You share your home and yard with your friends, family members, and maybe some pets, and that’s good. What’s not so good is sharing your property with uninvited creatures like bugs, rodents, and wild animals. Whether it’s mosquitoes in the garden, roaches in the kitchen, or mice and squirrels in the attic, preventing pests from getting into your home should be a top priority. Fortunately, controlling pests is often as simple as following a few basic guidelines.
To come up with a strategy for pest control, consider why pests invade in the first place. It all comes down to finding ways to meet their needs for food, water, and shelter, and they are not able to discern between a cozy cave and your home. Because pests can damage your home and even transmit disease, it’s up to you to eliminate things that would attract them, and keep your home sealed against them. This requires a fair amount of vigilance on the part of a homeowner because it’s easy for normal wear and tear to damage your walls, screens, doors, and roof. Regularly inspecting your home for damage is important, and this includes looking for spots in walls, around windows and doors, on rooftops, and around your foundation where pests could gain entry. Let’s take a deeper look at some effective home pest control tactics.
Inside the house, it’s all about keeping things clean, closed, and in good repair.
- Keep your windows shut. You don’t want to open an easy entry rout for pests like ants, bees, flies, hornets, mosquitoes, termites, and wasps. If you do want to open your windows, make sure they have screens, and those screens don’t have any holes or tears in them.
- Close off any entry points. Block any gaps around doors, using weatherstripping. Seal any cracks or holes in your foundation, because pests can fit through surprisingly small openings.
- Cover your garbage. An uncovered garbage can is a welcoming site for a bug!
- Put away food. Don’t leave food sitting on the counter, or dirty dishes in the sink. This goes for pet food, too. Unless your pets are actively eating, the food should be sealed off with a lid.
- Thoroughly clean. Don’t leave a crumb on the counter or a slosh of juice on the table. Clean your home thoroughly, so that there’s nothing to entice pests to enter.
Good lawn pest control requires proper maintenance.
- Get rid of standing water. Flower pots, kiddie pools, buckets, and other containers can quickly become mosquito breeding grounds if they’re left with standing water inside. Female mosquitoes lay their eggs in water, and it doesn’t require very much water for them to be able to do this; a mosquito can lay 100 eggs in something as small as a bottle cap.
- Clean up your yard. Keep shrubbery and vegetation trimmed, cutting back branches or vegetation that’s making contact with your house. Keep your lawn healthy and your grass mowed, and don’t allow leaves to pile up against the house.
- Be smart about wood. Get rid of any unwanted tree stumps and keep firewood away from your home so you won’t use it to gain entry. Consider using mulch made of plastic, rubber, or gravel instead of wood.
- Close up your waste receptacles. This includes your garbage can, your recycling bin, and your compost container.
- Seal any cracks. Cracks in your siding, foundation or even in your patio can allow pests access to your home. While you’re at it, check on your roof. A roof in disrepair provides an inviting entry point.
- Tend your garden. Gardens can provide a haven for various pests by providing food, shelter, and breeding areas. To prevent them from gaining a foothold, keep your plants healthy, pull out weeds as soon as possible after they appear, and plant aromatic, pest-repellent plants.
- Clean out your gutters. You may not know it, but clogged, wet gutters can breed insects. Cleaning your gutters regularly, then, will lower your risk.
Partnering with a pest control company is the most effective way to keep pests out of your house. When you are looking for a reliable pest removal service near Milwaukee, Advanced Wildlife Control has got you covered. Advanced Wildlife Control is a family-owned business, and we understand that when you call us, it’s about more than just pest control: it’s about protecting what you love. That’s why we are passionate about helping families by providing the highest quality service to protect your home from nuisance pests and critters. For over 35 years, we have been Wisconsin’s top exterminators, providing pest control and peace of mind for homes and businesses throughout the Milwaukee Metro area, including the Milwaukee, Waukesha, Washington, and Ozaukee counties. We provide premier humane wildlife removal and pest control services seven days a week, and our services are 100 percent guaranteed. For more information about our family-owned pest control near Milwaukee, call (262) 456-3442 or contact us through our website.