Search this question and you will find answers ranging from “a colony can eat your house in months” to reassurances that you have years. The honest answer is that both are half-true, and the half that matters is the one nobody leads with: the danger is not how fast termites eat — it is how long they eat unnoticed.
What actually happens, on what timescale
In the first weeks after termites find a structure, damage is negligible — scouts establish routes, and a small satellite workforce begins feeding. Over months, a mature colony working a favourable spot — moist timber, undisturbed, good access — does real damage: skirting boards hollowed, door frames compromised, flooring softened in the worst-placed areas. Over years undetected, the outcome is structural: bearers, joists and wall framing, and repair bills that commonly run into the tens of thousands. Colony maturity is the multiplier — an established Coptotermes colony numbers in the hundreds of thousands and feeds continuously, which is why two homes can have wildly different stories from the same infestation duration.
Why this reframes the panic
Finding termites today almost never means your home is being eaten out from under you this month — the damage you found took time, and a few days of proper process changes nothing. What the timeline punishes is the opposite behaviour: the “we’ll keep an eye on it” response, the skipped annual inspection, the disturbed-and-forgotten mud tube. Termites reward decisiveness and punish delay, in that order.
The maths of detection
An annual inspection means activity is caught, at worst, months old — early on the damage curve, where treatment is straightforward. A home inspected “when we get around to it” hands the colony years. That is the entire case for the $269 annual termite inspection, and why homes near bushland or with previous activity warrant more than yearly. If you are seeing possible signs now, the signs guide covers what to check and the found-termites walkthrough covers what happens next — starting with touching nothing.
Bushland-edge suburbs keep this conversation weekly for us across Browns Plains, Boronia Heights, Munruben and Logan Reserve. Call 0490 425 521 or request a quote online — licensed technicians, QBCC Licence 15104001.
