Five DIY Home Projects that Help Control Pests
There are plenty of things that homeowners and even renters can do to control pest populations around their homes. This blog discusses five things that we can all do to keep indoor and outdoor pest populations under control.
- Check and Fix Window Screens
- Clean Up the Yard
- Check Your Roof Vents
- Insulate Your Doors
- Clean It Up
Read on to learn more!
Check and Fix Window Screens
Windows are one of the main ways that insects and pests get into your house. Heat, cold, and adverse weather cause window screens to weaken and deteriorate – rot. The slightest pressure against a rotten window screen causes them to break. Check your window screens every season to make sure that they are still strong and that they are free of holes, rips, or tears. Replace them as needed. You can often find window screen kits are local Bryan and College Station hardware stores.
Clean Up the Yard
Insects, spiders, and rodents all love to make nests or feed on piles of brush or other yard debris. Be sure to remove piles of lumber, old pallets, and junk from your yard so that they do not become a place where black widows, rats, mice, insects or squirrels make a home. Also, be sure to trim back weeds as snakes and spiders use tall grass as places to hide or to build webs.
Check Your Roof Vents
Roof and Eave vents are often called soffit vents, and they are part of what keeps attics from overheating. They are also a place where bathroom and sewer pipes exchange gases. Most soffit vents are covered with plastic screening and that ages poorly. Be sure to check for soffit vent screen integrity and replace it if there are holes or if it appears weak. Metal screening is a good choice if you can find in small grades. Replacing torn or rotting soffit vent covers is the best way to keep birds, squirrels, and bats out of your attic and walls.
Insulate Your Doors
The crack under exterior door not only allows heat to escape in winter, and cold air to escape during summer, but they are an open invitation for insects, spiders, lizards, and snakes to get into your home. Adding weather-stripping to doors not only helps to save energy but also it helps to keep pests out of your home.
Clean It Up
Even small crumbs are a lot of food to ants, cockroach, and mice. Keep your house clean, and the surfaces wiped down, so that small scraps of food do not attract insects, rodents, and other pests. Cockroaches find food with their antenna as it rots, it gives off odors making it easy to find, even cookie crumbs or bread crumbs. Mice are scavengers, and they will take up residence where there is a steady food source. Flies are not only disgusting, but they spread disease. Cleaning your house is the number one way to keep insects and other types of pest outside.
If you have an active infestation, call our professionals. If you’d like to learn more about how to keep pests out of your house and control outside pest populations, just give us a call or subscribe to our blog.
