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Termite & Pest Control - Crawl Space Moisture Reduction/Dehumidification - Mosquito Reduction - Lawn Pest Management - Fire Ant Management - Wildlife Removal/Exclusion

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Bill's Exterminating Company visited with students at Mt. Ulla Elementary School Career Day

Wood Destroying Insect Inspection Accreditation was recently featured in the local news.  For more information, click here.

Termites, Ants, Outdoor Roaches, Earwigs, Termites, Mosquitoes, and Moisture!

There are many pests that could have been listed in the title of this article, comprised of the most popular subjects of incoming phone calls.  With a rainy season extending well into June, the daily afternoon showers along with hot, humid mornings were a perfect environment for pest issues to culminate.  Abundant moisture and warm weather increases the fecundity of most pests.  Now that the rain is becoming more sporadic as of late, these increased pest populations are searching harder and harder for food and moisture.  This foraging often leads them into your home or place of business.

 Ants have been particularly problematic this year.  We are suggesting most customers maintain routine season throughout the warm season this year to keep ant annoyances minimal.  Fire ants are beginning what promises to be an explosion of ant mounds found throughout our region.  Stopping them now is crucial!  Homeowners are seeing roaches (which strike fear and disgust into the hearts of many) that have never seen roaches before.  The ever-so-popular Earwig epidemic of 2009 is getting a delayed encore in 2010.  When you have warmth and humidity, you have mosquitoes, that clients are learning to which we have a nearly miraculous solution.  We are even helping more and more homeowners reduce the very source of many pest problems around a home; poor drainage and high moisture content in the crawl spaces of their home.  We can even provide remediation for mold, mildew, and other fungi issues as seen in this photo to the right.

Termites are cued by Mother Nature to swarm on warm days following rain.  This current season has led termites to swarm continuously instead of just the few warm days after spring showers.  We usually see a peak in termite related calls following the mass exodus of swarming reproductives in late April early May.  This year we are seeing continuous calls well into the heat of summer.

 Termites are the most ominous of warm-season pests as these swarming reproductive (alates) are a sign of a colony that could potentially be destroying your home.  Eastern Subterranean Termites are the species found in our area.  They nest in the ground and travel to food sources on a daily basis, even during cold weather.  Termites are interested in the cellulose found in wood.  Mother Nature intended for these valuable creatures to breakdown dead trees, stumps, and limbs in an effort to keep the forests clean of such debris.  Unfortunately, the termite doesn’t know the difference between a decaying tree in the woods and the lumber holding your home together.  To make matters worse, we build our homes out of pine lumber which is a termite’s favorite food on the menu.

Termites can nest up to 200 feet away and randomly forage until finding a wood source to feed upon.  Their random foraging habits allow them to find dead trees, wood piles, the wood in your home, cardboard, backing of sheetrock, and even artwork and books!    We are often asked how termites find the wood in homes when they are built over slabs or built above the ground with a masonry foundation crawl space construction.  Termites will exploit any crack and crevice in a structure to find their food, but they do not like to be in the open air. (Except their reproductive stage)  To reach an area above ground, they will build a dirt shelter tube that they keep moist.  These shelter tubes act as super highways for termites to travel between their nests and their food source.  Many times these shelter tubes are built in areas seemingly invisible to the untrained eye.

When a colony has grown large enough and has a good food source, some of the termites in the colony will transform in the reproductive alates (or swarmers).  These are the hundreds of termites that appear out of nowhere on a warm, spring day.  Their job is emerge, mate, shed their wings, and tunnel back into the ground to set up new colonies.  A mature colony has been feeding in an area 3-5 years! (almost always unnoticed)  This mature colony has anywhere from 200,000 to a million members in it.  Often satellite colonies and other independent colonies have set up nests in this same time period making the situation even worse.  So, by the time you come home to find termite swarmers or their wings on your window sill or some other sun lit area, termites have already established a strong presence at your home.

  Click to Enlarge Photo of Reproductive Termite Swarmers

Even an immature colony can consume a 1 foot section of 2x4 lumber in 5 months.  That may not sound like much, but they don’t find just one spot and feed.  What if they picked an inch or two here and an inch or two there and those were strategic areas supporting the structure of your home? What if there are multiple colonies at your home?  What if these colonies have populated themselves to numbers of nearly 1,000,000 members each?  With termites, there is no “small problem”

Termites can be found everywhere in our area.  You could lay a piece of wood on the ground in any yard in our area and within a short period of time, it will be infested with termites.  Termites are not just a “down the street” or an “across town” problem.  They are everywhere.

Click Here for a Termite Incidence Map

If your home is not under Bill’s Exterminating Company’s Termite Protection Plan, give us a call or click the “request service” button on the top, left of this page.  We would also like to send you free information by mail.  You need to protect your most valuable investment, your home, against termite infestation that could lead to costly damage and lessen the value of your home.

Enjoy the Summer  in your home and garden with peace of mind this year; the peace of mind of knowing that a Bill’s Exterminating Company QualityPro Professional backed by 200years of staff experience in termite and pest control is protecting your home.

Interested in termite protection? ask us about our          

Termite Control Guarantee:  If you, our service professional, or anyone else ever discovers termite activity while protected under our program, we will eliminate it ASAP at no additional cost.

 

 

Bill's Exterminating Co., Inc. offers

  and  termite control solutions. 

Active area Termidor treatment in combination with Advance Termite Baiting System 

is a very powerful protection program in the control and prevention of termite infestations.

We accept....