When you buy or own a home in River Ridge, you’re likely sitting on 25 to 40 years of Florida exposure. The subdivisions here — Deerwood, Oaks at River Ridge, Rosewood — were built mostly between the mid-1980s and early 2000s. That means any original termite treatment applied at construction has long since worn off. Termites don’t announce themselves. They can feed on a structure for three to five years before a single visible sign appears.
What a WDO inspection gives you is certainty. You find out whether there’s active termite activity, evidence of past damage, wood-decaying fungi, or wood-boring beetles — all in one official report. For homebuyers using VA or FHA financing in River Ridge, that report isn’t optional. It’s the FDACS Form 13645, and your lender will ask for it before closing.
For established homeowners in River Ridge, the value is just as real. Many people who relocated here from the Northeast or Midwest aren’t used to thinking about annual termite monitoring — because back home, the winters took care of it. In River Ridge, there’s no off-season. The ponds behind your home, the preserve land along the community’s edge, the summer humidity — all of it keeps termite pressure active year-round. A professional inspection is the only way to know for certain where you stand.
Around The Clock Pest Service is a family-owned, owner-operated business based in neighboring Spring Hill, serving River Ridge and surrounding Pasco County communities. George Lundin built this company in 2020 on a straightforward idea: homeowners deserve to talk to a real person, get a straight answer, and not be left waiting. When you call, George answers — not a call center, not a voicemail box. Most quotes are given right over the phone, and response is guaranteed within 24 hours, including weekends.
That matters a lot when you’re under contract on a home in River Ridge Country Club or closing in on a deal in Deerwood and your lender is asking for a WDO report before Friday. We hold FDACS License #LF286842, are BBB A+ accredited, and have earned over 100 five-star Google reviews from real homeowners across Pasco and Hernando counties. We offer special discounts for new homeowners and military families — two groups that River Ridge consistently welcomes.
It starts with a phone call. George will ask about your property — the size, the age, whether it backs up to a pond or conservation area — and give you a quote right then. No sales visit required before you know what you’re paying. For most River Ridge homes, that call takes five minutes.
On inspection day, a licensed FDACS inspector walks the full property. That means the exterior perimeter, the garage, any accessible attic space, and all structural wood components inside. In River Ridge specifically, the inspection pays close attention to pond-facing walls and slab edges, where soil moisture from the retention ponds creates the highest subterranean termite risk. The inspector is also looking for mud tubes, frass, exit holes from wood-boring beetles, and early signs of wood-decaying fungi — all of which are covered under a full WDO inspection, not just termites.
After the inspection, you receive the official FDACS Form 13645. This is the document your lender, your real estate agent, and your closing attorney are looking for. It’s legally valid, signed by a licensed operator, and accepted by VA, FHA, and conventional lenders. If anything is found, you’ll get a plain-English explanation of what it means and what your options are — no pressure, no upsell, just honest information so you can make the right call.
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A lot of homeowners in River Ridge assume a termite inspection is just someone checking for termites. A licensed WDO inspection goes further than that. It covers subterranean termites, drywood termites, wood-boring beetles, powderpost beetles, old house borers, and wood-decaying fungi — six categories of wood-destroying organisms, all documented in one official report. In western Pasco County, where the soil around pond-adjacent lots stays moist through most of the year and Starkey Preserve borders the community’s edge, every one of those categories is a realistic concern.
For homebuyers, the inspection produces the FDACS Form 13645 — the specific document required for VA, FHA, and most conventional loans in Florida. Only an FDACS-licensed pest control operator can legally produce and sign this report. A general home inspector cannot. That distinction matters, and it’s worth confirming before you book anyone.
For homeowners in River Ridge who aren’t in the middle of a transaction, we also offer annual termite monitoring — a recurring inspection program that gives you year-over-year documentation of your property’s WDO status. Given that River Ridge’s housing stock is now 25 to 40 years old and standard homeowner’s insurance explicitly excludes termite damage from coverage, annual monitoring is the kind of thing that pays for itself the one time it catches something early. Pricing is transparent and given over the phone — no appointment needed just to find out what it costs.
If you’re using a VA loan, yes — it’s required statewide in Florida, and River Ridge is no exception. The VA mandates a WDO inspection for every purchase transaction, regardless of the property’s age or condition. FHA lenders frequently require it as well, and many conventional lenders will ask for one even when it isn’t technically mandatory.
