Has Your Laundry Room Become A Hidden Haven For Termites?

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Every responsible homeowner knows that keeping termites off their property is vitally important, but unfortunately, termites can appear in the areas you least expect. In many cases, termites find their way into laundry rooms. These voracious insects can do severe damage to any wooden structures in your laundry room and must be found and eradicated as quickly as possible.

Why Are Termites Attracted To Laundry Rooms?

The average homeowner doesn't spend much time in their laundry room, and that is one of the main reasons termites are likely to turn laundry rooms into their homes. Like most insect pests, termites are attracted to quiet areas of your home where they are less likely to be disturbed, which is why they are also frequently found in basements and crawlspaces.

Termites are also attracted to wet, humid areas because they cannot breathe unless their protective exoskeletons stay relatively moist. The humidity produced by washing machines and dryers makes laundry rooms very attractive to termites, especially if the room is poorly ventilated.

Sinks, pipes, and other plumbing fixtures that leak water will make your laundry room even more vulnerable to termites. All species of termites (except for the rare drywood termite) prefer to consume wet timber, which is easier for them to digest. 

How Can You Tell If Termites Have Entered Your Laundry Room?

Termites will generally try to stay hidden, so if they are inside your laundry room, you are unlikely to see the insects themselves. However, you may be able to spot the tell-tale signs they leave behind.

Because termites consume wooden structures from the inside out, you may not spot any damage on the surfaces of wooden objects. If timber objects sound hollow when knocked or feel soft to the touch, they may have suffered from termite damage. If wooden objects are painted, the paint may start to blister and peel as the wood behind the paint is consumed.

Frass is another key indicator of termite infestation. This substance is the fecal matter of termites and often looks like sawdust or fine coffee grounds. Finding small piles of frass near wooden objects almost always means you have termites inside your laundry room.

How Can You Remove Termites From Your Laundry Room?

If you find any signs of termite infestation in your laundry room, you must act as quickly as possible to get rid of them. Termites never stay in one room of your home for long and will rapidly move to other areas in search of food, potentially putting every wooden object in your home at risk. This includes vital structural timbers, wall frames, and roof trusses.

Unfortunately, store-bought termite sprays and foggers are largely ineffective against an established termite infestation and will not reach termites hidden deep within nearby nests and mud tunnels. You should instead call in a professional pest control service that specializes in termite control and extermination. These professional services can use a number of different methods to turn your laundry room into a termite-free zone.

Many termite control services use bait stations to eradicate termite colonies. These stations contain wooden baits, which are impregnated with a slow-acting poison. Termites carry the poisoned bait back to the colonies, allowing the poison to spread through the colony before it takes effect. This method is often the only reliable way to kill termite queens, preventing colonies from breeding and wiping them out quickly.

Heat treatment is very effective against some species of termites. Your pest control service will use specialized heaters to raise temperatures rapidly inside your laundry room, killing termites by overheating their bodies. This method is chemical-free, but your laundry room will remain off-limits until temperatures return to normal, and you may have to move heat-sensitive equipment to other rooms.

If termites have already spread to other rooms of your home, whole-home fumigation may be the only reliable method to wipe out the entire colony. You will have to leave your home for a few days, but this method is virtually guaranteed to leave your home termite-free and can save your home from catastrophic structural damage.

For more information, contact a local company, like Good News Pest Solutions.

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20 April 2023

how to eliminate pests for good

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