Your house is constantly exposed to a variety of different harmful elements. Regular maintenance is necessary to keep your house in its best possible condition. Atmospheric elements can cause serious damage to your property. The harmful rays of the sun, along with acid rain, can peel off the paint from the walls and can also seriously damage the ceiling. However, apart from atmospheric elements, your property is also exposed to other problems, the biggest of which is pests.
Household pests are a serious nuisance and can cause extensive damage to the whole building if left untreated. Household insects and pests are difficult to detect. Their diminutive size, combined with the fact that most pests and insects try to hide as much as possible from the light, make them hard to discover. If left unchecked, these household pests and insects can damage the floors, the walls, and even the foundation of the house.
It’s difficult to detect pests in the house. Many of the most dangerous pests, such as termites, ants, and cockroaches avoid coming out in the open. All household pests require three main conditions that they look for: shelter, water, and food. Safe harbour is a necessary requirement, and is one of the main reasons why pests look for dark, difficult to reach conditions. Other animals such as squirrels, birds, and rodents are easily able to find a way into houses.
Factors That Make Your House an Attractive Target for Pests
Most people don’t realise that there are plenty of common mistakes that they make which make their house a perfect target for pests and rodents. One of the biggest factors that leads to serious pest infestations is water. If there is always water around your place, it’s going to attract pests very quickly. If you have water lying around your property, and you don’t dry it on a regular basis, it won’t be long before pests such as ants and termites are attracted to your house.
You need to take the pest control around your place very seriously. Before talking about the different things that you can do in order to prevent pests from gaining access to your house, you need to understand the health risks that are associated with a pest infestation. If you allow pests to roam free around the house, it will only be a matter of weeks before diseases start spreading throughout your rooms. If you have children in the house, they might contract diseases within a few days only. Some animals, such as mice and bats, leave droppings around the house, which can also cause serious health problems. Now that you know the risks associated with pest infestations, here are a few tips that will help you minimise pest infestations around your place.
Regular Inspections
As highlighted above, it’s going to be next to impossible for you to spot a pest infestation. They move around in the dark and under floorboards, so it’s impossible to spot them. You need to contact a pest control specialist to first inspect the place. You should get an inspection done at least once a year in order to determine the clear signs of a pest infestation.
Experienced pest control specialists have a detailed point inspection list that they use in order to check for the various pest infestation points. Most pest control specialists in Coventry are listed on Thomson Local. You can call in a pest control specialist to your place for an inspection. The inspection will be completed within a couple of hours, and they will produce a comprehensive report highlighting all of the risks that your property is exposed to, as well as the signs of any existing infestation. Regular inspections can help you save a great deal of money in the long run. An inspection can determine the extent of a pest infestation, and also highlight any potential risks so that you can take remedial action right away.
Keep Your House Clean
It is perhaps no secret that pests are attracted to places that are unclean and are poorly maintained. If you don’t wash the floors regularly, or clean your house on a regular basis, it’s very likely to become a home for pests such as silverfish, cockroaches, and termites. One of the most effective ways to minimise pest infestations is to keep your house as clean as possible. Pay attention to the dining area and the kitchen, and always dispose the garbage properly, in order to keep away hungry pests.
Wash Your Clothes Regularly
You should make it a habit to wash your clothes and heat-dry them every few days. All towels, blankets, and bed sheets need to be regularly washed and dry cleaned. This can help you keep away an extensive range of different pests that are generally attracted to dirty linen (read: bed bugs!).
Ventilation
Modern houses are designed with ventilation in mind. However, older places that have little to no ventilation are often left at the mercy of pests. If you haven’t already bought one, you should seriously consider buying yourself a humidifier. Humidifiers should be installed in areas that have a high amount of moisture, such as basements, crawl spaces, and attics. It’s important that you keep these places dry. As has been mentioned in this article before, pests love places that are damp and full of moisture. It greatly helps with their reproduction and also provides them with water, an essential ingredient for life.
Seal Entry Points
Another thing that you need to do is to seal all entry points leading up to your place. If there are small holes in the basement, or in the walls of your house, you should get them sealed. Again, it’s difficult to find out all of these tiny holes and spaces by yourself. You can hire a pest control specialist for this. They will pinpoint all entry points leading up to the house and then give you recommendations on how to seal them. This can minimise the points of entry through which most pests enter houses.
