Everyone knows that termites destroy wood, but many people worry that termites may actually bite or sting their friends, family, or pets. Do termites pose any kind of biting risk to people or are you relatively safe?
Generally speaking, termites don’t bite humans. Worker and queen termites have very weak jaws that pose no danger to people. However, soldier termites do have relatively strong jaws and do have the capacity to bite people.
Thankfully, termites rarely ever feel threatened enough to bite humans: generally, they hide away whenever they see people and prefer to spend their time in your walls, destroying your wood.
However, if you do get bit by a termite don’t expect much damage: their relatively weak jaws should produce no more than a slight red mark on your skin. In fact, only the largest and most determined termites should be able to puncture the skin.
And even if they were, they wouldn’t be able to actually give you any serious blood-based disease: termites are not considered dangerous carriers of these potentially lethal diseases. That’s probably the one good thing about termite infestations.
Unfortunately, termites can spread other diseases: they have been known to spread diseases as diverse as eczema and flu to people simply by swarming throughout their home. Thankfully, those diseases aren’t likely to be spread to you via a bite.
Just because termites don’t pose a biting risk, that doesn’t mean you should tolerate them in your home. Call a professional pest control expert and get rid of these troublesome pests for good.
