Inevitably, pests and rodents will invade your home and your pantry. Not only are they unwelcome, but they can also contribute to an unsanitary envionment. Here are the most common pests to watch for, how to seal your home against them, and a few ways to repel them with natural products you can easily make yourself.
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Table of contents
Pests to Watch Out For
Pests are one of the enemies of food storage you must be on guard against. You don’t want to go to all the effort to build your food storage and then lose it to unwanted guests–the 4-legged kind, that is.
Termites
One insect that loves to eat is termites. You can count on them dining on your home 24 hours a day, every day. They eat constantly. In the spring they swarm and begin looking for a buffet- and it could be your home. The darker and damper the better. The only way to really treat termites effectively is by hiring a professional.
It’s necessary to protect and maintain the integrity of your shelter by getting rid of them, first, and creating an environment where they can’t thrive. Diverting water away from your home is one of the simplest and free things you can do. Also, trimming and cut back any trees near your home can keep termites at a distance. Check that none of the roots or branches are touching your home.
Bugs
The long grass around your home is the perfect place for bugs to hide. One way to cut down on the population is to keep the grass cut short. Certain types of bugs can die before maturing, due to exposure to sunlight. Short grass allows the sunshine to kill them.
Along with keeping your grass mowed, regularly keep leaves raked and removed.
If you live on a property with tall grasses and plants, a machete is your best. These plants tend to grow fast and a machete will help you cut them down quickly. It is recommended to have a machete that you can easily sharpen and won’t corrode. Gerber has a good quality machete that would fit this purpose.
Rats and Mice
It is always good to know your worst enemy! Rats and mice carry 35 different diseases and are tricky to keep out of a home. You only need a hole the size of a dime for a mouse to squeeze through. Rats only need a hole the size of a nickel. Neither rodents has a collar bone. If their head can fit through the hole, so can the rest of their body.
They have sharp teeth and will gnaw through just about anything, including electrical wires, which could result in a fire. We experienced a mouse who crawled under our dishwasher and made a small hole in the water line. The slow drip caused damage that resulted in us replacing our recently laid new flooring, along with the subflooring. It is hard to believe that one little rodent can cause so much damage.
Mosquitos
As for the irritating mosquito… Mosquitoes lay their eggs in standing water, so it is essential that you remove or minimize any standing water on your property. Walk around your yard and check trash cans, buckets, planters, playground equipment and anything else that could collect standing water.
If you are in a long-term disaster circumstance, you may not have the benefit of a cool air-conditioned home to avoid mosquitos. An open window may be your only relief from the heat. Check all the screens in the windows and doors, repair or replace any that have holes. If you need to sleep outdoors, a mosquito bed net is a must. They are inexpensive and lightweight. There are mosquito net tents for pets or small children too!
Read this post for a few tips for dealing with bug bites.
Sealing Your Home Against Pests
Another step to prevent pests from entering your home is to seal it. Walk around your foundation and look for any cracks. Check for gaps around windows, the frames, and doors. You should hire a professional to seal and double check your home for you.
In some homes, this can be a big project, so tackle one room at a time, starting with the kitchen. Pests are attracted to food, so it’s possible the bugs and rodents you see in the house may be coming through openings behind kitchen cupboards, baseboards, and the like.
It’s recommended that you stockpile some expanding insulation and rolls of thick metal screening. You can find the insulation and screening here. The insulation will seal small holes and can be used to reinforce the metal screening and prevent rodents with sharp teeth from entering through the hole. Steel wool is another option for filling in small holes. You can buy a steel wool kit for your home here.
Inside your home look for holes and small crevices:
- Inside, under, and behind kitchen appliances and cabinets
- Inside closets along the bottom and corners.
- Around the fireplace and doors.
- Around the pipes under sinks, water heaters, furnaces, and washing machines.
- Around any floor and dryer vents.
- Inside the attic, basement or crawl space.
- Any drains in the basement and laundry room.
Make Food Inaccessible
Another method to eliminate rodents is to make food inaccessible. Keep your food in metal or thick plastic containers with tight-fitting lids. Also look for trash cans with that same standard. Clean up any outdoor grills, cooking spaces and spills. Once you are done cooking, wash dishes and put food away.
Don’t leave any pet food or water bowls out overnight. If you do have a bird feeder that you can’t bear to part with, use a squirrel guard on it. Any other food for animals needs to be at least 100 feet away from your home. The farther away, the better. And just like your food, keep all animal feed in heavy plastic or metal container.
Elevate any trash cans, hay, and woodpiles at least one foot above the ground. Woodpiles should be placed as far away from your home as possible. Aim for at least 100 feet. Clearing the property of old vehicles and equipment means that rodents will look somewhere else for a home. If you can eliminate rodents from having nesting sites outside your home, you can decrease your chance of a new generation trying to move in.
Protect Your Food
It doesn’t matter how much food you store, if it becomes infested, it isn’t any good. And you want to be careful when using poisons near your food.
Food grade diatomaceous earth may be your best bet. It is a fine powder, like that of baby powder. The powder is made ancient fossilized shells and silica. When it comes in contact with an insect’s body, it cuts through the outer wax coating. The bug dehydrates and dies because there is not any coating to help hold water in its body. Diatomaceous earth does not have a shelf life date. It will stay good as long as you own it.
