Drywood termite treatment for Los Angeles homes

They fly. Winged swarmers launch on warm afternoons, mostly late summer into fall here, land on exposed wood, pair up and bore in through a crack or joint smaller than a matchhead. The colony then lives entirely inside the wood: attic framing, eaves, window frames, furniture, no mud tubes, no ground connection.

By what the inspection can map. Infestations that are localized and accessible, one eave section, a window frame, an attic member, are honest spot-treatment candidates. Multiple colonies, evidence scattered across the structure, or galleries running into inaccessible framing push toward whole-structure fumigation, because spot-treating one colony of five fixes a fifth of the problem. You get the evidence and the reasoning, not just a recommendation.

Galleries get drilled and treated directly with materials labeled for drywood work, borate-based products and targeted termiticides among them, so the treatment reaches the colony where it lives. Exposed raw wood can get a borate surface treatment as a preventive layer while access is open.

Very likely. Drywood colonies push waste pellets out through kick-out holes, and the pile rebuilding on the same sill or floor spot is the classic sign of an active gallery above it. Hard, six-sided, sand-like pellets distinguish them from sawdust; photograph the pile and call.

Almost never: policies treat termite damage as preventable maintenance, not a covered peril. That is the financial case for annual inspections here, because the whole cost lands on the owner and it grows with every year a colony runs undetected.