Some of your normal household behaviors can be leading to pest infestations in your home. You might not even know it. Keeping dirty dishes in the sink or only running the dishwasher when it’s full can attract bugs and other pests. They like the bad smells that it could be giving off.
It’s ideal to take reactive measures at the first sign of pest infestation. However, food storage should factor into your initial plan for prevention. It can help you, in the long run, to stop these problems from happening. But, how should you be storing these food items? What should you be storing them in? Where should you be storing food?
Continue reading to learn some of our best food storage tricks to help manage current and future pest infestations.
Use Refrigeration to Your Advantage
Some things that you might usually leave out on the counter or inside accessible cupboards can actually be stored in the fridge to keep them fresh and pest-free.
If you usually keep your fruit in a bowl on the counter, you can store them in the fridge where the pests can’t get to them. Kitchen staples, like flour, can also be kept in the fridge to avoid infestation, especially if you already have a pest problem.
It’s understandable if there isn’t enough room in the fridge for these things. Keeping them on the counter is okay if you cover them or have these items in a resealable, air-tight container. Just stay cautious about spoiling.
Food Storage via Resealable, Air-Tight Containers
Resealable containers with air-tight lids don’t attract unwanted pests like partially opened boxes and bags of food do. Air-tight containers don’t allow anything to get through the seal. This means pests can’t get into the food and its smell doesn’t seep through the packaging material.
Items like pasta, flour, and even seasonings can be kept in air-tight containers to keep them fresher, longer. It also eliminates the possibility of pest infestations.
Throw Spoiled Food Away ASAP
Remove spoiled food regularly so that pests never have the chance to get into it. This means throwing expired dry goods and spoiled refrigerated goods away before it becomes a problem. When you throw it out, make sure it is on a day close to your routine garbage pickup day. This preventative method can help you reduce the hassle of reinviting pests into the home.
Get Rid of Already Infected Food
This one might seem like common sense to some, but it can actually lead to a larger pest infestation. A food infestation in one item can easily spread to another if it isn’t taken care of promptly. Remove the infested food into an outside garbage receptacle and make sure that it goes out during the next trash day.
Keep Produce Off the Floor Level
It might make sense to leave the sack of potatoes on the floor or an unopened bag of flour on the bottom shelf of a cupboard, but this gives the pest easier access to these easily targeted foods. Place them in a closed container on a higher shelf or a countertop. This can aid in pest prevention because it helps to deter pests from ever coming in contact with your fruits and vegetables.
Keep Your Cabinets Squeaky Clean
Even if you are following all of these preventative measures, food crumbs can still attract pests and bring them back once you tackle an infestation. Scrubbing down countertops and cupboards whenever a mess might occur can help to get rid of this impulse to return to seek out any possible dripped or dropped foods.
Only Serve and Eat Foods in Designated Areas
An idea for safely serving food and eating food to a designated area. Make sure to limit food storage and food consumption to certain areas of the home. Prepare and cook foods in the kitchen. Eat at the breakfast nook or the dining room table.
Try to keep food out of the other areas of the house. Snacks in bed or on the couch might be convenient, but one crumb can lead the pests into other areas of the home. This makes it more difficult to get an infestation under control.
Eliminate Other Rodent-Edible Items or Rodent-Accessible Areas
Even if you have all human food locked up tight, other things can attract rodents and insects. Pet food and birdseed can also benefit from being kept in a controlled environment (air-tight containers) that is only accessible if you know how to open it.
However, certain non-edible items can also attract mice and other small rodents that are trying to create nests within the walls of your home. Materials like cotton, cardboard, and old newspapers that you might have sitting around can initiate this.
Tucson Pest Control Can Help
Utilizing the right food storage tools can make a huge difference in any pest infestations that you might have happening in your home. There are also things that pest control companies can do on the outside of the home to make sure that these problems aren’t going to continue happening.
At Gecko Pest Management, we will come up with a plan of action that caters to your home’s specific needs. We work hard to make sure that your home is protected against pests bothering you now and preventing additional problems in the future.
Contact Gecko Pest Management, Inc. today when you are ready to hire pest control services to treat your home for a pest infestation. We’d be happy to help you answer any questions that you might have regarding a pest infestation in your home.
