The Benefits of Proactive Pest Control
The home should be a place of rest and relaxation, not pests and vexation. Although Britain is blessed with relatively few deadly creatures, household pests can still be dangerous and destructive. Once they get in, these creatures can cause property damage and disease. As well as food and possessions, they nibble away countless hours and countless pounds of budget to remove. Proactive pest control measures provide the best means to stop these problems before they even start.
What is Proactive Pest Control?
Put simply; proactive pest control means making your house less desirable to pests. It involves thinking like a pest, to prevent an invasion before it happens. While some measures require upfront costs and commitment, they ultimately save time and money in the long term by averting a pest crisis in the future. Most proactive pest control tips involve simple DIY procedures or lifestyle adjustment, but it’s always worth consulting a professional pest control company to ensure you’re taking the right steps to make your home pest-proof.
Proactive Pest Control Tips
Pests enter your home for the same reasons you do: shelter, food and water. A few simple steps can ensure that there’s only enough of each for the human residents and not invaders from the garden or the street.
Shelter
Proactively remove any gaps in your building’s exterior so your home can’t shelter any pests. Cracks in doors or loosely installed pipes deliver pests the red carpet treatment to stroll into the home and cause havoc. Studies show that an adolescent mouse can squeeze through a gap the diameter of a pen, and an adult mouse can get through a 5p-sized hole.
Similarly, clutter and rubbish provide homes for all sorts of pests. Fleas and spiders reside in waste piles and unused storage, so live minimalistically to minimise pests.
Food
To put your food to good use, make sure you store tightly and clean promptly. Crumbs, scraps and spills attract pests like moths to a flame. Along with regular and rapid cleaning, robust storage solutions like tins and jars stay environmentally friendly whilst keeping pests at bay.
Water
Like food spillage, leaks and stagnant water harbour pests and contaminants. Flies and mosquitoes breed in water pools, and they attract mice and rats. Fix leaks and clean spills quickly to save water and deter invaders.
The Benefits of Proactive Pest Control
Fore-warned is fore-armed, and for some on these many-legged creatures, you need all the arms you can get. A few simple changes might mean the difference between a safe, cosy home and a biblical pestilence, particularly as most pest problems aren’t discovered until they become infestations.
Money Management
It’s far cheaper to purchase preventative measures than extermination, repair and replacement for damaged property. Mice chew through wires, furniture and food. They are also incontinent, so they ruin fabrics with their waste wherever they go. In terms of cost analysis, mice can offset the cost of some gap-stopping poly-filler and wire wool with the damage in one room alone. Pest prevention measures also safeguard the building’s value, as well as its contents. As pest-driving weather patterns change and budgets tighten in the 2020s, proactive pest control is the financially sensible choice.
Keeping Your Family Safe
Apart from being creepy and making your skin crawl, pests create some genuine health concerns. The dirt and bacteria they bring exacerbate allergies and asthma, and many carry diseases and toxins. Fleas can cause Lyme disease and typhus. Of the 15 dangerous spider species in the country, three are common. Rodents famously carried a disease that wiped out half of Europe. To avoid unpleasant diseases, or food poisoning from contaminated cupboards, proactive pest control protects everyone under your roof.
Mental Wellbeing
The most common and immediate effect of a pest invasion is anxiety and disgust. Creepy crawlies make your skin crawl, mouse-invasions keep you checking every corner and peering under counters, and for many, the sight of a spider unleashes a high-pitched scream. Arachnophobia is the UK’s number one irrational fear, but as we’ve already established, there is some rationale to this concern.
A pest-less home is a happy home, and proactive pest control ensures a sense of safety, security, and comfort: in short, homeliness.