How to Keep Pests Out of Your Home with Fall Cleaning
Tip to help with Fall Cleaning Pest Control
How can you clean up around the house and protect your property from invading pests? Just follow these fall cleaning pest control tips from ASAP Operators!You changed your smoke alarm batteries when resetting the clocks for the end of daylight-saving time, right? Before your nestle in for the holiday season, you can take steps to safeguard your home. This will help ensure that come Christmas, not a creature is stirring in your house, not even a mouse.Start outside by stepping way back for full review of potential entry points. Stand at curbside and look back at your house. Are there tree limbs close enough to the roof to give squirrels and rats easy access to your rooftop? So-called roof rats would love for you to make it easy for the to seek shelter in your attic and it does not take much for Templeton and friends to flatten their bodies to slip in via gaps between roof tiles and framing or the roof-line and gutters. If there are limbs that are obviously providing such an aerial expressway, cut them or have an arborist or landscaping company trim them back.While gardeners will tell you not to prune in the fall, it's always a good idea to cut back foliage or shrubbery that is either providing access to your roof or obscuring the front door, which is a security concern for homeowners.In addition, look around the garden or bushes for overgrown plants or grasses that could be providing safe harbor for pests to make homes. Some ground cover plants, such as ivy, can provide harborage for rats and mice, notes the Los Angeles County public health agency. Our climate shares some other plants that rats like, palm trees and fruit trees. Trim dead palm fronds. In some cases, homeowners may want to have the palm trees shaved of all extra material up and down the trunk as to not provide a ladder to the top for fruit rats, also known as roof rats.Why the nomenclature? Because these rats like to eat fruit and seek shelter under roofs. Or, as Fischer Environmental notes, just because the palm tree is not right next to the roof doesn't mean they are not coming into the house. "Once roof rats find a place to live in your trees, they'll begin exploring the rest of your yard and eventually make it into your home," the Mandeville, Louisiana company noted in an article on roof rats.Next, walk the perimeter of your house looking for gaps in planks, bricks, roofs, doorways, chimney chases, foundations, etc. Also look for wet spots from air conditioning condensation. Water is life sustaining for all manner of pests and you want to stop such leaks. Check weep holes for signs of life. Consider having All Solutions All Pests (ASAP Operators) inspect your home for trouble spots and possible colonies or habitats for pests. We can order custom fitted chimney caps and vent guards as well.What if the pests have already made it inside? Call us for ants, bed bugs, roaches, termites, bats, rats, mice, possums, raccoons, squirrels, etc. Take back your home with our help. Give us a call at 713-397-4477.