Preventing Termite Damage in Unexpected Places

We know you’ve heard a lot about termite protection for your home or business, and you probably know all about how to look for signs of termite damage or infestation on your property. But with termite swarm season just around the corner—here in Oklahoma, swarm season typically starts in March—we want to warn you about other termite targets that you might not be aware of. Did you know termites will actually eat the wood from just about any structure with wood in its construction?

Termites don’t just attack buildings like homes and businesses. They’ll search for wood cellulose anywhere they can find it, including wooden fences, decks, garden sheds or toolsheds, pool houses, garages or any other structure with wooden construction. Once inside a home, business or other structure, they’ll continue to search for more wood to eat. Have a wooden workbench in your tool shed or garage? What about wood furniture in your home or pool house? Termites will eat these without hesitation. These pesky pests will also eat paper and cardboard, which means they could eat through storage boxes, keepsake books and important documents that you need to keep safe.

The common wisdom is that termites eat wood, but what they’re really after is cellulose, an organic compound that wood is made up of. Most of the termite species in Oklahoma are subterranean, meaning they live underground. Hundreds of thousands, sometimes even millions, of termites band together to form a colony, and each termite has a specific role inside the colony. One of the most important members are worker termites. These termites act as food scouts for the rest of the colony. They spend their entire life tunneling around in the ground, looking for new sources of wood that they can bring back to the colony to support all the other termites—including the soldiers, the reproductives, the swarmers, and the queen.

To keep termites from damaging your home and any other property, you need to destroy the entire colony and kill the queen. This is no easy task, but thankfully, we have the experience and equipment to make it happen. For any termite prevention and control job, regardless of whether it’s a residential or commercial property, we recommend The Sentricon® System. The Sentricon® System can protect anything from invading termite colonies, not just a home or business structure. We mentioned that the worker termites spend their days looking for food to bring back to the rest of the colony. However, they also act as scouts to look out for any potential danger and report back about whether or not the colony is safe and can remain there.

So to completely eradicate a termite colony, you have to kill the termites without letting them know you’re doing it. That’s exactly what The Sentricon® System does. The Recruit® HD bait used in the system is even more appealing to termites than wood is, so they feast on it and direct others in the colony to do so as well, without knowing that it’s actually killing them. Before the termites sense that they are in any danger, they have lost their ability to feed or breed.

We were the first Certified Sentricon® Specialists in Oklahoma, and we’re still the most experienced and dedicated today. At Emtec Pest Control, we have been providing termite control for over 35 years and have been using this specific system for over 20 years with incredible results for both residential and commercial properties. Our professional and committed termite technicians have an average of 18 years of experience with Emtec Pest Control. Ready to commit to protecting your property and possessions from irreparable termite damage? Give your local Certified Sentricon® Specialists a call today.

If you have any other questions about termite prevention or The Sentricon® System, contact the experts at Emtec Pest Control by calling 918-663-0613 or by filling out our online contact form. Our service areas in Northeast Oklahoma include Bixby, Broken Arrow, Catoosa, Owasso, Jenks, Sand Springs, Sapulpa, Skiatook, Stillwater, Tulsa, and the surrounding areas. In Central Oklahoma, we service Edmond, Moore, Oklahoma City, Yukon, and the surrounding areas. You can also connect with us on social media for more helpful pest control tips and information. We are on Facebook and Google+.