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Termites are voracious insects that feed on wood, and in a neighborhood you have a lot of wood. So what happens if one of your neighbors has a termite infestation? Is your home at risk now or has the risk passed because the neighbor hired a pest control company? Let’s find out.

Drywood and dampwood termites

Drywood and dampwood termites are common pest termite species that will create new colonies through swarmers. Swarmers are winged termite kings and queens and they are only spawned by mature colonies.

This means that it is much harder for a drywood and dampwood termite colony to spread throughout a neighborhood, because it will have to reach maturity before it can send out these swarmers. The colony may be removed much sooner than that, and odds are that your home is safe.

However, if you see a home in your neighborhood being fumigated, that means that a drywood/dampwood termite infestation got so big that regular treatments could no longer handle it. At this point, you can assume that the colony was mature and sending out swarmers, and it would be a good idea to get an inspection for termites.

Subterranean termites

Subterranean termite infestations are not spread through swarmers. Instead, multiple workers from a central colony branch out looking for wood. When they find it, they go back to the colony and bring their friends, starting an infestation. As such, this species is much more likely to spread throughout an entire neighborhood, as a single colony can infest multiple homes at once in order to meet its nutritional needs.

To make matters worse, the main control method against subterranean termites does not kill the colony, it just blocks its access to the building. So not only will the colony survive the control process, it will actually be forced to look for other sources of food, which means they have an incentive to infest a different building. This is why it’s important to speak to your neighbor about the type of infestation that he had and the control method used to deal with it. If a chemical barrier was used, your home is at risk of infestation, but if a baiting system was used instead, then the termite colony should be destroyed at some point in the future.

For more information on how termite infestations spread, or if you suspect that there is an infestation going on in your neighborhood, contact us today and we can help you out with professional pest control services.