Tips to Prepare Your Home for a Termite Treatment
After exhausting all other options, including minor treatments, you may need a whole-home treatment to treat the termite infestation in your home has gotten too out of hand. Large scale fumigation will require you to leave your home for a few days while pesticides are applied to eradicate the termite infestation.
Here are a few tips to help you prepare your home and family for whole-house termite fumigation. To learn more about termite control options, read on.
Remove Certain Items from Your Home
The chemicals used to fumigate your home can be damaging to several items in your home. Removing these items is the best way to protect them. Here are a few things you should relocate from your home before fumigation begins:
- House plants. Take all your houseplants and either put them in a friend or neighbor's home or store them several feet away from your home, such as inside your garage.
- Food. Your pest control agent will provide a comprehensive list of foods that should be removed from your home, including items that in paper boxes or have already been opened.
- Medications. Pack all your medications, including over the counter medications that are still sealed.
- Pets. Relocate all your pets, including the fish in your fish tank or your child's gerbil or pet hamster.
Some food items can be kept inside the home if the items are packaged in glass or hard plastic with an airtight seal. To protect these items further, your pest control agent might recommend double bagging the items in plastic bags.
Prepare the Furniture and Rooms
Properly preparing the furniture, including mattresses, and rooms throughout your home will help ensure the fumigants can penetrate more areas throughout your home. For example, remove any plastic covers on your couches. Your pest control agent may recommend removing the mattresses from your home to protect them.
Walkthrough your home and make sure that all the doors are unlocked. This will ensure that the pest control agents are able to access every room and that the fumigants are able to spread throughout your entire home. Open all the cabinet doors and closet doors throughout your home as well.
Finally, make sure that the utilities are shut off in your home, particularly the natural gas, and give your pest control agent a copy of your house key to provide them with access throughout the fumigation process.
From removing food and pets to preparing every room throughout your home, there are several steps you need to take before your house is treated for termites.