No one enjoys having a house overrun by pests, so in this post, we give you a few tips on ways to keep your home pest free.
Start with exclusion a.k.a. Sealing key entry points into your home
Exclusion and sealing entry points is a great way to reduce pest numbers and keep your home pest free. Unfortunately, this strategy can be very tedious, time consuming, costly, and is almost impossible to get 100% coverage.
As your home ages, or if your home is older, it will begin to settle. When your home settles, it will develop tiny cracks and crevices around your home.
Some of these cracks and crevices may be within reach for you, while others may be in the outer foundation and buried underground. If this is the case, there isn’t much you can do to find and seal these buried entry points.
There are definitely steps you can do to reduce entry points, such as installing door sweeps, having covers on dryer vents, putting weather stripping around windows, repairing screen doors and windows, and other similar things.
Some pest control services will assist you with exclusion efforts and can help spot problem areas you aren’t familiar with. This can help save you time and frustration as well as reduce pest numbers.
Start with an outside treatment if you don’t have any major pest issues
Most pest issues start from outside of the home. As we talked about with exclusion, reducing how many pests get in your home to begin with can keep your home pest free and eliminate many major pest issues.
However it’s almost impossible to prevent all pests getting into your home with exclusion alone. Having a pest control service do a treatment around your home can help eliminate new pest issues from developing down the road.
This won’t keep all pests out, but once a pest crosses that barrier, they will eventually die. This means they won’t be able to take hold and make camp in your home.
This can help prevent pests from nesting in your home, which often happens when pests that enter your home are left unchecked.
Yard maintenance and clean up can also prevent pest issues
Another tip you can use to keep your home pest free is to maintain your lawn and yard. Pests live in a variety of places around your home and tall grass is one of them.
Keeping your lawn mowed and grass short will eliminate many hiding places for pests to live. You should also clean up fallen leaves and leave piles as well around your home.
Many pests and bugs such as ticks, ants, and more will live under leaves and debris. In addition to mowing and clearing your lawn, you should also keep plants, wood piles, and tree branches away from your home.
One of the biggest factors for pests getting into your home is that their harborage points are touching parts of the home which lead directly or indirectly to entry points. Many pests live in rotting or dead wood, so having wood piles next to your home can be like setting up an apartment complex for pests.
If the wood piles are touching your home, it gives these pests easy access to find entry points. The same goes for tree branches and plants that are touching your home.
Many pests will live in trees and plants, but if they are attached to your home or close enough to jump to it, there isn’t much to stop these pests from getting in.
Overall keeping pests out and avoiding pest issues to begin with is much easier when you focus on prevention. This will cost you less in the long run, rather than waiting until you have a problem to take action.
