When planning a trip away from home, you need to remember so much, such as worrying about reservations, making your flight on time, weather, and local customs. Once you arrive at your destination, the last thing on your mind is pests getting into your home.

Protect your home and business from insects and wildlife by making them feel unwelcome. A licensed pest control expert can show you several precautions to keep unwanted visitors from your property. Take some precautions to avoid inviting pests with some careful checks before leaving your home.

Don’t Let an Empty Home Be an Open Invitation

Most pests and wildlife avoid humans and pets. A briefly unoccupied home is enough of an invitation to enter your home through any available opening. Like a flight delay, you cannot anticipate everything. Still, there are precautions to help protect your home and business from unwanted visitors.

Spiders: Prevent an issue with spiders by eliminating secure places to hide with very little chance of disturbance from humans. Spiders, by nature, avoid humans and pets. Ensure no access through gaps and cracks between windows, doors, and floorboards with a quality sealant.

Before you bring anything indoors like wood or vegetation, thoroughly check to make sure you don’t get any eight-legged intruders on your property. Also, keep all food in tightly sealed containers.

Rodents: Rats and mice are agile enough to wiggle through most holes. Consider blocking the openings in air conditioning lines, pipes, garage vents, and adjoining roof areas. Seal entry points into your property a quarter of an inch or larger. A screen blocking the opening puts an end to all travel routes.

Ants: Ants make their colony near food and water sources which humans unwittingly supply ample availability. Their number is in the hundreds of thousands within a colony, and each ant has a vital role to play. Worker ants are exclusively female. They gather food, construct nests, and look after the larvae. On the other hand, Male ants have only one purpose in life: to mate with the queen ant and generate more progeny. The queen’s job is to deposit eggs for the colony to continue to thrive.

Keep food tightly sealed and stored before you leave for your trip. Thoroughly check your property before heading out on your vacation. It doesn’t harm to shake out your clothes before packing them in your luggage for your return voyage.

Prevent Pests from Finding a Way Back to Your Home

Although hotels and Airbnbs do their best to keep their spaces free from pests, you should still check your vacation rental for common insects. This is an important step to take so you do not bring pests or their eggs back into your home.

Bed Bugs: They’re primarily seen in sleeping spaces, although found in various places. They eat when humans are sleeping or relaxing. Bed bugs thrive in mattresses and box springs and feed on their warm-blooded hosts. When it’s time to go to bed, these bugs are at their most active.

Check your bed linens, mattress seams, bedroom furniture, behind baseboards, garments, upholstered pillows, and cushions. If you discover red itchy welts on your arms and legs, bed bugs may be the cause.

Cockroaches: No one wants an infestation of pests, but cockroaches carry the worst reputation, and for a good reason. Cockroaches are known to spread pathogens that may cause viral illnesses.

If a patron sees a roach on your premise the damage may be severe. A roach infestation can quickly spread, and roach traps or pesticides will not resolve the issue. Before returning home from your vacation, thoroughly check your luggage, clothes, and souvenirs to confirm these pests are not hitching a ride.

Make Your Appointment with SOS

There are many ways for a pest to enter your home. Protect your home with comprehensive pest control, whether at home or away, by relying on an experienced pest control specialist. Since 1937, SOS Exterminating has dependably provided Arizona properties with a premier solution to remove all types of pests. At the first sign of a pest problem, contact us today at 480-571-1473. Our highly trained experts work with each customer to create a custom plan to keep your home free from pests.