30 Dec Winter Pest-Proofing to Keep Rodents Away
Pest-proofing your home in the summertime is a given but doing so in the winter shouldn’t be written off. When the weather gets colder, we aren’t the only ones who want to seek refuge from the cold. Not only that, but residential homes provide a space with easy-to-access food and a place secure from potential predators.
Rodents, like rats and mice, are among the most common household pests and if left to their own devices, can wreak havoc on your home. It’s important to winterize your home against rodents, in particular, to avoid food spoilage and damage to your home’s foundation.
In this article, we’ll explain why pests, rodents, in particular, invade during the winter and how to pest-proof your home against these four-legged nuisances.
Why Do Pests Invade in the Winter?
Speaking generally, pests will seek shelter from colder temperatures by entering through cracks and crevices of residential homes. Residential homes become the preferred winter resting place for rodents not only because of their warmth but also for the home’s abundance of food sources and offering of safety from predators.
Why is Pest-Proofing Important?
Pest-proofing is an important step to take in ensuring the foundational integrity of your home lasts as long as possible. Failing to pest-proof your home, especially from rodents, can lead to structural damage and has the potential to cause physical health issues for you and everyone else in your home.
There are several diseases carried directly to other living beings by rodents. These include Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome, the plague, and Leptospirosis to name a few. If you don’t take preventative measures to keep rodents out of your home, then you open up yourself and everyone you live with to potentially pick up these diseases.
Properly Pest-Proofing Your Home for the Winter
To ensure you aren’t stuck dealing with a new four-legged family moving into your home, there are some important steps to take to keep you and your home safe. First and foremost, you should always make sure all food sources are properly secured, including any pet food in storage areas like a garage.
Regularly keeping up on food cleanup in the kitchen is also important in preventing any pest, let alone a mouse or rat. Along with food cleanup, maintaining a relatively tidy living space, in general, will naturally deter rats and mice from your home. These mammals thrive when there’s an excess of clutter as it gives them more places to hide. Taking away those hiding spaces deters them from wanting to enter.
Ensuring all entry points are adequately sealed is another major step in keeping out rodents. Because mice and rats can squeeze into small spaces, it’s easy for them to shimmy their way through gaps in doorways and windows. Cracks and gaps in your home can easily be rodent-proofed by installing a wire mesh.
The final thing you should always remember to do is to make sure you’re keeping up with lawn and landscape maintenance. By trimming stray and excess branches and clearing away debris, you’re, once again, giving rodents less opportunity to hide in and around your home.