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Could Termites be Chomping Away at Your House Right Now? · PEST PROSpectives

• 0:09
  Richard Piet: I'm Richard Piet.
• 0:10
  Richard Piet: Welcome PEST PROSpectives .
• 0:12
  Richard Piet: That's exactly what they are perspectives from the Pest Pros of Michigan.
• 0:18
  Richard Piet: So think about this for a second.
• 0:20
  Richard Piet: What are the chances, while you're sitting here listening to us, that termites are chomping away in your home or your office or your cottage, quietly, not making a sound?
• 0:34
  Richard Piet: Tony Sorrentino is back with us, associate certified entomologist, one of the pest pros of Michigan, to talk about that.
• 0:45
  Richard Piet: Tony hello.
• 0:47
  Tony Sorrentino: Hey Richard, how you been?
• 0:48
  Tony Sorrentino: It's good to see you again.
• 0:49
  Tony Sorrentino: It's always a pleasure to see you.
• 0:51
  Richard Piet: Good to see you.
• 0:52
  Richard Piet: This is kind of a creepy subject in the sense that it makes you feel a little vulnerable, knowing that the possibility that these little chompers are busy somewhere in the supportive structure of your house potentially chomping away.
• 1:10
  Richard Piet: What kind of signs should homeowners be looking for to determine if termites are there?
• 1:16
  Richard Piet: You?
• 1:18
  Tony Sorrentino: You know we're right in the midst of termite swarm season in Michigan right now and people are seeing insects that look like ants, but it's not always ants per se.
• 1:28
  Tony Sorrentino: We've got hundreds of small flying ants.
• 1:30
  Tony Sorrentino: Yeah, those might be termite swarmers.
• 1:33
  Tony Sorrentino: That's one major red flag.
• 1:35
  Tony Sorrentino: Another one is like mud shelter tubes.
• 1:38
  Tony Sorrentino: That could be evident on the interior or the exterior of the home, on the exposed wooden building elements in the basement, or coming up from the grade at soil level across the foundation into the wood under the structure of the house.
• 1:53
  Tony Sorrentino: There you can see it running right up.
• 1:56
  Richard Piet: All right, I want to make sure I understand this Termite swarmers.
• 2:00
  Richard Piet: Is that an actual termite or is this some other buddy of theirs?
• 2:09
  Tony Sorrentino: They're actually major reproductives or alates.
• 2:12
  Tony Sorrentino: They're the future kings and queens.
• 2:14
  Tony Sorrentino: They're going to set out and they're going to breed and then they're going to set up other termite colonies in the same areas and they fly.
• 2:23
  Tony Sorrentino: They definitely fly and they can be mistaken as flying ants.
• 2:26
  Tony Sorrentino: The difference is ants are going to have a pinched waist and the wings are going to be different length.
• 2:32
  Tony Sorrentino: They have four wings and the two forewings and the two aft wings are going to be different lengths on ants and the body of a termite alate is going to be consistent.
• 2:42
  Tony Sorrentino: There won't be a pinched waste and the wings will all be the same length.
• 2:47
  Richard Piet: I don't have a pinched waste anymore either.
• 2:49
  Richard Piet: I can tell you that Me neither.
• 2:50
  Richard Piet: So now a shelter tube.
• 2:54
  Richard Piet: This is where they're making their home inside your wooden structure.
• 2:59
  Richard Piet: I'm putting two to two together on that.
• 3:01
  Tony Sorrentino: Help me figure it out, it's shelter from the outside elements, subterranean termites.
• 3:06
  Tony Sorrentino: Intrinsically they live in the ground and they they will build the shelter tubes to protect their bodies from the elements as they move from the ground to the food source and back to the ground.
• 3:19
  Richard Piet: Okay, and so there are other red flags right Associated with all of this, when it's happening.
• 3:27
  Richard Piet: What are they?
• 3:29
  Tony Sorrentino: You're going to see small holes I call them peekaboo holes where they're poking through the drywall.
• 3:34
  Tony Sorrentino: They've eaten the paper backing off.
• 3:36
  Tony Sorrentino: You wouldn't even see that it's happening until you go dust it off.
• 3:40
  Tony Sorrentino: You flake off the little piece of dirt that's on there and there's a hole, or a termite pokes its head out and is looking at you Not really looking at you because they don't have eyes but you catch my drift.
