Houston Termites: the Who, What, Where and How of Their Living Conditions
The following Q&A with Chuck Cavaleri, certified applicator with All Solutions All Pests, provides educational information about the types of termites that live here in the Houston area, the behavior and their ideal living conditions.Q: What species of termites live in Houston?A: The Southwestern Drywood, the Eastern Subterranean and the Formosan. These all differ in terms of colony size, but castes will be the same for all of the various types of termites.Q: Why do they thrive in Houston?A: The City of Houston back in the 1800s was a coastal forest, in which there were a lot of mature trees around in what we now know as the downtown area and around Buffalo Bayou. Termites’ primary focus is to take wood and turn that back to organic material in the ground. Because of the areas around downtown, that’s the first place that the indigenous termites that we have in Houston, which are the Eastern Subterranean Termite and the Drywood Termite, got their start. Those areas started to be developed for homeowners, the Heights, Montrose, the East End areas. We started building homes in Termite Central. The termites no longer had a forest, they had nice, clean processed wood for them to eat. Those areas today are the hot spots for termite activity in the Houston area.Q: What other species of termites live here and how did it get to Houston?A: Being a port city and bringing in cargo from all over the world has brought us the Formosan termite, which came from the Pacific Rim area and now lives in Houston. The most aggressive and the most fear of the termites is the Formosa. The infestation occurred when they were brought in on pallets and distributed around the city’s manufacturing districts. They are currently found in a number of parts of Houston: primarily the Heights area, the University of Houston/Cullen area and around the 11th St./Hempstead. They are very aggressive. They range in size from 1.5 million to 7 million individuals in a colony. They can reduce a 2” x 4” x 6’ stud to nothing in 25 days. They can take a two-story house down to kindling in two years.Q: How do they travel?A: The Formosan and the Eastern Subterranean live in the ground and they will tunnel up through the ground into either a pier in a pier and beam house or up the slab of a slab house and begin to eat the structural timber and the softwoods that may be used for trim inside. The Southwestern Drywood lives its entire life in a piece of wood. It never has to come out. All of the moisture that it needs for its metabolism is achieved from the wood. They like wood that has at least a 20% moisture ratio.Q: Which termites are the most common?A: The Eastern Subterranean, which is the most prevalent of the termite species in Houston, will have anywhere between 20,000 to 300,000-450,000 individuals. They work a little faster. They are more aggressive in their infestation. They can have multiple entry points into a home. An Eastern Subterranean colony can forage within a city block. They can be in a number of different places at the same time, eating into the equity of your home.Q: How do termites communicate?A: Termites are very similar to ants in that they are a social insect. They do a lot to communicate with touch and pheromones, which direct them to operate, usually around a central queen. But termites, unlike ants, can have multiple queens in their colonies, each directing a separate group of termites.Q: What are the roles of the termite groups?A: The Queen, a termite queen’s sole purpose is to produce eggs and to replenish the ranks. The Soldiers are the primary protectors of the colony. They will defend to the death any type of intrusion of the colony. The No. 1 enemy of termites is ants. You see a lot of termite-ant battles in the environment between these two species. The Worker can live 3 to 4 years, all the while working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The Alates are the reproductive termites. An immature queen and an immature king mate to start a new colony. Normally, alates will appear when a colony is mature, which is usually after three years of existence.Q: What are some warning signs for homeowners?A: The most conducive conditions that are seen throughout most homes in Houston, especially slab houses, are areas where the dirt has been piled up next to the house above the slab and covering the weepholes. Subterranean termites will tunnel out of the ground and then enter the weepholes to gain access to the inside structure of the house. If the dirt is of such height that they don’t need to tunnel, they’ll go straight in and you’ll never see them.Q: What else should I look for?A: The normal areas we look for when we are inspecting for Drywood termites is there has to be visual evidence of what we call the kickout. The kickout is a small pinhole that they create from which they will expel their waste material. They like to keep the areas in which they eat and live very clean. The waste looks like small seeds. If they’re in a wooden floor, they’ll make a little mound that looks like a volcano.All Solutions All Pests provides free termites inspections. Call (713) 322-PEST.