Pest control around the home is a year-round effort, but it doesn’t have to be an exhaustive effort. Here are five tips to prep for your own home pest control this fall.

5 Home Pest Control Tips

1. Reduce Moisture and Water Around The House: Coming off the summer months you might think that we are done with mosquitoes. That is far from the case. Mosquitoes will continue for a few months. Go around the house and disperse any standing water where mosquitoes could breed. Moisture build up areas around the house are perfect environments for termites and many other pests. If you have areas of the house that are building up moisture then do what you can to dry them out. Some areas may only need some landscaping, shrubs, tree limbs, etc. cut back to give some ventilation and sunlight to dry out. If your crawl space is damp then place a fan or two around the crawl that can be turned on periodically to help ventilation. Open vents around the crawl space, but insert screens at the same time to keep out critters.
2. Fix All House Integrity Compromises: Every day it seems we visit at least one house that has some vegetation or structural issue that is compromising the house. Walk around the house and look for trees that might be pressing into the eaves, shrubs that are covering over the house vents, leaking pipes, falling screens, or any other noticeable issues. Critters and bugs utilize these types of compromises of the house structure to make their way in for shelter for the fall and winter months. Once these pests get into your house they are difficult (and costly) to get out. Some compromises to your house can even lead to structural issues that go beyond pests and can cause thousands in repairs.
3. Seal Cracks: This is that time of the year when we will start to notice ladybugs, Asian ladybugs, stink bugs, kudzu bugs, boxelder bugs and other pests showing up in mass around our windows and doors inside the house. They are just looking for a warmer place to call home for the late fall and winter. They will not be causing any harm to your family or destruction to your house, but they can be impossible to get rid of once they are in the house. Especially if you noticed these bugs in your house last year, seal up those windows or doors where they occupied last year first. Creating a nice seal around your house will also help keep some of your heating costs down over the winter, which is a good add on to sealing up the house.
4. Clean Out the Cobwebs: If you go into your garage or look around the windows of the exterior of your house you will likely find cobwebs all over. Cobwebs generally indicate spiders (bit of sarcasm there) so do not be alarmed. Not all spiders are harmful to us humans, most are not. Some spiders are actually quite helpful to the ecosystem. But not many of us are raving fans of spiders. So we want them out of the house as well. Take a day or so to go through those areas that spiders have staked a little claim of your home and clean them out. If you are paying attention to the first three tips in this list then it is likely the spiders will not come back to those spots because they only want to go places that have options to feed.
5. Put Down a Perimeter: If you have done all the prior pest control tactics then you are likely ready to put down a little bit of some chemical pest treatments around the house. Our suggestion would be to call on a pest professional at this point. Often when you consider your time, the chemical itself, a spray container, and any other random expenses you might need to get ready to spray on your own, the cost for hiring a professional is cheaper or relatively close to the same price. It doesn’t do you very much good to do this step before the others because creating a perimeter that can be stepped over by climbing trees next to the house or jumping from bushes only makes the perimeter 50% effective at best. Once you have an effective perimeter in place you will find that pests are kept out of the house more efficiently and if they do make it into the house they do not get very far without dying.