• 3:52
  Richard Piet: We're looking at them at that point.
• 3:53
  Richard Piet: Right absolutely what are you doing in there?
• 3:56
  Richard Piet: So they're actually making holes and burrowing away, and we might not notice this until there's been some progress made, right?
• 4:08
  Tony Sorrentino: Right.
• 4:08
  Tony Sorrentino: So a mature colony can consume up to a board foot.
• 4:12
  Tony Sorrentino: So that's 12 inches of a two by four in a year, but it's never localized to 12 inches of a two by four.
• 4:19
  Tony Sorrentino: They're not going to notice 12 inches are gone.
• 4:21
  Tony Sorrentino: It's going to be spread out across the area that they're eating, and as long as there's a way for them to get from the soil to the structural timbers in your house, then we have a problem.
• 4:32
  Richard Piet: Yeah, we sure do A board foot a year, although they're not that neat, they're just going to be all over the place.
• 4:40
  Tony Sorrentino: Well they go.
• 4:41
  Tony Sorrentino: They travel with the grain of the wood.
• 4:43
  Richard Piet: With the grain.
• 4:43
  Richard Piet: Well, that's very considerate.
• 4:49
  Richard Piet: I think that's how we're supposed to sand the wood too, isn't it, oh boy?
• 4:51
  Richard Piet: So what makes a home a target for termites to begin with, and why some houses and not others?
• 4:59
  Tony Sorrentino: It comes down to conditions.
• 5:01
  Tony Sorrentino: There the termites are drawn to moisture and access to cellulose, like what we were just talking about.
• 5:06
  Tony Sorrentino: So things like damp soil against the foundation, poor drainage from or leaky downspouts, high grades where the soil is coming up and kissing the lower level of the siding.
• 5:18
  Tony Sorrentino: We want to correct those conditions.
• 5:20
  Tony Sorrentino: We want to make sure that it's not a haven in the first place.
• 5:25
  Richard Piet: So that's an interesting point.
• 5:27
  Richard Piet: If the dirt around the foundation of the house comes up high, then that's kind of a bridge for them, isn't it?
• 5:35
  Tony Sorrentino: Absolutely Nothing's stopping them.
• 5:36
  Tony Sorrentino: Wood-to-soil contact is one of the biggest issues.
• 5:39
  Tony Sorrentino: We have the pillars or the posts for the deck.
• 5:42
  Tony Sorrentino: They go into the ground and they're seated on concrete that's down in the ground.
• 5:47
  Tony Sorrentino: What happens if termites come up into that?
• 5:49
  Tony Sorrentino: It's the same thing with wood to soil contact with the lower edge of the siding along the grade.
• 5:56
  Tony Sorrentino: You don't want that anywhere on your house.
• 5:59
  Richard Piet: Right, and this is tricky because, of course, we're also told that we need to keep moisture running away from the house, so it might be tempting to create that slope that brings the ground up higher at your foundation.
• 6:15
  Richard Piet: Got to keep an eye on this too.
• 6:18
  Richard Piet: Not too far up.
• 6:19
  Tony Sorrentino: That's right.
• 6:20
  Tony Sorrentino: You want to have effective space in between the ground and the grade and the lower level of your siding on the outside of the house.
• 6:29
  Richard Piet: So how do we actually prevent this?
• 6:30
  Richard Piet: What do you recommend?
• 6:33
  Tony Sorrentino: Preventive termite treatment.
• 6:34
  Tony Sorrentino: There's a saying that I heard once and I always just grasped onto it In Michigan you either have termites, have had termites, or you're going to have termites.
• 6:43
  Tony Sorrentino: We've noticed an increase in subterranean termite pressure over the last seven years in southwest lower Michigan.
• 6:51
  Tony Sorrentino: I don't know what is to blame.
• 6:53
  Tony Sorrentino: Years in Southwest lower Michigan.
• 6:56
  Tony Sorrentino: I don't know what is to blame.
• 6:56
  Tony Sorrentino: I don't know if we're just tactical or technically proficient or just see it more than everyone else, but there's been an increase in our business and the amount of termites that we're finding.
• 7:06
  Richard Piet: Wow, so there's something comfy about termites in Southwest Michigan, absolutely so.
• 7:14
  Richard Piet: When you're trying to prevent it, what steps do you take?
• 7:20
  Richard Piet: And then, subsequent to that, if you find you have them, what are the pest pros do to try and correct that situation?
