Termites are just about everywhere on the East Coast. Only a few states in the US don't have them.
There are 3 types. Dry wood termites, dampwood termites and subterranean termites.
Drywood termites eat dry wood stored in the house. They can be anywhere in the US seeing they can hitch hike on furniture being moved.
Dampwood termites need, guess what, damp wood to eat. They can be in damaged roofs or anywhere damp wood is found.
Subterranean Termites. These are the worst! These destroy more property than fire, windstorm and floods combined! They live in the ground and will bring your entire house to dust. They are designed to eat all dead wood in an entire forest. Their colonies can be as deep as 50 feet into the ground, cover an entire forest and last forever!
Termite queens can lay 50 thousand eggs a year. They can live 50 years. When a colony is large there are secondary and tertiary egg layers. If a queen dies, all the workers can potentially turn into a queen to lay eggs.
Every year the termites emit tens of thousands of swarmers (flying reproductives) that establish new colonies within yards or perhaps the next acre of ground near it. Wind can blow them further away. When they land they shed their wings and about 1 out of 50 pairs can establish a new successful colony. In Maryland, DC and Virginia you can expect to have an average of 8 termite colonies per acre of ground. They are everywhere!
Termites eat your home from the inside out. They hate to be exposed to sunlight and dry air. They must live within about 98 percent humidity so they never show themselves. They will eat your house in your crawl space underneath and your entire foundation can be destroyed. They will eat your wall studs, furniture, clothing, rugs, dry wall. They eat your pannelling, your cabinets, your roof! They will damage your plastics and other nonedible items by tunnelling through them. They will even eat the wooden ball atop a 50 foot flagpole!
To go above ground they build mud tubes that keep them from sunlight and dry air. The tubes can be very short or 50 feet long. They will build them from the ground up a 5 story building to get to food. They won't stop eating until the entire house is gone or until the wood has rotted or become too old to eat. (Wood that is rotted or has lost its nitrogen content through aging is not edible by termites.) But houses as old as 75 years have been attacked and destroyed by these tiny demons of the Earth.
You can NOT get rid of them by yourself. It takes, sometimes, hundreds of gallons of pesticide to be pumped into the ground around your house with specialized equipment to simply put a barrier around your house. Holes have to be drilled into your concrete around your house and in your basement to keep them from entering in through any number of spaces, expansion joints, cracks, joins in your concrete floor where it meets the wall, etc.
Often bait will be used to kill these undergroud attackers. Some claim it can actually destroy a colony. I doubt it. Colonies can contain millions of members and cover acres of ground and be as deep as 60 or 70 feet all the way to the surface. They can have many egg layers (as described above) and recover quickly when the queen dies. They establish new colonies every year. They are just too big and well established for baiting to work, in my opinion. Still some companies claim they can do it. There may be evidence that they can but I, personally, don't trust it. However baiting may work to kill termites because they bring the pesticide back to the colony and to the queen. It can help to kill the part of the colony that is near your house and do it serious damage. It is part of a good termite protection plan.
Pesticides don't have to be dangerous. There are some termite-killers that have absolutely no effect on animals, humans, or any other form of life except termites. Bayer company created one several years ago that simply destroys the termite by targeting it's body in such a way that only it can be killed by the pesticide. Everyone else can, theoretically, drink it, bathe in it and it would have absolutely no effect on us. So don't be afraid to call people for termite relief.
When I owned a pest control company I found that one out of seven houses I randomly inspected for termites had an active infestation. I found that, in most cases, one of the houses next door also had been treated. This means that you probably either 1: have a termite infestation, 2: live next door to someone who has an infestation, 3: live across the street from someone who has an infestation, 4: live in a house where the person living in the lot in back of your house has an infestation.
Hardly anyone whose house I have ever expected knew they had a serious problem. It is always a shock.
This is a must: Get your house insepected yearly by a professional.
