How to Have a Pest-Free Thanksgiving

How to Have a Pest-Free Thanksgiving

Happy early Thanksgiving from Pointe Pest Control! Thanksgiving is just a few days away, and there are many traditions that come with this holiday. Depending on who cooks your meal, it can either be the best dinner of the year or a meal that you subtly pick through in order to find the good parts. You and your family might be glued to the TV for the big football game, or you might be playing a surprisingly competitive game of touch football with your cousins. Whatever your Thanksgiving looks like this year, one thing is for sure: pests are not on the guest list. Although tiny critters would love to spend the day in a warm house, there are some steps you can take before, during, and after the holiday in order to keep the home free from annoying pests.

Store Ingredients Properly

With Thanksgiving dinner comes plenty of prep time and ingredient-gathering. Even if you are not cooking the whole meal alone, there are still multiple food items that may be taking up room in your pantry or on your kitchen table. But packaged food is not safe from invasive pests, and they can get into the food before we know it. Pantry pests, like Indian meal moths and weevils, are infamous for chewing through cardboard and plastic packaging, and can be difficult to find unless you sift through the food itself. 

One way to prevent your extensive Thanksgiving ingredients from being ruined is to check the food items before you even leave the store. Do a quick check of each box or bag for any holes or evidence of insects (skins, eggs, droppings, etc.). Once you bring everything home, keep everything off the ground and sealed until you need it. If you have leftover ingredients after cooking, keep them sealed in an airtight container. It can be a pop-top container, zip-top bag, or a Tupperware container with a snap-on lid. If you want to be extra-cautious, keeping dried goods in the fridge is a way to especially protect the ingredients from tiny pests.

Do Yard Work Beforehand

Despite the cooler weather and steady rain pattern, there is still yard work to be done in order to keep a tidy yard. It may not be as extensive as it is in the spring and summer, but it is still quite productive to keep the yard cleaned up even a little. Trimming the tree branches and shrubs back from the house is one of the most important steps to take this season. Crawling pests like ants, spiders, and rodents can use a branch touching the house as a highway straight to your home. Trimming the branches away from the roof is also helpful when the fall storms arrive, as it keeps the water-logged branches from potentially blocking or falling onto the house. 

Also, clean the leaf litter as best as you can. This is essentially dead plant material, which includes leaves, twigs, bark, pine needles, and other small pieces of plants and trees. Leaf litter is a prime hiding spot for all kinds of pests. They not only have shelter and moisture, they can also easily find food sources of all kinds. Spiders, ants, centipedes, earwigs, slugs, and other ground-dwellers love hiding in leaf litter. Since picking up a giant spider with the leaves is not on our list of fun Thanksgiving activities, we recommend wearing heavy gloves when handling leaf litter. Finally, after it rains, empty all yard items of rainwater. This includes tarps, children’s toys, buckets, and plant drainage trays. Pests can use these as water sources in general, and mosquitoes famously use still water to lay their eggs. They thrive in warm, humid weather, but they can still utilize the leftover rainwater as their new home for the time being.

Keep Doors Closed

Now for the ways to keep your home free of pests during the Thanksgiving festivities! Depending on the weather conditions during the big day, guests may want to divide their time between the house and the backyard. Try to keep the slider or back door closed as much as possible to prevent pests from just cruising on in. Spiders, rodents, and roaches would love the chance to enjoy warm shelter, and leaving the door open a crack is just enough for them to get inside. Also, flies have an excellent sense of smell and will fly through an opening in order to reach your Thanksgiving meal and enjoy it themselves.

Even if people are not congregating outside, you may want to crack open the slider or a window to let cool air into the packed house. Make sure that none of the screens have large holes or tears in them before leaving the door or window open for a long period of time. Small flying pests, like crickets and house flies, can get in through these openings and hide in your home while they reproduce and eat. You can easily patch these by attaching small squares of leftover screen material to the gaps. If there are too many or there’s one massive hole, it may be more productive to replace the whole screen.

Try to Keep Food in Certain Rooms

If your whole extended family is gathered for Thanksgiving, having separate tables and eating spaces is essential. Depending on the layout of the house, the kids table (which may just be full of the single adult kids, no judgment) can be in the dining room, living room, or den, while the big dining table is typically in the dining room or kitchen area. No matter where you set up the tables, it is important that all food stays in the dining areas and kitchen. This way, you know exactly where to clean up the crumbs and food residue after the meal. If people are taking food all over the house, it is much more difficult to find every crumb and spill that could be on the ground. Food is a major draw for pests of all kinds, and they will be more attracted to a home that has it readily available to where the pests can hide under nearby furniture and in walls until the party is over.

Appetizers are also an enjoyable part of this holiday, but these can be the culprits behind frequent crumbs throughout the house. Chips, crackers, and fried food can scatter crumbs without anyone noticing, especially while people are mingling before the big meal. Make sure to have napkins and snack plates available for guests so they have items to catch the remnants of their snacks. After the party is over, make sure to vacuum or sweep the gathering areas to clean up the mess before pests discover the gold mine of crumbs. 

