All homes are susceptible to pests. And when unwanted animals enter your property, they can bring diseases and cause damage.
So you need to prevent any infestation actively, and if it happens, you should be able to eliminate the pests if you are to keep the comfort and safety of your home.
And indeed, the best way for you to go around it is to hire a professional pest control service. But there might be times when you have to do things yourself.
So in this article, we will give you everything you need to know to do DIY pest control effectively and safely.
Before doing anything else, you need to plan your courses of action and prepare the tools and products that you need. And to do so, you need to know what pest you are addressing first.
One type of pest is unlike another, and there is essentially no one-all solution. So you have to know exactly what you’re dealing with.
The most common pests you may find in your home are the following.
What pest you may encounter depends on your location. So if you are in Arizona, other animals that may also cause you problems are snakes and even scorpions.
And once you have determined the pest you need to eliminate, you will be able to finally decide whether you can go DIY with it or get professional help instead.
For example, it can be simple for you to get rid of ants, but you can endanger yourself and your family if you are faced with snakes. One wrong move and someone can become severely injured.
Once you have determined the problem and decided that it is appropriate for you to do the job on your own, you will be able to properly prepare appropriately.
Remember that you may have to deal with more than one type of pest at the same time.
First, you need safe preparation.
You need to wear safety gear like safety glasses, gloves, boots and other protective equipment. Remember that you might have to use chemicals that you need to keep away from your skin, eyes, nose, ears and mouth.
Then, you’ll need some basic tools like a ladder and various cleaning materials.
The rest of what you’ll need significantly depends on what pest you have and the scale of the infestation.
Generally, for rodents, you will need to prepare traps. For insects, you may need to buy insecticides and flypaper.
When your tools are ready, the first thing you need to do is to eliminate the ways by which the pest can enter your home.
You may want to search for holes and other entryways and cover them up. This way, the pests you have in your home won’t escape your elimination and there will be less potential for a future re-infestation.
When needed, you may want to evacuate the area of infestation so that you can do your pest control without harming anybody.
For example, you may need to fog an entire room to kill infesting insects. So you need to ensure that the pests are there and your family isn’t.
For rodents, you can use traps and poisons. But poisoning them is tricky because they may die and rot in difficult to reach places.
Rotting cadavers in your home can bring in more pests like flies.
So ideally you want a trap that can instantly kill the pests. Or if you chose to be more humane, you can use traps that simply capture them so you can bring them to a habitat far from your home.
For insects, you can fog the room where they are or use commercial insecticides to kill them entirely.
When you have gotten rid of the pests, you should then find where they might originate. So look for their nests and destroy them so they cannot cause you any trouble in the future.
Also, you may want to remove branches that overlap onto your roof to reduce the ways by which they can enter your home. And find more entryways in your house and patch them securely.
Additionally, you want to scout your home’s environment, indoors and outdoors, and see to it that there are no places for pests to thrive. This requires that you also eliminate whatever things attract pests to enter your home.
After doing everything, surely there will be some dead insects to get rid of and spaces to clean. Ensure that you clean and disinfect everything.
You can use a 1:10 mixture of chlorine and water or a commercial disinfectant to ensure no bacteria remains after you clear things up in your home. You have to ensure that the pests are gone from your house as well as the bacteria, viruses and germs they might have brought in.
And you need to implement preventive cleaning regularly.
For example, rodents, flies and cockroaches usually come to your home also because of food. And if you leave your house with food scraps lying around, you will always find yourself having to deal with pests.
Also, if your stuff is disorganized, there can be many spots in your home where pests can nest hidden from plain view. So you need to move things around and clean over and under everything to ensure that you don’t miss any spot.
Generally, you simply have to ensure a clean and tidy home all the time.
Most pests are stubborn and will always try to find a way to get into your home. So you need to actively prevent that by doing at least twice a month preventive pest control.
This is something that a professional pest control contractor offers. When you get such a service, you won’t need to worry about having an infestation as the problem is essentially solved even before it occurs.
And you should do the same when you are going DIY with your pest control efforts.
However, you should take into account that doing all of these can take time, money and expertise that you might not have at the ready. So the best way still is to hire a pest control service in the first place.
Going DIY when doing pest control is feasible given you have the time and knowledge. But for most Americans, life is as busy as it is, and your schedule is already set to keep you productive at school or work.
And you should genuinely seek help if you’re facing a larger-scale infestation.
So the best way for you to solve your pest problem is to hire a professional contractor that can ensure a 100% pest-free home for you and your family.
They have the proper tools, expertise and safety measures to eliminate your house pests and ensure that they don’t come back.
And if you are in Arizona, you need a pest control service that knows how to deal with local animals. Check out our services at Agro Pest Pros today.
