What Bites, Swarms and Moves Indoors Each Month in Georgetown

The Georgetown Pest Year, Season by Season

Georgetown does not really have an off season for pests, and the reason is written into the weather rather than the calendar. Winters are mild enough that fleas never get knocked back, spring arrives wet, the middle of summer turns dry and brutal, and then a second wet spell moves through in the fall. Each of those stretches favors something different. A homeowner who treats March like August, or plans for a quiet January the way someone in a colder state might, is working off the wrong model. The pattern below follows what actually happens on the ground in Williamson County, month by month, rather than a generic national pest calendar.

Georgetown does not really have an off season, but it does have a rhythm, and the rhythm starts with frost. The last frost typically clears by late March, and that first warm, wet stretch is when eastern subterranean termites swarm in daylight after rain, usually sometime between February and May, earlier than a stretch of the state further south and later than a warm winter would suggest. Homeowners along DB Wood Road or backing onto a greenbelt near Cimarron Hills should walk the foundation in this window for mud tubes up a slab edge or discarded wings on a windowsill. Humidity climbs through spring too, and that same moisture is what pulls fleas and ticks out of dormant winter numbers and back into breeding activity, since winters here rarely get cold enough to interrupt the cycle at all.

Why the I-35 Split Changes Your Calendar

Late winter into early spring is termite season here. Native subterranean termites swarm in daylight after rain, and in Central Texas that usually falls somewhere between February and May, with the Georgetown end of that window typically running a bit later than swarms further south in the state. The tells are consistent: discarded wings collecting on a windowsill, thin mud tubes running up a pier or along a slab edge, trim that sounds hollow when tapped. Drought does not spare a house from this — the colony is chasing moisture, and under a slab is exactly where moisture collects even in a dry year, so a run of dry weather can make the problem worse rather than better.

The dry hot middle of the year is a different problem. Once the wet spring passes, activity does not stop, it moves indoors. Striped bark scorpions climb slab edges and weep holes chasing moisture, peak from June through August, and turn up in Georgetown bathrooms and laundry rooms on either side of I-35, though the limestone ground around Sun City and Cimarron Hills sees the heaviest pressure. Ticks stay active through the humidity. Fleas do not slow down at all, since the winters here are too mild to break their cycle. Nothing in this stretch is dormant, it is just hidden until a door opens.

Scorpion Season, Start to Finish

By June, scorpion activity in Georgetown is running at its worst, and it stays that way through July and August. The heat pushes them toward any source of moisture inside a house, which is why they turn up in sinks and tubs rather than out in the yard. The dry, hot middle of the year also pushes ants indoors for the same reason — water, not food, is what they are after once the ground outside has baked hard. Ticks stay active through this stretch too; lone star ticks and brown dog ticks do not slow down for heat the way some other pests do, so yard work and time near Berry Springs Park or San Gabriel Park still carries tick exposure through the peak of summer.

Fleas do not follow a season at all in Georgetown. Because winters rarely get cold enough for long enough to break the life cycle, flea activity runs at some level all year, with a noticeable bump whenever humidity rises and pets spend more time outdoors. Anyone who assumes a winter lull will end a flea problem on its own is working from a colder-climate assumption that does not hold here. Summer just makes an existing flea problem more visible rather than starting one from scratch.

Termite Swarm Windows and What Drought Does

Fall brings Georgetown's second wet spell, and with it a second, smaller wave of the same pressure spring brought. Crickets move toward structures as outdoor conditions shift, rodents start looking for a way into garages and attics as the weather turns, and the general indoor pest pressure that eased slightly in late summer picks back up. This is also a reasonable time to check the usual entry points around a house — weep holes, gaps around utility lines, door thresholds — before the year's last real pest push arrives, rather than waiting until something is already inside.

Scorpion activity tapers through October as temperatures drop, though it does not stop outright the way it would somewhere with a hard frost. Termite activity is quiet by this point in the year; the daylight swarms that define February through May are long over, and colonies are working underground rather than showing themselves. Ant activity indoors often eases too, once the outdoor heat that was driving the search for water has passed. Fall is the calmer half of the year here, but calmer is not the same as inactive.

What to Watch for Each Month

Winter in Georgetown is mild rather than dormant. There is no hard freeze that shuts pest activity down the way a true northern winter would, so scorpions and termites slow to their lowest point of the year but fleas keep going and rodents looking for warmth do not stop just because the calendar says December. A cold snap can push a scorpion further into a wall void or a termite colony deeper under a slab, but it is a pause, not a season-ending event. That gap between what a mild Central Texas winter actually does and what someone might expect from a colder-climate calendar is worth knowing before assuming a quiet month means a quiet house.

None of this means every month deserves the same response. The useful habit is matching the check to the season: watch windowsills and slab edges for termite tells starting in late winter, check bathrooms and laundry rooms for scorpions as summer builds, keep an eye on entry points before the fall wet spell, and do not assume a mild Georgetown winter is doing the work that a hard freeze would do somewhere else. The county's own soil split, limestone to the west of I-35 and prairie clay to the east, keeps shaping how each of those stretches plays out on any one property, which is why two houses a few miles apart along Williams Drive or DB Wood Road can be on noticeably different timelines within the same season.