How to tell you have them
Look for small piles of hard, six-sided pellets, like coarse sand or ground coffee, on window sills, floors and furniture, below a tiny round kick-out hole in the wood above. Swarmers appear at dusk or at night in late spring and summer, drawn to lights. Blistered or wavy paint on trim, doors and window frames can mean galleries just under the surface. Unlike subterranean termites, drywoods build no mud tubes.
What they damage
Drywood termites hollow out door and window frames, trim, rafters, fascia boards and furniture. A colony is small compared with a subterranean colony, but a house can hold several colonies, and infested furniture can carry them from one home to the next.
What treatment looks like
The right treatment depends on how widespread the colonies are, which the inspection decides. A small colony we can reach is treated locally: we drill small holes into the galleries, inject a labeled termiticide and seal the holes. Infested furniture can sometimes be treated the same way. When colonies are widespread, or hidden in walls and attic framing we cannot reach, the standard answer is whole-structure fumigation. We do not perform fumigation. If your home needs it, we tell you so and explain how to choose a licensed fumigation company.
How long it takes
Spot treatment of a reachable colony is done in one visit, and we check the area again at the next visits for fresh pellets. Old pellets can sit on a sill for months after a colony is dead, so we clear them and watch for new ones.
Florida notes
Coastal Florida is home to the West Indian drywood termite, which infests furniture and structural wood in older homes, as well as to native drywood species. In our seasonal model, drywood swarms peak in June. Spot treatment of small colonies is part of Termite Shield and Complete.