• 7:29
  Tony Sorrentino: So this is one of the ones that there's no negotiation on it.
• 7:32
  Tony Sorrentino: I would never recommend DIY treatments, or if you know a guy that knows a guy, I would call a professional, because there's specific methodologies that we use in the industry to ensure that an effective barrier is created around the house.
• 7:47
  Tony Sorrentino: It's not just a spot treatment.
• 7:49
  Tony Sorrentino: It should never be just a spot treatment, because there's nothing saying that the termites are only right here in this 10 square foot area.
• 7:58
  Tony Sorrentino: There's nothing that you can have up to five active colonies per acre of land.
• 8:02
  Tony Sorrentino: That's just science.
• 8:03
  Tony Sorrentino: Those are facts, those are averages.
• 8:06
  Tony Sorrentino: I'm not saying there's five active termite colonies per every acre of land, but you could have as many as five active termite colonies per every acre of land.
• 8:12
  Tony Sorrentino: But you could have as many as five active termite colonies per every acre of land, given the right soil conditions and the right weather conditions and the right whatever.
• 8:19
  Tony Sorrentino: I'm just saying termites are an issue.
• 8:21
  Tony Sorrentino: Termites are an issue in Southwest Lower Michigan and if you prepare your home and you're doing the inspections, I would get a termite inspection every two to five years If you've had termites, if you think you might have termites, there's so I'm thinking about things that contain wood that could be around your house.
• 8:44
  Richard Piet: The first thing that comes to mind is a pile of wood that you intend to burn right.
• 8:49
  Richard Piet: That must be an inviting spot.
• 8:52
  Tony Sorrentino: You're waiting for problems.
• 8:53
  Tony Sorrentino: If you leave wood, that's wood to soil contact in its purest form, it's essentially rotting wood that's sitting there waiting for termites to find it.
• 9:04
  Richard Piet: And if you have that, maybe it has to be lifted up off the ground somehow.
• 9:09
  Richard Piet: I've seen, you know, like wood holders that are round and they have legs and they sort of elevated off the ground.
• 9:15
  Richard Piet: Does that do any good?
• 9:17
  Tony Sorrentino: Yeah, absolutely.
• 9:18
  Tony Sorrentino: I would store any kind of firewood or anything like that off of the soil and away from the structure.
• 9:24
  Tony Sorrentino: That's a nightmare for me.
• 9:26
  Tony Sorrentino: I'll walk up to do a termite inspection at someone's house and they've got the wood stacked up on the backside of the garage.
• 9:33
  Tony Sorrentino: Do you want termites?
• 9:34
  Tony Sorrentino: Because that's how you get termites.
• 9:37
  Richard Piet: You could put a neon sign Welcome Right there.
• 9:39
  Richard Piet: Don't want to do that.
• 9:42
  Tony Sorrentino: All right.
• 9:43
  Richard Piet: What about gutters?
• 9:44
  Richard Piet: We should keep those clean anyway, but is that an inviting place?
• 9:50
  Tony Sorrentino: well.
• 9:50
  Tony Sorrentino: So it's not so much the gutters, it's what happens because the gutters are clogged right.
• 9:55
  Tony Sorrentino: So so we've got poor drainage because of that and we're looking at then the water not draining down the downspout and away from the structure.
• 10:05
  Tony Sorrentino: It's just going to be falling right there next to the foundation and then saturating the ground right there.
• 10:10
  Tony Sorrentino: It might be high grade, it might cause an issue.
• 10:14
  Tony Sorrentino: It might never cause an issue, but it might cause an issue.
• 10:20
  Richard Piet: Right Now.
• 10:21
  Richard Piet: I think I heard you say there's no spot treatments with termites.
• 10:25
  Richard Piet: You're going to create a boundary.
• 10:27
  Richard Piet: Is that what I heard you say?
• 10:30
  Tony Sorrentino: Pest pros.
• 10:31
  Tony Sorrentino: We don't do spot treatments, it's the full structure, because I can't put a warranty on a spot treatment and, plus, a lot of times when you're dealing with termites, it's someone's house.
• 10:44
  Tony Sorrentino: You know what I'm saying?
• 10:45
  Tony Sorrentino: That's their largest personal investment in their life, unless you open up a business and then all bets are off.
