How to Keep Your Home Safe
Keeping your home safe starts with avoiding pest infestations in the first place. Put a good risk management strategy in place with these tips.
Remove potential habitats. Bugs and other pests will make themselves at home if you let them. Get rid of places they can call home, like piles of clothes in your laundry room or piles of leaves against your siding. Pests won’t move in if you don’t make your home attractive for them.
Watch out for humidity. Humid weather can damage structural materials and attract pests. Especially keep an eye on places that tend to be dark and damp, like under the sink and areas with plumbing. Use a dehumidifier if you need to.
Find and seal entry routes. Keep pests out of your home by sealing the leaks and gaps that they use to enter. As a bonus, sealing your home will also help lower your energy bills.
Get a check-up every year. Engage pest control companies for an annual check of your home to make sure there are no signs of infestation or damage. Pest control operators know what to look for and can help catch infestations early. That saves you money on pest control services in the long run because you’ll be nipping pest damage in the bud instead of waiting until it grows out of control and becomes impossible to ignore. If you’re looking to buy a house, bring in a representative of the pest control industry for a pest assessment before you buy the house.
Not sure whether your home has pests? Start by bringing in a trained and licensed exterminator or other pest control provider to conduct a full inspection sooner rather than later. If they find an infestation, treat it quickly with pesticides, fumigation, or whatever other treatments the pest control provider recommends. Do not allow any infestation to fester in your home without treatment.
Make sure you document any pest control treatments you use and keep those records in a safe place. This can help you with any home insurance claims you have to file because you can prove that you did your best to minimize risks. If pests do cause property damage to your home, report it to your home insurance company even if you don’t think they’ll cover it. They need to know about the damage.
Above all, keep up with treatment. Most homes need annual pest control work.