How to Keep Your Home Pest-Free This Fall

Photo: Pennington

As the seasons change and the temperatures drop, everyone will be spending more time indoors, and that includes furry little pests. Unfortunately, critters might be cute (who doesn’t like watching a little squirrel or chipmunk in the wild?), but once they invade your property, they can be downright annoying, if not destructive. Besides the obvious areas like garbage cans, sheds, and garages, critters can invade your actual home and cause quite a bit of damage.

Below are a few tips for securing your home against these unwanted visitors. Get more tips and advice from the National Pest Management Association's website.

·        Try to locate the animals’ point of entry and seal it. Holes or cracks in a building’s foundation, a door that’s not quite closed, unsecured attic windows, and a whole host of other neglected spots in your home’s physical frame can invite little vermin.  Do a close inspection of your home’s exterior and look for any spots where small creatures could fit through, and seal them with expanding foam, caulking, or other sealant (ask your local hardware or pest control professional for the best products to use).
        
 Check your doors and windows.  Seal any loose weather stripping, repair ripped or missing screens, and check the door hinges (to make sure the door is hung and can close properly) and window closures to make sure the window closes tightly. Animals like mice or even bats can fit through very small openings, so keep everything shut to deter their entry into your house.

  Don’t store pet food in the original bag. Your dog or cat aren’t the only ones who like dried kibble—wildlife will eat it, too.  Rather than keep the food in its original paper bag, store it in a metal garbage can (mice can’t climb up the slippery sides—although they’d also have some real trouble removing the lid!) or a plastic bin with a snap-top lid.

  Clean up yard debris. Maintaining our yards is a lot of work, but if you have a stacked woodpile, excessive piles of leaves, or grass clippings strewn about, these are all perfect materials for critters to use for building nests either on your property or elsewhere and generally creating a bigger mess for you to clean up.  Raking and bagging leaves is a big job, but it’s necessary to keep pests out of your yard. Another tip: keep your tree and shrub branches trimmed. Pests can easily use long branches to enter your attic or basement.

Set traps. If you’re seeing a lot of mouse droppings or other signs of infestation (chewed boxes or other possessions) in your basement or attic, set traps in different locations around the area. If you can’t seem to catch the critter but they’re still leaving their mark, call a pest control company if your DIY methods aren’t working.

Pests can chew through wiring, nest in your attic’s insulation, or simply spread disease through the germs they carry (yes, even those cute little squirrels and chipmunks can make you sick!)  Protect your family and property by doing a few simple maintenance tips and keep unwanted critters out of your home.