How to Get Rid of Termites: Every Treatment Option, Explained Straight

You found something. Pellets on a windowsill, wings by the back door, maybe a mud tube on the slab. Now every company you call seems to tell you something different.

This page walks through every way I know of to get rid of termites, including the ones we don't sell. By the end you'll know which option fits your house, and exactly what to ask anybody you call.

By Coby McConnell, owner. In pest control since 1986, treating drywood termites without a tent since 2003.

Not sure what you've got? Austin, our termite tech, comes out, looks at what you found and the wood around it, and tells you which termite it is and which option fits your house. There's no charge to come look. If it turns out you don't have termites, we'll tell you that too.

Three questions decide almost everything

Before you compare prices or companies, it helps to know what you're actually comparing. Every termite treatment out there comes down to three questions.

1. Which termite is it? Drywood termites live inside the wood. Subterranean termites live in the ground. They're treated completely differently, and a treatment built for one does nothing for the other.
2. Does it reach the colonies you haven't found? A house with drywood termites almost never has just one colony. The pile you found is usually one of several, each sealed up in its own piece of wood, and some of them you'll never see.
3. Is anything left in the wood when the job's done? Some treatments kill what's there today and leave nothing behind. Others leave the wood protected against the next swarm.

Keep those three in your head as you read. They're the whole game.

First, which termite is it?

Drywood termites live sealed up inside the wood. Framing, trim, window sills, furniture, the attic. What you usually see is a little pile of pellets that looks like coffee grounds or sand, or a few wings near a window or a light.

Subterranean termites live in the soil and come up into the house through mud tubes about the width of your pinky, usually along the foundation.

Not sure which you've got? Here's what termites look like in Florida, and the real difference between drywood and subterranean. Or snap a picture and text it to us.

Drywood termites: how we treat them

We treat the whole house without a tent. That means as much bare wood as we can reach: the attic, the crawl space if you've got one, and inside the walls. The borate we use soaks into the wood and stays there. Nothing is known to take it back out. So it kills what's living in there now, and the wood keeps working against them after we leave.

And you don't go anywhere. You don't bag up your pantry, you don't board your pets, and you don't spend three days at your mother-in-law's. You just step out of whatever room we're working in. The product goes into the attic, the crawl space, and inside the walls, not out where kids or pets can get into it.

We started treating drywood termites without a tent in 2003. From 2003 to 2016 I was personally on every one of those jobs but five. That's more than 2,500 termite services. If the bugs come back, so do we, as long as you keep the yearly renewal inspection current, and you can carry that warranty for life. More on the drywood termite treatment page.

When a tent is the right call

Fumigation companies have been doing this a long time, and it works. The gas reaches every piece of wood in the house, including the places nobody can get to by hand. If your house is loaded with colonies, or the wood is closed up where we can't reach it, I'll tell you to tent. I'd rather lose the job than sell you the wrong one.

The catch is what happens after. Once the tarps come off and the gas clears, nothing is left in the wood. The next swarm that lands on your house finds wood that's wide open again. If a tent is on the table, here's what it really costs to tent a house, past the number on the quote, and how it compares to a whole house tentless treatment.

Spot treatments, including orange oil

A lot of "no tent" quotes are really spot treatments. Somebody treats the boards where you saw activity and leaves the rest of the house alone. It costs less because it's less product and less time. It's also a different job.

If there are colonies you haven't found, and with drywood there usually are, a spot treatment never touches them. That's usually when people tell us, "It didn't work." It did work, on the boards it reached.

Orange oil is a spot treatment too. It gets drilled and injected into the boards where you see activity. I used to buy it in 55-gallon drums, so this isn't something I read about. What I found was it treated the spot, and nothing three feet away from it. That's why we quit using it. University testing has questioned how well it works too.

Heat

Heat works on the same idea as a tent, with hot air instead of gas. The wood gets heated to at least 120 degrees and held there long enough to kill what's inside. It works on what it can heat. Big beams take a long time to heat all the way through, and wood sitting against concrete or tile keeps pulling the heat away. We don't do heat, but it's a real option and you should know it's out there.

Subterranean termites: how we treat them

Here the colony lives in the ground, so that's where the fight is. We dig a small trench around the house, four to six inches wide and deep, and put a liquid termiticide in before we backfill it. Then we put monitoring stations in the ground and check them every three months. If a station shows activity, we treat around that spot. That doesn't mean termites are in your house. It means we caught the pressure early enough to keep it that way. More on the subterranean termite treatment page.

Bait stations by themselves

A bait station is a small tube in the ground with a piece of wood inside. When termites find it, the wood gets swapped for bait, and they carry it back and take down the colony. When baits first came out, I was thrilled. But there are two things most people don't know.

Bait stations only work on subterranean termites. Drywood termites never come down to the soil, so a station in the yard will never see them. And stations usually sit 10 to 20 feet apart, so a colony can work the ground in between and never find one. That's why we use stations to watch, not as the whole treatment. I explain it in this podcast episode on bait stations.

Doing it yourself

A spray from the store kills the termites it touches. The problem is where they live. Drywood colonies are sealed up inside the wood, and subterranean colonies are out in the soil, so spraying the ones you can see doesn't reach the colony. For one board in a shed, go ahead. For your house, have somebody look before you spend the money.

Is there a way to get rid of them for good?

Here's the honest answer. Nobody can stop a swarm from landing on your house. Florida is full of termites, and they swarm every year. What you can control is two things: whether the wood is protected when they land, and whether somebody's checking. Treated wood plus a yearly renewal inspection is the closest thing to "for good" there is. Be careful with anybody who promises you more than that.

What it costs

We don't quote prices over the phone, because we haven't seen your house yet. Drywood work is priced by the square footage under roof, so the garage and the porch count. Subterranean work is priced by the linear feet around the foundation. Here's more on what termite treatment costs.

One thing worth knowing. Finding a few more colonies doesn't move your number, so there's no money saved by waiting. What waiting changes is the wood. Termites eat on their own schedule, and damage is the one part of this that doesn't come back.

Six questions to ask anybody you call, including us

1. Which termite do I have, and how do you know?
2. Are you treating the whole house, or just the spot I found?
3. What's left in the wood after you leave?
4. Do I have to leave my house, and for how long?
5. Who actually does the work? Your own crew, or a company you hire?
6. If they come back, what happens, and what keeps the warranty active?

A good company will answer all six without blinking. We'll answer every one of them at your kitchen table.

The honest reason not to sit on it

A drywood colony takes about five years to get big enough to throw swarmers, the winged ones that leave and start new colonies somewhere else in your house. Once that starts, one colony becomes several, and several becomes dozens. Caught early, it's a straightforward job. Caught late, I've seen it take years to track them all down. That's not a sales line. That's just how they work.

Related: Drywood termite treatment · Subterranean termite treatment · Tentless vs. tenting · What termite treatment costs · Tenting checklist

As long as GOD keeps making them, we'll keep killing them. Thanks, and you have a great day.

Coby

P.S. Already holding a quote from somebody else? Call anyway. Ask us the same six questions, and put our answers right next to theirs.