Deb Espinoza's Real Estate BLOG: What's the deal with termites?

I read an article recently stating that termite companies were experiencing a huge uptick in business. That coupled with a conversation I had with my seller brings up a question that maybe someone can shed some light on.

San Diego is a moderate temperature county- apparently a good thing for termites as we don't get cold enough to freeze them out so they apparently stay active all year, flying around and munching on our wood stud homes. The conversation that I had with my seller that made me stop and think was this:

We had our termite inspection and the report came back, I sent the report along with the repair bid which included tenting of the home and a minor repair on one board that had dry rot. My inspector told me during the inspection that he "found wings' in one location in the attic and 'droppings' in another. These locations at opposite ends of the house were marked on the inspection drawing of the house. The comment that made me pause and question was this. "I got the report, thanks. These are the same locations that were shown as having termites when we bought the house".  Hummm.. so I start thinking about all the inspections I have been on. The inspector always does a thorough inspection of the house, looks in closets, the attic, crawl spaces. I don't think I ever recall a statement that there were actual "live" termites seen. It's always 'evidence' that termites have been here. The problem I see is that the houses are 'tented' or treated for termites; and we are always given the disclaimer that a new bunch of termites could fly in and take up residence the next day after the tent comes off.. scary in itself too. BUT- I'll get to my point. No one ever takes up a vacuum or broom or anything to remove this 'evidence' of termites, so it would seem, as my seller pointed out; that this same evidence will show up time and time again on inspections until it ages enough to disappear in a poof of dust.  So technically everytime a termite inspection is done they will see the same evidence of termites and have a new tenting job every time since no one ever cleans up the evidence. So, Am I missing something? Should we as agents be telling our buyers to clean up this evidence when they take possession of the house so what's found later is actually 'new". Should termite repairs include removal of the old evidence.. or does it??