Sometimes yes — a faint clicking or rustling behind the wall is a real termite sound. Here's what you're actually hearing, and why it's not something you can rely on.
A homeowner in Fullerton called us convinced she was losing her mind. Late at night, in a quiet house, she could hear a faint papery rustling inside the wall behind her headboard — but only sometimes, and never when she went looking for it during the day. Her husband hadn't heard a thing. She wanted to know whether termites make noise, or whether she was imagining it.
She wasn't imagining it. Termites do make sounds, and under the right conditions you can hear them. But what you're hearing — and why it's unreliable as a way to find them — is worth understanding before you press your ear to the drywall.
What Termite Sounds Actually Are
There are two distinct sounds associated with an active termite colony, and neither is the "chewing" people expect.
| Sound | What makes it | When you'd hear it |
|---|---|---|
| Soft clicking or tapping | Soldier termites banging their heads against tunnel walls to signal alarm | When the colony is disturbed — a knock, vibration, or nearby activity |
| Faint rustling or papery movement | Thousands of workers moving through galleries and feeding | Quiet conditions, often at night, near a heavily active area |
The head-banging is the more surprising one. When soldier termites sense a threat, they rapidly knock their heads against the wood to send a vibrational alarm through the colony. In a very quiet room, close to an active infestation, that can be audible as a faint clicking. The rustling is the collective sound of a large worker population moving and feeding inside the wood.
Why You Only Hear It Sometimes
The Fullerton homeowner's experience — hearing it at night but never on demand — is typical, and it's the whole problem with using sound to find termites. The sounds are extremely faint and easily masked by any ambient noise: HVAC, traffic, a refrigerator, conversation. At night, with the house quiet, the background drops enough that a sound you'd never notice during the day becomes audible. And termite activity itself isn't constant in any given spot.
There's an old trick of holding a glass or a screwdriver to the wall to listen. It can occasionally amplify enough to confirm something is there, but it tells you almost nothing useful — not the species, not the extent, not the exact location, and a silent wall absolutely does not mean a clean wall. Plenty of heavily infested homes make no audible sound at all from the living space.
Hearing Isn't Diagnosing
If you think you hear termites, treat it as one more reason to look — not as a diagnosis. Sound can't tell you whether you're dealing with drywood or subterranean termites, how large the colony is, or how far the damage has spread, and those are the questions that determine what to do next. Our complete guide to drywood termites covers how the colony you might be hearing actually lives inside the wood.
Far more reliable than sound are the visible signs: frass pellets, kickout holes, mud tubes, blistered paint, and discarded wings. The 5 warning signs of a termite infestation walks through what to look for, and any one of them is stronger evidence than a noise you heard once at 2 a.m.
What to Do If You Think You Hear Them
Don't tear open the wall — you'll destroy evidence and possibly spread the problem. Instead, note where and when you heard it, check that spot and the surrounding wood for the visible signs above, and book an inspection. A trained inspector uses tools and techniques that go well beyond listening: moisture readings, probing, and knowing exactly where activity concentrates in Southern California homes.
A free inspection will confirm whether the sound you heard is an active colony, which species it is, and how far it's gone — with a written report and no obligation. It's the difference between lying awake wondering and actually knowing.