During the Holidays, You Need a Pantry That’s Pest Proof

It is common around the holidays for families to stock up on lots of extra food. There will likely be people visiting and staying for days at a time, so the best thing to do is buy as much as you can to avoid going back and forth to the supermarket in and out of the cold weather. Before you know it, your entire pantry is full, and you are ready for all of your guests. But there could possibly be a few unwanted guests who were patiently waiting for you to fill up the cupboards – destructive pests.

 Most people realize that there is a chance that rats and mice will invade a pantry easily if it is not kept tidy. They are great climbers and will get into anything they can claw through, such as a bag of pancake mix. But insects such as beetles are also very attracted to the food we normally store around the holidays, such as cereal and boxed pasta. There are also what are called Indian meal moths that can show up spontaneously. They can only live for about a month, but in a weeks’ time a female can lay a couple hundred eggs where you keep your edible goods.

The best thing to do to keep rodents and pests away is to basically just keep everything clean. Sure, you may disinfect your countertops and keep dishes out of the sink, and that is all good. But the pantry is a different place that is darker most of the time, so you have to be a little proactive to keep pests out of there. Before you go to the store and stock up on holiday food, remove everything from your pantry and cupboards, and give those normally ignored areas a good cleaning from the inside out. While you are doing so, keep an eye out for any holes, cracks, or other openings that you may not have noticed before.

​If after you do this you still notice traces of pests, call an experienced exterminator to help you eliminate them from your home.

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