3 Winter Pests and How to Protect Your Home

During the winter, certain pests go into hibernation to wait out the cold temperatures, but others start looking for a warm place to shelter and find food and water. Unfortunately, your home may provide the perfect place to hunker down for the winter. Learn more about winter pests and how you can keep them outside.

Mice

Mice can enter your home through small cracks and holes. Once they are inside, they will look for dark places to hide. The first sign of a problem may be droppings, which can contaminate food and spread disease. They are also known to cause damage to wires and drywall. 

The best way to protect against mice is to prevent them from entering in the first place. Thoroughly inspect the exterior of your home and make sure to fill and seal any cracks or holes.

Spiders

Spiders like to stay in the shadows and out of the way. That is why you will typically find them in hard-to-reach corners, cardboard boxes, and shoes and clothing that hasn’t been used in some time. In most cases, they are harmless, but the black widow and the brown recluse are venomous.

Sealing your home will help keep spiders away, but you will also want to trim back trees and shrubs from the house and make sure that items you don’t use often are securely stored in plastic containers.

Cockroaches

Cockroaches are known to be able to survive just about anything, but that doesn’t mean they want to spend the winter outdoors. Like many other pests, they will enter your home looking for food, shelter, and water. Unfortunately, they can trigger allergies, spread bacteria, and contaminated food. 

To help prevent cockroaches, be sure to keep floors and counters free of food and crumbs, take out the garbage regularly, and fix any leaky pipes. 

For more help protecting your home from common winter pests, call the professionals at Capital Pest Services. We can help you create a customized pest control plan.  

Capital Pest is proud to be a family-owned and operated pest control company serving Raleigh, NC and its surrounding area (Chapel Hill, Wake Forest, Clayton, Pinehurst, Pittsboro, Fuquay-Varina, etc). Contact us for our pest control services today!