Scorpions gone. Termites stopped.
The lot cleared.

One licensed owner-operator, based in Seminole — not a route driver sent out from Odessa or Lubbock. Pest control, termite work, lawn and brush, and junk removal on one invoice.

Valentin Moriel holds Texas Department of Agriculture licence TPCL 0976265 across four categories, has six years in the trade, and grew up here. He inspects before he quotes, he explains what he thinks is happening and what it will cost before anybody books anything, and and he answers his own phone about nine times out of ten. Nothing gets treated that has not been looked at first. There is no contract on any service, and the guarantee has a real number in it rather than a slogan.

Valentin Moriel spent six years running operations and service for pest control branches in El Paso, including a Terminix-Rentokil branch, before starting this company in Seminole — the town he grew up in and graduated high school in. He is direct about what that taught him:

"Big companies can make customers feel like just another number. You get passed around, put on hold, and rarely talk to the same person twice. That's actually the environment I came from, and it helped shape what I didn't want my company to become."

So: he answers his own phone. He inspects before he quotes. He explains what he thinks is happening and what it costs before anybody books anything. There is no contract to sign, and the guarantee has a number on it rather than a slogan.

More about Valentin and how the work gets done →

Pest control, lawn and brush, junk removal. No other company in this market does all three, and it is not a bundling gimmick — it is that out here they are frequently the same job.

Texas A&M AgriLife's own list of what striped bark scorpions shelter under reads: rocks, boards, debris, dead vegetation and fallen logs. That is a description of a West Texas side yard. The brush pile from last year's trimming, the stack of lumber left over from a project, the old cooler behind the shed — every one of those is harbourage sitting a few feet from the foundation. You can spray the perimeter every quarter and it will keep coming back, because the thing producing the problem never moved.

Split across two companies, it gets half done. The company that hauls does not treat. The company that treats works around the pile and does not mention it. Here it is one visit: the debris goes, and the ground it was sitting on gets treated before anybody leaves.

The same logic runs through the lawn side. Several cities on this route enforce weed and nuisance standards with real deadlines and real money attached — Lubbock at eight inches with a $175 administrative fee, Odessa at twelve with equipment and labour billed hourly, Midland at eighteen, Andrews at twelve on smaller lots. Outside city limits, Texas Health & Safety Code §343.011(c)(4) defines the nuisance by proximity rather than by height — weeds within three hundred feet of another residence or commercial establishment, with no inch figure in the statute at all. If you have had a notice from the city, the clearing and the pest problem are usually the same conversation.

Nobody else in this market publishes a rate. We would rather you knew before you called:

• Recurring pest control: around $140–$160+ per visit, depending on the size of the home, the pressure and how often you want service
• Initial service: $200–$250 — longer, because it sets the baseline
• Termite, bed bug, mosquito, lawn, brush and junk: individually quoted after somebody has looked at it
• No contracts. Bi-monthly or quarterly, stop whenever you want
• Military discount. That is the one we offer, and one real discount beats a page of them

That sits toward the top of the West Texas range rather than the bottom, and that is deliberate. The cheapest quote in this market is usually somebody's fourth stop of the morning on a timed route. The quote you are given is the number you pay.

Weather moves the season around more than the calendar does — a warm winter, heavy rain, drought, irrigation or a sudden temperature swing can change what is showing up from one month to the next. But the shape of the year is reasonably consistent, and knowing it is most of what separates staying ahead of a problem from reacting to one.

January and February are slower for insects — mostly rodents, cockroaches and anything looking for somewhere warm. It is the best window of the year to do exclusion work properly, because nobody is in a hurry and sealing holds all year once it is done.

March and April bring warmer ground and a general wake-up: ants, spiders and termites all become more active. This is the front end of the termite window here, and it overlaps with real-estate season.

May and June is when it genuinely picks up — ants, termites, spiders, wasps, fleas and ticks together. A plan started now is doing its job by the time July arrives. A plan started in July is playing catch-up.

June through August are the busiest months of the year. Heavy scorpion activity on top of everything else. Desert termites also throw carton sheeting onto lawns after summer storms, which alarms people and almost never means what they think it means.

September and October stay active, because it holds its heat well into the fall. Then as temperatures drop through October and November, rodents move toward buildings — houses, but also barns, shops and equipment yards. Harvest moves them too. This is the natural window for brush clearing and hauling off what accumulated over summer.

December shifts back indoors, plus attic and shed cleanouts. Texas DSHS flags cleaning areas where rodents have been living as a genuine risk, which is why a shed cleanout gets treated as a job with precautions rather than a job with a trailer.

Two things sit outside the calendar. Bed bugs are not seasonal — those calls come at any point in the year. And termites depend so heavily on soil, moisture and the individual property that the calendar alone tells you very little.

Worth saying, because a company that claims everything is telling you something:

• No fumigation. Not offered, and not licensed for it — Structural Fumigation is a separate TDA category.
• No bed bug heat treatment. Chemical treatment only. If a job genuinely needs heat, you will be told that rather than sold something that will not do it.
• No landscaping, dumpster rental, pressure washing or demolition. Mowing, trimming, brush and lot clearing, weed spraying, fertilization, tree trimming, junk hauls and property cleanouts — yes. Those other four, no.

If you need one of those, we will say so and you can go find somebody who does it properly rather than have us learn on your property.

Including this one. Most of what goes wrong in this trade happens because a homeowner has no way to check what they are being told, so here are the questions that actually separate companies:

• What is your Texas licence number, and which categories are on it? Pest Control, Termite Control, Lawn & Ornamental and Weed Control are four separate TDA categories. A pest control licence does not authorise termite work, and neither authorises weed spraying. Ours is TPCL 0976265 and it covers all four.
• Which species do you think this is, and how do you know? "Termites" is not an answer in a region where one of the common species eats grass rather than wood.
• What am I getting in writing before you treat? Texas requires a written estimate carrying the business licence number, a diagram with perimeter measurements, product labels and concentrations, complete warranty details and a consumer information sheet before termite treatment begins.
• Does the warranty cover re-treatment or damage? They are very different promises and the second one is rare. Get it in writing either way.
• Who is actually turning up? Worth asking, because on most routes it will not be the person you spoke to.

If a company gets cagey about any of that, it tells you what you need to know without anybody having to be rude about it.

One more worth knowing, because it comes up on every real-estate transaction here: in Texas, a Wood Destroying Insect report — the official T-5 form — can only be completed by a certified applicator or a technician licensed specifically in the termite control category. It is a hard credential gate, not a formality, and the requirement to have one usually comes from the lender or the contract rather than from state law. If somebody tells you Texas law requires it in every sale, they have not read the rule.