Termite control in Miami, FL: inspection and treatment

Miami-Dade has three termites that matter, and they are treated differently. Drywood termites live inside the wood itself, need no soil contact, and are the ones tenting is for. Subterranean termites, including the Formosan colonies established across the southern half of the county, live in the ground and come up through mud tubes; tenting does nothing for them, and the treatment is a soil barrier or bait stations. Getting the species right is the whole job, and it is why the inspection comes before the quote.

Say what you have seen. The inspection comes first; then you get what they found in writing and a proposed treatment with a price and a warranty. What you do with the proposal is up to you.

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Signs you have them

• Swarmers: winged insects at a window or light, usually spring for drywood and spring after rain for subterranean. Termite swarmers have straight antennae, a thick waist, and four equal wings; ants have a pinched waist and unequal wings. Piles of shed wings on a sill are the same sign a day later.
• Frass: small, hard, six-sided pellets, sand-colored to dark, in little piles under a kick-out hole. Drywood termites push it out of the wood they live in. Look on window sills, under wood door frames, along baseboards, on the top of the closet shelf.
• Mud tubes: pencil-width tunnels of dirt on the block wall, the slab edge, the garage wall, inside the bathroom cabinet where the pipes come through. Subterranean termites build them to move between soil and wood without drying out.
• Wood that sounds hollow when tapped, paint that bubbles or looks rippled, a door frame a screwdriver sinks into, sagging in the attic decking.

Swarm season in Miami-Dade

Swarming starts earlier here than in the rest of Florida: UF/IFAS researchers have seen it from late February, and Formosan subterranean and West Indian drywood termites peak through mid-June. Both fly at dusk, for about half an hour, toward porch and window lights.

A swarm outside on a spring evening is common and says little about your house. A swarm inside, or wings on the inside of a closed window, means a colony is close, and that is when an inspection is worth booking.

Drywood termites and tenting

Whole-structure fumigation is the treatment that reaches every drywood colony in a house at once, including the ones no inspection can see inside the roof framing. The house is sealed under tarps for two to three days, the gas is introduced, then cleared and tested before you re-enter. You take out people, pets, plants, and opened food and medicine; the company gives you the prep list. The gas leaves no residue, which also means it prevents nothing: a warranty with an annual inspection is what protects you afterward.

A local or spot treatment, drilling and injecting the infested wood, is an option when the inspection finds a colony in one accessible place. It costs far less and is the right answer for a single window frame or a piece of fascia. It is the wrong answer when swarmers came from three rooms, and a company that offers only one of the two options is selling what they have, not what you need.

Subterranean and Formosan termites

These live in the soil, and the colony is under the house or the yard, not in the wood. Treatment is either a liquid termiticide barrier applied in a trench around the foundation and under the slab through drilled holes, or a system of bait stations around the perimeter; worker termites carry the bait back to the colony. Both are ongoing: the barrier has a life of several years and the baits need monitoring, so the annual warranty is not a courtesy, it is the treatment.

Formosan colonies are larger and faster than the native species and can be in the house within months of reaching the yard. If the inspection finds Formosan activity, act on it; there is no season when they stop.

What to expect on the proposal

• A diagram of the house showing where evidence was found and what species.
• The treatment proposed, the product, and the reason it fits what was found.
• The price, what is included, what the warranty covers (retreatment only, or repair of new damage), how long it runs, and what the annual renewal costs.
• The company’s Florida license number and category.
• For a fumigation: the prep list, the days you will be out, and who is responsible for the roof and the landscaping.

What drives the cost

The price depends on the species, the square footage and roof shape (fumigation is priced by the volume under the tent), how accessible the infested wood is, whether it is a house or an attached unit (fumigation may have to cover the adjoining homes in the same structure), and the warranty term. A written proposal comes after they have seen it; price, timing, and warranty are between you and the company.