Termites are pests that do more than just annoy you, they can cause a lot of destruction to your home, furniture, and belongings made of wood. Since your home is a large investment, you want to protect it by keeping termites at bay.

The pests are often difficult to detect until they've already done a lot of damage. Therefore, preventing pests is an essential step in protecting your home. When it comes to termites, you need to stop attracting them, exterminate the termites you have, prevent another infestation, and monitor for them in your yard. Here's how you can do that with the help of a termite control professional.

How to Stop Attracting Termites

Termites love damp areas, so if you have a pipe leak in your home somewhere, you have a greater risk of a termite infestation. Go through your house and make sure there are no roof leaks, plumbing leaks, or condensation problems that keep part of your home damp. Dry out your house if it is damp, use climate control that pulls out excess humidity from your home, and clean up clutter so it's easy to spot termites and so they have fewer places to hide out.

How to Eliminate Termites

A termite control professional will help you decide on the best way to eliminate the pests. Tenting is a possible solution, but your exterminator might recommend using bait instead. Bait is less disruptive for you, and you won't have to leave your home. Bait is slower acting since the ants have to carry it back to their nest to wipe out the colony, but the bait is safe and effective. Heat can also kill termites, so your exterminator may recommend heat treatments for furniture and belongings.

How to Prevent Termite Problems

Termites can get in cracks along your foundation and gaps along the siding. Sealing your house helps keep termites out. Removing dead trees and stumps from your yard may help too, since termites might invade an old stump and use it as a home for a colony.

You may also need to create a border around your home's foundation so plants and bark mulch won't touch the sides of your house to make it easy for termites to get in. Your exterminator might also put down termiticide along the foundation. They might even use a termite repellent around a shed or other area where they've determined termites are not present.

How to Monitor for Termites

Since termites have large colonies outside under the ground, you won't know they're close to your house and a threat unless you monitor for them. The colony might even be in a neighbor's tree that you can't even see. Fortunately, a termite control professional can put out monitoring stations and check them occasionally to see if termites have been active in your yard.

If termites have been eating the wood in the monitoring station, the exterminator can switch the wood to poison bait so the termites carry the poison back to the nest and wipe it out before the number of termites grows.