Reports Of Termite Swarms And Infestations Have Mysteriously Skyrocketed In One Town

Imagine that you and your significant other are relaxing in your living room while watching TV. It is a normal night like any other night, but then a sudden burst of flying termites emerge from a crack in the wall. A massive termite swarm is now in your home. The flying termites (alates) are flying erratically in different directions, making them hard to swipe away or kill. A panic ensues for a period of a half an hour while you and your loved one attempt to process what is going on. Eventually, in less than forty five minutes, each one of the hundreds of thousands of flying termites fall dead onto the home’s ground floor. This frightening scenario played-out in reality for a couple living in a town that has been seeing a peculiar increase in termite-related issues among residents.

The scenario described above occured in a home that is located in a subdivision near Crystal River, Florida. For the next several days the home’s two residents had been busy vacuuming mass amounts of termite alate corpses from their nicely finished floors. The kitchen was the worst hit, as one of the residents claimed that hundreds of dead alates were gathered by just one single light source. Eventually, the termite alates were tracked to the crown molding in one room. Just when the couple thought that their termite nightmare had ended, they looked outside and noticed a cloud of termite alates swarming around his pool and outside lights. The next day a pest control professional arrived and determined that subterranean termites were to blame for the incident since their signature mud-tubes were spotted along the home. The story that the two residents told the pest control operator failed to surprise him, as many residents in the area had been making similar claims concerning massive termite infestations. Luckily, most of these reported termite infestations involved dampwood termites, which are not as serious of a threat as subterranean termites. Dampwood termites are easily taken out by termite spot treatments, and full-blown tenting is often unnecessary.

Have you ever witnessed termite alates swarming near light sources?