Can you imagine pests in your attic enjoying your air conditioning and getting free rent in your attic? All the costs paid for by you! ..And the thing is, it will only get worse as your home now has a parasite to your home’s efficiency but also to your family’s health. Avoiding an infestation requires preventive measures, such as sealing entry points and keeping the area clean. Regular inspections are also key to identifying and eliminating any pests that have managed to get inside.
Keep Pests Out with Home Air Sealing
As we learned in the last blog, air sealing your attic will reduce costs of HVAC system leaks but there are more benefits to air sealing your attic. If there is an air leak, most likely pests can get in and they may even be enticed to come in. For example, if cold air is leaking from your home, a larger pest may find the unique air movement through an air leak and claw at it till they make it bigger and gain access to your attic.
How Home Air Sealing Helps You Control Pests
If you know of any issues such as cracks or other air leaks, you may want to consider sealing them with caulking or weather stripping to keep pests out. You can learn more about air sealing in our last blog, but for this one we are going to focus on pest control and how to keep pests out of your attic.
Keeping ants out is one of the hardest battles for some homeowners. Ants can fit through the smallest cracks and crevices, making it harder for the untrained professional to mitigate. Our team is accustomed to fixing air leaks and if no air can get in, it is likely no pests can get in either. Air sealing your attic, crawl space and living portion of your home is a good strategy to pest control for your home.
Minimum Sealing Your Home to Keep Out Pests
Beginning with a professional assessment of your attic may be the best place to start when considering air sealing your attic and crawlspace; however, weather stripping windows, doors and ventilation panels can be done by most homeowners without professional assistance. Finding any moving doors or windows and properly assessing the leak fix with weather proofing materials can easily be done yourself. When it comes to attic sealing and crawl space sealing, leave this assessment to professionals to keep pests out. Often professionals offer a free inspection to help you to find problematic areas and get a report on all the needs and repairs. If you already know you have pests in your home, jump on the free attic inspection opportunity!
Why Keep Pests Out
- Damage caused by pests can be costly to repair
- Pests can contaminate insulation and other materials
- Pests can cause health hazards
HVAC Duct tear leaking cold air from air conditioning into the attic making the guest pests even more comfortable and wasting your utility bill.
Dealing with pests can be very dangerous, especially in spaces like the attic where droppings, unexpected debris and dead pests can be found. As a provider of San Diego attic cleaning services, we often find various pest infestations, the more common are the more noticeable and larger animals such as the typical attic rodents. Raccoons and squirrels are often heard when they first gain access to the attic. To secure the attic from these larger pests, you may want to consider the minimum patching of pest barriers on the air ducts and any unsealed airways. The attic inspection services will often provide this service or tell you where these access points are located in your attic and crawl space. Using metal mesh barriers is one of the best ways to keep the bigger rodents out. Make sure to place metal mesh barriers across any opening bigger than a thumb or finger, and when you do position them make sure to secure the edges properly with screws or nails.
Top Summer Pests in San Diego
- Ants
- Voles, Moles and Gophers (usually yard)
- Attic Rodents: mice, rats, squirrels, raccoons and bats
- Spiders
- Cockroaches
- Bees, Hornets and Wasps
- Mosquitoes
Who to Call If You Already Have a Pest?
Some of the pests listed above could be a surprise for you to discover, but if you find a pest already in your attic, you should call professionals. For example, local bats that are insectivorous may be found burrowed into a wasp nest! If you just imagined a 22 inch wing spanned bat coming at you, this is a possible reality in San Diego county is home to the western mastiff bat, North America’s largest bat species. Also, consider the waste these various pests leave behind. Make sure the pest removal professionals will also clean your attic, sanitize it properly and repair damages. If you need attic cleaning, sanitization or repairs and added rodent barriers, call Attic Health as we will cover all the tracks of other professionals and any trace of pests!
Bee Hive Removal
Bees are not our enemy, but when in your attic or around your home, they are definitely a pest to your living. For live bee hive removal, you will need to find professionals. Victory Bee Removal is open 7 days a week and they can remove all types of bees including yellow jackets, hornets and wasps. This group of professionals has been serving socal for over 20 years, they guarantee their work, and also will help with bee proofing or preventing their return.
Termite Removal And Damage Repairs
Termites are the natural enemy to your tasty home made of their food. Termites need to go asap if you find them, you may want to consider calling a professional for proper removal. I spoke to Philippe Heller from Bite Away Pest, we spoke about quality work and doing it right for all clients. I got to see his repair work on some termite damage and they don’t just patch it up like some pest removal services. The Bite Away Pest team replaced the wood that had been destroyed by the termites properly with wood. In addition, they touched up the surfaces and made it look like new. Philippe also is the founding member of The Real Estate Inspection Company a company he started on integral service to homeowners seeking a fair and honest assessment of their properties. While termites seem to be the natural predator to your home’s lumber, Philippe’s team is more than knowledgeable, the Bite Away Pest team will even find subterranean termite nests or fleeing survivors. The root of your attic termite problem may be in the ground or within the crawlspace of your home. Also, Bite Away Pest is a full service pest control company as well and they offer a 10% military and first responder discount on all of their services!
Other Attic Pests Can Be Removed by Attic Cleaning Services
When the heat sets in, pests are often on the move to find new homes. Your attic may be a target if accessible, they may move right in. After moving in, all they need is a good tear or air leak in your HVAC duct ventilation system and the attic is perfect temperature for rats, mice, rats, squirrels, and raccoons. Not only does this drain money from your pockets in your next utility bill, it takes from the comfort of your home and problems are just beginning to start. After an infestation of rodent related pests you may find a horrible mess including rodent remains, rodent feces, destroyed storage boxes and other stored materials left in the attic. Rodents and their waste in your attic creates a whole new threat to your family’s health as the Hantavirus is caused by inhaling infected rodent saliva, urine and feces. Attic Cleaning by professionals may be more than a good idea for your family and home’s overall health.
Attic Sanitization Means CLEAN!
We offer attic and crawlspace sanitization services for residential and commercial spaces. This includes removal of waste, dead pests, living pest threats, and the sanitation fog system makes all surfaces clean again. Then we do a thorough cleaning job to organize, remove clutter, and remove any waste or trash. We will do a comprehensive inspection of the needs not addressed such as insulation, air leaks, HVAC duct ventilation issues, mold or other threats and any suggestions we can add to make your attic more healthy.
Attic Health Wrap-Up
If you find pest issues in your attic, start with calling a professional to remove it! It is important to immediately address any signs of infestation as this impacts your home’s health and value rapidly as pests become more of a problem. If you have removed the pest, but not the mess, getting Attic Cleaning Services is still needed due to health threats from pest waste and other possible dead pests left after the live pest removal. Implement preventive measures to reduce the risk of pest infestation in the future, we suggest air sealing or at minimum sealing large access points where bigger pests can get in. Properly air sealing of your home can be done yourself, but if you would like to have your attic and crawlspace air sealed, a free attic inspection might be the best place to start. Creating an actionable response to keep pests out at the first sign of their presence is the only real way to completely keep pests out forever, so maintaining a regular self inspection of your property for pests is recommended or consider doing a seasonal or annual inspection with professionals. Getting a free attic inspection can lead to a lot of great outcomes, such as identifying pests, leaks and inefficiencies of your HVAC system. Call us today for a FREE Attic Inspection! (858) 289-6966