PEST CONTROL
Keeping pests out in the cold
Fantastic Services, one of the biggest pest control service providers in the UK, gives us some advice on how to deal with pests in the winter months.
Dean Martin once sang “Baby, it's cold outside” to a tipsy girl. Although his motives were sketchy, that doesn’t mean he's not right with this statement. It's definitely cold outside, and it’s not just drunk girls who are willing to stay indoors, despite Dean’s dodgy crooning. Surprising or not, there are far more unpleasant creatures seeking shelter than Wham, Mariah Carey, Dean Martin, and all the other Christmas song performers desperate to take over the airwaves.
In the same manner, getting pests is never a good thing, but in January, when every living being is seeking some warmth, food and shelter, more often than not you don’t have a choice about it. So what should you expect to see? How should you react, and how can you avoid being the unwilling host to those creatures?
What happens to pests in winter?
With the cold weather outside, food sources outside become far scarcer. Naturally, the bigger pests like rats manage to claim all of it, and more often than not smaller pests are forced to seek sustenance in more hostile territories. When these territories also offer warmth and the hosts are passive in their protection, that makes for a perfect place to get through winter.
If you don't want your home or business to become the ideal place for all sorts of pests, you need to make it a bit more hostile toward them or at least make their entry much harder. The first step toward this goal is to know what to expect to make its way inside in January.
44 | TOMORROW'S CLEANING Mice and rats/rodents
Mice are particularly nasty pests, as they are significantly more dangerous than everything else on this list. Yes, they may seem less harmful, but mice and rats were behind the Black Death’s spread across Europe centuries ago. Unfortunately, their hygienic habits haven’t improved much since then, and only modern medicine helps us avoid another big plague.
While most diseases spread by mice these days are curable and aren’t a death sentence, it’s not something you’d want to start your year battling with. Moreover, keep in mind that many pets can have a taste for the pesky creepers, so even if you manage to save yourself from a diseased rat by avoiding basements and other places they may have transformed into their winter residence, dogs or cats will certainly find and unapologetically try to eat them. While that will eliminate the problem, it will bring a new, far bigger one.
So, to avoid this unpleasant start of the new year, seal all holes, gaps and cracks in the exterior of your home or building. A mouse needs less than a centimetre to squeeze itself in and make itself right at home.
Cockroaches
There are four species of cockroaches in the UK, each more disgusting than the last. The German and Oriental cockroaches are probably the most common and are definitely not something you'd want to have as a pet. Oriental cockroaches are known for going to waste and
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