Often, the most troublesome pests aren’t the ones that bite or threaten people, but the ones that silently destroy property, chewing through walls and wiping out gardens in just days. Proper pest management is essential to preventing what could be thousands of dollars in damage to your home and property, even if you’re not personally bothered by the occasional home invader.
What Types of Damage Can Pests Cause?
Pests may damage your property in a variety of ways, many of which occur simply by their presence in your home. Household pests can stain or damage furniture and your home through their feces or urine, or by chewing through wood and insulation in search of food or to collect materials for building a nest. These pest lifestyles can result in all kinds of damage to your home and property, including:
- Yellow or brown staining on walls and other surfaces
- Broken or chewed-through furniture, cabinetry, and wooden framing in the walls of your home
- Compromised wooden support beams and other structural damage
- Damaged and ineffective insulation
- Weakened lawns, gardens, and soil as a result of burrowing
- Chewed electrical wiring, possibly causing shortages or even fires
- Contamination of food, bedding, and surfaces
Many household pests are also physically harmful to the people and animals living in your home, in addition to causing property damage. The damage can be truly heartbreaking. Some damage, especially chewed-up electrical wiring and compromised wooden support beams, may make homes unsafe for residents due to the risk of hazardous situations.
Top Five Property-Damaging Pests in Kansas City
As a homeowner, it’s important to know about all of the common household pests that are found throughout our region in the Midwest. Knowing the types of damage each pest can cause will allow you to be on the lookout for possible infestations. Here are the five pests that cause the most damage to homes and properties in Kansas and Missouri:
1. Termites
Kansas City homes are prone to infestations by subterranean termites, and these sneaky wood-destroying insects should never be left to their own devices! Termites have earned their reputation as one of the most dangerous pests in terms of property damage because of how quickly they can gnaw their way through the wood and destroy a house’s or building’s structural integrity. Termite prevention is an essential part of any pest control plan, so don’t wait to seek the aid of a reliable termite control company near you!
2. Carpenter Ants
While less speedy than termites at destroying wood, carpenter ants make up for it by being difficult to distinguish from common ants you might find in your yard or kitchen. Knowing how to identify carpenter ants is vital to ensuring your home is free from wood destroyers, as they can cause significant damage.
If you discover ant activity in your home and can get a close enough look, here are some distinguishing features of carpenter ants:
- A heart-shaped head
- Larger size than common ants, or ants of varying sizes
- Winged ants
You can also identify carpenter ants based on where you find them in your home. While regular ants are most likely to be found crawling around the floor in your kitchen, carpenter ants are more interested in wood and will appear on your walls, especially near holes with sawdust collected beneath.
3. Carpenter Bees
Not-so-fun fact: ants aren’t the only insect species with a wood-destroying variant. Fortunately, carpenter bees are a lot less harmful than either termites or carpenter ants due to their solitary nature.
Carpenter bees prefer to fly solo, so finding one usually doesn’t mean a full-blown infestation on your hands. However, carpenter bees love to build their homes in the wood tunnels they create, so just one of these buzzing little carpenters can cause a lot of damage if it is allowed to settle into your home.
If you find a carpenter bee or signs of carpenter bee damage, it is a sign that your home is attracting wood destroyers, and you should have it checked out by a professional. You may have areas of exposed wood that are easy for pests to access, which puts you at risk of future infestations even if you don’t have damage right now.
4. Mice and Other Rodents
Home-invading rodents can leave quite a mess in your garage, kitchen, or dark corners of your home. To build a cozy nest for themselves, rodents may tear into your home’s insulation and leave a whole mess of stains and unappealing smells in their path.
Mice in your garage can also put other personal property at risk, such as cars. In the colder months, mice may find it cozy to crawl up into a still-warm car engine. This can mean expensive car repairs to remove the nest, fix chewed-up wires, and replace any parts or vehicle insulation that the rodents destroyed when they moved in.
5. Armyworms
House-dwelling pests aren’t the only ones that can cause significant property damage. Several yard-damaging pests can obliterate gardens and lawns with a bad enough infestation. This year, we’ve seen a significant increase in armyworms destroying lawns all across the Kansas City metro, making them one of the most damaging yard pests of 2025!
The best way to deal with any yard pests is proper yard maintenance and lawn care. Not only will this protect your plants from pests, but it will also protect your household from irritants and health risks, including fleas, ticks, and mosquitoes.
Don’t Put Off Pest Management
Year-round pest management is essential for protecting your home from these and other damaging infestations! Even if you don’t see any signs of pests in your home now, that doesn’t mean they aren’t at work behind the scenes. Give us a call at Advantage Termite & Pest Control, and we’ll come to do a full inspection and treatment of your property to keep your personal property safe and secure. Call us at first sight – We do it right!
