Keep a Clean House - The First Step of Do It Yourself Pest Control
If you want to prevent a pest infestation or if you're attempting to overcome a pest infestation you already have, the most important thing you can do it keep your home clean and tidy.
Pests enter your home looking for food and shelter.
You can takes steps to reduce the number of foraging pests that enter your home in the first place, but the reality is some number will still get in.
What you don't want when those pests get inside is for them to find a food-laden, hospitable environment.
A messy home provides for them the food-laden, hospitable environment they're looking for.
Leftover food, dirty dishes, crumbs, and unfinished drinks in your home looks like a buffet meal to pests.
They don't need nearly as much food as you do, and just a little left over on a plate is enough to encourage pests that found your home to stay, invite more of their kind, and breed.
Messy homes also provide shelter for pests.
Papers or clothes lying about look an awful lot like fallen leaves or other natural shelters that pests would naturally seek out outside.
Most bugs, particularly cockroaches, do not want to be seen by you.
Clutter gives them plenty of hiding spaces to feel safe and comfortable in your home.
Cleanliness matters for other reasons, too.
Vacuum regularly and wipe down your counters and cabinets with soapy water.
Pests leave scents in the paths they walk and in their feces that attract others of their species.
I'm sure you've sent ants trailing before.
What those ants are following is a scent trail left by other ants that were able to find food.
The more ants that follow that trail and successfully find food, the more ants that will follow it.
Wipe down counters with soapy water to eliminate little ant trails you may not see before they become big ant trails you do see.
Cockroaches don't trail like ants do.
Instead, when they eat, they poop, just like other animals.
Cockroaches are very sensitive to the smell of cockroach poop and it acts as a powerful lure to other cockroaches, because it's smell advertises to other cockroaches that cockroaches can find food there.
Vacuuming regularly will help cut down on the cockroach feces that is likely in your carpets if you've got cockroaches.
If you do nothing else, the most important habit you can adopt to manage pest problems is to always have the dishes cleaned and the kitchen garbage out before bed each night.
Simply keeping a tidy home will go a long way to discourage an infestation.
If you're already struggling with an infestation, get your home clean first before you take other actions.
Pests enter your home looking for food and shelter.
You can takes steps to reduce the number of foraging pests that enter your home in the first place, but the reality is some number will still get in.
What you don't want when those pests get inside is for them to find a food-laden, hospitable environment.
A messy home provides for them the food-laden, hospitable environment they're looking for.
Leftover food, dirty dishes, crumbs, and unfinished drinks in your home looks like a buffet meal to pests.
They don't need nearly as much food as you do, and just a little left over on a plate is enough to encourage pests that found your home to stay, invite more of their kind, and breed.
Messy homes also provide shelter for pests.
Papers or clothes lying about look an awful lot like fallen leaves or other natural shelters that pests would naturally seek out outside.
Most bugs, particularly cockroaches, do not want to be seen by you.
Clutter gives them plenty of hiding spaces to feel safe and comfortable in your home.
Cleanliness matters for other reasons, too.
Vacuum regularly and wipe down your counters and cabinets with soapy water.
Pests leave scents in the paths they walk and in their feces that attract others of their species.
I'm sure you've sent ants trailing before.
What those ants are following is a scent trail left by other ants that were able to find food.
The more ants that follow that trail and successfully find food, the more ants that will follow it.
Wipe down counters with soapy water to eliminate little ant trails you may not see before they become big ant trails you do see.
Cockroaches don't trail like ants do.
Instead, when they eat, they poop, just like other animals.
Cockroaches are very sensitive to the smell of cockroach poop and it acts as a powerful lure to other cockroaches, because it's smell advertises to other cockroaches that cockroaches can find food there.
Vacuuming regularly will help cut down on the cockroach feces that is likely in your carpets if you've got cockroaches.
If you do nothing else, the most important habit you can adopt to manage pest problems is to always have the dishes cleaned and the kitchen garbage out before bed each night.
Simply keeping a tidy home will go a long way to discourage an infestation.
If you're already struggling with an infestation, get your home clean first before you take other actions.
