Keeping your home pest-free requires a combination of prevention savvy and the technically sound work of professional exterminators. It’s important to understand that it can be nearly impossible to achieve freedom from pests without expertise of both kinds working together. Unfortunately, homeowners tend to often make the serious mistake of attempting freedom from pests with just one or the other.
Practice a basic prevention plan
A number of basic techniques work.
Make sure that there are no food sources inside or out: If you have a birdfeeder in your garden, it should be far away from the house. If you store pet food outside, it should be in a tightly locked container. If you have firewood, it shouldn’t be stacked anywhere close to your house. Your garbage should be in a pest proof can, and there should be no trash indoors, either.
Check for moisture around the house: A damp basement is a sign that the soil outside contains too much moisture. Such moisture can be a termite magnet. You will need to redesign the slope around the house to lead water away.
Grow the right herbs: If your area has trouble with hornets, bees or wasps, planting feverfew can drive them away. Herbs such as rosemary in the garden and in pots around the house can help keep ants and other insects away.
Use pest-proof lightbulbs: If you have mercury vapor lamps outside, you should switch to sodium vapor. They tend to not attract flying pests.
Just as adopting good health habits doesn’t guarantee freedom from disease, practicing good pest prevention doesn’t make absolutely sure that you won’t have to deal with a pest problem. It only makes such an eventuality less likely. If you do have pests in your home, you need to call in the professionals.
Calling in professional pest management services
DIY efforts to get rid of pests tend to fail, simply because homeowners have no way of knowing what to do, other than to buy a few simple over-the-counter pesticides, and to apply them liberally. Not only does such application tend to be ineffective, it actually makes it harder for professional exterminators to use proven techniques.
Going after spiders is bad: There’s no need to target spiders unless you have dangerous varieties in your home. Many homeowners make the mistake of killing the spiders that they see; unfortunately, this only tends to make a pest situation worse, because spiders are predators of other insects.
Prepare ahead: Since exterminator services can be expensive, it’s important to have everything ready in advance. You should ask the exterminator service for tips on what to do. For instance, if you have a closet that you believe needs treatment, it can work much better when you empty it out for the crew ahead of time.
Finally, it is rarely enough to simply get rid of the pests in your house. Whether it’s rodents or termites, it makes sense to have the exterminator service that you call do two or three houses on either side. It’s the only way to make sure that you’re getting rid of the pests in your home forever, rather than simply moving them from one house to another.
