Killeen, Texas sits against the main post of Fort Hood at about 863 feet, where the Central Texas hills rise toward Stillhouse Hollow Lake. Frequent moves, a young population and rocky ground make its pest problems different from the rest of Bell County.
Killeen is the largest of Bell County's three principal cities, with 153,095 residents in the 2020 census, and it exists because of the army. Camp Hood opened in 1942, became a permanent post in 1950, and the town jumped from about 1,300 people to 7,045 in a single year. The post carried the name Fort Cavazos from 2023 to 2025 and covers 214,000 acres, with its business area in Bell County and its training ranges in Coryell County.
The median age is under 30, four in ten households include children, and 61,886 housing units turn over quickly as families arrive and ship out. That churn spreads bed bugs and German cockroaches from unit to unit, while the limestone hills around Copperas Cove and above Stillhouse Hollow Lake are classic striped bark scorpion country. Bell County Public Health District runs 17 mosquito traps and sends catches to the state lab for West Nile testing, and Bell County does not appear on the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension county list for Formosan termites.