During the holidays, you may have some invited guests in your home if you aren’t careful.
The experts at Rice’s Termite and Pest Control offer some advice to keep the party crashers outside.
Rick Rice with Rice’s Termite and Pest Control says mice, crickets, and fleas are bad this time of year. He says the best way to keep them out is to find out how they’re getting in.
Unfortunately, fleas usually hop a ride on our pets so there’s little you can do to close down their passageways. Rick says the same goes for crickets, but their time in your house is short lived.
Something that can do a lot of damage is termites. If you have a fireplace in your home and you are bringing wood in your house, you’re welcoming several unwanted guests into your home.
“In with firewood you can bring stink bugs, crickets, small colonies of carpenters ants can come in with them, millipedes and centipedes. Even that you can bring in wood borers and wood destroying beetles in the house and that can be problem that could potentially get expensive,” Rick says.
Rick says you should avoid storing your firewood in the house, or even in the garage or on a porch. It’s best to bring in a piece from the pile straight to the fire. To keep other pests from making themselves at home inside your house, Rick suggests walking around your house and searching for entry points.
“Before winter sets in you can make sure any of your, you know around your house your garage all the doors are sealed and tight, anywhere they can access into the crawlspace that’s going to give them direct access into your house,” Rick says. “Around your HVAC lines going in; make sure everything is sealed up as best as possible.”
Rick says mice are burrowing animals and are designed to squeeze into and live in very tight spaces. In fact, if a mouse can squeeze its head through a hole, the rest of the body can fit.
“Even your rubber strips down your overhead garage doors, just trying to make sure they are new,” Rick says. “Sometimes a little piece may have broken off or maybe something rubbed against it and took a piece off and mice and crickets and spiders – everything can get in there.”
If you’re not sure, or would like more done to prevent pests from getting in your home, Rick says Rice’s Termite and Pest Control can do an inspection and offer same day and emergency services.
