While your home’s neighborhood can provide you the best security measures to keep the community safe and secure, no village gate nor round-the-clock security service can keep your home away from pests.
These little intruders such as cockroaches, spiders, ants, and termites, not only damage your property but also spread infections. Seeing them at home makes you want to call the exterminator or pest control service. But before taking such measures, here are the top X ways to prevent your house and lot in Laguna from getting pests.
Keep the Kitchen and Bathroom Clean
The first step to getting rid of the risk of attracting pests is to make sure that areas prone to contact with dirt at home are kept clean. One of these areas is the kitchen, where food to be consumed by the members of the household usually come from.
Pests thrive in a dirty and damp atmosphere. To avoid infestation and prevent their unwelcome stay, keep your kitchen counters, racks, stove-top, and drawers clean. Wipe them regularly using a disinfecting agent. Make sure to get rid of food that is exposed or seal them properly as they attract pests and insects alike.
There aren’t too many guides available on how to clean your bathroom to avoid pests. To prevent infestation, the guide above for cleaning the kitchen also applies to bathrooms.
Keep your bathroom surfaces clean and dry. Clean the toilet bowl every alternate day using a toilet cleaner. Wash the sink at least once a week with a heavy-duty bathroom cleaner. Keep the shower curtain dry and free of moss. Make sure the drain is not clogged with hair and soap particles and is always covered.
These small measures will keep the bathroom hygienic and pest free for a longer time. It is important to keep the bathroom clean to avoid any potential contact with bacteria or small insects.
Regularly cleaning areas such as your kitchen and bathroom may not eliminate the pest infestation problem if there is one already, but it surely will reduce the number of pests in your house and prevent any more from coming in.
Keep Your Home Free From Stagnant Water
Stagnant waters around your house and lot serve as a breeding ground for mosquitoes and other pests. Make it a habit to keep the area around your house clean and dry, and make sure you get the drains running outside your house cleaned, as stagnant water in the drains can cause mosquito-borne diseases like dengue and malaria.
Keep the buckets in your bathroom dry when they are not being used or flip them over to avoid water accumulating. The same goes for kitchen utensils. Keep them dry or covered. If you have an air-conditioner that eliminates water, don’t keep a vessel under it to collect water. Look for alternatives such as a pipe to carry the water out as soon as it gets there. Or empty and clean the vessel every day. Do ensure there is absolutely no stagnant water anywhere near or in your house. Use insect repellent sprays in areas where water may potentially accumulate to avoid any of them flying around, especially at night or when unattended.
Don’t Expose Fruits and Vegetables Too Long
When overripe, exposed fruits and vegetables attract flies and other insects. Because of this, avoid keeping cut and ripe fruits out of the fridge for a long. While some pests like fruit flies are harmless, the overripe rotting fruits can also attract bigger pests like house flies, ants, and cockroaches which are difficult to get rid of.
Regularly discard old fruits and vegetables in a garbage bag and dispose of them every night to avoid pests flying or crawling around your trash bin.
Regularly Clear The Trash Bin
To maintain the level of insects in your home to a low, the best thing to do is to regularly keep your home free from the garbage.
Normally, garbage should be disposed of every single day. An accumulation of garbage can lead to insect and pest infestation. This gets worse when you find rotten food particles all around the house as these commonly attract these unwanted visitors. This can lead to spreading of diseases especially if you have pets and small children in the house.
Maintain Your Garden
For those who have a lawn or a garden, fill in holes or pits where water can accumulate. If you have a pond or an area where water accumulates outside your home, clean it regularly. To prevent the wild growth of bushes, prune the plants regularly. Maintain your garden, keep it neat and clean to avoid unwanted pests like mosquitoes, rats, and ants.
Keep External Use Items Outdoor
If you have a kitchen garden or a lawn in your house and lot in Laguna, you most likely have equipment, shoes, buckets, and other objects specifically meant for gardening purposes. Keep these objects outdoors and try not to use them for indoor purposes before cleaning them thoroughly.
Bringing them in may unknowingly bring many pests into the house as well. The same applies to toys such as battery-operated cars, bicycles, etc that your kids may use outdoors. Keep them secured in the garage or any other outdoor area and ask your kids not to bring them indoors. Before entering your home, ensure there is a rug where you may wipe the dirt off your footwear to avoid any transmission inside your house.
Certain dirt that can be brought indoors can also cause some bacteria-related sicknesses that may affect your indoor pets and children.
Place Screens on Windows
You can prevent pests such as house flies, mosquitoes, spiders, and large cockroaches from entering your house by hanging nets on your windows. These nets will not only help with ventilation but also prevent pests from entering.
This is a pretty effective way to keep pests out of your house. Also, if there are any broken window panes or glasses, repair them at the earliest chance to prevent insects from entering. Check all the doors of the house too and carry out repairs, if necessary, to make your measures more effective.
Dispose of Unwanted Things
Garbage, of all things, attract insects and pests the most. Given that, the best way to prevent your house from getting infested by these is to keep your home decluttered.
If you have unused boxes full of old things lying around in the house gathering dust, or toys your children have outgrown, get rid of them. Dispose of them, give them away, or sell them, as these things may unknowingly bring you more risk than you know it.
These items only serve as hot spots for insects and germs. Sell or throw away any old item, including old baby strollers, shoes, packaging material, plastic bags, torn luggage, etc. If you are finding it difficult to decide whether to throw something or not, ask yourself this: Will I use this item in the next three months? If the answer is no, then it’s time to throw it out. For items that hold so many memories to you, take a picture of them. As a picture can capture memories while saving space in your home.
With these ways to keep your home infestation free, ensure that your house and lot in Laguna are away from pests. Live in a network of communities surrounded by the warmth of mother nature.
Located at the heart of the “Lion City of the South”, Sta. Rosa, Laguna, Greenfield City is a 400-hectare self-sustaining network of residential, commercial, industrial, and recreational communities. To learn more about the properties within, click on the link below:
https://greenfield.com.ph/project/greenfield-city/
Reference:
https://www.ivankhristravels.com/2021/08/pest-free-home.html
https://www.urbancompany.com/blog/pest-control-tips/top-10-pest-control-tips/