What Does Termite Poop Look Like?
Termite droppings are called frass, and finding them is one of the clearest signals of an active infestation. Here is what frass actually looks like, what it gets confused with, and what it tells you about which species you are dealing with.
Tiny six-sided pellets, piled under the wood they came out of.
Termite frass is small, hard, and pellet-shaped, roughly a millimetre long, with six flattened sides and rounded ends. Colour runs from pale tan to near black, and it varies with the wood the colony is eating rather than with the species, so two piles from the same house can look different.
What makes it recognisable is not really the pellet, it is the pile. Drywood termites keep their galleries clean by pushing waste out through small holes in the wood surface, so frass drops straight down and collects in a distinct cone underneath. A neat little mound that reappears a day after you sweep it up is about as clear a sign as this pest gives you.
Three things it gets mistaken for
Most people arrive at this question holding a dustpan, so this is the part that matters.
Frass or carpenter ant droppings
Ant droppings are larger and coarser, and because ants keep one nest, their debris piles up in one place outside it. Termites move as they feed, so frass turns up sporadically wherever they have been working. The other tell is the damage: ants tunnel through wood to nest and discard the shavings, termites eat it.
Frass or sawdust
Both are fine and pale enough to be confused at a glance. Under closer look, frass is made of distinct pellets with rounded, almost hexagonal ends, and sawdust is thin irregular shavings. If you can roll it between your fingers and feel discrete grains rather than fibres, it is frass.
Frass or general household grit
Location settles this one. Frass appears directly beneath the wood it came out of, because drywood termites push it through small kick-out holes and it drops straight down. A neat cone-shaped pile under a windowsill or a beam is not household dust.
Only one kind of termite leaves droppings you can find
Both species are active in this part of Texas, and they present completely differently.
Drywood termite frass
This is the frass people actually find. Hard pellets roughly a millimetre long, six-sided, colour varying with the wood being eaten, pushed out through kick-out holes and collecting in small mounds below. If you have found droppings indoors, this is almost certainly what they are.
Subterranean termite frass
You will not find it. Subterranean termites mix their waste into the soil and saliva they use to build mud tubes and pack galleries, so there are no droppings to see. Their frass is part of the structure rather than a pile on the floor, which is why mud tubes matter more than droppings for this species.
This is worth understanding before you conclude you do not have termites. No frass does not mean no termites. It may just mean subterranean termites, which are the more common structural problem here and leave mud tubes instead.
The places frass turns up
- On the floor directly beneath infested framing or trim.
- In cracks and joints in walls, where it collects rather than falling clear.
- On windowsills and door frames, which are common drywood entry points.
- Under carpet edges along an exterior wall.
- On furniture and bedding sitting below an infested ceiling or beam.
People often ask whether they can tell old frass from fresh. Practically, no. There is no reliable visual difference, and it matters less than it seems: termites can occupy the same structure for years, so frass of any age means the structure has been infested and needs inspecting. The useful test is not how old it looks, it is whether it comes back after you clean it up.
Cleaning it up safely
Frass is not toxic and it does not carry disease. It is fine particulate wood waste, so the realistic risk is the same as any fine dust: skin irritation, and aggravation of an existing respiratory condition if you disturb a quantity of it in an enclosed space.
Wear a mask and gloves when you clear it, and vacuum rather than sweep so you are not putting it back into the air. Then leave one small sample in a sealed bag. It is genuinely useful to an inspector, and the species it points to changes the treatment.
What else to check while you are looking
- A hollow sound when you knock on wood that should be solid.
- Mud tubes running up a slab, pier, or foundation wall.
- Discarded wings in windowsills and door tracks after a swarm.
- Paint that has bubbled or blistered with no water source to explain it.
- Floors or ceiling lines that have begun to sag.
- Windows and doors that have become hard to open or close.
- Faint clicking or head-banging sounds from inside a wall.
Cleaning it up does not address what made it
Frass is the byproduct. The colony producing it is inside the wood, and finding where is an inspection job. Our termite technicians can identify the species from the frass and locate the active area.
Keep reading
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