Lions and Tigers and …Termites?
I think everyone can agree that when you hear someone has termites, your stomach turns a little. Well, we don’t currently HAVE termite damage but at one point the previous owners did. This was not disclosed when we bought the house which is illegal in the state of Maryland.
When we bought the house we were assuming that the home inspector knew the signs of termite damage at least a little. Come to find out, they by law are not required to know or identify termites/pests. We were present for the inspection (and I highly recommend always being present for your inspections!) and during which I asked if he thought we needed to hire one! He said no, he didn’t see the point. So, we took him at his word and skipped that step. I don’t want to put blame on him completely, it was our fault for not doing our homework and inspecting the numerous holes in the wood floors around the second and third floor.
About a year into owning our house, we noticed all the holes in the wood floor boards. Okay, it’s an old house. So what? Then we spotted the pin holes in the ceilings around the house. Then after that we
Eventually we figured out they were not active or present anymore and they were doing no more damage.
Red flags to watch for:
Moisture damage throughout the house
Our inspector noticed some of the corners and entryway flooring having some darker coloring but detected no moisture. This was overlooked and should indicate a red flag! Parts of the outside door framing looked to have some water damage and needed repairing. Honestly, it seemed like the sellers just painted over it.
Small or large holes in flooring
After some time passed, we noticed the various holes in the flooring. The holes are what made it click in my mind that yes, we HAD termites. These were the holes we are currently filling around the house.
Raised swollen flooring and creaks/squeaks
Sometimes with wood flooring, the wood will shift and move over time, wear and tear. In various places in our house you’ll find some slightly raised wood planks as well as some squeeky spots. We chocked it up to wood floors just being a bit aged! Looking back, we should have paid more attention to the cause.
Pin holes in ceiling
The pin holes were the last thing we noticed in our little termite excursion. We found these little holes on just about every floor of the house. If you thought that termites just like wood, you are unfortunately mistaken! In addition, we found some indentation in the drywall in our kitchen. The indents actually outlined the tunnels.
Termite mud tubes & tunnels
While we demo’d our bathroom, we found a lot of termite damage in the wood structure of the shower. you can see a lot of tunnels in the wood plank below along with mold and decay at the bottom. We wouldn’t have noticed this unless we needed to remodel the bathroom! A common indication of termites is hollow sounding wood. Termites eat from the inside out so it’s typical that once there’s visible damage, there could be very expensive repairs needed that aren’t as evident.
There are so many more signs of damage and PRESENT termites. Always get it checked out as soon as possible! If they have gotten to the joists (part of the structure of the house), you may be in trouble.
So, what do we do? Do we replace ALL the wood in the house? What about those joists? As we have been inspecting the house, we realized for now it was just fine to leave it and replace flooring later. We knew the joists were fine from renovations we’ve done so we weren’t worried about that.
We decided to just put a kind of “band-aid” over it. I know, it sounds sketchy. As I was on Google researching what to do and how to visually hide these craters and pockets, I saw there was literally NOTHING explaining how to cover it up or temporarily remedy the ugly situation!
To help aid in the visual eyesore that is our flooring, we filled some of the holes with wood filler. I chose wood filler because it can be sanded and if we need to fix or remove it, it won’t be too difficult. There is room for error! After filling, we stained the filler to match the wood a bit better. Although this isn’t beautiful, it will fix it temporarily!
Hopefully in 3 or 4 years, we will replace all the flooring and ideally leave less evidence of this disaster! We will also get a better idea of what damage hides beneath in the subfloors.
