You hear it all the time: keep a clean home and you won’t get pests. It makes sense: leaving out crumbs, spilled beverages, and open trash certainly will invite pests to set up shop. However, many clean and tidy homes still experience infestations. If this describes you, don’t stress out: it’s not a reflection on your ability to maintain a clean house.
But here are some top reasons why clean homes get invaded by pests and what you can do about it.
Pests Make Their Way in Through Gaps
Pests are small and resourceful, which means if there’s a way into your home, they will find it. You may be unwittingly making it easier for them by leaving gaps around your exteriors. Remember: mice can fit in a hole the size of just a nickel, and rats can fit through a quarter-sized hole. Spiders, cockroaches, and ants don’t even need that much.
Pests commonly get into your home through:
- Open windows and doors
- Holes in door and window screens
- Gaps under exterior doors
- Holes around pipes and cables
- Gaps around vents and window AC units
Pests Hitch Rides on Your Clothing and Luggage
People bring bed bugs into their homes unknowingly all the time, and not just from motels and hotels. Other common places where bed bugs reside include buses, trains, planes, retail stores, and movie theaters.
Bed bugs will crawl and attach themselves to clothing, furniture, luggage and linens. While these bloodsucking pests do not spread disease, their bites can be painful and itchy. Be careful what you bring into your home!
Pests Come in With Your Groceries
It’s possible for grocery stores (or their suppliers) to have a pest control problem, which then spreads to your home. Take these precautions:
- Avoid produce if you see flies buzzing around it; this signals that they have laid their eggs in it.
- Avoid products with packaging that looks like it has been clawed, torn, or chewed.
- Wash produce right when you get home.
- Store dry goods in airtight containers.
- If you spot bugs in your groceries, tie up the contaminated food in a bag and throw it in an outdoor garbage can.
Pests Smell Unsealed Food
Pests like to hide in dark places, so store your food in clear, airtight containers. If not, insects and rodents will easily be able to smell the food. Ants are masters at this, thanks to the fact that they have up to five times more odor receptors than other insects.
Pests Are Attracted to Your Pet’s Food
Your dog’s bowl is an invitation to mice and cockroaches. Try to establish meal times for your pet to avoid leaving food out all day and night. This also prevents pests from contaminating their food.
Pests Crawl up Through Your Plumbing
Rats are great swimmers, which is how they can get up into your bathroom from the city’s sewer system. This makes it possible for them to appear in your toilet one day, to your great surprise and disgust. In a similar vein, when cities perform sewer maintenance, this may frighten cockroaches into finding safety in your plumbing system, where they can then emerge from your drains.
Contact Eco Pest Control
Schedule your inspection with our Boise pest control experts today. We can suggest ways you can prevent the intrusion of pests into your property through our exclusion services. Get a free quote when you contact us at 208-600-8734.
