Termite Control in Monte Sereno, CA

Local Context

Deep Eaves and Exposed Rafter Tails Are Where Monte Sereno Framing Gives Way First

Monte Sereno built out as custom construction across barely 1.6 square miles, and the wood details that make those houses attractive are what drywood termites use. Twin Creeks went up largely in the 1970s. Greenwood Lane runs older still, back to the decade when John Steinbeck was writing in the house at number 16250. Ranch, Spanish and Mediterranean Revival and later architect-built houses nearly all carry wide overhangs, exposed rafter tails, open beam ends and heavy trim. Incisitermes minor needs no soil contact at all. A swarmer lands on a weathered board, finds a paint check or unsealed end grain, and starts a colony inside the member.

The sheltered heat here helps them along. Summer temperatures climb into the 90s while the Santa Cruz Mountain foothills southwest of the city moderate the extremes, so flights come on warm evenings and colonies stay active longer than in the fog belt. Because that wood sits twelve or fifteen feet up on a two-acre lot, nobody is close enough to see the frass. The first sign owners in Twin Creeks or along Daves Avenue notice is a pile of pellets on a pool deck or a car parked under an overhang.

Then there is the second set of buildings. Monte Sereno lots run from half an acre to two acres, and most carry a detached garage, a pool house, a shop or an arbor. Those get repainted less often, inspected almost never, and sit close enough that swarmers move between them and the house freely. We find the older colony in the outbuilding and the newer one in the house more often than the reverse.