Termites usually produce sounds as they go about their day-to-day activities. The sounds termites make are faint and rarely heard. You are likely to hear the sounds at night when there is total silence indoors. The sounds come from the termites chewing on or moving through wood.
When disturbed or threatened, soldier termites create rattling noises by hitting their heads against the walls of tunnels. The pests use the vibrations caused by these movements to warn their colonies of danger. Worker termites also make clicking and rustling sounds with their mouths as they tunnel through wood.
Termites make a soft clicking noise as the worker termites are eating. So if you have termites in and around the walls of your home, it's common that you'll occasionally be able to hear them.
Do Termites Only Make Noise At Night? Termites work and eat all the time and they never sleep, thus they make noises continuously, no matter if it's a day or night. However, during the night, when the house is quiet, it's easiest to detect sounds. Termite noise is then more noticeable and can be picked up by fine ears.
While excavating their way through the wood, termites sometimes make a high-pitched sound that's easiest to hear at night when everything is quiet. Sometimes, only children can hear the high frequency, so if your child consistently reports sounds in the walls at night, it might be time to take a closer look.
If you notice squeaky floorboards in your home, it may be a sign that you're dealing with termites. Excessive squeaking can mean that there is damage to your floorboards in a particular area and that termites may be causing your floorboards to weaken.
Subterranean termites swarm during the day, particularly after rainfall. They're most active in the spring. Invasive Formosan termites swarm at night and are generally at their peak in the late spring and summer. Drywood termites are also active at night, especially around lights.
Don't be fooled, the “termite season” is a myth. Once termites get into your home, they are active, 24/7, all year long, feeding on and damaging wood members with one objective in mind, increasing the size of their colony. Interesting termite facts: Termites damage approximately 600,000 homes in the U.S. each year.
Electrical arcing is the most likely source of a crackling or sizzling sound. In fact, this sound will sometimes mean that electricity is actively arcing between connections. You can hear this near your electrical panel as you flip a breaker on or off.
Damage caused by termite infestations are known to emit a musty or fungal odor, similar to mold or mildew. In general, an area that's damp or moist is associated with this type of smell because there is decaying timber or other rotting wooden materials in this area which these pests aim for.
Your first thought upon hearing a scratching noise from your walls is that you must be in a horror movie, but when that feeling subsides, the real problem becomes clear: you likely have some sort of animal infestation. These noises are most likely caused by either squirrels, mice, or rats.
Termites in Ceiling
If you find a hole in your ceiling or wall, check for small piles of termite feces beneath or near the hole. Fecal pellets are usually very small and look similar to coffee grounds or pepper, although they can be different colors.
Combining half a cup of vinegar with the juice of two lemons creates an effective, acidic spray that is safer than boric acid but also kills termites. This solution is also ideal for soaking into any damaged areas of the wood to clear cracks of termites.
On average, it can take three to five years for a termite colony's damage to become visible. At this point, the colony will have dealt thousands of dollars of damage. But, to get a better idea of how long you have, you'll have to be aware of the factors that can impact the colony's growth and rate of wood consumption.
In heated homes termites can be just as active in the winter as they are in the summer. During the winter months when termites are less active the most common signs of an infestation include: Mud tubes on the floors or walls. Paint that is bubbling and/or cracked – usually with frass coming out of the cracks.
Experts view winter as the ideal time for termite treatment because of how predictable termite locations and activities are. If you plan to use baiting systems, termites are more likely to come across the bait in winter than they are in summer and spring.
There are two main chemicals used to kill termites—fipronil and hexaflumuron. Fipronil is the specially designed chemical used as an active ingredient in many different liquid termiticides. In high enough concentrations, it can kill termites on contact. Pest control specialists apply it around the perimeter of homes.
If shaken or disturbed, termites will abandon the associated area and move on to secretly cause damage in other areas in the building.
During mating season, winged reproductives, called alates, swarm at dusk in the spring months, usually after rainfall, to find a mate and start new colonies. Sometimes termites swarm because the colony has matured to the point where it is no longer manageable and new colonies need to form for the colony to survive.
Winged swarming termites emerge from cracks in your walls and foundation in large numbers. They can also come out though holes in the soil in your yard. They emerge through swarm tubes made by worker termites. Unfortunately for them, not every termite survives to form a new colony.
“Squeaks happen when a house settles and wood flooring dries and then expands,” says Realtor's Lis Kaplan Gordon. “This causes the floorboards to rub against each other, or against the subfloor, or against the nail casings.” Handyman's J.B.
Uneven Subfloor
The more you creak, the more it's moving. An uneven subfloor can again be the culprit. It could also be caused by a dodgy underlay installation. An uneven underlay, or the wrong kind of underlay used underneath a solid wood floor can cause a squeak when you step.
The noise that you hear when you step on a floorboard (or floorboards) is usually a result of loose boards. The bounciness and movement in these loose boards causes them to rub together or onto a fixing nail or floor joist which, in turn, creates an unpleasant and annoying noise referred to as creaking or squeaking.