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Signs of termites in your house, and what to do

The termites you see in a door frame are a few workers from a colony whose queen lives deep in the soil, out of reach. Killing what you can see does not stop them. Termites are the pest that people most often treat wrongly: a can of spray into the door frame, old engine oil in the soil, or a pile of broken mud tubes. All of these leave the colony untouched and make a proper treatment harder.

Termites or ants?

"White ants" and "flying ants" are often termites.

• Waist: a termite's body is the same width all along. An ant has a narrow, pinched waist.
• Feelers: a termite's are straight, like a string of beads. An ant's are bent like an elbow.
• Colour: worker termites are pale, soft and almost see-through. Ants are usually dark and shiny.
• Wings: flying termites have four wings of the same length. On ants, the front pair is longer.

A swarm of flying termites outdoors after the first summer rains is normal in most of the country. A swarm coming out of a floor, wall or door frame inside the house, or heaps of shed wings on window sills, suggests a colony in or under the building.

Signs of subterranean termites

These are the main threat to South African buildings.

• Mud tubes: narrow tunnels of soil, about the width of a pencil, running up foundations, walls, pipes, door frames and skirtings.
• Mud packed into cracks in walls, floors and the joints of door frames.
• Hollow timber: it sounds papery when tapped with a screwdriver handle. Termites eat from the inside and leave the painted surface almost untouched.
• Bubbling paint on wood, and sagging floors or skirtings.
• Eaten paper and cardboard in store rooms.

Bare patches and small heaps of soil in the lawn are usually harvester termites, which seldom harm buildings.

What to do when you find signs

1. Do not break open more tubes, spray them or pour anything into the soil. Disturbed termites often move and go on feeding elsewhere in the building.
2. Photograph each sign with a coin for scale.
3. To check whether a tube is active, break a gap of about 2 cm in one tube only, and look again two days later. A repaired gap means that termites are active.
4. Fix any damp, and move wood and cardboard away from the walls.
5. Call a registered pest control operator for an inspection.

Signs of drywood termites

Drywood termites occur mainly in coastal KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape. They live entirely inside dry wood, so there are no mud tubes. Look for:

• piles of tiny, hard pellets, like coarse sand, below the wood;
• tiny round holes in the surface of the wood;
• damaged furniture, frames and roof timbers.

They spread in infested furniture. Never buy second-hand furniture with pellets under it, and never move infested items to another house.

Termites, borer beetles or rot?

• Soil in the wood means termites.
• Small round holes with fine powder falling from them mean wood-boring beetles, which are also a job for a registered pest control operator.
• Soft, wet, crumbling wood means rot. Fix the leak, let the area dry and replace the timber.

Each needs a different answer, so find out which you have before you pay for a treatment.

This guide is based on Chapter 4 of Pest Control the Safe Way. The next chapter covers prevention, treatment and what to check when buying a house.