Warning

[TexasMac]

If you buy mulch this spring and summer, make sure you know where it
came from.

If you use mulch around your house be very careful about buying mulch
this year. After the Hurricane in New Orleans many trees were blown
over. These trees were then turned into mulch and the state is trying to
get rid of tons and tons of this mulch to any state or company who will
come and haul it away.   National Chain Stores may be buying this mulch for sale to the general public; Formosan Termites will be the bonus in many of those bags. New Orleans is one of the few areas in the country where the Formosan Termites has gotten a stronghold and most of the trees blown down were already badly infested with those termites.

Now we may have the worst case of transporting a problem to all parts of
the country that we have ever had. These termites can eat a house in no
time at all and there apparently is no good control against them, so
tell your friends that own homes to avoid cheap mulch and know were it
came from.

Shortcut to: http://www.agctr.lsu.edu/termites/
<http://www.agctr.lsu.edu/termites/>

When we have proof which of those chain stores are selling those bags, we can identify them here.  Thank you for the heads-up.

[TexasMac]

JoeG52 posted the following on another thread.

Claim: E-mail warns that buying mulch from home improvement stores may spread the Formosan subterranean termite.

Status: False.

http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/household/termites.asp
 

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And I responded as follows:

JoeG52,

Thanks for posting Snopes comments. I never considered the information might be false or misleading. I certainly need to be more diligent when posting stuff like this, and check the facts out further.

Wayne

[jvs]

That is why I removed the names of the Companies from your post.  IF there is proof that some national stores are knowingly selling termite infected mulch, I certainly would allow posting it here.   I normally don't get involved in censorship, but we have to be fair.  Urban Myths in e-mails is a realm all of its own.

Even though there is no proof at this time, I see no reason that there shouldn't be a warning about the possibility without naming names.   Again, thanks for the heads up.