Termites do not take long to find a home and infest the wood inside it. However, termites are not just a threat to your furniture and wooden pillars. They will also take great joy in tearing up your clothes.
What draws termites to clothes
There are thousands of species of termites out there, but they all have one thing in common: they feed on a form of plant material known as cellulose, and they will eat pretty much anything that contains it. This means that they will feast on wood, books, wallpaper, and even clothes. This is because clothes may be made out of fabrics that contain cellulose, fabrics such as linen and cotton. If termites can infest an area where clothes are present they will eat them up as well.
What to do if you start to notice holes in your clothes?
Finding holes in your wardrobe is not necessarily a sign of a termite infestation. In fact, your clothes are safe most of the time from these pests, since termites really do not like leaving their colonies and being out in the open. However, it is not a completely unheard of occurrence for termites to eat clothes.
More commonly, clothes fall victim to other pests, such as silverfish. As such, if you notice that your clothing has been damaged by a pest, you will want to first consider other insects before you jump to the conclusion that you have a termite infestation.
Common signs of a termite infestation
Unfortunately, termite infestations are very hard to detect before most of the damage is done because termites almost never leave the inside of their colony. If they do have to venture outside of the ground or the wood that they infest, they will build mud tubes through which they can travel safely. This means that if you notice these mud tubes around the foundation of your home, or coming out of the ground, you can be sure that there is an infestation. Another sign that you should look out for is the presence of swarmers or their wings. Swarmers are reproductive, winged termites that fly out from their colonies searching for a new nest location.
If you notice any of these signs, you should contact a pest control specialist immediately, in order to remove the infestation as soon as possible. Contact us today for more information.