Be sure you have food grade, not chemical or pool grade. They can be toxic and should be kept away from all food. Check out this organic, pure 100% diatomaceous earth. It is safe around pets and children, will help protect against insects that are looking for your food.
Simply sprinkle the powder anywhere that you may think bugs will crawl. Consider the pantry, storage closets with food in it, the tops of cabinets and under cupboards. Diatomaceous earth can also be sprinkled on your carpet to kill fleas. Learn all about using diatomaceous earth for preparedness uses here.
For ants, you need to add sugar or cornstarch to the diatomaceous earth to make it attractive to them. Make a mound of diatomaceous earth and just sprinkle the sugar or cornstarch on top. The ants will dehydrate from the inside out when they eat it. Another ant killer is sugar and powered borax mixed together. You can find a roach and ant killer in one bottle right here!
Try These DIY Pesticides
Homemade Ant Killer
- Mix 1 tablespoon of borax with 1/4 cup hot water.
- Add 1 cup honey or corn syrup.
- Mix together well and pour into small plates, jar lids or other small containers.
- Place the container where you have seen ants. You may need to add a few drops of water to the containers every few days to keep the syrup hydrated. Ants will eat this stuff up and die.
Homemade Roach Killer
- Mix two parts flour, one part of powdered boric acid, and one part powdered sugar.
- Sprinkle the powder mixture around the areas where they live. (They love damp places.)
- Place on lids or small containers and place them in the cabinets and on your counter tops. The roaches will eat the powdered boric acid, they will die not long after.
Using Store-Bought Pesticides and Traps
Pesticides are one option to eliminate pests. They have a shelf life of 2-7 years. When you purchase them, check the shelf life and at home check your inventory every 2 years. Keep them stored where children and pets can’t get into them.
Along with using poisons, have a non-chemical method available. Look for mouse, termite and ant traps here or in your local hardware store. If you live in an area where larger pests will be a problem, look for traps specifically designed for them.
Natural rodent predators are non-poisonous snakes, hawks and owls. These animals cannot get rid of all rodents, but they can decrease their population.
Snap Traps and Peanut Butter
Another way to reduce the number of rodents in your home is with a simple snap trap and some peanut butter. Why peanut butter? It is sticky and won’t fall off if the trap is knocked over. The rodent is going to have to get very close, if not onto the trap to eat the peanut butter. You only need a ¼ teaspoon on the trap to attract the vermin. Read all the instructions when setting up your trap.
Place it along the wall with the short end of the trap touching the wall. It should look like the letter “T”. Rodents often run along the edges of walls, so this placement will either get their attention with the peanut butter or snap them when they scurry by. Rats and other rodents are cautious. It may take a week before they decide to check out the traps. Be patient. Other rodents, such as house and deer mice, aren’t cautious and could be trapped faster.
Remember to put traps in any sheds or outbuildings you have on the property. Avoid live traps and the glue traps. When animals get caught in them, they often become afraid and will urinate. The urine has the possibility of containing germs. To minimize the risk of being exposed to a disease, killing them before they pee is best!
Expert Tip
Talk with a licensed professional for advice on purchasing and treating your home and property for pests. They can tell you which products work best on the pests you’re dealing with, how much to use and where, and important safety considerations.
Final Thoughts
Annoying pests and critters are a fact of life, but we don’t want to invite them to move in and dine with us. Look around your home and property and find improvements that you can make to minimize the pests that could bug you.
How do you like to handle pest and rodent infestations?
Every year, I have infestations of tiny ants…they are SO BOTHERSOME!!! I have made the borax/sugar stuff, and put on tiny dishes and it works, but it does harden within a few days….. It’s very similar to terro, but that is spendy, and I prefer to do it myself.
I would not use healthy honey for ants, I’d use sugar. DE does work if you sprinkle it on them…kills them pretty fast…but it isn’t much of a deterrent as far as I can tell…they just find a way around it.
Mice have also been an issue. They “moved” in when I was gone for about 3 weeks and took my cat with me. (Just FYI: the second time I left (this time only 2 weeks), I put cotton balls with peppermint E.O. on them in addition to the ‘saved-up-hair’ from grooming my long haired cat in the areas that the mice moved in the first time I left, hoping to fend off another infestation. WELL, turns out that cat hair as well as cat pee/poop is an ATTRACTANT for mice and rats!!!!! )SO………AGAIN, the infestation! I had washed all dishes, removed all trash and my compost before leaving both times.
My cat, who I got at 5 weeks, and having been a totally indoor cat her whole life, was GREAT at catching mice, but had NO idea what to do with them after…..SO many were brought downstairs from upstairs, let go while being played with, and lost to the downstairs…usually she would catch them in a day or two, I would take them away from her using paper towels, remove to outside where I would hammer them and drop in trash. I finally bought some sticky traps and put them everywhere, including outside my back door and in the semi-detached laundry room. I caught several and so far, seem to be mouse free… Fingers crossed!!!
FYI: peanut butter did NOT work for me at all. They totally left it alone.
Just FYI: the link for the “insulation” goes to the screen as well as the screen link.
Could you post the link for the insulation?
Thank you!