Today we are talking about “Top 3 Pest Control Tips for the Holidays”

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Holidays are a time to get together with family and friends and have a great time. Unfortunately, holidays, as you might have come to find out, are also a time when our homes are susceptible to all kinds of pests. Aside from mosquitoes that seem to be less active in the colder seasons, a lot of pests will spring to life over the festive holidays.

There are two main reasons for this. First, holidays are characterized with lots of eating and drinking. But that’s not the problem – storage is. With so much food to eat and a lot of chatting and bonding taking place, we tend to forget how to properly store the excesses during the holidays. When you have leftovers lying everywhere, you will certainly attract ants, cockroaches, and mice.

The other reason is that while you try to meet old friends and family over the holiday, coupled with the frequent shopping trips during these times, chances of picking up a bed bug dramatically increase. So, don’t be surprised if all year long you haven’t seen a bedbug in your home but they suddenly show up on Thanksgiving! Christmas trees, wreaths, and firewood are other ways through which pests such as spiders, ticks, and ants can end up in your home.

The good news is that there area few tips for preventing these pests from entering your home or becoming a menace if they ever manage to squeeze in.

Here are the top 3 tips

• Inspect the trees that you’re bringing home

You don’t have to avoid bringing in a Christmas tree just because it could harbor a few ants. Instead, buy the tree but before you take it inside, take some time to inspect it thoroughly. Look for any hidden ants or other insects, nests, or eggs and shake up the tree outdoors.

• Inspect your holiday décor and store it properly

Holidays are also a time to have fun with loud music, beautiful lights, and all kinds of decorations. Often, at the beginning of the holiday, people take out boxes of wreaths, ornaments, figurines, and strands of twinkling lights for home decoration.

If these items have been in store for the past several weeks or even a few months after they were last used, there is every chance that a few pests now call your storage boxes home too. To avoid unleashing the pests into the open space, take the boxes outside and unpack them there. Inspect each box for insects or signs of a potential pest infestation such as gnawing marks and rodent droppings.

• Keep your firewood away from home

Given that the holiday season coincides with winter, a lot of people will be storing firewood for the fireplace. In the early morning and late evenings when temperatures drop significantly, you can then snuggle by the fireplace with a hot cup of chocolate as you enjoy reading a good book. While there is no problem with warming yourself by the fireplace, storing firewood within the home is never a good idea. It only takes a few days before the firewood is infested with termites and spiders. For this reason, it is recommended that you store firewood at least 20 feet from the home on a raised structure.

Of course, applying these tips only minimizes the chances of pests getting into your home. That doesn’t mean that a random spider won’t crawl into the home through cracks in the garage. If this happens, your best option would be to buy an insecticide and spray the whole home. Alternatively, call a New Jersey pest control company to help.

This is a guest post for Craft-O-Maniac.