Don’t Ignore These Signs of Termite Infestation

Termites are small, but they aren’t invisible. If you know what to check, you can spot signs of termite activity early when damage is less costly to fix. Let’s look at the most common warning signs of termites in and around your home:

Mud tubes are a signature of subterranean termites. These pencil-thin tunnels run along foundations, crawl spaces, and walls. Built using soil and saliva, mud tubes protect worker termites as they move between nests and food sources. If you notice mud tunnels snaking up your home’s foundation, that’s a sure sign of active termite infestation. For clear examples of these signs, the Terminix termite signs page is a useful visual guide.

Tap on wooden structures—baseboards, door frames, window sills—and listen. If the wood sounds hollow or papery, termites may have eaten through it from the inside out. As termites hollow out wood, it loses strength and often develops tiny kick-out holes, another early sign of termite damage lurking just beneath the surface. Subfloor and sagging floors, as explained by Mississippi State’s extension service, often point to deep-seated termite activity.

During certain times of the year, you may find discarded wings on windowsills, near door frames, or in spider webs. These wings are left behind by termite swarmers (also known as alates or flying termites) as they leave the parent colony to start new colonies. Discarded wings signal that a termite colony is nearby, and new colonies could be forming inside your home.

Drywood termites leave behind piles of tiny, pellet-shaped droppings known as frass. These droppings often look like sawdust or ground pepper and can collect beneath infested wood, windowsills, or even in your attic. If you spot unexpected sawdust-like piles, don’t ignore them.

Paint that bubbles, blisters, or cracks can be a sign of termite activity beneath the surface. Drywood termites inside walls create small pinholes (kick-out holes) and may cause your paint to look uneven or damaged. Sometimes, the first sign is visible only after peeling back the paint sheet.

As the wooden structure is eaten away, the support weakens. Floors or ceilings may begin to sag, and doors can become tight or stubborn in their frames as the wood swells with termite moisture. Don’t dismiss a sagging floor or a new issue with a door, as these changes often have termites as the hidden culprit.

Not every problem with wood signals termites. Other pests cause their own mischief, and confusing one for another can lead to wasted time, money, and stress. Here’s how termite signs stack up against other common offenders:

• Carpenter ants also tunnel through wood, but they leave behind wood shavings instead of pellet-like frass. Their tunnels are clean, smooth, and often visible near entry holes.
• Carpenter bees drill round, neat holes into wood, but leave coarse sawdust below and don’t build mud tubes or tunnels.
• Rodents chew, but their damage usually comes with shredded insulation, gnaw marks, and droppings that look nothing like those left by termites.
• Wood rot and water damage can mimic termite-damaged wood but lack mud tubes, frass, or wings.

When in doubt, professional pest identification always pays off. Superior Service’s local teams have a sharp eye for spotting a true termite problem versus issues caused by other pests.