Pests in Your Home

Updated November 24, 2007

To keep all pests out of your home, do the following:

• Keep your home clean. Smells from spilled foods and even dirty laundry can attract pests. Clean up messes as soon as they happen (which will also reduce bacteria), and use deodorizers like vinegar and baking soda.
• Keep your food in air tight containers. If they can smell it, they will try to find it. Keeping it air tight will prevent attracting them and prevent them from getting into your food if they happen to show up anyhow. (Plus, it keeps your food fresh and your cupboards neat.)
• Repair leaks and don't leave standing water inside or outside your home. Many pests are more interested in finding a source of water than a source of food (they have to drink too). If there is no water source available, they will be less likely to stick around.
• Seal up cracks. It's amazing how small a crack an ant can use to get into your home. A mouse only needs an opening the size of a dime. Go around your house, inside and out and seal up cracks.
• Install screens on all windows, doors, and vents. Another way pests get in is through open windows, open doors, and vents (which are perfect little doors for pests to get into your home). Screen them up (and make sure the screens fit snuggly and that you don't have any holes in your screens).
• Encourage beneficial vertebras to live in your yard. Many reptile species eat bugs and even rodents, so don't be so quick to shoo away that garden snake (and don't bother it either). Amphibians like to hang out in ponds and eat mosquitoes, larvae, flies, and so forth, but the problem with ponds is that they can attract more pests, so make sure you have something to stir up the water (such as a fountain), and consider putting in some fish that eat insects (goldfish / koi, catfish, and other filter feeders do not eat insects). Some species of birds will eat insects, so have bird houses and birdfeeders designed to attract pest eating birds year round. Bats eat so many mosquitoes and other flying insects that you'll wonder how you lived without them (and they really are cute; ignore all those vampire stories), so put up some bat houses in your yard (especially on buildings rather than trees).
• Encourage beneficial insects to live in your yard. Look up your local extension office to find out what beneficial insects can live in your area. They usually eat the annoying bugs.
• Let non-poisonous spiders make their web in your yard (and home if they don't freak you out). Spiders eat just about anything that ends up in their webs, and that usually includes things like flies and mosquitoes. Even if the spider doesn't eat it, the pest will probably get stuck in the web and die there.
• Use baits outdoors (with one exception). Let's say you have ants, and you buy an ant bait. If you put it inside your home, they will be attracted to something inside your home and will invite themselves in. If you put the bait outside, they will be attracted to something outside of your home and will be more likely to stay out. If you already have pests in your home, only put the poisonous bait where you see them (such as in your cupboards) and remove the bait as soon as they stop showing up, so you don't invite them back.
• Put a barrier around your home in addition to using baits. You can put a barrier around your home, such as diatomaceous earth (also called DE or amorphous silica) for anything that has an exoskeleton like insects, so the pest will have to cross the barrier to get to the bait. When they cross the barrier, they will be affected by the barrier. If it's DE, it will collect on their exoskeleton and eventually kill them (if they take it back to their colony, they'll spread it around). If it's a neurological toxin, they'll probably die pretty quickly (but it won't affect any other pest in the colony unless they eat the poisoned pest).