Wishing you a happy holiday, from our family to yours! As you get ready for Christmas or Hanukkah, Long Island’s Suburban Exterminating has a few pest control tips for keeping your holidays happy and bright!
7 Holiday Tips from Long Island’s Favorite Exterminator
1. Keep firewood away from your house.
While you will want to keep your firewood in a convenient place, try to keep it a small distance from your home (30 feet is considered okay). Rodents and bugs like to live in and around piles of firewood. You’ll also find that termites, carpenter ants and other wood-boring beetles can’t resist wood piles. Firewood stacked on your deck or against your home’s foundation may be an invitation for these pests to come into your home. So, follow this tip if you want to make sure you and your family are the only ones getting cozy by the fire.
2. Bring firewood inside only when needed.
Let’s say that your wood has some nasty beetles inside the logs. As soon as pests feel the warmth of the indoors, they’ll leave the wood and become active in your home. If you go ahead and burn the wood right away, the insects wouldn’t have a chance to escape and explore your home.
3. Give your Christmas tree a good shake before you bring it inside.
While most of these insects don’t live long, who wants them inside? Pests like spiders, mites, adelgids, aphids, bark beetles, scale insects, sawflies, and praying mantises may be living inside your tree. Don’t bring them home for the holidays!
4. Ready to bake some cookies? Lookout for Pantry Pests!
Your family members (and Santa) aren’t the only ones who’ll think your holiday goodies are delicious! Watch out for every baker’s worst enemy – pantry pests. Pantry pests can invade your baking supplies. Many of these insects enjoy the cereals, flour, herbs, spices, chocolate, dried fruits and similar items in our homes. When just a few of these insects exist, they are often unnoticed. The Indian meal moth and other grain moths mostly come from the supermarket, processing plant or the delivery truck.
5. Make sure your gutters are clean when you’re putting up the lights!
Getting up on the ladder to put up your holiday decorations? Might as well clean the gutters while you’re up there! Leaves and other debris in the gutters prevent water from pooling up and become a problem. Other problems – stinging insects and rodents – may also be found in gutters.
6. If you’re traveling, check for bed bugs!
Bedbugs are a holiday gift that no one wants. Bedbugs are small reddish-brown insects which can happily live in a bed and hitch a ride home with you. Bed bugs feed on the blood of people and animals, usually while they sleep. Pull back the bed sheets and blankets and check the mattress and box-spring seams for bugs, especially at the head of the bed.
7. Make sure your home is filled with Silent Nights.
‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse! Not even close – mice are definitely active at night! If you’re finding them in and around your home, find out how to get rid of mice!
Happy Holidays to all!
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