A termite inspection in New Port Richey isn’t just a checkbox. It’s the difference between catching a problem early — when it costs a few hundred dollars to address — and finding out at the worst possible time that your subfloor, wall framing, or roof structure has been quietly consumed for years. The average termite repair bill runs $8,000 to $12,000, and your homeowner’s insurance won’t cover a cent of it.
For homes along the Cotee River corridor or in Gulf Harbors, the stakes are even higher. The combination of tidal moisture, salt air, and New Port Richey’s year-round humidity creates near-ideal conditions for both subterranean termites and fungal wood decay — two things a standard home inspection won’t catch, but a WDO inspection will. If you’re buying, selling, or simply haven’t had someone walk your property in a few years, that gap in coverage is a real financial risk.
New Port Richey’s housing stock skews older. South New Port Richey’s neighborhoods are largely 1970s construction — homes that are now 50-plus years into Florida’s humidity and pest pressure. Downtown’s historic blocks go back even further. These aren’t new builds with fresh-treated lumber. They’re properties with decades of exposure, and many of them haven’t been looked at since the original purchase inspection. That’s a long time to go without knowing what’s happening inside your walls.
Around The Clock Pest Service is a family-run, owner-operated business serving Pasco County and the greater New Port Richey area. When you call, you reach George Lundin directly — not a call center, not a dispatcher, not a voicemail. George handles the conversation personally, gives most quotes right over the phone, and responds within 24 hours including weekends. That’s not a policy — it’s just how the business runs.
We hold FDACS license #LF286842, valid through June 2027, which means every WDO report we issue is legally compliant and lender-accepted. Whether your lender is requiring a report for a VA loan on a Gulf Harbors property or you’re a long-tenured homeowner in South New Port Richey who just wants peace of mind, you’re getting a licensed inspection backed by over 100 verified five-star Google reviews from real Hernando and Pasco County customers. We’re BBB A+ accredited since 2022.
No subcontractors. No surprises. We offer special discounts for new homeowners and military families — and Pasco County has no shortage of both.
It starts with a phone call — and that’s where we remove most of the friction. George will ask you a few straightforward questions about the property: age, size, what you’re seeing, and what’s driving the inspection. If it’s a real estate transaction, he’ll confirm your timeline and make sure the inspection can be scheduled before your closing date. Most quotes are given right there on the call. No in-home sales visit required just to get a number.
On inspection day, we conduct a thorough walkthrough — interior and exterior. That means the attic, crawlspace, garage, window and door frames, and any areas where wood meets soil or moisture. In New Port Richey, that last part matters more than most places. Homes near the Pithlachascotee River, properties with aging drainage, or anything in a low-lying area can show early-stage fungal wood decay long before visible termite activity appears. A trained eye catches that. A checklist inspection often doesn’t.
After the inspection, you receive the official FDACS Form 13645 — the specific WDO report form that VA, FHA, and conventional lenders require in Florida. If the report is clean, you have documentation that holds up at closing and protects your negotiating position. If there are findings, you’ll know exactly what was found, where, and what your options are — explained clearly, without upselling you on services you don’t need.
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A WDO inspection covers four categories of wood-destroying organisms: subterranean termites, drywood termites, wood-boring beetles, and fungal wood decay. All four are relevant in New Port Richey. Eastern subterranean termites are the most common species in western Pasco County — they live in the moist sandy soils throughout the area and build mud tubes to reach the wood in your home without ever being seen. Formosan subterranean termites, which are confirmed as active in New Port Richey, are a different animal entirely. Their colonies can number in the millions, and they’re capable of causing serious structural damage within months, not years. They swarm on warm, humid evenings from April through July — right when Gulf Coast humidity peaks.
West Indian drywood termites are also documented in this area. Unlike subterranean species, they live entirely inside the wood they’re consuming. They don’t need soil contact, which means they can be active in roof framing, attic lumber, and window casings with no visible ground-level signs. For older homes in downtown New Port Richey — some dating back to the 1920s — this is a genuine and underappreciated risk.
Every inspection we perform results in the official FDACS Form 13645, which is the document your lender needs. The VA mandates this report for every VA-financed purchase in the state of Florida — no exceptions, no workarounds. If you’re a buyer or seller in New Port Richey’s active real estate market, where homes are moving in roughly 56 days, having a licensed inspector who can turn this around on your timeline isn’t a convenience — it’s a necessity.
If you’re using a VA loan, yes — it’s required by federal mandate for every VA-financed purchase in the entire state of Florida, including New Port Richey. There are no exceptions based on the property’s condition or apparent cleanliness. Your lender will not fund the loan without a completed WDO report on the official FDACS Form 13645, issued by a licensed pest control operator.
