Pest-Free Living: Expert Tips for New Homeowners

This is The Homeowner Show. Whether you're DIY or looking to hire, we're here to bring you the best information and options for you and your home. My name's Craig Williams and I am hosting the show live from the studio. No Kev tonight. Uh, we're gonna keep this kind of short and sweet, uh, but thank you so much To everyone for joining in on the live stream, we're excited to have you guys tonight. What we're going to be doing is we're going to be going over a talk I recently gave for some new some new upcoming homeowners through Habitat for Humanity. And what they asked me to do is to come in and give a a

class on how the new homeowners can better protect their homes against. pests, bugs, and critters, and all those kinds of things. And I thought it might be really helpful to share those tips and tricks with our audience. So we're gonna go through that presentation tonight and give you some insider tips and tricks on how you can be a better homeowner to keep pests, and bugs, and critters, and all sorts of things out of your house, and how to do it naturally without having to use pesticides. Uh, if, if you guys have been listening to the show for any amount of time, you may have figured out by now that I actually own a pest control company. And

we do use chemicals, and we encourage the use of them, but only in a very responsible way and to be done by a licensed and insured professional. And we encourage you to do that in pretty much all of the trades when it comes to your home. When it comes to anything serious in your home, you should always look to a professional in your state. If that person, you know, there's some states where there's certain jobs that don't need to be licensed, through the state, but any job that is licensed through the state and it's a service that's performed on your home, we encourage you to look to those services that are licensed in order to perform those duties on your home. And one of those is actually a sponsor of the show tonight.

We want to thank you to the sponsor for Lone Star Appliance Repair. Guys, if you have any appliances in your home, maybe they're a little old, but they're loved and you want to, you want to keep them running well, and maybe they've got a little problem with— maybe the ice maker is not working as well as it used to, or maybe the the washing machine has a little bit of a funk to it. Guys, Lone Star Appliance Repair here in the Houston area, specifically Montgomery County, is happy to get you on their schedule and get your appliance up and running as if it were brand new. And as we all know, we talk about it every time we have a show, it's way more affordable to repair an older appliance than it is to go buy a

new one. I mean, new appliances, I mean, they, they can, Gosh, new refrigerators can go anywhere from $400 to $20,000. And if you've got the right refrigerator in your home and you don't feel like going out and spending thousands of dollars to replace it, why not just get it repaired and get it up and running? You love that one. You know the way it works. Just call these guys, 936-647-2364. Again, that's 936-647-2364. We also want to give a shout out to True Texas Solar. They are our newest sponsor here on the show. Guys, if you have a home and you want to get it off the grid— I mean, and we're saying off the grid because most homes, if they're attached to the grid, they really can't get off the grid. But if you wanna have energy

independence, these are the experts that you need to be talking to, whether it be through solar, whether it be through generators, whole home batteries, all of the ways. And you can even create a system that combines all of those so that you have true energy independence for your home where you never need to pull another drop of energy off the grid. These are the guys to help you get it done, whether it's mounting solar panels on your roof, creating a solar panel farm out in a field, making sure that you have the right generator, making sure that you have the right amount of energy that you're producing in order to run all the things in your home so that you can stay comfortable through a natural disaster.

These are the guys to get in touch with. They can get your systems up and running and, and do it in a way that doesn't feel— make you feel smarmy about the whole process because there's so many companies out there now. willing to take advantage of you, lure you into government programs that may or may not exist. But you can give True Texas Solar a call at 936-286-8325. Again, 936-286-8325, and they'll be happy to get your home evaluated and get you a quote and get your home on the path to energy independence. Uh, thank you to all of our sponsors. You are the reason we are able to continue to improve the show and bring everyone in our audience better up-to-date information and continue

