South Florida’s #1! For Termites...
Bottom Line: Yikes, knowing what I know now about termites, I’m not totally surprised that they’re worse in South Florida than anywhere else in the country, but I didn’t really get it until moving into an older home in a historic neighborhood several years ago. Every room we’ve remodeled has shown some previous termite damage. We often don’t discover it until the project is underway. Talking with neighbors virtually every home around has had a problem at some point over the decades. Which takes me to today’s story that’s also a heads up for all of us. Termites are bigger problems in South Florida than anywhere else in the country. According to a new study from Orkin here are the ranks for worst termite problems across the country – I’ve chosen just the cities in Florida:
- #38 Jacksonville
- #21 Ft. Myers
- #12 Orlando
- #8 West Palm Beach
- #3 Tampa
- #1 Miami
Lucky us right? The problem is significant across the state but clearly gets worse as you head down the South Florida coast. According to the study 600,000 homes are hit by termites per year (and clearly disproportionately we’re in the cross-hairs in South Florida). The big takeaway – preventative action probably isn’t a bad idea and if you think you might have a problem, you probably do. You don’t want to hope for the best in South Florida. That’ll probably become a much bigger and more expensive problem if you’re wrong.