How to Get Rid of Termites In Your Home, According to a Professional (2025)

Atermiteinfestation can lead to costly damage to your home’s interior and overall structure. It’s easy to overlook these little critters at first, but it’s crucial to spot the first signs of termites in your home as soon as possible since it only takes them about a year to leave behind their destruction.

There are several dead giveaways that your home is dealing with a colony or two such as mud tunnels (how termites travel back and forth from their colony to their food source), discarded wings, and damage to your interior/exterior walls that include small holes in the wall, damage to wood, or peeling paint. In most cases, you'll need to call a professional to eradicate the termites, but there are other methods you can try yourself. Keep reading to learn how to get rid of termitesand how to prevent termite damage to your home.

How to Identify Termites

If you see several little creatures flying around your home, or a set of discarded wings, it might be a termite. However, it’s important not to distinguish a termite from an ant. Here's how to differentiatetermites from ants, according to Shaw:

• Body: Ants have three body parts: the head, thorax, and abdomen. A termite just has a head and a body, nothing in the middle.
• Antennae: Ant antennae are elbowed or bent to a 90-degree angle, while a termite’s antennae are sticking straight out.
• Wings: Termites have four wings that are all the same size, whereas an ant has one long wing and one short wing on each side.
  

What Causes Termites?

There are several reasons why you might suddenly notice a colony of termites invading your home. “In the south, we have a saying that there are homes with termites and homes that aren’t yet with termites,” Shaw jokes. “Realistically, there’s nothing you can do to fully prevent termites; it’s what you can do to delay them.”

• Wood: This is a popular reason for luring termites to your home. Especially when combined with moisture, such as rotted water-wood, wood is a food and habitat source for termites.
• Moist soil: If you have mulch in your flowerbed around the front or back of your house, it's time to swap for something different. “Mulch, even though a lot of people use it, creates an environment that provides moisture and wood, which contains cellulose and is what the termites are really after," Shaw says. His alternative for a termite-free home is to use rock or stone.
• Location: Some areas in the country are more prone to termite infestations due to other causes, such as high humidity levels. Since termites love warmer areas, they tend to be a bigger problem in the south.

How to Get Rid of Termites

The best way to get rid of termites is to call a professional, however, there are some methods you can try on your own first. Be sure to read each product's label and directions before use, and keep children and pets away from the affected areas.

Try a Termiticide

Termiticide is a pesticide treatment you can find at your local hardware store to spray around your home to solve your termite issue. It must be used cautiously and kept out of the way of children or pets. Though Shaw says this tactic works great for insects like roaches or carpet beetles, he recommends calling the professionals instead to keep your house safe from termites.

Liquid Treatment (Most Effective)

Liquid treatment is the most effective and fast-acting, as it works to prevent termites from passing by the barrier the exterminator sprays around your home. “This treatment works as a protective barrier that affects the soil around your house to make it a termite-free island," Shaw says. "The liquid seeps into the soil and deters the termites from passing through and wanting to get into the house.”

Set Out Bait

Baiting systems are set around the house every 10-15 feet. The termite that finds the wood eats it and then takes the food back to its colony for the rest to feed on. “What this does is eliminate the terminates by stopping reproduction so they don’t make it to the next stage,” Shaw says. “When the rest of the colony eats the bait, it sterilizes them so that no new termites can be created and make the problem worse.”

Types of Termites

There are forty-five species under the termite umbrella, and they are divided into three main categories that depend on where they are geographically and what they gravitate towards.

1. Subterranean Termites: This is the largest type of termite and is the most common. Living in the soil, these termites can feed on several food sources.
2. Drywood Termites: Drywood termites are colonies that are smaller than their Subterranean counterparts and live in dead wood. They do not need the soil to feed.
3. Dampwood Termites: This type of termite needs wood sources with high-moisture levels and no contact with soil. These termites are popular in decaying wood.

How to Prevent Termites

If your home has high humidity or leaky pipes, regulating the temperature and fixing the pipes will save you in the long run. It’s also important to make sure your home is free from wood contact.

“Keep your moisture levels to a healthy level, especially under a crawl space, and eliminate wood piles from your foundation unless it's treated wood,” Shaw says. “Any type of wood that goes into or lays on soil needs to be a pressure treated material because termites no doubt will get into untreated wood.”

When to Call a Professional

For a tried and true method of getting rid of termites, it’s always best to call a professional if you suspect a termite invasion. These professionals have the right gear and equipment that aren’t sold at stores to diminish the problem quickly and effectively.

“There are some things home improvement stores sell that homeowners can try on their own, but a typical homeowner can’t get the product underneath a concrete slab like a professional can," Shaw says.

Shaw says trying to tackle the termite problem yourself can make it worse. The best way to know for sure that your home has a termite problem is to let a pest exterminator examine your home to check the soil and under the crawl space.