to update the studio so that we can continue to do the show in a high-quality manner. Speaking of which, we did an episode last week where we talked about some political issues between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. We talked a little bit about RFK, but I came across a clip and I wanted you guys to be able to see it because, as we've mentioned before, like, the number one issue amongst millennial voters, which is like a key demographic for any political office right now, and because that's the demographic that tends to vote the least. I mean, I know there's the generation behind that, but millennials historically have not voted in great numbers. But the number one issue

amongst the millennials, because they've gotten older over the last 4 years, is home ownership. There is just an attitude amongst millennials, and it's not an unfounded attitude, that home ownership is now out of reach financially for most of the people living in the millennial generation, whether it be because they can't get a good job, whether or not they have a job but that job doesn't pay them enough to be able to afford a house in the city or the area that they live in. It's the number one issue amongst millennials, and both candidates really aren't talking a whole lot about it. We talked about the platforms from both of them, but I found this clip of RFK on the Theo Von Show that I thought was really good because he actually gets

into the issue of homeownership. And And I wanted to share it with you guys. So here's the clip from the Theo Von Show. Let me know what you think.

The average home in our country 2 years ago was $215,000.

Sounds about right.

Today it's $400,000.

Also sounds right.

So kids today, like your kids and my kids, are never going to buy a home.

That's a crazy thought.

Companies, uh, BlackRock, State Street, Vanguard— these are the biggest companies. Those 3 companies own 88% of the S&P 500. So they basically just own everything. And now what they've decided is they want to own every single-family home in our country. Klaus Schwab says famously, he says, under the Great Reset, you will have no— you will own nothing, but you will be happy. They pay nothing for money. Their credit is so impeccable. Oh, I see.

They have like a 900.

Yeah. So they, they got the better than the best credit rating.

But isn't that like privatized communism or something? That's what it feels like.

Well, yeah, it's like socialism for the rich and this barbaric, merciless, ruthless, savage capitalism for the poor. The average home in our country—

I don't know that it's— I mean, I don't know that Theo characterized it privatized communism or something like that. But this is exactly what we've been talking about here on the show is that there is this feeling amongst the younger generation that homeownership is out of their reach. And he's not wrong when you start talking about the average home price in America going from $215,000 to $400,000. We've all been experiencing inflation, and now we sort of are, are, are seeing the pudding that we're all having to eat. And like that, that homeownership is just really out of reach financially for most new potential homebuyers. And, and so they are having to go over to renting. But the problem is, is that rents are just as high, if not higher, than it would be to

purchase a home, but they don't have the credit and they don't have the capital, meaning the cash on hand in order to make a deposit, in order to make a down payment, that they can actually purchase these homes. And so we, we have this really, really bad problem that inflation has created where, like, if you don't already own a home, it's unattainable unless you are the mega rich and those 3 companies that he talked about where these guys are scooping up Massive amounts of private property in one fell swoop, and and what they're doing, at least what it seems like their plan is, is to then scoop up all these properties so that they can put them people in them as renters and create mailbox money from now until kingdom come, which is

not an unintelligent plan. It's actually a very smart plan. The problem is, is that they're scooping up all the available res. real estate, making the supply of houses diminish very, very quickly, which means the prices of the homes that are available has to go up because there's no supply. And without supply, demand goes up. And when demand goes up, price goes up because it becomes more scarce. And this is the problem that we're in. And it really seems like RFK is the only one that's really talking about it. I'm not telling you that I think he's the right candidate. and the best guy for the job for president. What I am telling you is that he's one of the only candidates that's coming out and addressing the issue head on. So, that being

said, let's get into the actual content of the show. Let's, let's keep this short and sweet. Uh, but like, let's talk about how to keep your home pest-free. And I, I'll tell you guys right from the out— from the outset, the running theme for this is clean your house. Keep your house clean. Okay? And And for some, for many, many people, that means many different things. Because for some people, it means pick up dirty clothes off the floor. And that's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is actually addressing the deep cleaning needs of your home. And if you are unable to address, if you don't have the time, if you don't have the energy, if you don't have the know-how, hire

a cleaning company that does a thorough job. And make sure that it's on a regular schedule because this is one of the key ingredients to having a home that is pest-free. That being said, when it comes to having a natural remedy for keeping your home pest-free, and mind you, this is also, most of this is preventative. If you will do most of the things that I talk about today, you are more, I would say you're 90% more likely to have a home that has less bugs in it than the average American, okay? One of your, and this also applies to homes outside of America, but I just know what it's like here in the United States.