Clean Crumbs and Spills

Speaking of crumbs, it is a great help to clean along the way rather than saving every single mess for the end of the night – or even the next day. You don’t have to remove every single crumb as soon as it hits the ground in order to prevent pests. But if there are enough food remnants left unnoticed, it can lead foraging pests, like ants and roaches, right to the source. A damp paper towel or cloth is perfect for dry crumbs, and an antibacterial wipe gets both the crumbs and food residue from the surfaces. The counters, tables, and cooktop are the main places where crumbs and drippings tend to gather, so cleaning these is important in preventing pests from using your home as a buffet.

If someone accidentally spills some of their drink or dinner, these take priority over the smaller dry crumbs. Cleaning these spills not only saves your carpet from dreaded stains, it also prevents the sticky liquid or food spill from setting in and drawing pests into your home. Mice, rats, roaches, ants, and stinging pests all have excellent senses of smell and are drawn to our food as resources they can bring back to their nests or hives. Use a carpet-cleaning spray on any kind of carpeting with a food stain to ensure it is completely free of the food before it seeps into the carpet fibers.

Keep Trash Contained

It makes sense that a holiday revolving around eating a ton of food would result in more trash than an average day. But if you thought pests loved our food when it is freshly on the table, imagine how much more appealing it is after it’s been sitting in the trash for a while. Both the indoor trash cans and the outdoor big garbage cans are main targets for pests of all species. Rats, mice, ants, house flies, fruit flies, and gnats all love rotten and smelly food found in garbage. Some of them will even live in the actual can, given the chance. 

Whether your trash can is sitting out by the counter or rests under the kitchen sink, taking the bag outside before it overflows is a great way to keep pests from making their home there. Also, make sure all the food and used napkins make it into the trash. If your little cousin scrapes their plate and somehow manages to get stuffing particles and mashed potato remnants on the floor or inside of the cabinet, pests can find these and work their way up to the trash can itself. Clean the areas around the trash cans, and keep the lid closed (if there is one) when not in use.

Store All Leftovers

Some people would argue that Thanksgiving leftovers are better than Thanksgiving dinner itself, since the flavors have more time to marinate overnight. Also, nothing hits the spot like a turkey sandwich with cranberry sauce and stuffing while recovering from this major social event. But these dreams are for naught if the leftovers are not stored properly and some annoying pests find them first. The fact that almost every common Thanksgiving food needs to be refrigerated anyway makes it easy to keep general pests out of the meal. For the other categories, like dinner rolls, you can either refrigerate them for extra security or just store them in an airtight container on the counter. 

Even though the leftovers are kept in the fridge, it is still very helpful to keep them in zip-top bags or snap-on containers. This helps to both keep the food fresh and to act as yet another barrier for any pests. Ants, roaches, and rodents all live off our food and their packaging, and a whole Thanksgiving meal would be the most fulfilling meal ever for these tiny critters. Good containers and the fridge or freezer helps tremendously, and we recommend putting your leftovers away after dinner is over. If you leave any food out overnight, it is much more likely to draw in hungry pests. 

Clean After Guests Leave

You don’t have to clean the whole house the second everyone leaves Thanksgiving night, but doing some of the basic chores over the weekend helps to prevent pests who might sneak in once the party is over. The entryway and living area can get a little dirty with guests walking in, tracking in dirt or anything else from the outdoors. If everyone leaves their shoes on all evening, that means more is tracked into the rest of the house. Some pests are small enough that we don’t see them hiding in the carpeting or furniture, like carpet beetles and bed bugs, so a good vacuuming of the home is effective at preventing these pests from making their home. 

Speaking of bed bugs, these frustrating pests are expert hitchhikers, which makes sense considering they don’t have wings. The presence of bed bugs does not mean the house or anyone in it are “dirty,” it just means that the pests found a constant source of blood and don’t want to leave. They typically travel on clothing, bags, luggage, and used furniture. If you have guests staying overnight for Thanksgiving, bed bugs may be accidentally introduced to the party. You will likely already do this anyway, but make sure to wash all bedding and towels that were used throughout the holiday weekend. This, along with vacuuming, is quite effective in preventing bed bugs from making your home their own.

Pointe Pest Control is a Part of Great Thanksgiving Prep

Whether you are hosting Thanksgiving dinner or visiting family for this enjoyable meal, pests are desperately searching for shelter from the cold and adverse weather. An abundance of delicious home-cooked food is just another temptation for critters, and they will be more drawn to those homes in general. Our team of experienced pest control technicians know all of the favorite hiding spots and seasonal habits of common pests, and we can keep your Thanksgiving pest-free through our environmentally friendly treatments. Contact us for a free quote and to learn how our services can ensure that the only reason your home is packed is because it’s filled with family members you only really see this time of year.