Also, if you buy a house don't rely on the termite inspection report. The inspector can't movfe furniture or stored things. He can't check the attic. He is so restricted he can miss a lot and not be responsible for it. Also, if he finds the termites in the ground right next to your house (they are probably attacking under the ground hitting your basement walls) it can't go on his report. He can only report visible signs of infestation if they are actively attacking the house on the day of the inspection. His hands are tied to give you a real report of what is actually happening to your property. Get your own inspector to represent you and ask him to do a real good job. He'll also inspect for carpenter ants, carpenter bees, powder-post beetles and other exotic wood destroyers you've never heard of.
ANTS:
Ants can be from just nuisance to ants that can destroy your home.
Destructive ants are called carpenter ants because they will hollow out your wooden parts of your house to create their colony just as they would hollow out a dead tree. If you have any limbs from a tree that touch your house you will potentially have a big problem with them. They can get into your roof like that.
Once in your house they can completely undermine its structure and cause tens of thousands of dollars in repair bills. The treatment for these insects can reach into the thousands of dollars too. Sometimes it requires injecting pesticides into your walls, outside in the ground, and to remove dead trees that are infested.
What about other ants? The common black ant can be a nuisance. It will detect the little piece of food you leave on your bedroom furniture on the second floor. The ants can sense it from the ground 20 feet below. They will march right to it in a steam and take it back to the colony. Remember that they detect chemicals at the melecular level and have extremely sensitive senses.
Professionals have the necessary chemicals to destroy the colony. You might be able to do it yourself with pesticides form the Home Depo or other stores that sell them. It isn't hard to kill them if you follow directions. You will probably need a spray tank. Other pesticides require you to sprinkle granuals that are coated with pesticide then water the granuals with your hose to cause the pesticide to sink deep into the ground. This has proven very effective for me in destroying colonies. Applying a liquid pesticide from a spray tank in a band 10 feet wide around the base of your house and up your walls may also help. But you must know what you are doing and follow the directions on the label exactly. Remember that what kills insects can also harm you if not applied correctly. Manufactures spend, sometimes, millions of dollars to come up with an effective pesticide and they test it thoroughly over a long time before it can be sold on the market. Don't take it lightly. Follow the directions and protect yourself with protective clothing as directed on the label. Do not let it absorb into your skin. Don't breathe it in or let it get into your eyes. Be smart. I suggest you let the professionals do it.
Fleas:
Fact: Flea collars can't kill fleas. They were made by someone a really long time ago who had the mistaken idea that fleas had to pass the neck line to get to the dog's eyes for moisture. No, no, no. A flea grabs the base of the hair with its legs and stays there its entire lifetime chewing on the dog.
Fact: Exterminators and the Vet's flea treatments CAN kill fleas.
Fact: Dehumidifying your entire house to LESS THAN 50 PERCENT HUMIDITY will kill all fleas over time.
Fact: There could be 500 or more fleas and eggs per sqare foot of your rug. If you dog jumps off the couch to the floor, the eggs (slippery and ready to fall off) will go deep into the rug.
Fact: If you vaccuum the rug, one square foot for 1 minute you pick only 1/2 of what is there. It would take you forever and a day to vacuum it all and it still won't do the job.
Fact: When there is no food (people or pets) and/or the conditions are not right, they will form cysts around themselves and hide, maybe in the rug, until someone steps on it. They will immediately spring back to life and attack their new host. That means when you go on vacation and put your dog in a kennel, WATCH OUT! You'll get home and be immediately attacked by fleas! Plan on going to a hotel. The fleas that your dog would normally host are now hungry and will EAT YOU ALIVE! I know this from a lot of experience from my customers. It happened a lot when a real estate agent shows a vacant house. HA HA HA! I was called because of "The Attack of the Fleas" sequel 1000 played itself out to the home-seeker's dismay.
Ask questions about pests, but realize I haven't been in that business for about 10 years and there are more up-to-date sources. I can only speak generally.
