Month: January 2015

If there are pests that love to live where people live, then they are the rats. They are quick to adjust to any environment or location and are sure to thrive on just a small amount of food and water on a daily basis. When they invade a home and gain access to food such as grains, vegetables and even meat, they simply stay for good.

They prefer to live and feed around the restaurants, private homes, commercial buildings – just about any place that has food and that can shelter them. Rats can settle for scraps from garbage bags, private yards or whatever else they find at a place, for example at the community refuse disposal. If they can’t find refuge at your place, then they get their shelter from surrounding tall grass, weeds, walls, abandoned appliances, fences, to name but a few.

How do you check for rats?

If rats are suspected to have invaded your home, pest control experts recommend you take a fast and appropriate action to get rid of them. Here is how to determine if rats have entered your home.

• Listen

During the night, turn on the lights in a basement or any other dark room and listen for scurrying sounds. If you hear some gnawing noises in here, then chances are that rats have invaded your home.

• Watch

If you find tail marks or paw prints in any dusty room at your home, chances are they are from the resident rats. To be sure, sprinkle some flour around the area and check for tracks for a few days. If this doesn’t work, then place a small amount of food, for example grains where the local rats can get at it. On a daily basis, check for signs of feeding.

• Look

Uncover rats hiding places by moving furniture and stored materials from one section of your room or home to another. While at it, check for signs of gnawed electrical cords, packaged items, baseboards, doors, windows, etc. If you discover wood shavings or chips, tooth marks or chewed marks, then chances are that rats have invaded your home. Dark smears near the beams, pipes, stair edges and along hallways is a clear indication that rats have found habitat in your home. Old droppings or even old ones near the walls, pathways and food supplies is another indication of rat manifestation in a place.

How do rats get into your home?

Upon determining that you have a rat infestation at your place, it is time to investigate how they got in. Once you have determined you have rats at your place, it is now time to check out on how they got in, eradicate them and then take the necessary steps to prevent them from coming back. Rats get into a building in any of the following ways:

• By squeezing past thin openings in the piping systems, in the foundations, wall cracks and the likes

• By digging under shallow buildings foundation

• From inside large packages that are brought in a home

• Through open doors, vents, windows, sidewalks and the likes

• Through foundation or wall holes or cracks, (even as small as a dime)

• Through door gaps, fan openings, floor drains, letter drops, etc.

Keeping the rats out

It is easier to keep rats at bay than getting rid of them. But how can this be accomplished?

• Make sure there’s no appropriate shelter for them

Indoors: Replace wooden basement floors with permanently poured concrete. Storage racks should be placed at least 18” above the floor. Appliances such as refrigerators, cabinet and sinks, etc, should be moved out far away from the walls so that cleaning behind them can be achieved.

Outdoors: Start by restricting their shelter by rat-proofing all structures in a given area. Unnecessary structures, scattered disused appliances, old fences, junk piles and walls need also to be removed from an area. Areas behind wooden steps particularly those that lead into a building need to be thoroughly cleaned.

• Cutting off their access

Install outward opening self closing doors and make use of spring locks or latches to keep your doors closed. Ensure that all the doors and windows in your home are tightly closed. Make sure to use metal screens on all windows that are normally left open. Basement windows should be protected with 0.5 “wire meshes (hardware cloth). Window and door edges should be covered with screens that can be gnawed by the offending rodents. Floor drains need to be tightly fastened in order to keep sewer rodents from finding their way into your home or property.

Surefire ways to get rid of rats

Trapping and poisoning the rats are two common ways for getting rid of them. However, when you do it on your own, you can encounter many types of inconveniences as well as mishaps. The best solution for you to take when you want to fight off a rat infestation is to look for an animal control specialist in your locality so that they can use professional ways to get rid of the rats. Today, animal control services in Toronto have become very affordable and therefore, there’s no reason why you should not try them.

Proper home maintenance is one of the best ways to protect your home against all type of pests that are likely to invite themselves into your home. This is particularly important in the winter and fall season when pests come looking to get into your home so as to keep warm from the cold weather. But just because the seasons are changing, your outdoor property should never be left to fall into disarray or wayside.

If you tend to slack off your maintenance habits during winter or fall, all kinds of pests are sure to take advantage of your mistake. What should you do then to discourage pests from damaging the wood that makes up the deck?

Apply a fresh coat of clear paint on a weathered wooden deck

One section in a home that is commonly infiltrated by pests during the aforementioned seasons of the year is the deck. If the deck is severely weathered or the wooden parts have lost their shine and luster, it becomes an attractive place for pests to invade or get comfortable. If you notice your deck is considerably weathered, you are advised to consider re-sealing it with a stain or a clear coat of paint. Pests find sealed decks harder to penetrate. These pests are constantly looking to get into the grooves of rotting or exposed wood so as to make it their meals.

A layer of stain or clear coat of paint is applied on this type of wood for added protection against these pests. This also decreases the risk over the winter for coming spring season. There is an increase of moisture loving pests such as wood destroyers during the spring season.

Consider installing a screen mesh material underneath

This prevents unwanted pests such as raccoons, rodents, skunks and other wildlife from nesting in the dark and often comfortable area beneath the deck.

