With extreme weather conditions, unwanted pests such as rodents can become a pertinent issue for rental homes. Once the weather gets cold, rodents long for warmth and a stable food supply, making homes a tempting shelter. At other times, during hot weather, rodents may invade residential areas watching out for water, skyrocketing the infestation risk. Accordingly, with their easy, awlays available food and water sources, our homes can be very appealing to rodents, for example mice, squirrels, rats, and other pests.
Eliminate items attractive to pests
Keeping your rental home free of pests can be a headache, but then again, a few basic actions can go a long way in maintaining a rodent-free space. It’s important to take up proactive means to eliminate potential food sources that might invite in these undesirable guests. Properly storing and disposing of food and waste and keeping your living space clean and tidy are focal ways to prevent infestations.
Completely make sure to speedily remove or securely store pet food, bird seed, grass seed, and fallen fruit from fruit trees in sturdy plastic containers with strongly sealed lids to avoid attracting pests, such as, for instance rodents, insects, and other animals.
Seal entry points around the home
Another important task to keep rodents out is to seal all potential entry points around the home’s foundation, eaves, and soffits. Any gaps or holes should be filled with steel mesh, caulk, or plaster and reviewed frequently to keep the seals intact.
Soaking cotton balls with peppermint oil and placing them where small bugs most probably could enter is a natural remedy that has been reported to work well (this action also leaves an excellent smell).
If you feel you’re under obligation to provide pest control to your residents (multiple states do not require owners of single-family homes to provide pest control, so look to your local statutes) and natural ways aren’t keeping the pests out, you may need to have recourse to traps or hire an exterminator to handle the problem. But of course, using traps, poisons, or other projects pose significant risks to residents and their pets unless used selectively and suitably well.
Maintain regular rodent-proofing
As a property owner, including rodent-proofing to your long list of weatherizing tasks may strike you as one heavy responsibility too many. Though, it’s weighty to always remember that regular maintenance is key to keeping your property rodent-free. It can certainly be not easy at all to keep remembering to check the foundations and eaves of each property and monitor the home for its management of potential pest-attracting food sources, but at any rate, it’s a chore that can’t be simply forgotten.
You could operate all these tasks yourself, or you could endow them to Real Property Management Platinum. Our comprehensive property management programs not only keep rodents out but also always make sure of the overall integrity of your property, keeping your residents peacefully contented and your investment protected. Contact us online or call us at 559-324-9400 today and learn about all of our property management services.
Originally Published on September 28, 2018
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