meet and talk with pest professionals across the country every single day. Um, so I know what I'm talking about here. One of the best tools that you can have in your arsenal is bleach. Um, bleach is a wonderful thing if used properly. It can also be a very dangerous thing, so make sure and use it responsibly. But bleach is a household item that almost everybody has in their home to clean all sorts of things. I recommend to homeowners all the time to dilute bleach in warm water in order to clean the countertops in their kitchen. Now, why do I say that? Most countertops in kitchens these days are granite or some form of a granite substitute that looks just like granite, and what that means is that it's speckled,

it's usually darker in color, and that means that things like fats and sugars can adhere to the countertop without being seen. What's wonderful about a bleach solution, and what I mean by that is a Usually, a tip, a good mix for bleach is about a half a cup of bleach into 1 gallon of warm water. What that can do is actually dissolve the fats and sugars on your countertop that adhere clear to that countertop. And I will tell you guys, there's many times when I walk into a kitchen and a homeowner will tell me that the countertop is perfectly clean, and it's that speckled granite look, and you— but what happens is if you get down on eye level with that

countertop and you look across the plane of the countertop, You begin to see the residue of the fats and the sugars. You begin to see the crumbs that can actually show up on the countertop. And when you show a homeowner that, they begin to realize like, oh my gosh, I haven't cleaned this countertop. I actually haven't scrubbed it in a while. And when you see those crumbs and you see those fats and you see those sugars on there, you realize exactly what kind of filth that you've been living in. And it's not to say that they're messy people. It's just you can't— you typically can't clean what you can't see. And so that's why it's a good idea every once in a while to hit the

countertop with a little bit of bleach diluted into water and make sure that water is warm. That's really gonna help dissolving and removing those fats and sugars from your kitchen. And that really comes just from using your kitchen on a daily basis. And you should be using your kitchen on a daily basis.

Why?

Because food's really expensive. You shouldn't be eating out and it's way cheaper to eat at home. And typically the things that you can make at home are gonna taste way better. So why not use your kitchen and then just clean it every once in a while? One of the other big things that a lot of people don't pay attention to is the items that they cook with. 2 of the big ones are— and I realize there's so many people out there trying to be low carb, low sugar, blah, blah, blah, I get it. But most people have flour and sugar in the kitchen. What a lot of people don't realize, what a lot of people try and do is they try and keep them in airtight containers in

the cupboard, which is fine. There's nothing wrong with that. Insects can still find those things, even though those containers are airtight. When you pull them out and you use them, if you're not cleaning your counters on a regular basis, they can still find that flour and sugar. Flour can lead to stored pest problems. Sugar can lead to ants and roaches and all kinds of other problems. What a lot of people don't realize is that you can actually store flour and sugar in your freezer, and it's ready to use right out of the freezer, and nothing can live in your freezer and survive that may have infested in your sugar and flour. Hopefully there's no bugs in your flour and sugar,

but it can happen. Keeping them in the freezer is a great way to do it. You don't have to buy those expensive, you know, whatever containers that you might get from Walmart or The Container Store in order to store those things in the cupboard. You can actually just stick the bags right in the freezer and store them right there, and they're ready to use. You can bake with them, you can put it in your coffee with the sugar. It's just ready to use right out of the freezer. It doesn't have any problems being stored in there. So It's a great solution. In your bathrooms, one of the biggest culprits I find all the time is the toothbrush. People tend to keep their toothbrushes a lot longer than they should, and it begins to build a residue on the

