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How do you keep your home protected from pests in the winter season? In our professional opinion, these tasks are essential for winter pest prevention:
Indoor. Many pests, like rodents, are looking for dry, warm shelter during the winter. The following tasks ensure that they won’t crawl into your home nor mistake it as their cozy new hideout.
1. Tidy the Attic. All kinds of pests, especially bats, are known to hide out alone or in groups in the attics of homes. Dust and sweep away any mess and declutter and organize whatever you’re storing so you know there are no spots for pests to hide.
2. Update Weather Sealing. Over time, it is normal for the weather stripping on windows and entryways to become worn down and leave tiny gaps or cracks that insects and small rodents can squeeze through to enter your home. When it’s near wintertime, ensure that your weatherstripping is making a gap-free seal, and if it isn’t, replace it.
Outdoor. Include these additional outdoor improvement tasks and steps in your winter pest control agenda to ensure your whole property is pest-free.
3. Store Firewood Safely. You should always store firewood as far as you can from your home in case a termite colony gets to it. If you bring your firewood close to your house not knowing there are termites in it, then you make it easy for termites to crawl to your home and quickly populate it.
4. Clear Debris from Gutters. When there are a lot of leaves, small twigs, acorns, or any other debris in the gutters and drainpipes along the roof and outer walls of your home, it offers small critters a moist, dark hiding spot. Discourage this pest behavior by unclogging your gutters and drainpipes regularly, especially after storms and rainy periods.
5. Prune the Hedges. Insects like wasps and mosquitoes are less likely to survive the winter if you don’t give them a decent place to nest! One way you can take away their overwintering spots is to liberally trim back the leaves on your hedges, bushes, and short trees. Don’t worry, they’ll grow back in the spring!
6. Maintain Your Lawn. Rake out all the leaves, pinecones, acorns, twigs, branches, and other debris from your yard so tiny, unwanted guests don’t take up residence.
7. Install Vent Screens. Any vent ports along the exterior of your home can allow pests to enter your A/C ducts and travel through them. Block pests by installing screens over your outdoor vents.
If you check off most of these tasks but still see the same pests around your property, that could mean you have a pest infestation, which is hard to control and mitigate on your own. You need to call on a professional pest control agent in these cases. At Vulcan Termite and Pest Control, we have proudly served families in Alabama since 1965, and we would love to help yours, too! Call us at 205-663-4200 or visit www.vulcantermite.com to learn more about our affordable, effective pest control solutions.
-Vulcan Termite & Pest Control
