Let's take a simple water stain under the sink, a very common situation. A termite inspector sees this and has to call EM/WS. Translated it is Excessive Moisture/Water Stain.
You are probably asking why call a stain Excessive Moisture? Excessive Moisture is the category title. So when you want to call a water stain, you automatically get the Excessive Moisture.
It is like when you buy a vehicle, say a F150 truck or a Mustang. The official title of the vehicle is Ford F150 or Ford Mustang. You don't get one without the other.
The category of Excessive Moisture has several different calls in it; water stains, water damage, plumbing leak, roof leak, standing water (definitely an excessive moisture call), etc. Unfortunately we have to live with the wording. The report structure and wording is set up by the OPM (Office of Pest Management). What we can do is try to describe the calls a little bit more in detail. For example, with the EM/WS above, we can put on the report that the water stain was "dry at the time of inspection". Another phrase we frequently use for exterior calls is: "this is a common call for this area". These additional words seem to help readers (especially lender/banks/etc) understand that a lot of the excessive moisture calls are fairly routine calls. We regularly include pictures of the calls in the report. Not for every call, but a sample of the calls. So when a lender sees EM/WS on the report, further in the report he/she will see a picture of the call.
Below are a few photo and video examples of Excessive Moisture/Water Stains.
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