Is pest control something you can do yourself?

Pest control is something many of us will tackle at some stage in our lives. This is mainly because there’s so many ways it can happen – while there’s plenty of things we can do to protect our homes from rats, mice and wasps, there’s often not a lot we can do about our neighbours’ behaviour.

If households on your street leave rubbish lying around their home or garden, or business premises aren’t stepping up to the mark in terms of their pest control responsibilities, you may well find your property being compromised through little or no fault of your own. This can be hugely frustrating if you’ve done all you can to keep your home tidy and secure.

Once your home has been breached by a pest, there’s no time to waste – you’ll want to show your uninvited guests the door as soon as possible. If you’ve got pest cover this could be as simple as getting on the phone and making a claim on your insurance. However, with many families finding money tight at the moment due to the economic climate, some could be thinking about more DIY methods. Here’s some of tricks you can try yourself – and a few you absolutely shouldn’t.

DIY pest control

If a rat or mouse has breached your defences, you can attempt to trap it with equipment you can buy from your local DIY store. Some are more humane than others though – you need to decide if you want to capture and release the vermin or kill it stone dead with electricity. As for wasps, approach with caution – you may be able to kill one or two of them with a spray, but this won’t solve the underlying cause of the problem.

Pest control for the professionals

If you’ve got a medium or large-scale infestation on your hands, attempting to trap them all one by one could prove futile – they’ll breed faster than you can keep up with. Similarly, dealing with a whole wasp nest is a different kettle of fish to getting rid of one or two – and can be pretty dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing.

So you may well decide that bringing in a professional, either by private arrangement or through your pest control insurance, is the best course of action. Having this type of insurance in place can offer the peace of mind that should be you unfortunate enough to suffer an infestation, it needn’t cost the earth to get rid of those unwanted guests and restore normality in your home.