bottom of the toothbrush. That toothpaste that builds the residue on the bottom of the toothbrush tends to contain a lot of sugar. They put sugar in toothpaste in order to make it taste good so that you'll use it more often so that you don't get cavities and your teeth fall out. So good on them. Bad on you when you don't get rid of that toothbrush because that sugar attracts ants. And a lot of people don't realize that ants will actually trail to a toothbrush and eat the sugar right out of the toothpaste. There's other things in that toothpaste that they like too, but really they come for the sugar. If you are dead set on keeping a toothbrush, or maybe you're just a heavy paster, I don't know, you can actually clean your toothbrush. You

can use warm water and a toothpick and get most of that residue out of there and get your toothbrush looking bright and shiny and new. rather quickly and make that toothbrush last a little bit longer. But, I mean, you should be replacing your toothbrush on a regular basis. How often? I don't know. Ask your dentist. So here's one that we talk about on the show quite a bit, microwaves. I hate microwaves. I don't have a microwave. I refuse to have a microwave in my house. One of the big reasons is because I do work in the pest control industry and microwaves are where I usually look first when it comes to cockroach infestations. They're nasty

and people don't tend to clean them. They get greasy and awful, and I, I mean honestly, my other big reason for not having one, I've never had anything out of a microwave that just tasted amazing. Yeah, I have other creative ways to heat up my coffee. I don't need a microwave to do that, but most microwaves nowadays, especially in newer homes, they're installing them as over-the-oven, over-the-stove ventilation systems. On the bottom of those microwaves tends to be a— or there should be a filter, and that filter almost never gets changed, never gets cleaned. Most of them, from what I found, can be cleaned without having to be replaced. But when you use that microwave as a draft or a vent, ventilation for your stove, and you're cooking things that have grease and

oils and all that kind of stuff, that kind of stuff gets stuck in that filter, which it should. That's its job is to vent those things out away from the kitchen so that you're not breathing in noxious gases and fumes, and it's not heating your house up as you cook. Most people don't even know that that filter is there. I have found most of the time when there's a cockroach infestation in a kitchen, that filter is nasty and greasy and brown and has never been touched. And most of the time, the homeowner didn't even know it was there. Why? Because no one ever told them. No one educates them about this kinda stuff. So I'm letting all of you know. There's a filter on the

bottom of your microwave when it's over the stove. It needs to be cleaned on a pretty regular basis. I'd recommend at least once a month, especially if you're cooking in your kitchen, you know, for, you know, 2 to 4 times a week. And hopefully you're cooking in your kitchen more often than that. Um, so anyway, clean the microwave, clean the, uh, the filter on those things, and you'll have a much better experience with that microwave. Or you could be smart like me and just not have one. Um, other appliances to look out for in the kitchen, the big ones, I mean, refrigerator, those can get infested Mm-hmm. With roaches, it's usually the backside of the refrigerator that can get infested with roaches, and most of the time when I find that it's been infested, it's because it's never been

cleaned back there, and there's just lots of dust and grease and grime, and it's just never been touched. So, pull your appliances away from the wall that, that are safely removed from the, from the wall. Like, you can't remove your stove typically, especially if it's a gas stove. Um, but you can remove your refrigerator. You can pull it away from the wall. You can clean back there. You can mop back there and you can keep it nice and tidy. You can check the walls. grease and grime and food bits. And a lot of times when you have a problem with an oven, you'll actually see little tiny roaches running through the electronics on the display of the oven. That's usually a good indicator that yes, you have a major problem. The newest

one I'm noticing is the air fryers. For whatever reason, I don't, I don't know what it is, but people just don't clean these things. And so like anytime I find one, I open it up and it tends to be layered with grease and oil And people think because it says air fryer that they're not actually splattering oil all over the inside, but if you open up and look at it, they tend to be nasty if you've even used them for like 2 months. They've become very popular. Look, they need to be cleaned like anything else. Just make sure that you're not creating a haven for little tiny invaders and keep your kitchen clean. Toaster. There's a lot of people

