Pest Organisms / Eastern Subterranean Termite
Risks
for Eastern Subterranean Termite
The documented risk is to property. Workers eat structural lumber; UF/IFAS notes badly attacked wood can look blistered or peeling and be eaten to a thin shell, and UGA notes termites can riddle wood right through, leaving it honeycombed. Source: https://ask.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/IN369 Source: https://fieldreport.caes.uga.edu/publications/B1209/
Extension publications treat *R. flavipes* as a wood-destroying structural pest; Missouri states bluntly that around people the species ranks as a serious pest. This page takes no position on human-disease risk, since no allowed source consulted here addressed it. Source: https://extension.missouri.edu/publications/g7420