What’s important to understand is that the inspection must be performed by an FDACS-licensed pest control operator — not a general home inspector. The document your lender needs is the official FDACS Form 13645, and only a licensed operator can legally produce and sign it. If you’re buying in Deerwood at River Ridge, the River Ridge Country Club community, or anywhere else in the area, confirm your inspector’s FDACS license number before you book. Our license is #LF286842, publicly verifiable through the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.
In River Ridge and the greater New Port Richey area, WDO inspections generally run between $75 and $300, depending on the size of the home and how accessible the structural areas are. Most homes in River Ridge’s core subdivisions — Deerwood, Oaks, Rosewood — fall comfortably within that range given their typical square footage of 1,200 to 2,400 square feet.
We give most quotes over the phone on the first call, so you’re not scheduling a sales visit just to find out what you’ll pay. That’s intentional — because when you’re working toward a closing deadline, you need answers fast. The inspection cost is also worth putting in perspective: the average termite repair bill in Florida runs $8,000 to $12,000, and homeowner’s insurance won’t cover it. A few hundred dollars for a professional inspection is a reasonable trade against that kind of exposure.
They do, and it’s one of the more overlooked risk factors for homeowners in this community. Subterranean termites need moisture in the soil to survive and build their colonies. The retention ponds that run behind homes throughout Deerwood, Oaks at River Ridge, and the River Ridge Country Club community keep the surrounding soil consistently moist — which is exactly the environment subterranean termite colonies prefer. The proximity to Starkey Preserve adds to that, since preserve-edge environments maintain high organic matter and humidity even in drier months.
This doesn’t mean every pond-adjacent home in River Ridge has termites. It means the conditions are favorable enough that annual monitoring isn’t excessive — it’s appropriate. Homes backing up to water features or conservation land should be inspected more regularly than the national average suggests, because Florida’s baseline termite pressure is already significantly higher than most of the country. During an inspection, a licensed WDO inspector will pay specific attention to slab edges and structural wood near the pond-facing walls, where risk is highest.
No — and this is a mistake that catches buyers off guard more often than it should. In Florida, the WDO inspection and the official FDACS Form 13645 report can only be produced and signed by a licensed pest control operator holding an FDACS pest control license. General home inspectors — regardless of how thorough they are — are not legally authorized to produce this document.
Some home inspection companies work with a licensed pest control operator and include a WDO inspection as part of a bundled package. That can work, but you’ll want to confirm that the WDO portion is being handled by an FDACS-licensed operator and that the Form 13645 will be issued under that license. If the report isn’t signed by a licensed operator, your lender won’t accept it, and you’ll need to order a separate inspection — which costs time you may not have if you’re already close to a closing date. It’s cleaner to book the WDO inspection directly with a licensed operator from the start.
The professional standard in Florida is once a year, and River Ridge’s specific conditions make that recommendation easy to justify. Many homeowners who relocated here from northern states are used to thinking of pest control as something you deal with reactively — you see a problem, you call someone. Florida doesn’t work that way. Termites are active twelve months a year here, and subterranean colonies can feed on a structure for three to five years before any visible sign appears at the surface.
For River Ridge specifically, the combination of aging housing stock — most of the community was built between 1985 and 2000 — and the moisture-rich environment created by the ponds and preserve land means the risk profile is elevated compared to newer construction or drier inland communities. Annual monitoring gives you a documented record of your property’s WDO status over time, which is also useful if you ever decide to sell. A clean inspection history is a genuine asset in a real estate negotiation, and it’s far easier to maintain than to explain a gap of several years with no professional assessment on record.
Yes, and both groups come up regularly in River Ridge. The community draws a lot of buyers using VA financing — veterans and active-duty families who are attracted by Pasco County’s affordability, the quality of schools like River Ridge High School, and the proximity to Tampa Bay employment. For those families, the WDO inspection is already a required part of the loan process, and we offer a discount specifically for military families to make that step a little easier.
New homeowners get a discount too. A lot of people buying in River Ridge are coming from out of state and are just starting to learn what Florida homeownership actually requires — including the reality that annual termite monitoring is standard here, not optional. The discount is a way of starting that relationship on the right foot. When you call, just mention that you’re a new homeowner or a military family. George will take care of you from there.
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