Termites rarely announce themselves. In most Santa Clara homes the first sign is something small and easy to dismiss: a scatter of discarded wings on a windowsill after a warm spring afternoon, a pinhole in painted trim with a bit of grit beneath it, a door frame that sounds hollow when you knock, or a line of dried mud running up the inside of a crawl space wall. By the time a floor feels soft or a patio post wobbles, the colony has been working for a while. None of that tells you which termite you have, how far it has got, or what it will take to stop — which is why every job starts with a look, not a treatment.
A proper termite inspection means getting under the house and into the attic, not walking the perimeter with a flashlight. Expect the inspector to sound timbers with a probe, check the sill plate and mudsills where framing meets concrete, look behind the water heater and under sinks, examine the garage door jambs, and pay close attention to anywhere wood meets soil or stays damp — planter boxes against stucco, fence posts touching siding, sprinklers that spray the foundation every morning. Older valley-floor homes with raised foundations and tight crawl spaces hide more than slab homes do, and slab homes hide it differently: subterranean termites come up through plumbing penetrations and expansion joints, invisible until they reach a baseboard.
If you are buying, selling or refinancing, you need a wood-destroying organism report rather than a verbal summary. That is a written document covering findings, the cause of each condition, what is active and what is old, and recommended corrective work, usually split between items that affect the structure and items that are maintenance. Agents and lenders in Santa Clara, Sunnyvale and Cupertino deal with these constantly, and escrow timelines are unforgiving — if you are on a clock, say so when you call, because same-day attendance is available and the report is the thing everything else waits on.
Subterranean termites live in the soil and travel into your house through mud tubes, which means the treatment targets the ground, not the wood. Subterranean termite treatment generally involves trenching and rodding the soil around the foundation to create a continuous treated zone, drilling through slabs, porches, patios and garage floors where the footing cannot be reached from outside, and sealing those holes afterward. Where a full chemical barrier is impractical — heavy landscaping, well proximity, hardscape you do not want drilled — termite bait station installation is the alternative: in-ground stations set around the structure on a monitoring cycle, with the colony taking the bait back underground. Baits work slower and need ongoing service visits; barriers work faster and need less attention. Termite barrier installation during a remodel or addition, before the slab goes down or the backfill goes in, is far cheaper than retrofitting it later.
Drywood termites never touch soil. They fly in, usually on warm evenings, and start small colonies inside attic rafters, fascia, eaves, window frames and exposed beams — the pellets they push out look like coarse sand or tiny six-sided grains. Drywood termite treatment is therefore a wood-by-wood decision: localized injection, foam or borate application when the infestation is confined and accessible, versus whole-structure fumigation when it has spread through an attic or into places nobody can reach. Anyone who recommends fumigation before opening the attic has not inspected the attic.
Treatment stops the insects; it does not restore a chewed-through mudsill. Termite damage repair commonly means replacing sections of sill plate, subfloor, joist ends, fascia, door jambs or stud bottoms, and it is often paired with fixing whatever kept the wood wet in the first place. Done by licensed contractors, the structural repair and the pest work are coordinated, so the carpentry does not get closed up over an untreated area.
What moves the price is linear footage of foundation, how much concrete has to be drilled, crawl space access, the number of separate structures, whether you need a report for a transaction, and how much damaged wood has to come out. Ask what species was found and what evidence supports it, whether activity is live or historic, exactly what areas the treatment covers, and what happens at the areas it does not. Estimates are free, several payment methods are accepted, and enquiries are taken by phone — call and describe what you found, including where and when you found it.