In the hustle of everyday living, it’s easy to begin neglecting your home to the point where you accumulate unnecessary items like packaging, knicknacks, magazines, and paper (leaflets, flyers, letters). In short, clutter. Apart from making your home unsightly, clutter is unsanitary and  greatly increases the chance that you are giving pests a safe haven to live and breed in. It’s also not good for a home inspection.

Your living room and other public areas may be orderly, due to you being conscious of what guests may see when they pop in. But your attic, garage, basement, and even you bedroom may be accumulating clutter, which will attract unwanted insects and other creatures.

Pests that will thrive when your clutter becomes a mountain of useless garbage include cockroaches, ticks, bedbugs, flies, moths, mice, rats, lizards, ants, and spiders. Not a nice menagerie of fauna, by any description.

Bedbugs are notoriously difficult to get rid of, and throwing away your cushions is often advised once you get them. With moths, your clothing becomes their source of food, so aside from hole ridden clothes, you get moth larvae to compound your frustration. Also seeing a train of ants marching off with morsels of food is unsightly at best.

Once you get an infestation of any of these critters, a pest controller may be the only solution you can consider.

Why do pests thrive in a cluttered environment? Clutter provides insects and rodents a safe environment. Generally cool and protected from heat and sun, piles of unused items are usually left untouched for months, even years, on end. So pests first find these safe abodes, and eventually breed.

So before you start attracting unwanted pests, take time to become more orderly with storing things. If you have old furniture that you don’t use anymore, give them away. Cardboard boxes? Break them down and fold them flat. Old clothes and shoes would be welcomed at any charity. Keep only what you need, and what you keep is best stored and sorted in an orderly manner. Although plastics get a bad rap for being non-biodegradable, they’re a good material for keeping food and other items that need to be stored. Wooden boxes and sheetmetal bins can degrade over time, and even a small hole can be enough to allow insects or rodents to make a nesting place out of that box or crate.

Be mindful about hoarding. Avid diyers will justify keeping every spare bolt, part, or broken furniture that may be of use in the future. Nothing wrong with that, but if you notice some hoarded stuff that hasn’t been touched in years, consider disposing of them at that point. And store them in an orderly fashion!

When scouting out a storage area, it helps to avoid nearby sources of food and water. These, in combination with the shelter stored items can provide, will cause a rapid population expansion of whatever pest is in the area. This applies to looking for nesting places too when you detect an infestation.

Now that you’ve seen how clutter can eventually be harmful, look around and consider applying the tips discussed above. Otherwise, you may find yourself looking for a San Diego home inspection down the road.