Spring is in the air. And if you hadn’t noticed, so are termite swarms.
While they leave behind an unwanted mess inside a building or home, swarmers by themselves can’t cause any damage. But, they are a sign that a colony is residing somewhere beneath your property.
Swarmers are the termites that are designated by the colony to fly away and mate, spreading the colony to new places. It’s their offspring, worker termites, that eat and destroy the wood in your property.
“Wood-boring insect damage is usually not covered by property insurance policies.”
Termites cause $5 billion worth of property damage annually, according to the National Pest Management Association. They can chew through wood, flooring and even wallpaper undetected, compromising the structural stability of a building if left unchecked. And wood-boring insect damage is usually not covered by property insurance policies.
There are many steps property managers and owners can take to help prevent termites from infesting their property. Here are some tips from the NPMA to protect your property from termites:
• Eliminate or reduce moisture in and around the property, which termites need to thrive.
• Repair leaking faucets, water pipes and exterior air conditioning units.
• Divert water away from the building through properly functioning downspouts, gutters and splash blocks.
• Routinely inspect the foundation for signs of mud tubes (used by termites to reach a food source), as well as cracked or bubbling paint and wood that sounds hollow when tapped.
• Maintain an 18-inch gap between soil and any wood portions of your building.
• Schedule a professional inspection at least every three years, annually if you live in an area prone to termite infestations.
While you should certainly take these steps to help prevent infestations, getting rid of them is a job for professionals. If you or an inspector find signs of a termite infestation and damage, contact a licensed pest control professional immediately to determine the extent of the problem and get a recommendation of an appropriate course of treatment.
SKYLINE Property Management Solution for Residential and Multi-Family Properties from Anton Systems makes it easier to stay on top of problems like termite inspections and infestations, as well as enable your tenants to report a problem in a more simple and quicker fashion.
Property managers can easily create detailed work orders and schedule and track routine preventive maintenance tasks. The module dispatches both in-house and contracted service calls and records and tracks all job activity, including time and material expenses.
SKYLINE also includes a facilities maintenance and work order processing function with tenant Web-work requests, enabling tenants to submit requests online.
Once the order is completed, the system identifies whether the job needs to be billed to the resident or to the property owner. Billable service calls and fees are automatically posted into SKYLINE accounts receivable and accounts payable.
Lots of property management software systems purport to perform these same functions, and some do them quite well. Unfortunately, many users don’t take full advantage of their system’s offerings. And there’s nothing worse than investing a lot of money in a system if your people won’t or can’t use it.
That’s where Anton Systems really makes the difference. Many property managers come to us for the industry’s most respected real estate software, but it’s our customer service, training and support that will help you get the most out of it.
Anton employs advanced SKYLINE certified technicians with more than 25 years of real estate and property management experience, as well as thorough knowledge of the SKYLINE product to ensure you can use it to the best of its abilities.
From strategy through support, our team is your team. We treat your business, your challenges and your budget individually. We consider all angles and aspects first so we fully understand why, how and where you need to work. We only recommend and implement realistic solutions that enable your team and your systems to work together flawlessly that will result in a sustained competitive advantage for your business.