The rotting, smelling garbage in your trash can easily become food to opportunistic pests—rats, rodents, flies, and cockroaches, to name a few. When left unmanaged, your waste disposal area can easily become their breeding ground, providing everything they need to survive including food, water, and shelter. Sadly, it is not enough to just put a lid over your trash bin. There are a few sanitary measures that you should take note to avoid unwanted pests hovering over your trash bins. In this article, we will take about these concrete steps to proper waste disposal and management.
Why You Should Manage Your Trash Properly
While you focus on the aesthetics of your home, such as looking for sneaky ways to hide trash can. It’s also necessary that you understand the importance of garbage disposal and management in lowering the risks of pest infestations in your home. Aside from being unsightly, the problem with improper waste disposal is that they give off a foul smell and provide an easy meal for pests. When pests like cockroaches and rodents get used to eating trash from your can, they will eventually get bolder and start invading your home.
Here, they can contaminate your food and spread harmful diseases such as leptospirosis from rats and dysentery from cockroaches, to name a few. Worse, they may also start attracting other pests such as fleas. If that’s not damaging enough, rodents can also chew through your electrical wires, furniture, and drywall.
Follow these steps to secure your trash cans and keep your household pest-free.
Keep your trash can close. Storing your lidless can in a cabinet doesn’t protect it from pests. So, always use garbage cans with sealed lids. It will not only contain the smell of food waste but will also save your property from the invasion of pest control Birmingham rats and cockroaches.
Keep your trash can upright.
Another step to deny pests access to your trash can is to keep it securely upright. When they can’t knock it over, they will have a harder time accessing what’s inside, and hopefully, they would lose interest and leave.
Repair any holes.
There’s no point securing your trash can with a lid if the rest of the container is filled with cracks and holes. No matter how small, you can bet that pests will find a way to get through them and feed on your trash. Make sure to seal these potential entries or replace your trash can, if you must.
Avoid throwing trash directly into the bin.
Loose garbage is not only harder to clean, but it also leaves smell and residue at the bottom of the trash that attracts pests from near and far. Do yourself a favor and only throw your trash into bags, before they go out into the bin.
Rinse containers and bottles before disposing them.
Before disposing of recyclables like bottles, cups, cans, and food containers, make sure you rinse them out to get rid of any leftovers inside. Otherwise, the moisture and residue will be like a cornucopia of food and water for pests.
Make your compost.
Starting a compost pile is easy: all you have to do is create the compost heap, add organic materials, and water them as necessary. It will not only make your home a little more eco-friendly, but it will also save significant space in your garbage can.
Empty regularly.
Make sure to empty your trash cans at least every week and see to it that your garbage company is collecting as scheduled. Additionally, you would also want to wash your trash cans every month, at minimum, to get rid of any residue collecting at the bottom.
Wash your trash can.
Even if you only throw out garbage in bags, your trash can is still bound to get dirty over time. To clean it, scrape out any residue and scrub down the walls, as well as the bottom. Rinse out and dry.
Store trash cans away from your house.
If possible, keep your outdoor trash can about 10 ft. away from your home. That way, even in the event of a pest infestation, they cannot easily make the move from your trash to your home.
Takeaway
Pests in the dumpsters may not seem like an issue. So what if pests are attracted to your trash can? As said earlier, when pests are attracted to your garbage and it’s near your home, it will not take long before they move to your home, seeking more food, water, and shelter.
The situation is worse if the trash is right in your kitchen—that means they would have easier access to your food and areas where you prepare and keep them. In conclusion, aside from proper waste management, proper food handling and storage is also a must to protect your family from the threats of infestations.
Follow these tips to keep pests out of your home. Remember, a clean home adds up to the overall aesthetic appeal of your home, more than any home improvement can.
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