For FHA and conventional loans, it depends on the lender and the property. Given New Port Richey’s older housing stock — a significant portion of which was built in the 1970s or earlier — many lenders will require a WDO report even when it’s not automatically mandated, particularly if the home shows any signs of moisture intrusion, wood damage, or deferred maintenance. If your lender hasn’t mentioned it yet, it’s worth asking before you get close to closing. Finding out you need one with three days left on your timeline creates real problems that are entirely avoidable.
A standard home inspection covers the general condition of a property — roof, HVAC, plumbing, electrical, structural systems. It’s a broad overview, and it’s valuable. But a home inspector in Florida is not licensed to produce a WDO report, and their findings about pest activity carry no legal weight with lenders. Only a licensed pest control operator — holding an active FDACS license — can legally conduct a WDO inspection and issue the Form 13645 that lenders require.
The WDO inspection is specifically focused on wood-destroying organisms: subterranean termites, drywood termites, wood-boring beetles, and fungal wood decay. A home inspector might note visible damage, but they’re not trained or licensed to identify species, assess colony activity, or document findings in the format lenders accept. In New Port Richey’s real estate market, where older homes are regularly changing hands and VA buyers make up a meaningful share of transactions, having both inspections done — and understanding they are separate — is the right approach.
Annually, at minimum. Florida sits in what the pest control industry calls the Termite Belt — a zone where warm temperatures and high humidity allow termite colonies to stay active every month of the year. There’s no cold season that slows them down the way it would in a northern state. In New Port Richey specifically, the Gulf Coast humidity, the sandy moisture-retaining soils throughout western Pasco County, and the proximity to the Cotee River and Gulf of Mexico all contribute to conditions that support year-round termite pressure.
For homes in South New Port Richey’s 1970s-era neighborhoods, or any property that’s been in the same family for a decade or more without a recent inspection, the case for annual monitoring is even stronger. These homes have had decades of exposure, and termites work silently. By the time you see a mud tube on a baseboard or notice that a door frame feels soft, the colony has typically been active for a long time. An annual inspection catches the early signs — when the cost to address it is a fraction of what it becomes if you wait.
Yes — Formosan subterranean termites are confirmed as active in New Port Richey. They’re not a hypothetical risk or a distant concern. Local pest control sources document their presence in this area, and the Gulf Coast environment here — warm, humid, with significant moisture near the Pithlachascotee River and Gulf Harbors — is exactly the kind of habitat where Formosan activity is most aggressive.
What makes Formosan termites different from the more common Eastern subterranean species is scale and speed. A mature Formosan colony can contain several million individuals — compared to the hundreds of thousands in a typical Eastern subterranean colony. That size difference translates directly into how fast they can damage a structure. Where Eastern subterranean termites might take years to cause significant structural harm, a Formosan colony can do serious damage within months. They swarm on warm, humid evenings from April through July, which is also when New Port Richey’s humidity peaks. If you’ve seen a swarm near your home during that window, a professional inspection isn’t something to put off.
WDO inspections in the Pasco County area typically range from $75 to $300, depending on the size and accessibility of the property. We give most quotes over the phone — so you’re not scheduling an in-home sales visit just to find out what you’re dealing with. You get a real number upfront, and there are no fees added after the fact.
Put that cost against the alternative: the average termite repair bill in Florida runs $8,000 to $12,000, and homeowner’s insurance explicitly excludes termite damage from coverage. That exclusion isn’t buried in fine print — it’s standard across virtually every policy in the state. So the math is straightforward. A $75 to $300 inspection, done annually, is the most cost-effective way to protect what is, for most New Port Richey homeowners, their most significant financial asset. Median home values in the city have climbed significantly in recent years — that’s equity worth protecting. We offer discounts for new homeowners and military families, which matters in a community with as many veterans and first-time buyers as Pasco County has.
Yes — and this is one of the most common situations that comes through. Real estate timelines in New Port Richey move quickly. Homes are selling in roughly 56 days on average, and when a closing date is set, the WDO report needs to be in the lender’s hands before funding. We respond within 24 hours, seven days a week, including weekends. You’re not leaving a voicemail and hoping someone calls back Monday.
When you call, you reach George directly. He’ll assess your timeline on the spot, get the inspection scheduled, and make sure the official FDACS Form 13645 is completed and delivered in time for your closing. For VA buyers — and there are many in this price range throughout Pasco County — this report is a hard requirement, not a suggestion. The inspection itself is thorough but efficient, and because we don’t use subcontractors, there’s no coordination delay between scheduling and the actual inspection. The person you talk to on the phone is connected to the person showing up at the property. That matters when your closing date is real and the clock is running.
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