Winter Pest Prevention in Shreveport: How to Keep Your Home Pest-Free

Reduce outdoor attractants in your Shreveport yard

If pests aren’t on your property, they won’t enter your house. Although it may be impossible to eliminate pests from your property completely, you can certainly take steps to reduce the number of pests in your yard. By doing so, you’ll make it less likely that insects, rodents, and other pests will end up in your house.

You can do a few things to make your property less attractive to pests. Reducing food, water, and shelter opportunities for pests will ensure they spend less time on your property. Try the following suggestions:

• Remove items that pests could use as a food source, such as bird seed, pet food, and rotting fruits and vegetables from trees or gardens on your property.
• Reduce moisture around your property by ensuring proper drainage and trimming your landscaping to prevent moisture build-up.
• Keep your grass trimmed and all shrubs, bushes, and other landscaping elements well-pruned.
• Do not store firewood close to your house.
• Remove clutter from your yard.
• Eliminate yard debris, like leaf litter and fallen branches.

When you make your yard less attractive to pests, fewer pests will try to get into your house.

Make it difficult for pests to find a way inside your Shreveport home

One of the best ways to prevent pests from getting into your house is to seal your home properly. Pests usually get inside by finding openings they can exploit to gain access to the interior of your house. Sometimes, these openings are easy to spot. For instance, an open and unscreened window is an easy way for pests to get inside. However, openings can be far less noticeable. For example, a crack in your foundation might go unnoticed, but a pest could quickly discover it.

Perform a careful inspection of your house's exterior and list all the possible entry points you find. Then, take these entry points one at a time and seal each one so that pests can’t use them to get into your house. 

Some of the things you should look for include:

• Cracks in your foundation
• Torn screens on doors and windows
• Gaps around doors and windows
• Openings around garage doors
• Holes in siding
• Openings around plumbing, electrical, and HVAC entry points
• Uncapped chimneys
• Open vents

Use caulk to fill cracks and gaps, repair or replace damaged screens, install weather stripping, and cover vents with mesh screens to close as many entry points as possible.

Make the inside of your house less inviting to a pest infestation

When pests enter your house, they look for a steady food and water supply and a place to live without being bothered or threatened. If your house provides these three elements, they’ll have no reason to leave. By making it difficult for pests to find them, you can make it less likely that pests will spend the winter with you.

Make your house less likely to experience a pest infestation by:

• Eliminating clutter, especially in areas that don’t get a lot of traffic
• Storing all food in sealed containers
• Making sure there are no water leaks in your house
• Reducing moisture in humid areas of your house
• Keeping your kitchen free of dirty dishes and messy counters
• Taking out the trash regularly
• Sweeping, vacuuming, and mopping floors regularly

Although keeping your house pest-free can take some effort and time, it is well worth it.

Contact Anti-Pest for additional pest protection this winter

Although implementing all of the suggestions mentioned above is a great start to preventing a pest infestation in your Shreveport home, the added protection of home pest control from Anti-Pest will give you complete peace of mind. Our locally owned and family-operated pest control company has been resolving pest infestations in Shreveport for 75 years, so we know what works and what doesn’t.

Over 20 common pests, including spiders, cockroaches, mice, and rats, are covered under our home pest control plan, allowing you to get the best pest protection without paying for extra services to cover all your needs. Contact Anti-Pest today for home pest control that will keep your Shreveport home pest-free this winter and all year long.