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How Can Termites Eat Up Your House And Property Value?

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George Morgan
George Morganhttps://dellacooks.com
Blogging is to writing what extreme sports are to athletics: more free-form, more accident-prone, less formal, more alive. It is, in many ways, writing out loud.

When a home is being assessed for its worth in a specific dollar amount, there are a number of factors measured by metrics and formulae used by an assessor. One of such standards is the present pest status, especially in terms of damage caused by termites. Whatever the evaluation wields may influence the appraisement.

Termites

Termites are known to be the most destructive pests that invade homes. When your home is made of wood, or there are cracks in the foundation or wood is stacked nearby, when your house is old and has been standing for years and is frequently moist (termites thrive and breed on wood and moisture), it will be more prone to termite infestation. 

In a span of 12 months, termites can destroy up to five billion dollars worth of properties solely in the US. That’s even more threatening compared to natural calamities like floods, earthquakes, and hurricanes, plus fires!

Termites

These termite colonies consist of around 60,000 to 3,000,000 workers that eat about 1/5 of an ounce of wood daily. It is said that in six months, a typical colony can eat about one foot of a 2×4 sized wood, but there are termite species which can gnaw through homes even more rapidly.

Its Effect on House and Property Value

The devastation brought about by termites to your home and its potential selling price are as follows:

  1. Structural Damage – Because termites live off of wood, they will eat into your support beams, posts, walls, roof, and floor. This results in severe structural damage that will render your house inhabitable until repaired.
  2. Expensive Repairs – An average of three thousand dollars are spent on home reconstruction due to termite damage. Some experts even believe that around 600,00 homeowners spend two million dollars each annually for damage control and restoration.
  3. Ruins the look of the house – Because the internal architecture of your house is unstable, it then will look weak and unappealing. Additionally, they tear up the aesthetics at your house, such as wallpapers and drywall coverings, and huge colonies of termites emit a musty or moldy odor or a scent of mildew, due to their pheromones, that’s not friendly to the noses of inhabitants and guests.
  4. They can eat up literally everything – Aside from that, termites will most probably chew on your pieces of wood furniture as well. Even carpets, rugs, clothes, significant papers, books, and anything with high cellulose and fiber content won’t be able to escape termites if you wait too long. They also enjoy munching on insulation, plaster and metals.
  5. Termites highly depreciate your property – If you don’t treat your home against termite infestation, its value will decrease at least 20%!

So, once you see the first signs of pest invasion, you should immediately act on it so that you can maintain, longer, a better property value. Preventive measures might cost you some money, but overall repairs and infestation treatment will cost you more.

As enumerated above, termites will feast on your home, giving rise to steep expenditures for repairs, decimating your house’s structure and beauty as a whole, and the things inside it. But you don’t have to fret when you notice the presence of termites, the sooner you act and call for professional intervention, the more permanently safer you are from the problems and expenses that termites can easily bring to your home.

Last Updated on 1 year by Evan White

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