I Found Termite Wings in My Garage in Spring Hill Does That Mean I Have Termites?
Finding a pile of small wings on your garage floor stops you cold. They weren’t there yesterday and now there’s a neat little pile of them near the garage door or under the light fixture and you’re standing there trying to decide if this is something to worry about or something you can sweep up and forget about.
What Those Wings Actually Are
Termite swarmers are the winged reproductive members of a termite colony and they shed their wings almost immediately after landing. They swarm, they find a mate, they drop their wings and they start looking for a place to establish a new colony. The wings get left behind in a pile and they all look identical, same size, same shape, same color. That’s the detail that separates termite wings from anything else you might find on your garage floor. A pile of wings that all match each other is not a coincidence.
Flying ants also swarm and also shed wings but their wings are two different sizes, larger in the front and smaller in the back. Termite wings are all the same length. If the wings are still there go look at them closely before you do anything else. If they all look identical you’re looking at termite wings.
Does Finding Wings in the Garage Mean Termites Are in Your House?
Not necessarily, but it means termites were on or near your property recently and that is not something to brush off. There are two situations that explain wings showing up in a garage.
The first is that a swarm happened nearby, outside the structure, and some of the swarmers came in through the garage door, under it or through a gap somewhere. Swarmers are attracted to light and a garage with a light on during a swarm event will pull them in. If that’s what happened the swarmers landed, dropped their wings and either found their way back out or died. No colony inside your garage, just evidence of a swarm that passed through the area.
The second situation is that the swarm came from a colony already established somewhere in or under your garage. Subterranean termite colonies produce swarmers when the colony is mature, usually after several years of growth. If the swarm originated from inside your structure that colony has been working in the wood around your garage for years before you ever noticed a single wing on the floor.
The problem is you can’t tell which situation you’re in just by looking at the wings. That’s what an inspection is for.
Why the Garage Is a Common Spot for Termite Activity in Spring Hill
Garages in Spring Hill homes are vulnerable to subterranean termites for a few reasons. The concrete slab and block walls of a garage often have more direct contact with the soil than the main living areas of the house. Wood framing around the garage door, door frames leading into the house and any wood stored on the garage floor sit close to the ground and close to any termite colony living in the soil underneath or alongside the foundation.
Mulch beds running along the exterior of the garage are one of the most overlooked factors. Termites are drawn to mulch and a mulch bed sitting against the exterior wall of your garage gives a colony an easy path from the soil into the wood framing of the structure. A lot of Spring Hill homes in Timber Pines and out toward the Weeki Wachee areas have landscaping sitting right up against the garage that creates exactly this kind of entry point.
Moisture is the other factor. Garages collect humidity, especially through the summer, and wood that stays damp is more attractive to termites than dry wood. A garage door that doesn’t seal completely, water that comes in during rain, condensation on block walls, all of these create conditions that draw termites in.
What to Look for Before You Call
Walk your garage and look at the wood framing around the door that leads into the house. Press on it. Healthy wood is firm. Wood that gives when you press on it, sounds hollow when you knock on it or has small holes or what looks like sawdust piled near the base has been compromised. Check the baseboards along the garage walls, the wooden trim around the garage door opening and any wood sitting close to the floor.
Look at your foundation along the exterior of the garage. Mud tubes on your foundation are one of the clearest signs of subterranean termite activity. They are thin brown tunnels about the width of a pencil that termites build to travel between the soil and the wood they are feeding on. Finding a mud tube on the exterior foundation near your garage combined with wings inside is a strong indicator that the swarm came from a colony already working in your structure.
What Happens if You Wait
Subterranean termites eat from the inside out. The wood around your garage door frame can look completely normal on the surface while the interior is being hollowed out. By the time you can see visible damage from the outside the colony has been working in that area for a long time and what’s behind the surface is already significant.
A garage that connects directly to the living space of the home, which most Spring Hill homes do, gives a termite colony a path from the garage framing into the wall framing of the house. That’s how a problem that started in the garage becomes a problem throughout the structure without anyone realizing it until the damage is widespread.
The homeowners in Spring Hill who end up with the smallest repair bills are the ones who called for an inspection the week they noticed something that didn’t look right. The ones who waited because they weren’t sure it was worth a call end up dealing with a much larger situation a year or two later.
What to Do Right Now
Leave the wings where they are if you can. A technician who can see exactly where the pile was and what else is nearby will get a much better picture of what’s going on than one working from a description. Take a photo of them before anything disturbs the pile.
If you have found wings near a window or doorway elsewhere in the house in addition to the garage that changes the picture considerably and is worth mentioning when you call.
Call us and we will come out, inspect the garage and the surrounding structure and tell you exactly what you are dealing with. Our Spring Hill termite inspection team starts with a full walkthrough of the property so you get a straight answer before anything has a chance to get worse.