Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Will White here with Nexus pest solutions. And today we’re going to answer the question how to prep our home for fall. And this is a question that we get on a regular basis this time of year.
So I want to take seven, seven points from our 50 from our 58 point PEST analysis and inspection. So I’m going to give you seven from there, that’ll be very beneficial to helping you prep your home for fall. And they’re not any, they’re not in any particular order. It’s just these are things that you can do in the fall as we’re making our way around the perimeter of our home.
So number one, screening you want to check your screening, you know, as you’re walking around the perimeter home, you want to take a look at the screening, you want to make sure that those those scraped the screening is intact, and there’s no rips or tears, you know, in the screen in and that those storm windows are close without a gap because sometimes you know, they close on that funny angle. And if that happens, that’s a 24 seven open door policy for pass.
Number two, the garage door seals. You know, when you lift a garage door up that rubber seal that’s underneath the door, you want to close that step inside the garage, cut the lights off, you know, you know and look to see if daylight is coming through. If you’re seeing daylight come through. Once again, you have a 24 seven open door policy for pass as well as rodents. And if it’s an attached garage, even worse, because that’s connected to the house, so they’ll have easy access roads would have easy access to the house. And it’s the same for detach. I know a lot of times we store birdseed in the garages or you know squirrel food. Well once they get in, they really don’t have much you know much else to do Buffy.
Number three, you know, as you’re walking around the outside of the house, you want to look for cracks in the foundation. Now the smaller cracks, you can seal with caulk you can take some caulk and seal off that crack to prevent crawling insects from getting in. But if it’s something about the size of a dime, in a pinch, you can use steel wool to plug that hole to keep rodents out of your home. And the thing about still will is it will break down.
But remember, this is something we should be doing every fall. So as we noticed a steel wall breaking down, just replace it leaflet leafleter. This is a big one in and we and I see this every year. So leaf litter after you you know in the fall where all the leaves fall as we go through to change the season, we blow up as many leaves as possible.
But sometimes it might be a neighbor, or we just didn’t get all the ones out of the bushes. And as the wind continues to flow, it kind of blows those leaves back up against the foundation at a house. Now one of the things that I’ve noticed over the years is as I’m making my way around the perimeter checking exterior base stations, you know, for our customers, brushing the leaves away, I found live I find why bugs, boxelder bugs, all different types of bugs living up underneath that leaf litter.
Because that leaf litter for bug it creates enough warm you know when we get those warm days, which you know, in Wisconsin we do you know it could be 30 below one day. And then a week later, you know it’s in the 30s and the sun is shining and it feels like a 60 or 70 degrees outside. And those bugs get active up underneath that leaf litter and continue to make their way into your home. So you want to make sure you clear out all of that leaf litter around the foundation.
Firewood, here’s a great one for winter time and Wisconsin. Firewood. A lot of times you’d like to keep that firewood close, stack it up in the garage, stack it up next to the house. And then or bring it in and use it as decoration near the fireplace. Well, you have to be careful with that because in that firewood, you could have a carpenter in this. And our rule is always 20 feet away from the house, five inches up off the ground. But who wants to track through all of this not to do that. So we suggest you bring in what you need, you know bring in what you what you’re going to burn, you know, so you might have to take a few trips out.
But every year we get calls. Someone has brought firewood into the house, or they’ve they’ve they’ve stacked it up next to an inside wall in the garage where that wall is warm enough that all of a sudden they got carpenter ants in the dead of winter. It’s like how did these carpenter ants get here you know, so when they’re calling on the On I can tell him Have you recently brought in firewood? Well, yes, well that’s where the carpenter ants are. So now we have to go out there and search that wood and find that nest and remove it. So a little bit more difficult to do. But it can be done and it can be avoided.
Now the last one I’m going to give you and this is going to lead you into spring for the following year. Cleaning the gutters. You know, cleaning out the gutters, you’ll be surprised if you do not have some type of gutter protection. You get up there and you check those gutters out.
The debris buildup is amazing. And if that water is not flowing properly out of the gutters, well that’s gonna lead to as we head into the spring and we start melting a lot of this stuff. centipedes, millipedes, mosquitoes, you know, gutters people tend to forget about all the time can be a mosquito breeding factory. It’s like, well, we don’t have any water sitting in our yard anywhere. Well, you probably could be breeding right at right above your head in the gutter. So you want to make sure that you you know, after all the cleaning and all the fall cleanup is done. You clean out the gutters.
Well, that’s all I have for you today, folks. But listen, if you have any questions, or want to know more about anything else we might have on that 58 point PEST analysis inspection. Hey, feel free to give Nexus pest solutions a call at 414-355-3732. And you can ask for me, I’m worldwide. I’ll be more than happy more than happy to assist you in any way getting your home ready for fall. I hope you enjoyed this and thanks for listening to it.
