Termite Control in Pleasanton, CA

Local Context

Pleasanton's Median House Was Framed in 1984, and Drywood Alates Have Been Landing on It Ever Since

Pleasanton sits inland in the Amador Valley, and the summer heat sets the termite pattern. July and August afternoons average in the mid-80s and climb into the 90s during a heat spell, while the marine layer that slides in from the Bay overnight burns off by mid-morning and leaves the day dry. Western drywood termites (Incisitermes minor) fly on warm evenings, so swarmers turn up on window sills in Vintage Hills and Val Vista through late summer and into fall.

The building stock gives those flights somewhere to land. With a median build year of 1984, most of the city came out of the tract expansion that ran from the late 1960s through the 1980s: wood frame behind stucco, wide eaves, exposed fascia and rafter tails, and a patio cover on nearly every back yard. Drywood termites live entirely inside a wood member, so a colony can work the beam over a Birdland patio for years before the first pellets of frass land on the concrete. The Mediterranean and Spanish Revival houses built through the 1990s and 2000s in Ruby Hill and Laguna Oaks add heavy exposed timber at entries, balconies and garage headers.

Subterranean termites (Reticulitermes) are the minority finding here, and they follow water. The city takes under 20 inches of rain a year, essentially all of it between November and March, so upland lots bake dry by June. The exceptions are the properties along Arroyo de la Laguna, Arroyo Mocho and the Arroyo del Valle bottom, where soil moisture holds long enough to support mud tubes climbing a stem wall.