Nature Is Attacking My House! [PIC]

Trumpet plants are one of the best things we have going for us here in West Texas.  We get a lot of green with just a splash of color (usually orange). They seem to do well even when there's not a lot of rain, but really go crazy when they do get some moisture. My question to you guys is simple, are they dangerous?

As you can tell from the pic, they sure look cool.  At the same time they kind of have that insidious Stephen King vibe of a plant that is looking to swallow up a house.  These particular ones dry up and die when everything else shuts down for winter. I haven't seen any real damage to the house yet.  So, does anyone out there know if this is bad?  Are there any long term problems beyond a little paint by letting these go?  It certainly would be easy enough to stop this from happening again, but I'm a little hesitant to stop anything that's green from growing around here.  There is no trellis or anything behind these, they just climbed straight up the wall like Spiderman.