It’s never too early to prepare for keeping pests from your home in winter. Even here in Folsom, where we enjoy generally temperate winters, pest control can be elusive. Here are some ideas on keeping your home free of pests this winter.
How to Keep Your Space Vermin-Free
Evaluate The Exterior
The exterior of the house is your first and best defense against pests who want to make your happy home into their happy home. Make sure any and all cracks, gaps, and holes are filled, covered, or otherwise cut off. This goes for any holes that might be present due to electric or other utilities, including dryer vents. Rodents and insects can squeeze into places you wouldn’t dream of, so make sure you deter them from doing so.
Clean And Maintain Your Yard
Beyond the aesthetic appeal, keeping your lawn cleaned and maintained means giving mice, rats, and vermin fewer places to curl up out of sight. If your yard is littered with debris, those places are just waiting for an army of unsavory insects or rodents to turn up and make it into their new home. Make sure your yard is well-aerated so there’s no standing water for mosquitoes to use for breeding places, too. When yards are well-attended and don’t have a lot of clutter, there’s no place for vermin to reside.
Cover food vents and chimneys with wire mesh
Rodents can’t chew through wire, so use it to create a sturdy and durable defense. They also can’t chew through steel wool, which makes for a highly flexible and durable rodent deterrent. Chimneys can use either a chimney cap or fine wire mesh; any holes to the outdoors for venting can be covered with a fine wire mesh, making it impossible for rodents to bite their way through and into your home.
Clean and repair gutters and drains
Pests love to hole up in gutters and drainage spouts, the closer to your home the better! Cut them off early by ensuring your gutters, drains, and out-spouts are in great shape, clean, and well-maintained. Rotting boards around moist areas are another pain point for pest control; rats and mice love to gnaw up that nice soft wood and then they have easy access to your home. Make sure you inspect these areas regularly to ensure this doesn’t happen.
De-clutter your house and keep it clean
Possibly one of the best places you can make sure isn’t attracting rodents or other pests is the interior of your home. If your home has food strewn about, dirty plates, drinkware, and cutlery everywhere, crumbs coating everything and a generally cluttered feel to it, pests are going to think they’ve hit the jackpot: food and shelter, all in one place! They don’t even have to go anywhere else!
Don’t give them this opportunity. You deserve to enjoy the home you’ve worked hard for. Prevent vermin from settling into your home by doing the following:
- Ensure ALL food is stored in fully-sealed containers: yours, and your pet’s too.
- Get rid of clutter. Piles of papers or bills look like condos and apartment homes to insect families. Get rid of them using the OHIO (only handle it once) trick and banish insect concerns from your life.
- Regularly clear out, remove, and/or properly store items in places such as crawl spaces, garages, attics, and basements.
- Clean up quickly and effectively. Wipe up spills promptly, especially any that may be food- or beverage-related. Wash dishes or rinse them for the dishwasher promptly. Wipe up any excess moisture that might attract insects. (All moisture attracts insects.) Keep your home clean and dry and vermin will have no place to make their own.
These are probably habits that you are already practicing, it’s just a good idea to continue to maintain vigilance around them so that you don’t run into problems dealing with vermin taking over and ruining your home, or any part of it. Once they take hold, it can be extremely difficult to eradicate them and remove their presence from your home. It often requires restoration of the property. At Earthwise Pest Management, we’re very fond of the old adage that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, because in pest control the pounds add up quickly. We’re happy to be your Folsom pest control specialists!