Termite Droppings Can Be a Clear and a Warning Sign That Your Home Will be Soon Under Destruction
Be aware of termite droppings which are a warning sign that your home will soon be under destruction and if spared from total destruction, you will have to spend a lot of fund for maintenance and repair.
Don't worry because am here to help and ensure that your home and all wooden furniture are safe from minimal and major destruction from termites.
What are termites?
Termites are a kind of insect that have a resemblance of ants, they are solid red in color and they live in groups, they inhabits in wood and cause a lot of damage to wood and wooden structures.
They are considered of ecological importance as they are capable of doing recycle in wood and plant matters. Termites undergo an incomplete metamorphosis from egg, nymph, and adult and thus their rate of multiplication is very high.
Termite droppings
Termite extract worm-like mud lines of tunnels found on the walls, posts or the foundations of a building, this is the initial sign of termite presence in your home and a clear indication that they are about to destroy your wooden structure.
They like damp or moist wood materials mostly found in the basement and also tunnels and therefore if they do not come out of their hidings it might not be easy to identify their presence in your home.
These tunnels are built by the termites as they dig in the wood.
Signs of termite infestation
Sometimes people overlook some things which end up causing a great damage later and someone once said that infestation news will never be as good as symptom news.
There are some of the things here that can save your home and save you a lot of house maintenance and destruction funds.
A lot of people confuse termite droppings also known as frass from sawdust and especially if there has been recent construction in your house you may tend to ignore this warning sign which will later cause a significant damage to your house.
Frass are a bit difference from sawdust, and still different from carpenter ants wastes which do not eat wood but produce sawdust in the process of making their nest in the wood and for the carpenter ant, the saw dust contains some body parts of the insects they have eaten.
The key distinguishing feature between frass and saw dust is the shape
Termite frass are oval, granular pellets which varies in color depending on the type of the wood that is, some can be darker, brown and other maybe light in color, frass also have six-concave- surfaces and rounded ends, unlike frass, sawdust will be of the same color and look like tiny shavings and again silvery rather than the granular shape of the frass.
Termites work out of sight but they leave signs of their active activities. Mostly these droppings are found at window sill, frames and ceiling because termites prefer dry woods.
Termites do clean their nest especially when they are migrating, and in doing so they push their fecal pellets (digested wood) from the whole.
When you spot this and you are not sure, you can just knock the wood and if you hear a hollow sound then have no more doubts about termite's infestation in your house.
If you are not sure if what you see is termite frass or sawdust even by the use of a hand lens, just take a sample of it and take to the pest control unit for examination or take a photo and send it to professionals who will help you and in so doing you will be clear from your doubt.
Remember that termites feed by burrowing themselves inside the wood and thus not visible from outside by human beings.
Other type of droppings that you should pay attention to include termites discarded wings which are shed off at a certain stage in their lives.
Another way of detecting termite and from the first sign of frass is by taking a screwdriver and simply taps the suspected area (generally known us the field test and must be accompanied with other special test).
If there are termites inside, and have been feeding on the wood for a good period of time, you will hear some hollow sound which is different from solid wood when you continually tap the area.
When doing inspection in your house, it is important to pay more attention to the following areas and be sure of what you are looking for, these areas include; wooden porches, crawlspaces, window and door sills, and don't forget the isolated corners of sparingly used rooms and stores, bedding, counter and the cupboards.
