How you can keep pests out of the house
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) considers many pests of significant public health importance. But for ordinary homeowners like us, these pests are a nuisance we do not prefer to be living in our homes. Here are some ways you can remove and keep pests out of your home.
Know more about these pests
Knowing more about the behavior of any unwanted pests allows you to deal with them properly. For instance, you can use a standard trap to catch mice or rats. But these pests are smart and vengeful. When they know that you were responsible for the trap, they will look for ways to exact revenge on you if they escape from the trap.
When you know more about these pests, you will know how to effectively get rid of them. Increasing your knowledge about different pests also allows you to stop them from entering your home in the first place.
For instance, dirty and grimy areas can attract different types of pests. With this in mind, you should always keep your home clean to make it unappealing for pests looking for a place to build their nests. Since rotting food attracts flies and similar pests, you should make sure the trash can are closed tight to prevent the smell from attracting these pests.
Grow more plants
You should also grow plants that help you in your pest control measures. Several plants act as natural repellants for certain types of pests. For instance, if you want to control the mosquito population in your home, you can plant citronella grass, basil, rosemary, mint, or sage. Aside from driving away mosquitoes, these plants are also great ingredients to add a bit of spice to your dishes.
If you have a bit of arachnophobia, planting mint in the garden can help drive away spiders. Marigolds can keep plant lice and mosquitoes at bay. If you have chrysanthemums in your garden, you can drive away a lot of pests, including ticks, roaches, ants, silverfish, and lice.
Petunias can drive away leafhoppers, aphids, and asparagus beetles. Cats may like catnip, but cockroaches and flies cannot stand them. Lavender in the home can also drive away flies, fleas, and moths.
Close all entry points
Similar to other living organisms, pests look for places where they can build their nests. One of the places where they build their nests in the home of an unsuspecting human. If you want to stop these pests from making your home its abode, you should stop them from entering it in the first place.
To do this, you should block all entry points to the home. It can be challenging to find all entry points in the home. But it’s better to prevent pests from entering the home rather than working on driving them away from your home.
Since you cannot cover all holes, cracks, and crevices in the home, you can focus on common entry points of these pests. These entry points include gaps in the windows and door. You can close these gaps using weatherstripping on the openings.
Vents in the homes also serve as entry points for rodents and similar creatures. You can install metal meshes or similar items to prevent these pests from entering the home without completely covering the vents.
It might be a good idea to contact a pest control company in Chicago to help you if these tasks seem too difficult, or if you want to make sure they are done right.
Even if you cover all of these entry points, some pests may enter your home by hitchhiking on your luggage after you come home from an out-of-town trip. To prevent this from happening, you should check your belongings after a trip before going inside the house.
Remove food and water sources
Aside from shelter, pests also look for food and water sources in the places where they set up their nests. If you remove these food and water sources, it will make your property less appealing to these pests. You can do this by ensuring to store all food items in the house properly.
For instance, rodents will gravitate to an unprotected sandwich on the kitchen counter. You should avoid leaving food unprotected anywhere in the house. Instead, you should put food in a tightly sealed container and put it in the refrigerator.
You should also make sure to take the trash out every night. Trash that’s piled up in your property can attract rats and other rodents. You should make sure to bring the trash out and have it ready for pick up by the garbage truck when it passes your house. If the truck does not pass every day, you should make sure to keep the trash inside a tightly sealed can.
Jake Leonard, a broadcast media and journalism veteran, is the editor-in-chief of Heartland Newsfeed. Leonard is also GM and program director of Heartland Newsfeed Radio Network, wrestling editor and contributing writer for Ambush Sports, a contributing writer for My Sports Vote and Midwest Sports Network, and a former contributor to Bleacher Report and Overtime Heroics. He resides at home in Nokomis, Ill. with his dog Buster.
