The Termite Warning Sign Everyone Misses

Why Termites Are Different From Every Other Pest On This Site

Every other page on this site is about a pest you can see. You spot an ant, you spot a roach, you call, we come out. Termites do not work that way. A colony can be active in the wall behind your dining room for two years before anything shows on the surface, which is the entire reason termite work is priced and handled differently from the other twenty five pests we treat.

The Two Species Sarasota Actually Has

Subterranean termites are the ones doing almost all the damage in this county, building mud tubes up from the soil because the workers dry out and die within hours if they lose contact with moisture. Drywood termites are the second species worth knowing, living entirely inside the wood itself with no soil contact at all, which is why they show up in furniture and roof framing that never touches the ground.

The distinction matters for treatment. Subterranean colonies get treated at the soil, drywood infestations get treated at the wood directly, and treating one like the other wastes the visit.

The Signs That Actually Show Up First

• Pencil-width mud tubes running up a foundation wall, pier, or slab edge

• Wings shed near windowsills and doors after a swarm, usually in spring

• Wood that sounds hollow or papery when tapped, even with the paint intact

• Small piles of what looks like coarse sawdust near baseboards or window frames, which is drywood frass rather than sawdust

• Doors and windows that start sticking for no reason, which is swelling from moisture the termites introduced

Any one of these on its own is worth a look. Two or more together is worth a call the same week.

Why Waiting Costs More Than The Inspection

A termite inspection here runs $125. A colony left alone for another season does not stay the same size, and the repair bill scales with how long the damage has been allowed to spread rather than with how bad it looks from the outside. The wood you can see is rarely the wood that is compromised, which is what makes this pest the one place on this site where waiting is the expensive option rather than the cautious one.

What A Real Inspection Looks Like Here

It follows the same four steps as every other visit on this site, adjusted for what termites actually require.

• Inspect: a full perimeter walk checking the foundation, piers, attic framing and any wood-to-soil contact points, not just the room where you saw something

• Identify: confirming subterranean versus drywood, since the treatment path splits here

• Treat: a liquid soil treatment or bait station system for subterranean colonies, localized wood treatment for drywood

• Recheck: a follow-up to confirm activity has actually stopped, not just that product was applied

What Termite Coverage Actually Costs

Termite work is quoted separately from the standard plan, the same as eight other pests on this site, and the starting price is published rather than held back for a call. Inspection is $125. What happens after that depends on what the inspection finds, and you get that number in writing before any treatment starts.