don't realize that there's actually a crumb tray at the bottom of the toaster. Most of them that I open when I come in to investigate a kitchen, have never been cleaned, have never been checked, have, you know, the, the closest they come to is they'll just take the toaster and just turn it upside down and hope they get all the crumbs out of there. Um, it just doesn't work. The other one is coffee makers, not so much traditional coffee makers as much as like these instant coffee makers like a Keurig. Uh, it's not Keurig specific, but that tends to be the most popular brand. Um, and the reason that the Keurigs I think are a little more popular with the bugs is most people tend to keep water in them and then keep them on all the

time. And so those things are constantly heating and cooling water. Which creates a lot of humidity, a lot of moisture inside the machine, and so it's constantly getting hot and then cold and hot and then cold, and that creates a lot of moisture on the inside of the machine. And so moisture and warmth and shelter, and also a lot of these flavored coffees that you're putting in your Keurigs tend to have sugar in them. I don't know if you realize that, but it does tend to have a lot of sugar in there as well as some other things that ants and roaches actually like. So you're actually providing them with food. providing them with shelter and water, and so it can be a haven for cockroaches.

One of the other big questions that I get is essential oils. Do they work? The simple answer to that question is no, because most people tend to try and use them as like a residual pesticide that will continue to get rid of bugs in your home. That simply isn't the case. There is no oil, except for what I've read about cedar oil, and cedar oil can be very toxic in the right concentration. So I don't recommend using that either. But the, the other answer to the question of do essential oils work is yes, but that's because they're an oil. All oils kill bugs. The reason that you see so many TikTokers and crunchy moms out there on the internet telling everybody

this essential oil worked for me, this essential oil worked for me, this essential oil you can count on this every single time, is because what has happened is, is they've taken that oil and they've sprayed a bug with it, and then that bug has turned over and died, and they get a dopamine hit that says, oh my gosh, this is the most magical thing I've ever seen in my life. Citrus oil is a cure for everything. And it's just simply not true. Guys, you can spray avocado oil on a bug and it will kill it. You can spray olive oil on a bug and kill it. Back in the day, we used to use Dawn soap on certain

bugs because it is a highly oiled soap. Oils kill bugs. And the reason it works so well is because you and I breathe out of our nose. All insects breathe through their body. So if you cover an insect's body in oil, they are unable to breathe and they immediately go and suffocate and roll over and die. And it happens very, very quickly. So what has happened is people have used these essential oils They sprayed it on a bug and all of a sudden they think that they found the cure to cancer. And it's just not the case. Now, whether or not essential oils work on other things, I don't know. Not a doctor, none of my business. But as far as it goes with bugs, yes, it

will kill a bug that you spray on it. You can use any kind of oil. You can use peppermint oil for all I care. It's an oil. It's gonna kill a bug. It's not going to give you any long-term control over insects. So if you have a German roach infestation in your kitchen, and you decide to go after it with citrus oil, if you get it on any of those roaches that are out in the open, by golly, it's gonna kill 'em, but you're not gonna solve the problem, and you're gonna continue to spray citrus oil on your countertop for months on end, and you're still not gonna get the result that you want, because what you need is a pest professional to come in and actually give you helpful

solutions and a plan to get your kitchen back. All right, so moving outside, uh, at least on a traditional home— now it's, it's different when you come to like mobile homes and pier and beam homes and some other kinds of foundation homes. When it comes to like a traditional foundation home, rule of thumb, which is what most, most new homes are— most new homes are planning on building with a traditional slab foundation, uh, and, and this is— let me also put this caveat— this is not true All the time, but is still helpful with houses with basements. Most of the houses here, at least in this part of Texas and most of Texas, don't have basements. So a good rule of

