Home should be a place to find peace and quiet from the loud, busy world on the other side of your walls. It is a place to raise children, enjoy home-cooked dinners, and relax after work. But for Monterey homeowners, keeping up with regular maintenance needs attention to not only keep your home enjoyable for you and your family but also so it can retain its value. A big part of home maintenance is regular pest control. Damaging pests like termites, carpenter ants, or even rodents can cause costly repairs. Difficult insects to eradicate from the premises like bed bugs or cockroaches can cause the quality of life inside the home to plummet. To keep your property and home well maintained and liveable, here are a few of the best pest control tips for Monterey homeowners.
Keep it clean
As a kid or teenager, you may have rolled your eyes when your parents insisted you keep your room clean. Whether your toys were on the floor or in the toy box may have not seemed so important. But the skill of maintaining a clean living space is an excellent way to keep pests out. Pests like mice, rats, cockroaches, and spiders love a good messy or cluttered corner to nest in or hide in during the day. Problem areas to keep your eye on are:
- Garages can be a place that you can toss your stuff in and forget about until you need it again. But leaving a cluttered area that is not frequented often because it is inaccessible is the perfect safe haven for pests. They can cause damage to whatever is in the garage and will enter the rest of the home when there is something that entices them inside.
- Outside of the house can be equally as important to the inside for keeping pests out of the home.
- Gutters can fill up with debris and can be a nice spot for rodents to nest or other pests to hunker down in. But clogged gutters can also lead to water damage in the house either by damaging the roof, allowing water in, or by allowing rain water to trickle down on the siding, possibly finding cracks where it can enter the home. Water inside the home is a huge attraction for pests including cockroaches and termites.
- Foundations, if allowed to be covered with dirt or mulch, can be the perfect place for termite to congregate while they search for tiny cracks and spaces to enter the home.
- Water, as stated above, attracts pests because they need a source of water. Carpenter ants make nests in wet wood, termites need a water source because they do not come out into the light, rodents and cockroaches are also attracted to water. Fixing any leaky pipes or exterior places that allow water to get into the home will prevent your house from getting water damage as well as being subject to attracting all sorts of pests.
- General cleaning, like sweeping and wiping down surfaces, will cut down on attracting ants or cockroaches to crumbs or sticky spots in your kitchen.
- Set up routine pest inspections and treatment services will give you another pair of eyes on your property to make certain that pests never become a problem in your Monterey home.
Keeping a clean, clutter-free home will prevent pests from having hiding spots and potential nests, while also eliminating food and water sources that may attract these little critters. Fixing any entry points will not only keep water out but will also help prevent pests from entering in the first place. If you are having a pest problem, following these tips can help to stop more pests from coming into your house. Calling a professional pest control company to clear out any number of pests from your beloved home is the best and quickest way to get your home pest-free. For your Monterey home, call Target Pest Control for the best home protection against invading pests.