• 10:50
  Tony Sorrentino: But let's just talk about regular Joe homeowner.
• 10:55
  Tony Sorrentino: That's their largest single investment.
• 10:57
  Tony Sorrentino: So do you want to skimp on that?
• 10:59
  Tony Sorrentino: Do you want to skimp on that?
• 11:00
  Tony Sorrentino: Do you want?
• 11:02
  Richard Piet: to cut corners.
• 11:02
  Richard Piet: I wouldn't.
• 11:03
  Richard Piet: If there's only one space where they're infested, you're still treating the whole boundary because they could just move right.
• 11:13
  Tony Sorrentino: Are you sure there's only one space?
• 11:14
  Tony Sorrentino: Yeah, I see your point.
• 11:16
  Tony Sorrentino: So they're incredibly hard to notice.
• 11:19
  Tony Sorrentino: They're cryptobiotic.
• 11:21
  Tony Sorrentino: You don't see them until it's too late.
• 11:23
  Tony Sorrentino: They made a whole life out of not being seen, and when they poke through the drywall like that, they didn't ever mean to do that.
• 11:31
  Tony Sorrentino: That was never an intentional thing.
• 11:33
  Tony Sorrentino: It was a mistake, and so when we find them, we do focus on that area.
• 11:39
  Tony Sorrentino: We'll do direct treatment in that area, but we do want to wrap the outside with a full protective barrier and whether that's a liquid barrier or a bait station barrier or a combination of the two, and what we call an integrated termite treatment strategy that combines both aspects and direct treatment to you know, help make it a tangible result, because you know, if you come out, it's just one, it's one way or another you might not get the results that you're looking for right away.
• 12:09
  Richard Piet: Right, and so, after this treatment is over, what should a homeowner expect?
• 12:14
  Richard Piet: They're gone, it's done, or they have to check with you on some sort of schedule thereafter check with you on some sort of schedule thereafter.
• 12:26
  Tony Sorrentino: That's one of the reasons that we utilize bait stations is for monitoring and to prove efficacy of service.
• 12:29
  Tony Sorrentino: We're checking those bait stations two to three times annually to make sure that there's no new termite evidence.
• 12:36
  Tony Sorrentino: We also do an interior inspection for the warranty on the termite treatment, and then that comes up every year too.
• 12:45
  Tony Sorrentino: So we're going to go in and look at the spots where the termites were found and make sure there's no new termite evidence inside the house as well.
• 12:52
  Tony Sorrentino: And if at any time you know the house is under warranty and we stand behind our work, if at any time you know, hey, there's something funny going on, well, we're going to come out there and we're going to make it right 100% of the time.
• 13:06
  Richard Piet: And a homeowner should probably ask, when they're talking to a professional like you how do you make sure monitoring continues?
• 13:15
  Richard Piet: This has to be part of the process, right?
• 13:17
  Tony Sorrentino: The warranty is renewable.
• 13:18
  Tony Sorrentino: Year after year it comes up and we notify hey, I was wondering about your extended warranty for your termites.
• 13:27
  Tony Sorrentino: But most people are into it.
• 13:32
  Tony Sorrentino: They want to extend the warranty.
• 13:33
  Tony Sorrentino: The interactions are usually always good.
• 13:36
  Tony Sorrentino: We go out and everything's consistent and you know, we get another satisfied client, you know, and they can rest easy knowing that Pest Pros has their back and their house is protected.
• 13:47
  Richard Piet: Well, we make a joke about extended warranties, but this one is for real, right?
• 13:53
  Richard Piet: Yeah, you want to make sure that there is a professional having a look, especially after there's been a precedent in the past where termites have been around.
• 14:04
  Richard Piet: Ask these questions and ask the pest pros all the questions that you have about termites, particularly if you are concerned that you have them.
• 14:15
  Richard Piet: Maybe based on some of the things Tony said, I have seen that I've seen the hole.
• 14:20
  Richard Piet: Maybe I should have a professional have a look.
• 14:24
  Richard Piet: Click through from the show notes here to the website Pest Pros of Michigan or dial them up.
• 14:31
  Richard Piet: The number's there too and you can get your questions answered.
• 14:35
  Richard Piet: Tony Sorrentino, one of the Pest Pros of Michigan.
• 14:39
  Richard Piet: Thank you, sir.
• 14:41
  Tony Sorrentino: Thanks, richard, have a good one.