When considering buying or selling a home, it is important to ensure that ONLY you and your family are living there first. Termites, carpenter ants, and carpenter bees frequently move in unannounced, causing damage to wood structures. If you don’t have a recent real estate pest inspection in Roanoke, don’t wait!
What is a WDI?
A WDI is a wood-destroying insect. This includes but is not limited to: termites, carpenter ants, and carpenter bees. These insects do exactly what the name implies: they destroy wood. This is fine when they are in the woods, cleaning up fallen logs and trees. In the wild, they are important to the environment, helping ensure that the forest floor is not piled high with rotten wood.
These insects become pests when they move into your neighborhood and begin to devour your home. There is no distinction to a termite between your home and a convenient log. They can cause massive structural damage, sometimes silently, so regular inspections are a must.
Why Do I Need an Inspection?
Getting a WDI inspector is very important because these insects are often undetectable to the untrained eye. Termites typically stay underground, coming out only occasionally to swarm for a few hours before disappearing again. Meanwhile, ants and bees might be less discreet, but they can still cause quite a bit of damage before they are even noticed.
A yearly real estate pest inspection in Roanoke is recommended to keep your property safe and undamaged. The inspector will check your home and property for signs of infestation and develop a plan to rid you of pests if they find any!
Termites
Termites are a very sneaky wood-damaging insect. They eat wood from the inside out, meaning that it is often too late to save the affected wood by the time damage is visible to the untrained eye.
Termites can cause massive structural issues to wood support beams in homes or on decks. If termites are found to be infesting your home or property, there are several methods of removal. One method is to clear out of your house for a week or so while it is fumigated.
Another option is to treat the soil with termite-specific insecticides. A licensed pest inspector will let you know what kind of termite is haunting your home and how to best remove them.
Carpenter Ants
Carpenter ants don’t eat wood, but they do excavate it to build nests, often in homes. If you frequently hear rustling in the walls at night, or your windowsills or baseboards sound hollow when you tap on them, you may have a carpenter ant problem.
Other signs of infestation include small holes in the wood in your home with bits of sawdust around them, where carpenter ants enter and exit. If you suspect you may have carpenter ants, contact an exterminator to rid your home of these pests.
The exterminator may lay out ant poison for them to carry back to the nest, fill the walls with insecticidal dust, and seal any holes or cracks to help prevent future re-infestation.
Carpenter Bees
Carpenter bees tend to favor untreated wood, including decks, fences, and posts. Carpenter bees create ½-inch-wide, 6-inch-deep tunnels in wood to build nests for their larvae. Each bee usually makes only one hole per season, but the size of the hole means that just a few bees can cause significant damage.
Carpenter bees are easy to spot, so if you see some buzzing around your house, reach out to Allied Termite and Pest Control for a solution. An exterminator will remove the bees before they can reproduce and further damage your home.
When is the Right Time?
We highly recommend scheduling an annual pest inspection to keep your property safe and help prevent pests from making themselves at home. If you are buying or selling a property, ensure it has a recent WDI inspection to verify the home’s integrity.
A termite letter is an official document that you can obtain from a licensed pest inspector to verify that your property is termite-free! Having a recent WDI inspection and a termite letter will help you list your home at a great price!
Protect Your Home
Thinking of selling your home, or just ensuring that there will be a home left to sell when you are ready? Contact Allied Termite and Pest Control today to schedule a WDI inspection! We will provide you with a termite letter proving that your property is safe from wood-destroying insects, helping ensure your resale value stays high and your home stays safe!