Warm Weather Home Pest Prevention Checklist

Warmer weather means it’s time to get out your lawn decorations, tend to your garden, and enjoy long days in the sun. Unfortunately, it also means that the insects that were hiding out all winter come crawling back out. Some might find refuge in your home – and not for the air conditioning. Protect your home before the season starts so that you don’t have to face unwanted guests crawling or flying around your home. We’ve compiled a checklist so that you can cover all your bases outdoors and indoors.

Setting Up Your Outdoor Defense

When it comes to defending your home from insects, start by focusing on where the bugs come from: outside. Warm temperatures and growing greenery foster a great environment for insects to breed and fulfill their lifecycles – making them more active than ever. Here are some steps that you can take when the weather starts warming up.

  1. Clean up outdoors - One of the best things you can do is some spring cleaning. Clearing away trash or debris around your patio, deck, or yard in general is an easy way to eliminate possible attractions for bugs. You can also do some yard maintenance by trimming trees and shrubs that are closer to your home so that they don’t easily find a way into your home. Removing lingering leaves from the previous fall can reduce hiding spaces for bugs that are looking for shelter and protection.
  2. Stop your trash cans from becoming attractants – Garbage cans provide everything that flies need for a sustainable breeding ground while also attracting ants and all manner of other bothersome insects. Ensuring that your trash cans are frequently cleaned out is important, along with making sure that you keep them secured with a lid. By using a Garbage Guard™ you can actively eliminate insects that are drawn to your outdoor trash with an odorless vapor that can last up to 4 months!
  3. Bring in the birds – Not only are birds fun to watch from the window, but they’re great with pest control. Installing a birdbath, bird feeder, or even planting flowers can attract these creatures to visit and even make a home out of your yard. Birds eat spiders, ants, flies, and other insects that may bother you.
  4. Create a perimeter protection – Using Terro® Outdoor Liquid Ant Bait Stakes in your yard targets ants before they even have the chance to come inside. Ready to use with bait, you can kill the ants that you see, plus the ones that you don’t. As ants become attracted to the stakes, they bring back the slow-killing bait to ultimately eliminate the entire colony so that they don’t march into your home.
  5. Use Fly Traps – When flies are outside of your house, they can be bothersome, not to mention fly into your home through open doors and windows. Implementing a Fly Trap can attract and trap those flies outside your home looking for a way in. The bait lures them in and the Bug Lock Lid™ ensures that they cannot escape.

Actively maintaining your outdoor spaces and taking steps to prevent invasions will limit the number of bugs that would bother you in your yard when you’re enjoying those spring or summer days, but also target bugs that might try and enter your house. So, what happens if they make it past your barriers?

fly eating inside food

Installing Indoor Protection

Enjoying the outdoors is fun and all, but sometimes you need some relief from the sun or the heat. The last thing you want to do is go inside in the evening after a long, hot day and have to deal with annoying insects in different parts of your home. Follow these preparations to ensure that your home is protected from the inside out!

  1. Check windows and doorways – One of the easiest entry points for bugs are small holes in screens, window cracks, and doorways that aren’t properly sealed. By doing a seasonal inspection around your house and replacing or repairing the things that are damaged, you can block insects from crawling in.
  2. Keep the kitchen clean – Your kitchen is the perfect spot for ants, flies, and other insects that are looking for a meal. Storing your food properly, tidying up crumbs, vacuuming frequently, and not leaving food out are ways that you can keep insects out. The cleaner your kitchen, the less attractive it becomes to these scavengers.
  3. Clean the garage – The garage is another place that bugs are drawn to due to the number of hiding places, debris, and trash. Going through your garage at the beginning of the season allows you to not only tidy up but perhaps get rid of old nesting places that insects are occupying. By removing trash and cleaning hard-to-reach areas, you can also be sure that no bugs attempt to enter your home through the garage.
  4. Minimize moisture – Moisture draws in insects frequently. Most bugs are attracted to humidity, and when humidity is prominent in certain areas of your home, it can cause damage. It will also make it easier for wood-destroying ants to add on to the damage if the infrastructure is already weakened by the water.
  5. Implement ant bait stations – Discreet Multi-Surface Liquid Ant Bait stations attract household ants with sugary bait. Easy to use, you can place this station on walls or under cabinets so you can discreetly handle an invasion. Ants take the bait from the station and bring it back to their colony, which in turn eliminates the entire colony.
  6. Place spider traps in prime locations - Spiders are perhaps one of the most dreaded insects that can make their way into your home as the season warms up. Stop them with a Spider Trap that will discreetly trap them and keep them in place.  

Don’t let bugs like ants, spiders, and flies ruin the warm weather for you and your family. Protecting your home isn’t hard when you have the right products and effective tips.

outdoor family making dinner

Stopping Insects from Invasions

TERRO® makes insect season easier, and not only with checklists and products. By visiting our Facebook page, you can tell us what you do to make sure that your house stays bug-free when the days get warmer while learning other tips from fellow followers. We also make sure that when you are signed up for our E-Newsletter, you’re the first to find out about new products, exclusive deals, and the latest information on solutions for your home.

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