5 Things You Must Do to Keep Your Kitchen Pest Free
Table of Contents
When uninvited pests invade our homes, the kitchen is very often the first place we see them. We all know why… food. Bugs are constantly on the hunt for food and water sources, and certain habits can turn your kitchen into the perfect pest paradise. Following these simple five steps restricts pest-accessible food sources and can enormously decrease the chance of infestations.
1. Keep a Lid on Your Trash
A lot of people actually store their trash receptacles lidless under the sink, which seems to make sense. You’d think that an open trash can would be at least be protected under closed cabinet doors, right?
Unfortunately, pests are very sneaky. Critters always find creative ways to get to an open food source and cause a ruckus in your home. Keeping a sealed lid on your garbage can actually save you the big headache of an ant or roach invasion.
2. Only Eat Food at Your Table
Although the kitchen is where we store and prepare food, let’s face it—we often eat all throughout the house. Alas, snacking outside the kitchen actually just spreads food crumbs around your home. It’s hard enough to keep crumbs at bay in the kitchen, and spreading the mess just makes it that much harder to clean up.
Hungry pests can find even the tiniest of crumbs, and the more they find in your home, they more they’ll come back. Eating only at the kitchen table contains food messes and decreases the risk of pests invading your entire house.
3. Store Your Food in Airtight Containers
Surely food is safe in carefully closed cardboard boxes and chip-clipped bags, right? Right?
Ugh, wrong.
Some bugs can actually burrow straight through cardboard and paper to get right into your food. It’s actually pretty unsettling. Keep your food uncontaminated by storing it in airtight containers like plastic bags, mason jars, Tupperware, or other seal-able receptacles. Go take a look at your sugar, flour, and oats as well as your cereal, chips, cookies, and other snacks to make sure they’re not vulnerable to invading critters.
Trust us, it’s well worth your time.
4. Wipe Down Surfaces and Clean Up Crumbs
It’s pretty normal for mealtimes to leave food fallout all over your kitchen. Food is naturally messy… especially when little kids are having fun at the table. What seems like a minimal mess to us, however, can still be enough food to draw pests into your kitchen.
On top of quickly cleaning up any obvious spills or messes, we recommend you wipe down countertops, tabletops, stove tops, and floors regularly. You deserve your kitchen to be just that—yours. Not yours and the ants’. Clean surfaces go a really long way to keeping pests at bay.
5. Do Your Dishes Promptly
So, this is a tricky one for all of us. We know you have busy lives—we do, too. It can be really inconvenient to clean up all of our dishes immediately after we eat. The thing is, all those food particles on unwashed dishes are literally calling pests to them. You can dodge a huge pest bullet by washing all those dishes promptly.
Some people like to let their dishes soak in the sink. Sadly, the standing water adds a whole other pest-attracting element. The food and water combo is a roach jackpot… and trust us, you do not want to deal with a roach infestation. Those nasty nightmares are one of the hardest pests to get rid of. Try to let dishes soak for as little time as possible, and get them into the dishwasher or onto the drying rack pronto.
Although these tips seem simple and maybe even obvious, they really do work to keep your home unattractive to pests. For more information about pest prevention, take a look at our other resources or give us a call. We’re here to help in any way we can!
Sources:
https://www.pestworld.org/news-hub/pest-articles/keeping-kitchens-pest-free/
