What Attracts Pests to Your Home?
Keeping your home pest-free is an active job. The truth is, even if you don’t think about your home’s pest vulnerability, a wide variety of invaders are.
Every bug, rat, termite, and spider is seeking access to your home. But why exactly?
Well, because your home is practically a utopia for pests. Essentially, pests need food, shelter, and moisture to survive. Your home provides all of these things in abundance. Pests are often attracted to a few areas of your home in particular:
Food Prep, disposal and Storage Areas: Kitchens, pantries, trashcans, and recycling bins. All of these areas can provide an abundance of food for scavenging species. Dry stored food is often targeted by pests like meal moths and rats. Even leftover crumbs or food spills can be a feast for cockroaches and other tenacious scavengers.
High-Moisture Areas: This can include bathrooms, laundry rooms, and even your kitchen sink. Many pests require a high moisture environment to survive and are attracted to any space in your home collecting moisture. This is also why water damage can become a pest control issue since termites, carpenter bees, and other wood-destroying organisms prefer the softer, wet wood for feeding.
Moisture also attracts pests like cockroaches, which is why you might see one of these creepy-crawlies around your bathroom or kitchen.
Crawlspaces, Attics, and Other Secluded Areas: Another common area of pest activity are the areas that you don’t think about often. Many pests are skittish by nature and avoid areas with frequent human activity. This result of this is that infestations most commonly occur in areas that are out of sight. This allows them to grow in secret, and without periodic inspections, they may go unseen.
Another reason why these areas are often targeted is that they tend to present the most direct access from the outside. Vents, cracks/gaps in the structure, or damaged roofing can allow pests a way into the home. Once inside, infestations can develop in secret and become a major problem for you without any evidence of pest activity being spotted. After all, if these pests stay in “out of the way” areas of your home the slight signs of their movement may remain completely undetected.
Temperature and Other Environmental Factors: Another reason that pests find your home quite comfortable is due to the stable, artificial temperature. This is particularly important during the winter.
Many pests cannot survive in colder temperatures and must hibernate during these times normally. However, pests that manage to infiltrate your home before the cold hits can actually remain active all year long!
For example, a termite colony active inside of your home is capable of continuously feeding throughout the year if your home remains sufficiently warm. This can allow them months of undisturbed feeding time. By the time spring returns and you start thinking about pest control for your home, extensive (and expensive!) damage may have already been done.
How to Keep Pests Out: So we’ve covered all the reasons pests might be drawn to your home. However, as important is it is to know what might influence pest attraction, it is equally important to know HOW TO KEEP THEM OUT.
As we have covered above, the reasons that pests are attracted to your home are diverse and varied. Due to this, protecting your home against pests requires an equally complex treatment solution, and that often goes beyond just treatment product.
The truth is, treating your home with pesticide products, while effective, does little to mitigate the attractive features of your home that draw pests. Because of this shortcoming, a truly comprehensive pest control plan includes the identification and neutralization of conditions that attract pests to your home. The process of achieving this goal begins with an inspection.
When a trained pest control professional inspects your home, they can identify even the subtlest signs of pest activity. Further, they have an eye for pest attracting features of your home and can advise you on your home’s specific pest vulnerabilities.
Once a thorough inspection is complete, your pest control technician can devise a custom treatment plan that deals with conducive conditions and targets pest hot spots around your property. This custom plan is much more effective than a “spray and pray” treatment you might get from a DIY product or a treatment without an inspection.
If that process sounds good to you, then I have great news! The solution to your pest problems is available quickly and at a reasonable price with just one phone call! Canton Termite and Pest Control is a local industry leader in pest control and wildlife solutions! We have decades of experience and all the tools necessary to resolve your pest problems, guaranteed!
So if you need a pest fix, don’t wait! Start your pest free life sooner rather than later by calling 770-479-1598! We will be happy to help you in any way possible!
By: Tim
