Avoid termites having a fiesta at your house, remember that they need wood fibers, moisture, and protection from sunlight.
Keep all planter boxs, wooden barrels, and soiled filled porches at lease 6 to 12 inches away from the perimeter of house.
Keep wooden fence post, landscaping chips, railroad ties, wooden trellise, etc. from coming in contact with soil, keep away from founadtion.
Remove dead shrubbery,tree stumps,and grass away from foundation.
Keep moisture minimal around foundation area, check for leaky exterior faucets.
If one has access to plumbing traps, open and check for minor leaks at water supply lines.
Homes with crawlspaces need to be clean of debris, have good ventilation, floor beams with a soil clearance of at least 12 to 18 inches.
Rose bushes, and desert plants also have wood fibers that termites relish.
New homes check for form boards and grade stakes have being removed from around the foundation.
How to distinguish between a termites and ants
Subterranean termites have been collected from all regions of Texas (Howell et at. 1987). They are considered to be of major economic importance in terms of the damage they do, the cost of repairs, and the costs associated with tern-lite prevention and control. McLIveen et at. (1993) estimated that the value of termites to the economy of Texas exceeded $250 million/year based on a survey of 3000 licensed pest control companies. Total loss due to termites in the United States was estimated at $1.7 billion/year (Gold et al. 1993). It has been estimated that termites do more damage than all tornadoes, hurricanes, and wind storms combined and involve 5 times as many houses as fire (Granovsky 1979, 1983, Granovsky & Sadberry 1983). In the coastal regions of Texas, by the time a structure is 40 years old, the probability of infestation with one or more species of termites exceeds 90%.
The Franklin Mountains at Paso de Norte
The Franklin Mountains dominate the skyline of the city of El Paso. Sometimes called the southern most end of the Rocky Mountains chain. They extend some 23 miles from the Mexican border and the Rio Grande northward across Texas a few miles into New Mexico. The Franklins span three to five miles in width, and they rise over 3280 above the surrounding Chihuahuan Desert and approximately 7000 feet above sea level.
The peaks from the southern end northward to the Texas / New Mexico make up the 37 square miles Franklin Mountain State Park, administered by Texas Parks & Wildlife. It is the largest urban park in the nation and one of the larger urban wilderness areas in the world.
