Excluding Pests from Your Home

With cooler temperatures, you may often find your home invaded by unwelcome visitors. No, I'm not talking about all the relatives that come to visit for the holidays. Many insects and other arthropods will move indoors to find a more suitable habitat to spend the winter. With a few preventative techniques, you can exclude many of these critters from coming inside.

Exclusion ideas to help keep pests out of your house:

• Prune trees and shrubs so they do not touch or over hang the house or roofline.



• Do not stack firewood or other items against the house.



• Install weather stripping around loose fitting doors and windows (if you can see daylight around a door during the day then the weather stripping should be replaced).



• Block weep holes in homes with a brick or stone facade with steel wool or copper mesh (use copper on light colors since steel wool will rust if it gets wet).



• Use caulk or expanding foam to fill in cracks and crevices on the outside of the home and around pipe and wire penetrations.



• Keep window screens in good repair.



• Use stainless steel mesh wire to block access points in the attic (vents, etc.).