thumb, keep the grass mowed and away from the house. Tall grass provides shade and cover and a good entrance into your home. So the more you can keep grass and foliage away from the home, the better off you're going to be. On a traditional slab, you're going to want to have at least 6 inches of exposed slab. And the reason I say that is because over time, as people do landscaping in the yard, you, you tend to lose exposure on the, on the slab, and you don't want that because an unexposed slab can make your house vulnerable to things like termites and carpenter ants and fire ants and all kinds of other critters and bugs. So just be mindful of high soil and wood contact up against the soil

because we don't want to create any conducive conditions where your home can be infested with a wood-destroying insect. On the landscaping, one of the best things you can do with a traditional, uh, foundation is create a rock barrier. I usually tell people, if you're gonna put a rock barrier, put at least a foot, foot and a half wide. Um, and part of that is most people like to have really pretty flower beds up next to the house. And over time, they don't like take care of them, taking care of them themselves. So they hire a landscaping company. And what landscaping companies do is they never remove old mulch. All they do is pile on new mulch on top of the old mulch year after year. And if your flower beds are directly up against the house, what will eventually happen is you

lose sight of the foundation because it gets covered up with new mulch. Um, anyway, uh, so that, that can be a really helpful tip for you right there. Also, just keeping plants away from the house and trim branches away from the roof. Uh, and things like that. Just doing common sense landscaping throughout the home can be very, very helpful. Um, let's see here. Spider webs around the house, you can actually physically remove those with a brush or a cobweb wand. Most of those you can buy at Home Depot, Lowe's. You can get like a 20 to 35 foot extension rod with a brush on the end to actually physically remove Cobwebs, those are also good for removing, uh,

wasp nests and things like that, especially if you don't want to be close to them and you still want to knock them down and keep yourself from getting stung. Although I do recommend hiring a professional for that because you do not want to get caught up in the storm of an angry wasp nest up against your house. It's much better to let one of my techs get stung than you get stung. But with a brush wand like that, you can remove them from the home and you can do it from a fairly safe distance. and probably not get stung. Let's see here. Fire ants are a big deal here in Texas. I mean, we can talk a little bit about that. They get relocated a lot through

rain and flooding and storms and things like that. Most people buy pesticides from big box stores that end up pushing those ants around the yard rather than actually eliminating the colony. It's really best to find a professional that actually knows a good bait. To use on those fire ants, and you can get better long-term control. Our company actually has a process where we treat only in the spring and the fall. It's a once every 6-month application, so it tends to be very affordable in order to get control of your yard. And those applications are best done in the spring and the fall if you have access to those baits. Sometimes you can, you can buy them yourselves, but again, we recommend having them applied by a professional.

so that it's done right. And then it comes to animals that get in your home. Most homes tend to be invaded by things like squirrels, raccoons, and possums, but you also have things like lizards, and geckos, and snakes, and things like that can get in your home. Most things will try and get in your home when the temperature changes, so when you're going from cold to hot, hot to cold, so that typically means spring and fall. But also, when winters get extremely cold in different parts of the country, animals will try and move inside. Uh, the best plan of action against most of these things is to find vulnerable spots on your home and then establish exclusions, uh, which can mean a multitude of things. You can have a wire

exclusion, you can have a physical exclusion. A lot of people have begun using foam exclusions because it's easy to apply. It actually fills the void. Uh, the only problem with foam exclusions is it does tend to expand beyond the areas where you apply it, and so it may not look as pretty as you think it ought to. Um, so sometimes it's good to hire a professional if you're going to be using like a foam expansion, because those guys can actually apply it, let it set up, and then cut it back and actually make it look nice. But physical barriers and exclusions are good too. Wire meshes— our, our crews actually go out and they'll apply a threefold method where they backfill with foam, put down a wire mesh, and then actually put

