd be using it.  

Professional Termite Inspections For Families In Long Island

If you live in Long Island, let A&M Quality Pest Control provide annual termite inspections for your home. Our technicians have the training and experience to provide you with inspections you can trust. We also provide effective termite control if it is ever needed. A&M Quality Pest Control is a licensed and insured pest control service provider, and we are family-owned and operated. Being family-owned, you know that family is important to us. Not only do we treat our employees like family, but we also treat your family like our family. 

Providing effective termite inspections is the first step in guarding properties against termite damage. While it is far better to have termite control installed around your property, we understand that some property owners aren't able to take that step. Termite inspections provide a low-cost option that makes it harder for termites to silently and sneakily damage your property for years.

Would you like to learn more about termite control or speak with one of our knowledgeable technicians? Jump to our contact page and reach out to us. Take the first step in catching sneaky termites early.