If you own a condo, town home, or unit in a multi-family building anywhere in the Bay Area, a termite problem raises a question that single-family homeowners rarely think about: Whose job is it to fix this? Is it the HOA's responsibility, or yours? The answer depends on what kind of property you own, what your governing documents say, and where exactly the termites are found.

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If the Bay Area's rainy season left your yard soggy, your gutters overworked, and your crawl space damp longer than usual, it sets the stage for the busiest termite season of the year. Waiting until fall to schedule your next inspection means missing the window when a wet winter's effects are most likely to show up.

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The Bay Area has spent the last several years lurching between extremes. Three straight years of drought to a historic run of rains with nine storms in three weeks. The pattern has kept swinging, with weak La Niña conditions. For homeowners, that whiplash can increase termite activity.

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Walk through any older neighborhood in San Francisco, Oakland, or San Jose, and you're surrounded by gorgeous old architecture: Victorian bay windows, Craftsman porches, and century-old redwood framing. 

These properties were designed decades before anyone thought seriously about termite prevention, and it shows.

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Termites do not check the age of a building before they move in. They check for two things: wood and moisture. A brand-new construction site offers both, often in larger quantities than an old home does, because of leftover lumber scraps, wooden stakes, form boards, and untreated soil sitting right where the foundation goes up.

For small business owners in real estate, construction, property management, or home staging, this is not just a homeowner concern. It is a liability, a resale risk, and in many cases, a financing roadblock. Let us break down what is actually true, what the data says, and what you can do about it.

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