What are Termite Mud Tubes?

Summer is coming soon, and with summer comes termite season! These common home pests can cause thousands of dollars of damage to you and your property, so it’s good to know how to prevent them. If you’re looking into how to spot termites in your home, the first place to start is with their mud tubes.

What are Termite Mud Tubes?

As termites crawl around your property, they like to build little tunnels that connect them to food sources, water, or even just a good spot to store things. As a colony grows, it expands, and that makes more tunnels as well. If you’ve noticed little lines of mud across your home, it’s a good chance that those are termite mud tubes, made as they explore the area or even start eating the wood of your home. Make sure to clean them up as they appear, so that the termites can’t keep coming into your home.

A Closer Look at Types of Mud Tubes

There are four major types of termite mud tubes.

Exploratory Tubes, which are termites’ ways of finding new food or water sources on your property. These are often the easiest to see, and if you follow them, you might stumble across the larger nest.

Working Tubes, which are like termite highways– they take all the worker termites from one place to another, so that they can gather food and water for the colony. These will also lead back to the central hub of the colony.

Swarm Tubes, which are what happens when the working tubes get overcrowded. These are temporary tunnels for when something bad has happened in the working tubes, and the termites need a way around it.

Drop Tubes, which are termites’ ways of finding new food that might be below them, on a basement floor or even just a lower story of your home. These are easy to spot, because they look like small muddy stalactites.

Removing termite mud tubes

If you’re looking for some top-notch termite control for your home, look no further than the professionals at ScorpionTech. With our courteous and quick service and stunning track record, we’re the best bet for dealing with any termite-based threats you might encounter this spring. Keep your home safe and whole, with ScorpionTech!

Termite Season is Here

It’s termite season again, and you know what that means- thousands of dollars in property damage could potentially be heading your way. If you’d like to keep your house and livelihood this fall, understanding how to identify termites and what you can do to prevent a problem is key.

Identifying Termites

Termites are a pretty easy bug to identify. They’re about half an inch long, colored with white or brown pigmentation and small pincers. It’s easier, though, to identify them by the marks they leave behind: patterns of discolored drywall, peeling paint, hollow walls, broken wooden furniture, and small pockmarked holes in your drywall. You might also see muddy tube-like structures leading up to and beside the foundation of your home, which is where the termites like to nest when they’re not inside the walls. You might also notice them in brush piles or bushes around your home because wood is wood and they’re not picky.

Termite Prevention

Termites are a pretty easy pest to prevent. Only use treated wood when building things on your property, whether it be a new home addition or a tool shed. Keep woodpiles and shrubbery away from any buildings or structures on your property, and keep all of your doors, vents, and windows properly sealed. Make sure to take care of standing water outside of your home, because that attracts both termites and other pests, like mice and mosquitoes. Book a termite screening annually to ensure that your house remains termite-free as long as you’re living there.

termite control Mesa

The best way to get rid of the termites you’ve already got, though, has to be going with a great group of licensed professionals like ScorpionTech. To save your home, your business, and even your loved ones from the dreaded menace that termites are, call ScorpionTech for the best termite control Mesa. They’re courteous, protect your home, and care about your family and property. They’ll ensure that your home is termite-free and that no more will come back for a good while. Go with the best- and keep termites out of your home with ScorpionTech.