Dogs, hamsters, and cats are typical domestic animals frequently found in homes. However, you must act when strays like rats, opossums, and squirrels run chaos through your house.
Pests from wildlife can wreak various havoc on your property. In addition to being potential disease-carrying fleas and ticks, many may be rabies carriers. A shocked or ill animal will likely bite, which could have catastrophic effects on the pet and human family.
Even small wild animals can damage your chimney or roof as they use your home for shelter. They can also cause a significant mess you may not forget by chewing on wires, building nests in crawl spaces and attics, and invading kitchens. Therefore, you need to invest in a top-notch wildlife control plan.
You can stop your house from becoming a haven for these forest-dwelling friends. This article explores long-term home protection from wildlife.
Make Your Home Less Appealing to Animals
Areas with plenty of food and shelter (spots to eat and relax) draw rodents. Take out as many things that will attract mice and rats from your home as possible.
Eliminate items that piled up near the building foundations from the exterior of structures. Remove any debris, thin out your plantings, and consider letting go of excess plants. Don’t leave places to hide near your home.
Secure trash and compost in your garden, laneway, carport, or patio; keep people and pets inside; and tidy up any fallen fruit or splattered bird seed. It will lessen the likelihood that you will unintentionally feed rodents and unwanted wildlife.
Reduce attractants within your home if critters have already made their way inside; store food in the refrigerator, safe drawers, cabinets, glass, metal, or plastic jars. Carefully consider where and how you feed your pets because pet food can serve as a buffet for rodents. Store food scraps in freezer bags or secure garbage cans until your organic waste pick-up time.
Identify Signs of Wildlife Infestation
Since there aren’t several distinctions between rats, mice, raccoons, and other rodents (especially when they’re out of sight), it can occasionally be challenging to identify which kind of rodent has established a permanent residence in your home.
However, the raccoon (because of its large size) will leave bigger holes and droppings throughout the property.
It is essential to recognize some signs to determine the kind and extent of your infestation.
Rodents’ droppings
To identify the kind of infestation, you may use the droppings. Compared to the sharper mouse droppings, rats excrete larger, rounder droppings. The amount also indicates how severe the infestation is. Large amounts of rodent feces are a sign of a severe wildlife infestation.
Urine Smell
It’s impossible to ignore the overpowering stench of urine—ammonia in particular—when rodents are present. It is distinguishable from anything else.
Deterioration of Wood and Other Materials
It is the preference of rodents to roam freely and to discover their routes by climbing, burrowing beneath surfaces, or both. Due to their large size, raccoons create big entry points.
Gnaw Marks
Every rodent has four incisor teeth, which grow continuously throughout their lifespan. Because of this, the tiny animals constantly search for something to chew on. Sadly, it frequently applies to the plants in your yard, the furniture, and the interior fixtures in your house.
Noises
Nighttime is when wildlife is most active. Your home is not haunted, so don’t panic if you hear strange noises in the morning or early hours. Most likely, these are just rodents crawling around in search of food. Even though it doesn’t improve things, at least you can eliminate these uninvited animals.
Locate Potential Entrances
If you live in an apartment, stroll around the outdoors of your building and check out your balcony. Since rodents are skilled climbers, look up to the roofline. Are there any openings, cracks, or other possible entry points visible? Recall that holes as tiny as a nickel can allow mice to enter a house.
Next, look around your house’s interior for potential rodent entry points. Take out big appliances from the wall, open cabinets, and remove furniture and boxes from the walls.
Since it is a frequent entry point, carefully inspect any places where cables or pipes pass through drywall. Look for any indications of nibbled wood, wire, or insulating material, holes, and animal droppings (small rice-sized is a mouse, almond-sized is a rat).
Seal Entry Points
Keeping rodents out is the best defense against them. Permanently seal all identified entryways to make your home rodent-proof. Use materials for rodent exclusion such as heavy-gauge wire screens to secure holes, steel mesh padding to stuff into openings around pipes, and extending foam glue sprayed over the metal mesh to fill other spaces and cracks.
Employ caulk to keep everything in place after inserting steel wool into any openings or gaps in the structure of your building. You might consider metal sheeting, hardware cloth, or concrete for large holes.
Pest-Proof Your Compost
A properly cared-for compost bin will keep pests away from the area. Never compost meat, seafood, bones, oils, fat-laden foods, or dog or cat poop. You can reduce scents that draw pests by burying food scraps in the middle of the pile.
To prevent nesting, turn or puncture holes in the heap every week or two, ensuring that every layer stays slightly damp. At three to six months intervals, gather the compost from the bottom of the bin.
Use a tight-fitting lid to keep out rodents and other small animals, and line the bin base and sides with hardware material (zinc-plated wire mesh) to prevent them from drilling in.
Making Your Home Pest-Resistant
When contemplating wildlife control, be flexible. Never be afraid to try another approach or seek professional help if you realize the first one isn’t effective.
You can effectively keep pests at bay and enjoy a warm and pest-free home for many years by employing wildlife pest control methods in this article. Recall that a proactive and all-encompassing strategy is needed for effective pest management throughout the year. Remain vigilant, take proactive measures, and enjoy living in a cozy, wildlife-free home.
Iskra Banović is our seasoned Editor-in-Chief at Blufashion. She has been steering the website’s content and editorial direction since 2018. With a rich background in fashion design, Iskra’s expertise spans across fashion, interior design, beauty, lifestyle, travel, and culture.
