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Pest Control
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Spring cleaning to find hidden villains
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(ARA) - Who doesn't love spring, with the fresh breezes and the bright
sunlight? Warm weather arrives to signal a new beginning. Inside the
home, spring cleaning is a fresh start as well.
Nearly everyone can appreciate polished surfaces and tidy rooms, but
spring cleaning has other benefits. Spring cleaning can also help deal
with allergens and pests in your home. Many people are aware of
allergens like dust, pollen, mold, mildew and animal dander, especially
in the spring, but some sources of these are often less obvious.
Just a few simple steps added to your spring cleaning every year can
help you to enjoy your home.
Filter it out
Regularly changing your furnace filters can greatly reduce allergens
that are air-borne throughout your home. A furnace filter can remove
some of those unseen dusts and allergens. Replacing filters at least
every six months helps improve the efficiency of your furnace as well.
Beds are important
Washing your bedding regularly is not enough to prevent allergens from
lurking in beds. In addition to turning and flipping mattresses two to
three times a year, pillows should be replaced every one to two years
and mattresses every five to 10 years. The life of these items can be
extended by the use of simple, inexpensive mattress and pillow covers
that are allergen free. These will trap allergy-triggering dust mites
and reduce the contact with the allergens trapped in your pillow or
mattress. Perhaps the most important advice for allergy sufferers is to
keep pets off the bed and out of the bedroom altogether.
Rodents
Rodents, like mice and rats, are often overlooked, but may have moved
into our homes without detection and can produce allergens from
droppings and hair follicles. What's more, rodents are known disease
carriers, so controlling them in your home is important. Even if you
don't think you have a mouse
problem, you may. A recent government study found that four
out of five American homes have detectable levels of mouse allergen.
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If you find that mice have entered your home, choose an effective mouse
trap like Ortho Home Defense MAX Kill and Contain Mouse Trap.
This trap won't snap fingers or paws, so it's safe for use around
children and pets, and it traps the dead mouse inside where you never
have to touch it.
Rodents will be less likely to enter your home if there is no available
food, so it is important to remove any potential food sources. Store
anything that could be considered food to pests in airtight containers
including; dog and cat food, bird seed, grass seed, breads and cereals.
Insects
Insects can leave their feces, saliva and exoskeletons in your home.
For every one insect you actually see, hundreds more are likely hidden
in spots where you can't see them.
As with rodents, the best way to keep insects from entering your home
is to be sure your house is properly sealed to keep them out. Use
weather stripping over visible cracks and gaps along doors or windows
and use expanding foam insulation to fill any other openings around the
foundation of your home.
To defend your home inside and out from bugs
and to prevent more from coming in, you'll need to use an insect spray
like Ortho Home Defense MAX Perimeter and Indoor Insect Killer. Simply
spray around your baseboards indoors and your house's outside perimeter
to prevent bugs from invading your home. People and pets can re-enter
sprayed areas after the spray has dried. This non-staining, odor-free
spray kills bugs and also controls certain listed bugs for up to 12
months indoors; including crickets, spiders, carpet beetles, earwigs,
firebrats, moths and silverfish
Spring can mean a clean, fresh start for your home with just these few
simple steps added to your spring cleaning every year. More
importantly, taking care of unwanted pests and allergens in your home
now will leave you to enjoy your home for months to come.
Courtesy of ARAcontent
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