Spotted winged insects near your window this spring? Here's what that actually means — and why acting now matters more than you'd expect.
You see a cluster of winged insects near a window frame. Maybe they’re on the sill. Maybe a few are crawling up the baseboard. Your first instinct is probably to wonder if they’re flying ants — and your second instinct is probably to wait and see if they come back. That instinct makes sense. But here’s the thing: by the time termite swarmers show up inside your home, the colony behind them has typically been established for three to five years or more. You’re not seeing the beginning of a problem. You’re seeing the signal that one already exists. This is what spring termite season actually looks like in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens — and why it’s worth paying attention to right now.
Eastern Subterranean Termites — the species responsible for the vast majority of termite damage across all five boroughs — swarm from late March through May. The trigger is a combination of warming soil temperatures and spring rainfall. Once conditions hit above roughly 60°F, reproductive termites (called swarmers) leave the colony in search of new nesting sites. They don’t travel far. If you’re seeing them inside your home, the colony is almost certainly nearby — underneath your foundation, inside your walls, or beneath your floors.
This is not a pest that announces itself early. Termite colonies grow slowly and quietly, and visible damage often doesn’t appear until a colony is well-established. That’s what makes the spring swarming season so important — it’s one of the few reliable signals that something is already wrong.
This is the question we hear most often in spring, and it’s a fair one — both insects swarm around the same time of year, and at a glance, they look similar. But the differences are clear once you know what to look for.
Termites have straight, beaded antennae, a thick waist with no pinch, and two pairs of wings that are equal in length. Flying ants have elbowed (bent) antennae, a distinctly pinched waist, and wings where the front pair is noticeably longer than the rear. If you find discarded wings on a windowsill or near a door frame — without the insects themselves — that’s a strong indicator of termites. Swarmers shed their wings almost immediately after landing, which is why piles of wings with no bodies attached are one of the more common first signs people notice in Brooklyn and Queens homes.
In pre-war buildings and basement apartments across Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens, both insects are common spring visitors. The building stock in neighborhoods like Bed-Stuy, Crown Heights, Flatbush, and Astoria tends to have older wood framing, chronic moisture issues from aging plumbing, and plenty of soil contact through foundation walls — conditions that attract both species. But only one of them is eating your structure. If you’re not certain what you’re looking at, the safest move is to get an inspection rather than guess. A general pest control spray won’t do anything to a termite colony, and waiting for more signs just means more time for the colony to feed.
Finding swarmers doesn’t mean your home is being actively destroyed in front of you. It means there’s an established colony somewhere nearby, and the right response is a proper termite inspection — not panic, but not inaction either.
Swarmers get the most attention because they’re visible, but they’re not the only sign of an active infestation. In the pre-war brownstones of Park Slope, the attached homes of Jackson Heights, and the multi-family buildings scattered across Harlem and Washington Heights, termite activity often shows up in subtler ways first.
Mud tubes are one of the clearest indicators. Subterranean termites build these pencil-thin tunnels out of soil, wood particles, and saliva to travel between their underground colony and their food source — the wood in your walls and floors. You’ll often find them along foundation walls, in crawl spaces, or running up the interior of a basement. They look like thin lines of dried mud and are easy to miss if you’re not specifically looking for them.
Wood that sounds hollow when tapped is another common sign. Termites feed from the inside out, leaving a thin outer shell intact while hollowing out the structural material underneath. Floors that feel soft underfoot, paint that blisters without obvious moisture damage, or door frames that have begun to warp slightly can all point to termite activity behind the surface.
In Brooklyn’s brownstones specifically, the sill plate — the horizontal wood member that rests directly on the foundation wall — is frequently the first point of termite colonization. It’s in or near direct contact with the soil, it’s often older wood that’s absorbed decades of moisture, and it’s not always easy to inspect without knowing where to look. A licensed termite inspection covers these areas systematically, not just the visible surfaces.
By the time any of these signs appear, the infestation is not new. That’s not meant to alarm you — it’s meant to explain why waiting for the signs to get worse is the wrong move.
