Water-Conducting Fungus Infestation

When most people think of a pest infestation, they probably think of creepy crawlers or stinging insects. But, fungi are considered pests too.

Four years ago, Lloyd Pest Control, a family-owned business serving Southern California for more than 80 years, inspected a house and found a drywood termite infestation. Four years later, the company was called again because the house went up for sale and it required an escrow termite inspection.

When the pest control team arrived to perform the inspection, they determined that *poria incrassata, a water-conducting fungus that feeds on dead wood, was present along the corner of the house since the exposed surfaces of damaged wood had wavy grain in the thin veneer.

Unfortunately, the owners already had a construction crew working to repair the existing termite damage and they inadvertently ruined the ability to track the rhizomorph, a dense mass of filaments forming root-like structures, to the ground in order to find the source.

Lloyd Pest Control filed a report and recommended that the homeowners contact a poria expert because the fungi can spread and cause significant damage to the home if left untreated. Usually, infestations occur near areas of excessive moisture. Typically, an infestation will begin in dirt filled porches, damp crawl spaces and basements where wood is in contact with the soil.

*Poria is not the most common type of wood decay, but it's the most destructive. The fungus is a special brown rot that occurs in the Pacific coast, northeastern and southeastern states.

Thank you to Jamie Ogle and Lloyd Pest Control for sharing this Extreme Infestation story.