5 Surefire Ways To Keep Pests Out Of Your Garage
Posted on: 19 September 2014
While everyone can enjoy being a homeowner, no one enjoys unexpected visitors. No, not your in-laws, indoor pests that can become a real nuisance. Over time they can spread and take over many different areas of your house. One of the places they like to start infesting early on is the garage. Luckily, there are a few good tricks to keep them away for good.
Maintain Foliage Near Your Garage
Even though it may mean a little extra work, by keeping both the inside and outside area of your garage free from piles of foliage, as well as properly maintaining your decorative foliage, you're eliminating a nice ecosystem that houses all sorts of unwanted pests. Pests love to nest and breed in thick foliage. It offers them good protection and keeps them close to their food sources.
By maintaining your plants, flowers and bushes, you are not just preventing cockroaches, ants and beetles from thriving. You are also keeping away the predatory pests that come after them, like spiders and scorpions.
Fill Any Cracks in You Garage Door With Insecticide
Just because you can't fit through a small crack doesn't mean a spider can't. Even the tiniest of holes can provide a passageway from the outside into your home, so get down low to the ground, check for cracks on the cement, as well as openings in and around the door, and any areas where pipes come in. Find an insecticide that you feel comfortable with, and inject it into the holes. This not only deters pests from entering, but kills those daring enough to try. Make sure any possible hole is either plugged or filled.
If your garage door has an abundance of cracks and holes, instead of constant insecticide maintenance, you should get your garage door repaired or replaced. A repaired or new garage door will be free from any tiny crevices that will allow pests to sneak into your garage.
Remove Standing Water
If you have any puddles or small pools of liquid, make sure your edge drain is clear, the floor free from any debris, and use a wet vacuum to completely remove the water and excess runoff. These standing pools can create a hospitable environment for more pests, and it's an easy fix. On top of that, ensure that you never leave buckets of water or wet or damp tools in your garage.
Store Things Pests Love To Munch On Properly
If you have animal food or gardening supplies, there's no reason to not organize and store these things properly. Open bags of food, left over manure, potting soil, seeds, and flower bulbs are places where rats and mice like to find themselves a convenient meal. Open bags of food are also especially dangerous to pests, like maggots, which can lead to an even peskier infestation to have to clean up.
Don't Ever Store Your Garbage in Your Garage
Don't let your garbage sit and lay waste in your garage, even if it is in a bin. Take the extra time and make sure that your bags of trash are tightly sealed, and get bags that you can tie up and don't strip or break. Any leftover food needs to be disposed of in the proper garbage containers, not in the garage. Leaving your trash in the garage is asking for things like flies, cockroaches, ants, and along with them, all the hungry pests that like to eat them too. Just like with foliage, you don't want to create a happy ecosystem for these pests.
It's not possible to ever completely eliminate pests. However, we can take steps to prevent them taking control of where we live. One of the biggest steps in accomplishing that is maintaining a clean garage with regular maintenance, upkeep, and keeping things like trash out of it completely. By doing so, you lower the risks of creating additional places for these pests to thrive, and at the same time helping keep your home beautiful for years to come.
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