Top 8 pests control tips

Pests are going to come into your home from time to time. They will wander wherever they think they can find food, water, or appropriate shelter. You may not realize it, but your home offers plenty of all these to a wide variety of pests – whether it’s through the crumbs in your kitchen or the very wood that composes your home.

Here are top 8 pests control tips

Keep landscaping trimmed back from the house.

Pests leap on the opportunity to take a safe passageway into your home. Often, this comes in the form of tree branches, shrubs, and bushes that lean up against your house, which provides a sheltered entry for pests. Trim back trees and bushes, so there is a good-sized gap between them and your outer walls.

Keep your drains clean.

Drains, especially those that see infrequent use, can collect debris and create standing pools of water and moisture. It doesn’t take long for tiny flies to use accumulated sewer goo as a breeding ground.

To clean your drains, pour a half-cup of salt down the drain, followed by a half-cup of baking soda. Finally, pour one cup of white vinegar down as well, and sit back and enjoy the bubbles. This solution will clean the pipe, and if you clean the drains once a week, it should keep them uninhabitable for drain flies.

Make sure your stored food is airtight.

Your pantry is a cornucopia of smells that will attract nearly every type of pest. A pantry without a lot of old food in it is less likely to be infested. Take a few minutes to organize your pantry — bring older foods to the front so you can use them first. Throw away anything that’s expired. This practice will help significantly in reducing the attractiveness of your pantry as a food source.

Seal your doors and windows.

Over time, doors and windows gradually develop gaps that let in bugs. As wood contracts and hinges wear and settle, the edges may not sit quite as tightly as they did before. Additionally, the soft foam or rubber weather seal that lines the edges tends to lose its effectiveness over time — it will peel off at its adhesive edge or start to dry-rot. Rehang doors that have gaps around them and replace this weather seal.

Use this opportunity to clean up trash and litter.

This advice doesn’t just pertain to your house — look around your yard and make sure there aren’t any pest oases lying around. Also keep an eye on porches, patios, backyards, and decks. These are areas where piles of leaves, weeds, sticks, recycling, and trash bags tend to collect. Standing water is also a common problem that attracts mosquitoes.

Piles of trash and organic matter attract almost any type of pest you can name, including snakes, rodents, and maggots. Keep the area around your house tidy, and pests will have fewer places to live and hide.

Close any interior gaps in your home.

Gaps around floorboards, drywall, and baseboards are easy entry points for pests. Sometimes, these will be largely absent from the more visible portions of your house, so be sure to check under your kitchen counter and in other unfinished areas of the house. There are also lots of gaps behind appliances such as refrigerators, dryers, and gas ranges.

To seal up these cracks, you can use wood putty or interior caulk. Just be sure to check thoroughly to make sure you’ve gotten all of them.

Make sure to seal your trash containers.

Trash containers are a weak point in many of our homes. The presence of rotting or fermenting food will bring pests out of the woodwork to dine and lay eggs in its fertile depths. Make sure your trash is covered and you should throw it out regularly to avoid the appearance of pests.

Keep your house clean.

Think of this advice as extra motivation to wash your dirty dishes, vacuum your floors and keep crumbs from falling when you eat pizza on the sofa. Throw away fruit rinds and wipe your kitchen countertops clean. Don’t unwittingly feed pests or give them a place to breed — it’s as easy as keeping your house tidy.

I hope the tips collected by PB Cleaning 247 help keep your home pest-free. But what you should be doing regularly is cleaning the house, especially deep cleaning. If you’re wondering where to start, let us help you.

Contact us to learn more about our cleaning services.