A Long Day in the Life of a Termite Inspector Mobile Homes and Crawlspaces It was a Saturday, and I had four inspections. The first two were mobile homes. Mobile homes always come with a crawlspace. I actually like attics—no matter the temperature—because they’re more of a challenge. Crawlspaces… they’re almost never fun. They stay […]
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Under a Mobile Home All mobile homes sit on a raised foundation, which makes the space underneath an important area to inspect during a termite inspection. While mobile homes generally don’t contain a lot of wood, there are still key areas where termites or wood-destroying organisms may be found. I focus on wood that’s connected
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Why Do I Have to Bag My Food but Not Wash My Dishes After a Fumigation? (and other tenting questions answered) When it comes to fumigating your home for drywood termites, a lot of common questions come up. Here are clear answers to the ones we hear most often. Why do I need to bag
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Older Homes with New Additions It surprises many people, but when I’m inspecting an older home with a newer addition, I’m more likely to find termites in the addition. The main culprit is Douglas fir, the wood most commonly used to frame homes today. There are two key reasons for this. First, builders don’t typically
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My Journey Through Pest Control (and Why It Matters for My Customers) Before I started California Termite, I worked for several different companies across San Diego County. Each job taught me something important—sometimes what to do, and sometimes what never to do. Looking back, those experiences shaped the values I bring to my own company
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Probing Wood for Termites One of the most reliable ways to check exterior wood for termites is by probing. Even if a board looks solid from the outside, a light probe can reveal hidden damage. When termites are present, the wood may break open and release small pellets, which are actually termite droppings. If the
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Termite Inspector Ailments Inspecting for termites isn’t exactly a desk job. If you’re thorough (and not everyone is), you have to work your way through the attic, crawlspace (sometimes more than one), and probe every section of accessible wood around the perimeter of the home. It’s not for the faint of heart. In fact, there
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Old or New Termite Activity While inspecting a customer’s garage, I found a significant amount of termite droppings. Since the home had been fumigated less than five years prior, I thought the droppings might have occurred before the fumigation and had already been dealt with. But then I spotted a kickout hole—the place where termites
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Termite Foam vs. Liquid When it comes to local treatments for drywood termites, there are three main options: fipronil (in liquid or foam form) and orange oil. I’m not a fan of orange oil. It’s a repellent (termites can smell and taste it and simply avoid it), it dissipates in less than a month (so
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Borating an Attic Space Termites spread by swarming, and they can enter your attic through vents. Since attic wood is usually unpainted, anywhere they land they can start chewing. A borate treatment prevents this by making the wood inedible to termites. The borates work by killing the protozoa in a termite’s stomach, leaving them unable
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