As the holiday season approaches, most of us are gearing up to host dinners and celebrations with friends and family. While preparing for your guests, the last thing you want to deal with is a pest infestation! Spiders, roaches, rodents, and more household pests are looking to your home for food, water, and shelter. Before you break out your holiday decorations, check out our pest prevention tips for holiday pest control!
Inspect Your Decorations
If your South Florida home has an attic, basement, or a garage, it’s likely you’re storing your holiday decorations in them. While these areas can be a great way to store items, they are also dark and secluded, making it the perfect place for pests to invade. Pests, like rats and mice, will crawl into your holiday storage boxes you put away last year, destroying and contaminating them!
Before you bring down your holiday decorations, make sure to inspect and unpack them outside of your home. After the holiday season is over, pack certain decorations, like potpourri, foliage, and Indian corn in airtight containers to help prevent a pest infestation next year.
Check Your Trees & Wreaths
If celebrating Christmas, many families tend to buy an authentic Christmas tree and wreath. Unfortunately, these items can carry pests like spiders, moths, mites, and even squirrels! To prevent these pests from hitchhiking their way into your home, inspect both items outside and shake them to ensure they aren’t hiding in them. Likewise, before buying the items, check to see if they contain any droppings, gnawing marks, and other damage before bringing them inside.
Keep Your Home Tidy
Pests love clutter and with extra guests in your home, trash and clutter can add up. It’s important to keep your home tidy and clean as much as possible. After each meal, clean up any crumbs and spills in your dining room and kitchen areas. Don’t forget to take the trash out every night and place it in a trash container with a tightly sealed lid. If you know you will have extra food supplies, look to store them in an air-tight container and place it in your pantry or refrigerator.
Call Your Local Pest Control Company
If you’ve noticed more pests than you’re comfortable with before your guests arrive, consider calling your local South Florida pest control company. These professionals will be able to inspect your home, identify the pest and entry points, and recommend the best pest control and prevention plan to avoid holiday pests in the future!