Termites

Description: Small in size, vary in colour yellow-brown and white, soldiers have pincers on the front of their heads.

Termites are one of the most costly insects to do damage to a property structurally. They also come in a large range of colours, sizes and species. There are around 300 different types of termite species in Australia alone making them a big worry for any home owner, especially when it can take as little as 2 to 5 years for termite colonies to do major damage to any home they are invading. The reason why it takes so little time is because of the breeding rate that the queen can produce new termites.

When it is a new colony the queen can lay around 10-30 eggs a day but as the queen ages the ore she is able to produce, so after a few years she may be able to lay 1000 eggs per day. It’s also been recorded that some species can lay up to 40,000 eggs per day when nearing the end of her life cycle. Therefore, termite inspections are a must for any home owner to have peace of mind and to save from spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage later on.

Life span: 1-2 years for worker termites.

Prevention measures

To best control or stop termites, a few easy steps can be taken which include:

• CALL Infinity Pest Control for a termite inspection.
• Clean up any wood debris around the house.
• Lower moisture levels in and around the house as much as possible.
• Fill in cracks around your home.
• Check to make sure soil isn’t damp under the house.
• Make sure there aren’t any leaking drains or pipes.
• Stack piles of wood further away from the house and not against it.
• Don’t use large amounts of mulch around the base of the house.
• Having trees to close to your house can make it easy for termites to enter your property