Household Insect Control: Why Pests Love Your Home & What You Can Do About It

As experts in pest control, customers ask us many questions about why pests are drawn to their clean homes. The thing is, your home doesn’t have to be a pigsty to attract insects.

In this blog post, we’ll explore why pests are drawn to homes and offer advice on preventing them from invading yours with effective household insect control. This educational and entertaining resource is free for anyone to enjoy, so all you have to do is just keep reading!

Even Clean Homes Can Attract Pests

If you have a pest problem on your property, it doesn’t mean you have a dirty, messy house. There are many other reasons why bugs want to get into your house. Here are some of the main reasons:

It’s Cold Outside & Your House Is Warm and Dry 

• All living creatures need shelter from the elements (and predators), especially insects and other ectothermic (cold-blooded) creatures.
• As endotherms, insects’ body temperature changes with their surroundings. If it is cold where an insect is, they will search for the closest warm shelter to survive. 
• If a bug is actively searching for warm shelter and your home is close by, it will be drawn to your home.

Your House Smells Great

Whether you’re cooking delicious food or burning a gourmand-type candle, a pleasant scent wafting outside your house leads insects to it. All insects are hardwired to follow smells that suggest food is nearby, so they can glean some large crumbs to devour for themselves or bring back to their nesting brood. 

Your Basement is Humid

It doesn’t matter if the rest of your house is crumb-free, scentless, cold, and bright—if your basement is humid and dark, insects and other “bugs” (like centipedes) will thrive there. 

Your Plumbing System Leaks Water

Your plumbing system transports water throughout your home, distributing it through a maze of pipes to the bathrooms, kitchen, and laundry room. Unfortunately, leaks can spring from any point in the plumbing system—including the more “obvious” places like under sinks and hidden spots, such as the pipes that run beneath the floorboards. 

Whether a plumbing leak in your home is out of sight or easy to find, any insects that find their way into the house will delight in the shallow pools of water that form, where they can drink or lay eggs. 

Household Insect Control Advice

If you know your house has bugs because you’ve seen them or noticed the signs of unseen pests, you obviously will want to get rid of them. Here’s our advice for household insect control:

Your first move should be to find the small entry points the pests crawled through to get into your house. If it’s the entryway, seal it shut; you can use caulk for cracks in the wall. If you don’t, keeping the insects from returning will be difficult. 

If you have things that attract insects to your home, like the ones mentioned above, try eliminating what you can.

Call your local pest control experts to guarantee the successful extermination of the insects invading your home and that more won’t return in their wake. Professional-grade pest control prevention methods are more thorough and effective than the store-bought kind accessible to the general public. An experienced pest control technician can handle chemical pesticides properly without risking anyone’s safety.

Experienced Pest Control Agents in Birmingham

If pesky insects burden your home, lawn, or other property with their unwanted presence, call Vulcan Termite & Pest Control!

For over forty years, our team of integrative pest management professionals has proudly devoted themselves to providing families in Birmingham and nearby communities with the practical, lasting, and comprehensive solutions they need to end pest problems on their property.

Call (205) 663-4200 or contact us online today, and we’ll gladly perform a FREE evaluation and create and implement an effective strategy using our tried-and-true methods so you and your family can enjoy a pest-free home.