Irrespective of the weather, pests find a way of infesting residential areas. Preventing pest infestation is a crucial aspect of maintaining a healthy home.
Although they may seem minor or insignificant when not controlled, their presence in residential areas may negatively affect the health of the residence. There are lots of professional pest control companies in London and below is a compiled list of 7 effective ways to ensure that your home is pest-free.
1. Practice Proper Garden Maintenance
The initial phase in ensuring you have a pest-free household is frequently maintaining your garden. Trim any branches or shrubbery that might be in contact with your house. Proper garden maintenance helps to eliminate ways that pests can easily use to access the home. Additionally, using mulch in your garden bed can act as a habitat for some pests. It is therefore advisable to use less pest attractive ground cover such as rocks instead of mulch. Finally, fill holes that can hold stagnate water as these can be a breeding ground for pests like mosquitoes.
2. Proper Disposal of Trash
It’s widely recognised that household waste can draw pests like ants and cockroaches, but it’s important to remember that garden waste can also provide a suitable environment for pests to thrive. To minimise this risk, it’s essential to keep trash cans securely closed and maintain cleanliness in the areas where they are usually placed. Regular removal of garbage is crucial to prevent it from piling up, which could invite rats or other rodents. Additionally, accumulated garbage can also attract pigeons, adding to the pest problem. By maintaining cleanliness and proper waste disposal, you can keep pigeons away, as well as other pests.
3. Fix Cracks and Cervices
It is difficult for pests to enter homes with sealed pest entry points such as a crack or cervices. Conduct a regular exterior inspection of the residence, mainly focusing around doors, windows, pipes for cracks and gaps, which might serve as pest entry points. Once these points are identified, seal them up using copper mesh, sheet metal, or mortar. Fixing pest entry points helps in stopping pests from entering the residence.
4. Keep Your Home Clean
Pests such as ants, fruit flies, roaches, and rodents are all attracted into residential areas by food debris. It is important to keep inside the homestead clean to avoid pest infestation by regularly vacuuming, wiping surfaces with a disinfectant, and clean up food spillage. When you constantly clean, you will pick up food debris that might act as a potential pest food. Also, it is essential to remove clutter in cupboards and drawers as they might provide a survival ground for ants, bed bugs, and termites. Finally, make it a habit of washing dishes regularly. Leftover crumbs and food in unwashed utensils might invite pests into your house as they act as a source of food.
5. Properly Store Food
Pests such as rodents have an excellent sense of smell and can quickly infest open food containers. Always store dry foods such as cereals in reusable air-tight containers to prevent luring pests to the kitchen. Regularly clean your pantry and dispose of expired food to help the infestation of any pantry pests.
6. Use Strong Smells to Repel Pests
Strong scents repel most pests, such as spiders. You can create a peppermint solution and spraying it around the house to ward off any spiders. The solution can be prepared by pouring a cup of water into a spray bottle and adding 17 drops of peppermint oil.
7. Minimize Dampness in The Home
Damp, warm environments allow pests to thrive. Ensure that your bathrooms and kitchen are well-ventilated to prevent these areas from becoming a pest breeding ground.
There are various benefits of keeping your residential area pest-free such as allowing your home to disease-free and allowing you to save on repair costs from structural damage. The above methods are cost-friendly, easily implemented, and can considerably reduce the appearance of pests in your home.
You can also hire the best pest control in London company to get rid of the pests smoothly from your residential areas.