Are you concerned that when you go on vacation your home will get overrun by pests? Do you worry that in your absence, there will be nothing to keep the pests from coming in and making themselves at home? It’s a common fear for people who work hard to keep their homes pest free.
If no one is in the home, then pests may be bolder to come inside and take up residence. They may come out in the open more and make their nests in your living spaces. What can you do to keep the pests at bay and ensure that they don’t come into your home while you are gone? We have some tips to help.
Close Everything Up
When we say close up everything, we mean absolutely everything. You need to keep the doors and windows closed, obviously, while you are gone, since those will be easy access points for pests. Even closing doors between rooms will keep pests confined and limit their access to the wider house.
If you have a room in the house where you think they are emanating from, then block up the bottom of the door with a blanket or other obstruction to keep pests from moving from one room to another.
You also want to close all garbage bins, food containers, cupboards, and anything else that can be closed up. Give pests fewer places to hide and fewer places where they can find something to eat.
Bug Bomb the House
Another great way to keep pests out of your home while you are gone is to spray the entire home with insecticide. Pests will come out and play while you are away, but you can kill them dead in a way that won’t make the house toxic for you.
It may be inconvenient to spray the entire house while you are living there from day to day. The fumes can take a while to dissipate, and you may not be able to use entire rooms of the house for hours. But if you spray everything just before you leave, you can have a very powerful effect on the pests who are living there.
To make this effective, use a powerful spray, like a bug bomb treatment that eliminates most or all of the pests in a single room. You should also work in one room at a time. Close the door in that room and then release the bug bomb or other spray and then leave that room, closing the door behind you. Move through the house systematically like this, closing up each room as you finish spraying in there. You may want to place a blanket at the base of the door to keep fumes and bugs trapped there.
The end result should be a lot of dead bugs, if you have them in your home. You may need to air out the rooms when you come back and clean up the dead bugs, but you should have no bug problem when you return.
Have Your Home Professionally Cleaned
Do you want to be sure that there are few hiding places for bugs and that your home is not attractive to them while you are gone? Then you should have a San Antonio TX professional cleaning person come and make your home very tidy before you leave. Ask them to clean in every room and to do a deep cleaning, if you have the time and the money for it. That will really eliminate a lot of pests and a lot of things that pests find appealing.
Your home may currently be quite attractive to pests of all kinds, a good cleaning will help to change that. If it has been a while since your home was thoroughly cleaned, then you may want to consider having it done before you leave. This will make the house more welcoming to come back to as well, with less dust, dirt, and grime, as well as less pest droppings and pest dander. That means you will be able to breathe more easily and experience fewer allergy symptoms that are often associated with these small items of debris.
We recommend having the house cleaned right before leaving out, perhaps on the last day you will be staying at home. This will maximize your home’s cleanliness for when you come back, which will make it that much more inviting to return to.
Put Away Food
Will there be any food left out in your home while you are gone? You may tend to leave fruit, veggies, and bread out on your countertops from day to day, but consider packing that food away somewhere safe while you are gone. These food items can start to go bad in your absence, and they will then attract pests. We suggest putting them into the fridge or freezer while you are away.
Get Rid of Garbage
Another item in your home that could start to smell attractive to pets after a while is the garbage. You may be used to changing out the trash bags in your garbage can every day or every few days, but that isn’t going to happen while you are gone. You should empty every trash can in the house right before you leave, even if there is only a little trash in each can. This will make your home smell nicer on your return and keep pests away.
Request a House Sitter
One final suggestion we want to leave you with is that you hire someone to watch your home, becoming a house sitter for you. Ask a friend or hire a house sitting service and see if they can watch the house for you. They can deter burglars and pests both with their presence.
These are just a few suggestions that will help you minimize pests in your home when you are gone on a trip. If you want to come back to a house that is not overrun with pests, then we suggest you do at least a few of these things.