down wood or HardieBoard to match and then paint match it so that it actually looks like it's part of the house and you never even know, but it's sealed up so that nothing can get through. Um, but if they do happen to get in, you can use baits, uh, and traps to catch them. You can usually pick up live traps from places like Tractor Supply, Home Depot, Lowe's. I've even seen them at Walmart and things like that. But if you are skittish at all, I don't recommend using a trap because you can get even though you have an animal inside of a cage. Raccoons in particular are rather good at reaching through that cage and getting a hold of you, and they don't like to let go when they do. It can also be tricky sometimes

to let them go, and you also need to know how far away you need to take them in order to let them go. And then you need to have a place that's legal to let them go. For instance, in Texas, it— for professionals, it's not legal to release a raccoon back into the wild because they tend to be a rabies vector. And so the, at least the way the law reads, is that you are actually supposed to dispose of that animal if you capture it. One of the most interesting ways that I've found to deal with critters when they get inside your house, if you're, if you don't have the budget for an exclusion and you don't

want to get a trap and you don't want to hire a professional, one of the cool things that you can do is go on to Amazon and you can actually buy animal urine. And the reason that can be helpful is you can buy Just about any kind of animal urine. So if you know the animal that tends to prey on a squirrel, which an effective one might be like a red fox or a gray fox, if you have fox in your area, squirrels in your area are probably very familiar with the smell of fox urine. You can actually buy a vial of fox urine and apply it to a tennis ball and throw it in your attic. And it is not 100%, but there's a good chance that if that

squirrel is nearby that tennis ball, it's gonna get a whiff of fox urine and begin to believe that there is a fox lurking in your attic and realize that it may not be a safe place for it to set up its nest. Again, this is not 100%, but I have had customers use this strategy and have it work. You also just need to be aware of which predators live in your area so that you know which ones might be effective against the kind of critter that might be in your house. So there's 2 bits of information that you need there. You need to know what it is that has invaded your house, and you need to know what it

is that might prey on that critter so that you can apply the right kind of urine. And then just get a cheap bag of tennis balls and apply it and start tossing those in your attic. I have found that most of the urines that you buy off of Amazon really don't have that bad of an odor, so I wouldn't worry about it making your home smell. Uh, and also, it just doesn't last forever, and it soaks into the tennis ball and dissipates, uh, rather quickly, especially around here when the attics get super hot. It just doesn't last that long. Um, so sometimes you may have to do a couple of different applications, but you'd be surprised at how cheap animal urine is on Amazon and how quickly you can

get it there. Um, so there are lots of, uh, nuisance ants that can get in your home. Uh, and so we, we kind of already covered this, but you know, really the, the big thing to know is just to keep the residue off the countertops in the bathrooms and in the kitchen. That's the biggest thing you need to know with ants. Um, and but if you have them outside, not all ants build mounds. Not a lot of people know that. Not all ants build mounds. So sometimes you have to hunt outside in order to find where they're located. If you can find the home, sometimes you can use over-the-counter methods to get rid of them, but honestly, most of them are ineffective. Baits tend to be the best.

tactic against just about every single kind of ant except for carpenter ants. But most of the time, in order to get a good bait, you need to hire a professional. Carpenter ants are a whole other ball game. They tend to find moisture in your home. So if you have carpenter ants in your home, I tell people all the time, they're like a canary in the coal mine. They are telling you where you have a moisture problem. And if you don't believe me, if you have carpenter ants, go get a little moisture meter and start poking around. I can almost promise I promise you, 95% of the time you're gonna find water. And it doesn't have to be a lot, but you're gonna find it. So the last thing I wanna talk to you guys about

is something that I think just about everyone is guilty of all the time, and that is Amazon packages. I actually read a story— this, I saw a post the other day in one of the Facebook groups that I follow, and it was someone in a neighborhood asking for help with bed bugs. And I saw this woman chime in. And again, I'm not saying this. I saw this woman on Facebook talking about this, saying how she had read a story about how there was a real problem with some of the Amazon facilities spreading bed bugs through their packages to homeowners. And so homeowners were getting infested with bed bugs through Amazon packages. I don't know if that's true or not. I don't know if that's true. What I will tell you is anytime someone

