Ellicott City Termite Control

Ellicott City's suburbs started in the 1950s. Dunloggin grew out of a dairy farm sold for development in 1952, and Normandy Heights followed in 1955. Over the next few decades, Worthington, Centennial, St. Johns Lane, and the streets around them filled in with ranches, raised ranches, split-foyers, and colonials, most of them on basements. Those homes are now 40 to 70 years old. Whatever soil treatment went down when they were built wore out long ago.

A split-foyer is a good example of why these houses need a careful look. You walk in the front door and go half a flight up or half a flight down. The lower level sits partly below the ground, so its wood sill plate and the bottom of its framed walls are only a little above the soil outside. In many houses that level was finished decades ago with wood paneling, drop ceilings, and wall-to-wall carpet. It makes a nice family room. It also hides the block wall where termites would leave their first clues.

Spots We Check First in These Homes

• The unfinished utility or laundry room, often the only bare section of foundation left
• The garage tucked under the bedrooms, where the slab meets the block and the wood framing above
• The buried uphill wall of a walkout basement, where runoff collects
• Deck posts, stair stringers, and ledger boards on the downhill side
• Front stoops and brick steps poured against the house, which hide a gap under them
• Paneling, baseboard, and the bottom stair tread in the finished lower level

The Ellicott brothers started their mill on the Patapsco in the early 1770s, and the town that grew around it was built of granite and brick. The 1830 B&O station at the bottom of Main Street is the oldest surviving railroad station in the country. The homes along the West End, Tonge Row, and the hillsides above Main Street carry the same history: thick stone walls with wood floors, joists, and porches tied into them.

Those old walls hold up well, but they are not solid. After two centuries the mortar has open joints and gaps inside the wall, and termites can travel through them without showing a tube on the surface. The town also sits where the Tiber, Hudson, and New Cut branches drop steeply into the river. The floods of July 2016 and May 2018 sent water through buildings along Main Street, and homes in the valley neighborhoods deal with runoff every heavy storm. Sill plates, floor joists, and rebuilt walls can stay wet for weeks. Wet wood is easy for termites to get into, and the damage can look a lot like rot. Our guide to termite damage vs. wood rot shows how to tell them apart.

Warning Signs to Watch For

The most common first sign in Ellicott City is a spring swarm. It usually happens on a warm day after rain, between March and May. Winged termites pour out of a crack or a gap near the foundation, fly toward the light, and drop their wings. You may find a scatter of wings by a sliding door, a basement window, or on the garage floor. Other clues:

• Pencil-width mud tubes on the block in a utility room or garage
• Baseboard or paneling that bulges or sounds hollow when you tap it
• Soft wood at the bottom of basement stairs or deck posts
• Paint that ripples or bubbles on lower-level trim
• Tunneled wood in stumps, landscape timbers, or firewood near the house

If you find any of these, leave the area as it is and call us. Spraying or tearing out wood before an inspection makes the activity harder to trace.