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Most homeowners assume that if termites cause structural damage, their homeowners insurance will cover at least some of it. It won’t. Termite damage is explicitly excluded from standard homeowners insurance policies because insurers classify it as a preventable condition — meaning it’s your responsibility to catch and address it before damage occurs.
In a market where Brooklyn brownstones regularly sell for well over a million dollars and Queens attached homes aren’t far behind, the financial exposure from an undetected infestation is significant. Homes with a history of termite damage can see roughly a 20% decrease in property value. The repair costs alone — separate from treatment — average around $3,000 for a typical homeowner, and can climb much higher depending on how long the colony has been active and which structural members are affected.
If you’re involved in a real estate transaction in Brooklyn, Manhattan, or Queens, there’s a good chance you’ll need a Wood Destroying Insect (WDI) report — and you may not have realized it until your lender or attorney asks for one.
FHA and VA loans require a WDI report as a condition of financing. This is a formal document that can only be issued by a licensed pest control professional holding the appropriate New York State DEC certification — not a general home inspector, and not someone who just looked around the basement. In NYC, real estate attorneys routinely request termite clearance letters even for conventional transactions, particularly given the age of the city’s housing stock. If you’re closing on a pre-war co-op in Harlem or a row house in Flatbush and your attorney asks for termite clearance, you need a licensed provider who can issue the official report.
Spring is when this pressure compounds. Termite swarming season and peak NYC real estate season overlap almost perfectly — late March through May is simultaneously when colonies are most visibly active and when the most property transactions are moving toward closing. The window between spotting swarmers and a closing date can be uncomfortably short. Scheduling an inspection early in the process, rather than waiting for your attorney to flag it, gives you more control over the timeline.
We issue Termite Clearance Certificates and official WDI reports for real estate transactions throughout Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens. If you’re in the middle of a deal and need documentation, we can typically schedule an inspection quickly — call us and we’ll tell you exactly what the process looks like for your situation.
A termite inspection is not someone walking through your home with a flashlight for ten minutes. A thorough inspection covers foundation walls and sill plates, crawl spaces and subfloor areas, basement framing, entry points where wood meets soil or masonry, and any areas with visible moisture damage or wood deterioration. The goal is to identify not just whether termites are present, but where they’re entering, how severe the activity is, and what structural members are affected.
Every job we take on starts with that inspection. Before we recommend any treatment, we know what we’re dealing with. That means when we give you a written treatment plan and a cost, it reflects the actual scope of the problem — not a guess.
Treatment options depend on what the inspection finds. For subterranean termites in Brooklyn’s row house environment and Queens’ attached homes, termite baiting systems are often the most effective approach because they target the colony underground rather than just the insects you can see. Liquid barrier treatments create a treated zone in the soil around the foundation that termites can’t cross. In some cases, direct wood treatment with borate-based products is used on accessible structural members. The right method depends on the property, the severity of the infestation, and the building type — which is exactly why the inspection comes first.
After treatment, monitoring matters. Baiting systems in particular require follow-up visits to verify that colony suppression is progressing — full colony elimination through baiting typically takes several months. We schedule those follow-ups as part of the process, not as an afterthought. You’ll know what to expect before we start, and you won’t be left wondering whether the treatment worked.
If you’re in a multi-family building or attached home in Astoria, Jackson Heights, or Flushing, termite colonies don’t respect property lines. If your neighbor has an active infestation and shares a foundation wall or soil contact with your unit, your property is at risk regardless of what’s happening inside your own walls. That’s a reason to get an inspection rather than assume you’re fine because you haven’t seen any signs yourself.
If you’ve seen swarmers, found discarded wings, noticed mud tubes near your foundation, or simply own a pre-war building in Brooklyn, Manhattan, or Queens and have never had a termite inspection, spring is the right time to act. Not because of the season alone — but because the colony doesn’t stop feeding while you’re deciding.
The good news is that an inspection is straightforward, and knowing what you’re dealing with is always better than not knowing. Standard homeowners insurance won’t cover the damage if termites have been quietly working through your structure for years. A professional inspection will.
Kingsway Exterminating Company has been doing this work in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens since 1971. If you want to talk through what you’re seeing or get an inspection scheduled, give us a call — we answer 24 hours a day and can typically get someone out within two business days.
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