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Spotting pests in the basement
Pests can be found any place throughout the average home, and basements are no exception. Because basements are underground, they offer a dark, usually damp, inviting place for pests to take cover. Basements are also often less frequented by people than other parts of their home, and they are commonly used for storage. This undisturbed, quiet area is perfect for pests to infest. Several kinds of pests can be found lurking in the typical basement. These include spiders, cockroaches, silverfish, rodents, and even snakes.
How to spot pests in the basement:
Turn off the lights.
The fastest way to see if pests have a route into your basement is to go into your home during daylight hours, turn off the lights, and look around. Do you see crevices of daylight here and there? Those will be the areas of your basement where you’ll want to check most often for pest activity.
Get on their level.
When examining a basement for pests or signs of pest activity, try to assume the position of the pest. This means that you need to get down low to examine the floors, baseboards, and corners of your basement, as well as checking any high-level framework such as the posts and beams of your home’s foundation that might be showing in an unfinished basement.
Look from the outside.
Go outside your home and walk around its perimeter. Look closely at the ground level and examine any areas that lead to the basement, such as any air intake vents, garden level windows, or exhaust vents. You might notice gaps that can be sealed up to help prevent pests from gaining access to your basement. You also might notice any pests, such as ants, that may already be entering your home from the outside that you may see forming a line of activity.
Set traps.
You can use sticky traps around your basement to get a sense of what has been traipsing around in there. These will help you determine whether you have an active infestation or limited pest activity–just pay attention to when you set down the sticky traps and how long they’ve been available when you check on them, so that you can gauge the level of pest activity accordingly.
Check for droppings, odors, and nests.
As with any area of the home, basement-dwelling pests will announce their presence with droppings, and animals like rodents may even nest in your basement. Cockroaches and rodents both emit distinctive odors that you’ll notice in a closed-up area like a basement that frequently doesn’t get fresh air. Silverfish are likely to nest in your basement, so if you see lots of those pests, you can use cedar oil to help drive them out and keep them away.
If you have perpetual pest problems in your basement, you don’t have to deal with them alone. West Termite, Pest & Lawn is ready to help you deal with any pests you might spot in the basement. Call today!
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