Properly seal your shed

The shed is another area in a home that regularly needs to be checked for pests. Pests such as rodents, opossums, skunks, squirrels and other wildlife often seek to hide in sheds, potentially causing damage underneath. Homeowners should screen off these areas so to prevent the pests from invading your home through the deck. You don’t want to offer them an opportunity to wreak havoc, do you?

In a summary, the following measures can be applied to prevent pests from invading your deck and your house.

• Trim back trees and bushes surrounding your home, in particular these near your deck.

• Do away with any standing water, debris or puddles around your home.

• Keep all structures within your home freshly sealed or painted

• Make sure your drains are properly installed and away from the structures

• Level debris or dirt under the deck and other structures at your compound

The local raccoon

This is a good example of a common pest that frequently invades the deck and thereafter the attic. As the leaves start to change, signifying the coming of a cooler weather, it is not only humans who want to snuggle up indoors. But some of the visitors who come invading your home can really steal your sanity. Raccoons make all sorts of a mess within an area they have invaded. If you have recently heard a scurrying noise outside your house or in your attic, chances are that it could be a local raccoon paying you a visit.

Why do raccoons invade a home?

The main reason for raccoons invading a human habitat is to search for food and seek a shelter. They particularly do so during the winter and fall season when the outside temperatures are freezing cold. As these animals are nocturnal, they are constantly looking for food, messing everything they come across while touring your compound. They are fast, strong and some of the best climbers you can ever come across. As result, they are adept to survival in both urban and rural areas. So if you find knocked over garbage bins or hear peculiar noises in the attic at night, the offending party could be no one else but the local raccoon.

The only safe way to remove these animals from your home is to have them trapped and then physically removed. It is recommended to contact a licensed wildlife control professional to handle the trapping and then removal of the offending raccoon.

All in all, if you suspect there is an unwanted wild animal, rodent or any other pests taking up residence in your home, take appropriate action to have it removed. Always take caution when handling or removing these pests from your home. The best way to safely remove them from your deck is to contact a licensed animal removal professional as he has both the expertise and tools to perform a perfect job.

This year has to be different from last year where eradication of rodents and other problem causing pests is concerned. If these bothersome vermin were constantly pestering you last year, there are a number of things you can resolve to do differently in order to prevent them from being an issue this year. Here are some of changes you need to implement so as to deter pests and hence prevent them from regularly invading your home.

Start by storing consumables such as firewood away from your home

By storing firewood right next to your house, you are encouraging wood-eating pests such as carpenter ants and termites to enter your house. Not only this, stored firewood is a good hiding place for such destructive animals such as rodents, squirrels and the others. These pests come in to your home in a number of ways.

For the case of termites and carpenter ants, wood brought in is the major culprit. Rodents find their way into your home through these woods. Regardless of where this wood is stored, as long as it is kept near your house, these pests will keep on pestering you. They can all easily move from the firewood to the wooden stairs, wood sidings or even the deck, especially if the wood is stored directly by these items. To avoid these pests from finding their way into house, make sure to store firewood 20-30 feet away from any wooden structure around the home. This includes all the decks, stairs, outdoor storage sheds and many others.

You may also want to regularly inspect any newly bought firewood as it might come infested with these pests. Old stored firewood also needs to be inspected once per month for signs of hiding rodents or wood -eating pests. If any of these is found, then have the wood removed from near your home to prevent rodents from easily entering your home or sprayed with the right pesticide. The more the pests are allowed to sit and multiply on the wood, the more difficult and expensive they will be to remove, particularly if they find their way into your house. So make sure to store firewood some distance or meters away from your home.

Have your home interiors professionally sealed

Rodents, bugs and many other outdoor pests can easily find their way into your home if there cracks around places such as door frames, sidings and window frames. A gap or crack in any of these places is essentially an open invitation to pest to come visiting and finding a safe habitat inside your home. Hot and cold outdoor weather often force these pests to seek a safe hiding place. And can there be a better or safer hiding or dwelling place than in your temperature controlled house? The best way to take care of this issue to fast seal the cracks and gaps in your home’s exterior. Resolving to seal all cracks around a home’s exterior surfaces can help keep pests out while also helping to in energy consumption reduction.

Store food in appropriate storage place

Pests such as rodents, cockroaches and ants enter a home in search of food. Regrettably, once they find the food they came searching for, they bring along their friends and family to your home, making it their own. Fortunately, this all can be prevented by storing food in proper airtight storage containers.

Storing foodstuffs in appropriate containers can help to prevent the pests from having access to it, and thus reducing the chances of them finding a habitat in your home. Rodents or any other pests don’t care if the food they have access to is for human or pets consumption. So it is advisable to store all types of foods in sealed containers so as to deter these harm causing pests.

Employ the services of an expert animal control agency to help you out

If all steps to prevent pests from invading your home fail, it is time to hire the services of a pest control agency. Although this will cost you money, this is the best and proper way to make sure that pests are kept at bay or away from your home. Upon the specialist coming into your home, he walks around it looking for signs that pests are hiding, or are nearby or may have already started to inhabit the home. Furthermore, an animal control specialist is able to spray pesticides that a common homeowner may not have access to. He comes with specialized equipments that are able to reach even the most hidden places around the home, hence making sure that all hiding pests are properly done away with.

So if you want your home to stay pest-free, resolve to take action in order to prevent these pests from bothering you this year. All the above listed ways can keep bugs and rodents away once and for all!