Process to Keep Your Home Pest Free
The only thing creepier than the sound of rodents tearing at paper in your bedroom or scurrying through cupboard drawers in your kitchen is the sight of them nesting among your clothes, running in your living room, or feasting on bits of bread left uncovered in your kitchen. The sight of flies and bugs buzzing around can be equally disgusting.
Far more than a nuisance, pests can cause serious damage to your health and home. The following are some simple measures that can help to keep your home pest free.
Conduct a House Audit
It’s not just enough to keep windows and doors closed or covered with screens. Bugs and rodents are experts at finding tiny cracks, holes, and gaps in your foundation or along walls. Conduct a house audit and inspect for cracks, holes, or gaps in or near your points of entry; along your walls where there are incoming pipes, wiring, and utility lines; or along your foundation where the wall and foundation meets. Audits should be conducted for both the interior and exterior of your home. Repair damaged screens and seal any openings found.
Clean and Declutter
Image via Flickr by donger
Begin with the simple exercise of sweeping your floors regularly and vacuuming your carpets and upholstery. Change your linens, sheets, and curtains often to ensure that they are always fresh and clean.
Mop kitchen and dining room areas regularly using soap and water. Keep kitchen sinks clean and free of dirty wares. Dirty kitchen sinks are an open invitation for bugs and other pests. Clean the residual food that can settle in drains and plumbing with drain cleaners.
Garages and patios can also become storage points for litter. Keep these areas clear of unnecessary items, litter, weeds, and open water.
It is always a good idea to clean the ductwork in your air conditioning systems. Quite apart from eliminating dust and assuring that the air quality in your home is good, getting your duct work cleaned can also help to eliminate your exposure to the tiny bugs that make their homes there over time.
Store Foods and Leftovers Carefully
Sometimes meals are prepared early or foods may be left over after a meal. Store fresh foods in sealed containers or resealable bags. Some fruit and vegetables can be stored in the refrigerator. Dispose of older, stale, or uneaten foods.
Store Trash Securely
A garbage bin with a loose cover is an invitation to bugs and rodents. Store garbage and recycling bins away from the home, and ensure that they are kept tightly closed at all times.
Keep Yards, Driveways, and Drains Clean
Keep your yard clear of debris and trim back tree branches and shrubbery away from your walls to reduce the access that pests can get to your home.
There are many simple measures that you can apply to ensure that your surroundings are clean, healthy, and pest-free. Though some may require a little more effort than others, the returns from these exercises are immeasurable.
Cockroaches’ infestation is nasty to be discovered in human living rooms. When you see a cockroach in the home, your first instinct will likely be to kill it so that there aren’t other roaches inside. While they aren’t all that pleasant to look at, there are some facts about roaches that are somewhat odd and interesting.
If you kill a roach, make sure it’s crushed completely. Roaches can live for about a week with the head missing. Roaches have small holes on the sides of their bodies that they breathe through. This means that they don’t need a nose or mouth for them to breathe. The roach will die because it doesn’t have a way to eat or drink.
You’ve probably seen roaches scurry along the floor or other surfaces in the home at a high rate of speed. Most roaches can race along at three miles an hour. Since they run so fast, they can often spread bacteria and germs in the home in a short time. This means that you need to get the roaches out of the home as soon as you can to prevent illnesses that might be spread by them.
Even if you keep your home spotless, roaches can still survive for about a month without any source of food. However, they can only survive for about a week without any source of water. Find any leaks, repairing them so that roaches can’t find any water. You should also avoid leaving water in containers outside as roaches can be attracted to this source as well.
Roaches eat more than just the crumbs of food that are left on the floor and on counters. They like to munch on paper and wood as well as soap, hair and fecal material. The roaches in your home will usually never run out of anything to eat, so you need to use some kind of pesticide to get rid of them.