tells me that they have a problem going on inside of their home and I walk in and the house is relatively clean, what I go and look for, what I ask them is, where do you stack your packages when they come to your house? Because the reality is we are all living in a prime Amazon Prime world where people are getting packages just about every single day for the things that they need around their home. And, and good on Amazon. They've, they've built an incredible business, started off with books, and now there's pretty much anything that you need. You can buy a house on Amazon. But what happens is most people get the package on their porch, they come home, they pick up the

package, they bring the package inside, and they set the package on the counter in the kitchen, or they set the package on the kitchen table, or they set the package on their bed, right? And then they come back to the package later and undo that package and get out the thing that they need. And then they take that package and either leave it empty there on the countertop, take it to the trash can, whatever it is. Let me tell you guys something. Amazon doesn't care what else they ship to your home. Okay? Like, it is totally within the realm of possibility that there are bugs traveling in those boxes, the same as it is possible that there

are bugs traveling in your groceries, in your grocery bags, especially the reusable grocery bags that you continue to take back and forth, that you leave in— you take them and you hang them up in the kitchen, you hang them up by the back door, and then you take them to the grocery store where I promise you, Those grocery stores have bugs. I know because we work for some of them. All right? Look, there's just bugs everywhere, and they can travel in all sorts of ways. So the rule at my house in order to prevent some of this and mitigate some of this is when Amazon delivers a package at my house, I just unpack it at the front door. I open the package right there. I take out my pocket knife, which if, you know, listen, if you're, if you're a dude and you're not carrying a

pocket knife, get a pocket knife. Right? Take out your pocket knife, open the package, get out what it is that you ordered, and then take the rest of it and put it in the trash outside. Don't even let it cross the threshold because it is, it is just so likely that you are transporting something that you don't want into your home via that cardboard box. There are so many bugs that love the tight spaces in cardboard. Silverfish is a big one. Earwigs is another one. Roaches is another one. Spiders is one. There's all sorts of bugs that can travel in very, very comfortably in cardboard. And at my house, rather than taking the cardboard boxes to the trash, because the trash tends to be a little too close to the house for my comfort,

I actually take them to the burn pile and I burn them almost immediately. Because I don't— that's how serious I take this. I don't want that in my house because I don't want an infestation. And it's so easy to just pick it up and bring it inside. And it, it becomes almost like a muscle memory that we all do. We just pick up the package, bring it inside, pick up the package, bring it inside.

Mm-hmm.

You are bringing things in your home without realizing it. Now, I'm not telling you that you're gonna get a massive infestation because you do it, but when I walk into a home and it's relatively clean and they're telling me that they're having problems on the inside, 9 times out of 10, I find a pile of Amazon boxes or a pile of Walmart boxes or what, you know, whatever it is the shipping company that you're using. I find a pile of boxes somewhere not far from where they've been telling me that they're seeing bugs. and now have a problem. So it's good to just have better practices. So a good practice is, and if, if nothing else, unpack the bo— unpack, unpack the

package and put it in the garage. At least it's not in your house. It's connected to your house probably, but it's not in your house. So that's, that's a good way to do it. So again, guys, just to review, thank you guys so much for, for tuning in this episode. Just to review, clean your house. It's the best way to keep bugs out. You're gonna have a much cleaner home, and a cleaner home is a happier home, and a happy home has a lot less bugs in it than everybody else. Why? Because you have a lot more money because you didn't have to hire somebody like us. So anyway, guys, thank you so much for tuning into this episode.

I hope it was helpful. I hope it was informative. Is essentially the same talk that we got to give for Habitat for Humanity for all of their new homeowners that are. About to receive their new home. Such a cool organization. Love what they're doing, how they're providing people the opportunity to get into a new home, uh, when they otherwise couldn't afford it. It's a great way to give back, so it's a great organization to go and get involved with and volunteer with. Uh, until next time, see ya.

See ya.